Required reading from around the web of the best, most interesting, or most though provoking things we’ve read:
Vespa: ‘Rocket Docket’: Trump Announces Huge Plan To Deport Illegals, The Operation That Cost Former DHS Secretary Nielsen Her Job
“Since Trump’s 2016 win over Hillary Clinton, he has sought to make good on his promise to get the border under control. It has not been an easy task. It remains a promise he has yet to fulfill, something made even more difficult now that House Democrats control the lower chamber after the 2018 midterm. Some Pentagon has been re-appropriated towards funding parts of the wall, which House Democrats challenged; a federal judge slapped it down. Still, the number of border apprehensions has soared into six-figure territory. It’s a crisis, though the Left thinks it’s a manufactured one. It’s not. The Department of Homeland Security cannot handle the influx. It’s running out of money to deal with the problem. Still, the president intends to enforce the law, announcing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement will begin a large-scale operation to find illegals and deport them. It’s about time, though it’s probably not coming within days, or at least that’s what The Washington Post is reporting. If it’s within the week, fine—but it could be some time before this plan is put into effect. Let’s hope sooner rather than later (via WaPo): . . .”
Stier: Frivolous Lawsuits Against Scