“A trade group for air cargo giants like UPS and FedEx is sounding the alarm over an impending Dec. 8 vaccine deadline imposed by President Joe Biden, complaining it threatens to wreak havoc at the busiest time of the year — and add yet another kink to the supply chain.”
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“The deadline has been hailed by public health officials as a way of increasing vaccination rates as the country continues to struggle with the Covid-19 pandemic. But business groups and conservatives have warned that it could have damaging economic impacts. The deadline brushes right up against the peak holiday season and as some of the biggest cargo distribution companies, including UPS and FedEx, are already battling unprecedented labor shortages.”
“As part of a consent agreement announced Tuesday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said the Board of Dental Examiners of Alabama would stop enforcing rules that limited “consumer choice and excluded new providers” offering braces and other teeth alignment services.
Those rules were crafted in 2017, after startups like SmileDirectClub began operating in Alabama. According to the FTC, the board took steps to stop the expansion of “firms providing clear aligners in Alabama through a teledentistry model” by amending its rules to ban dental hygienists and other medical professionals from performing the scans that are necessary to ensure proper fitting of the alignment devices. Previously, licensed dentists were allowed to supervise the scans from a remote location. Under the new rules, they would have to be on-site when the scans were done.
Over the next two years, the board delivered cease-and-desist letters to providers who offered those services without on-site licensed dentists.
“The actions of the Dental Board have deprived consumers in Alabama of low-price, convenient options for teeth alignment treatment without any legitimate justification or defense,” the FTC argued in a complaint against the board. Those actions, the commission says, “unreasonably restrained competition” and violated federal law.
The case is a sequel to the FTC’s 2015 victory at the U.S. Supreme Court in a case challenging anti-competitive behavior by a similar board in North Carolina. In that instance, the North Carolina Board of Dental Examiners sent cease-and-desist letters to kiosks offering teeth whitening services. The practice of whitening teeth, the board declared, could only be done by licensed dentists.
When that case ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices ruled that licensing boards controlled by a majority of “active market participants” could not make deliberately anti-competitive rules—unless those boards were “actively supervised” by some other element of state government. As a result of that ruling, licensing boards enforcing anticompetitive rules could be sued for violating federal antitrust laws.
The ruling opened up a new legal avenue for challenging overbearing licensing boards that limit economic opportunities by blocking competition in certain professional fields. It was a resounding defeat for overreaching state regulation and “the culmination of 15 years of effort” Maureen Ohlhausen, then-chair of the FTC, told Reason shortly after the ruling.
That case laid the groundwork for the more recent actions in Alabama, where six of the board’s seven members are required by law to be licensed, actively practicing dentists. And the board’s actions are not “reviewed or approved by any neutral state officials with the power to veto or modify” its decisions, the FTC found.
Under the terms of the consent agreement struck between the FTC and the Alabama dental board, the board does not admit to violating any laws or to engaging in the alleged anti-competitive behavior. But, going forward, the board has agreed to stop requiring on-site supervision by licensed dentists of the alignment scans necessary for teledentistry services.
That should give residents of Alabama—some 1.8 million of whom live in areas deemed to have a shortage of dental professionals and could clearly benefit from a greater supply of teledentistry services—something to smile about.”
“The bloodshed and cost of last weekend’s offensive launched by the government against Tigrayan forces could begin to exhaust the parties, creating an opening for negotiation. This is the moment to prepare for concerted international action to prevent further chaos and to focus diplomacy on a comprehensive settlement. Secretary Antony Blinken’s recent meeting in Washington with his European Union counterpart Josep Borrell, the African Union’s high representative for the Horn of Africa, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, and Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was a good start. It is the first time Africa, the U.S. and E.U. have met at this level to chart a way forward on the Ethiopian crisis. And President Biden’s Oval Office meeting with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday is important, with Kenya now presiding in the U.N. Security Council. This is the level of commitment that will be required for a Dayton-style process to gain traction and be successful.
A future political settlement will need to be comprehensive. It should include lifting the blockade and immediate opening of humanitarian access to Tigray and other regions; the withdrawal of Eritrean troops and a commitment to non-intervention by neighboring powers; the release of political prisoners; negotiation of a new political balance for Ethiopia, with substantial regional autonomy and a fair system of fiscal federalism; and provision for an independent commission to investigate abuses of power.”
“In 2019, a California appeals court said a police officer may always enter a suspect’s home without a warrant if the officer is in “hot pursuit” and has probable cause to believe the suspect has committed a misdemeanor.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court gave that decision the benchslap it deserved. “We are not eager—more the reverse—to print a new permission slip for entering the home without a warrant,” declared Justice Elena Kagan in Lange v. California.
The case originated when a California Highway Patrol officer observed Arthur Gregory Lange repeatedly honking his horn and playing his car stereo at a loud volume, both of which are traffic infractions at worst. The officer followed Lange’s car and switched on his overhead lights just a few seconds before Lange pulled into his own driveway. Lange, who said he never saw the officer’s lights in his rearview mirror, entered his driveway and pulled into his garage. The officer parked, exited his vehicle, stuck his foot under the garage door to prevent it from closing, followed Lange in, and had him perform field sobriety tests, which ultimately led to a DUI charge.
The state has “argued that the pursuit of a suspected misdemeanant always qualifies as an exigent circumstance authorizing a warrantless home entry,” Kagan observed in her majority opinion, which was joined in full by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. But that position ran afoul of both SCOTUS precedent and the Fourth Amendment’s common law roots.
“On many occasions, the officer will have good reason to enter—to prevent imminent harms of violence, destruction of evidence, or escape from the home,” Kagan wrote. “But when the officer has time to get a warrant, he must do so—even though the misdemeanant fled.”
The common law origins of the Fourth Amendment commanded the same result. “‘To enter a man’s house’ without a proper warrant, Lord Chief Justice Pratt proclaimed in 1763, is to attack ‘the liberty of the subject’ and ‘destroy the liberty of the kingdom,'” Kagan wrote, quoting from a venerable British common law judgment. “That was the idea behind the Fourth Amendment.”
Writing in a concurrence that reads more like a dissent, Chief Justice John Roberts, joined by Justice Samuel Alito, denounced the majority’s reasoning as “absurd and dangerous,” “hopelessly indeterminate,” and likely to impede necessary police work.
Fortunately, Roberts managed to attract just one other vote. The Fourth Amendment had a good day in court.”
“While Australia was pivoting to China, Beijing was orchestrating its own pivot: Xi had delivered a very different address to his countrymen before his speech to the Australian parliament.
In January 2013, shortly after becoming the chairman of the Communist Party and just months before becoming Chinese president, Xi laid out plans to make China a global superpower through economic and technological might.”
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“That meant going after the Western alliance —with Australia as the weakest link. So while publicly promising sincerity and trust, Xi secretly sought to squeeze the island nation.
First came the cyberattacks, with Chinese state-linked hackers going after the Australian parliament, the country’s Bureau of Meteorology, the Australian National University and numerous others.
Then came attacks on Australia’s Chinese-language media, with reports of coercion, bullying and intimidation at any outlet daring to depart from the Communist Party line.
Reports emerged that China had reached deep into the Australian political establishment, seeking to steer policy in China’s favor. Investigations found Beijing-linked businesses were the largest sources of donations with foreign ties, and the money went to both sides of the political spectrum.
The financial intrusions rattled Australian politics. In 2017, Australian Labor Party Senator Sam Dastyari was forced to resign over his ties to Chinese Communist Party-linked donors.”
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“Later in 2017, China’s security chief warned Labor leadership the party would risk losing support among Australia’s Chinese diaspora community if it didn’t back an extradition treaty Beijing wanted.
And over the past 18 months, China hit Australia with a series of trade restrictions and tariffs in response to Canberra’s call for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, which emerged from the Chinese city of Wuhan.
Meanwhile, China was also building its military might in the region, making sweeping claims to the South China Sea and squeezing Hong Kong and Taiwan — moving southward toward Australia.”
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“Australia, having once extended Beijing a hand of friendship, is now back in the arms of its old associates.
Earlier in September, Canberra announced a wide-ranging security partnership with the U.S. and U.K. The pact, dubbed AUKUS, comes amid a broader Australian attempt to pivot its economy away from China.
“The level of Chinese economic coercion and cyber espionage against Australia was once unimaginable, so our security agencies have learned to consider worst-case possibilities,” said Rory Medcalf, head of the National Security College at the Australian National University and author of “Indo-Pacific Empire.”
AUKUS, he said, “is an alignment made in Beijing.”
Under the new Anglo-American alliance, the U.S., U.K. and Australia have agreed to share advanced technologies with one another, including artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, quantum computing, underwater systems and long-range strike capabilities. Australia also abandoned a submarine deal with France worth more than €50 billion to acquire American nuclear-powered submarines instead.
“It’s a remarkable collapse in Australia-China relations and a massive deterioration in Australia’s security outlook that’s led to this outcome,” said Michael Shoebridge, a director at the influential Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) think tank, which receives funding from the Australian and other governments.”
“Even the mere prospect of new trade restrictions has prompted solar installers, who are already facing supply issues and higher labor costs, to pull back on some projects. At the same time, Biden wants to avoid being seen to be weak on China — another centerpiece of his campaign pitch and early policy agenda.
The conflict pits parts of the solar industry against each other. American solar panel manufacturers are petitioning to expand existing tariffs on Chinese products to those coming from Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Backers of the tariffs and trade restrictions say they would allow panel makers in the U.S. to expand production. Added duties would also accomplish another of Biden’s goals: punishing China over the use of forced labor.
But the Solar Energy Industries Association, which represents developers that install panels and build solar projects, says imposing tariffs on those three nations would hit more than three-fourths of imports and about half of the total solar panel supply in the U.S. “That would have a pretty devastating impact on the solar industry,” said Abby Hopper, CEO of the trade group.”
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“Other trade issues before the administration could also hamper solar build-out. Commerce is weighing whether to extend separate Trump-era tariffs on Chinese solar for another four years, and the Department of Homeland Security is considering whether to increase trade restrictions on Chinese panel components, like it did this summer.
In June, the Biden administration blocked the import of products containing silicon materials from a key Chinese supplier, Hoshine, over concerns it uses forced labor in its manufacturing. The company operates in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang, where the ruling Communist Party has interned hundreds of thousands of ethnic Uyghur Muslims.
The policy has resulted in Customs and Border Protection detaining some shipments of solar panels coming in from China.”
“Under the modern understanding of the Constitution, a federal law regulating abortion — like other federal regulation of health providers — is unambiguously constitutional.
Congress’s power to regulate is broad but not unlimited. The Constitution lays out a list of powers that Congress is allowed to exercise, such as the power to raise armies or the power to establish post offices.
One of these powers is the ability to enact legislation enforcing rights protected by the 14th Amendment. Both Roe and Casey rooted the right to an abortion in this amendment’s guarantee that no one may be denied “liberty” without due process of law. So, as long as Roe and Casey remain good law, Congress may enact laws protecting abortion rights.
But, of course, the whole reason Democrats want to pass the WHPA is because Roe and Casey are under threat. So Congress cannot realistically rely on its power to enforce the 14th Amendment if it wants to sustain legislation protecting abortion. The Supreme Court is likely to change its understanding of which rights are protected by the 14th Amendment very soon.
Alternatively, the WHPA could also be sustained under Congress’s broad power to regulate the national economy. This power derives from two provisions of the Constitution, which permit Congress to “regulate commerce … among the several states,” and to “make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution” this power to regulate commerce.
As the Supreme Court explained in Gonzales v. Raich (2005), Congress may use its power over national commerce to regulate any “economic ‘class of activities’ that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.” The Court’s decisions permit federal laws regulating landlords, family farmers, and other businesses and professionals that primarily serve local consumers. They permit federal regulation of abortion.
Abortion is a medical procedure that is provided by professionals, who typically charge a fee. Some of these doctors travel across state lines to provide this service. They are trained at medical schools all over the country, perform their services in clinics funded by donors from other states, use medical equipment manufactured in other states — you get the idea.
Abortion, in other words, is an economic activity that has a substantial effect on interstate commerce. So, under Raich, Congress could pass a law protecting abortion rights.
But this modern understanding of the Constitution isn’t exactly beloved by conservatives. And if Democrats pass a law like the WHPA, a Supreme Court dominated by Republican appointees might overrule Raich — or, at least, limit it, potentially doing considerable violence to Congress’s ability to provide other legal protections in the process.”
“Medicare is one of America’s flagship government programs, immensely popular with the public, a critical safety net for people over 65 — and it is full of holes.
The program’s benefits are not as comprehensive as most other kinds of health insurance Americans carry. Unlike with commercial health insurance or with Medicaid, which covers people in or near poverty, there may not be a limit on what a person on Medicare may have to pay out of pocket for their medical care.
Medicare also doesn’t cover dental or vision services, which are essential to the health of the over-65 population that it serves. The benefits for long-term care are meager, placing an enormous financial burden on patients and their families.
Two things can be true at once: Medicare has been a tremendous success in eliminating poverty from medical expenses among the elderly, compared to the pre-1965 status quo, and it is, as currently constructed, woefully inadequate to the realities of modern health care.
Democrats in Congress appear to recognize this problem. They plan to include some expansion of Medicare — by adding new benefits and perhaps making more people eligible — in the major budget reconciliation bill they hope to pass in the coming months.
For now, they appear to be focused on adding new dental, vision, and hearing benefits. They are working with finite resources; money spent on new benefits is money that can’t be spent on adding more people to the rolls or lowering patients’ out-of-pocket costs for other medical services.”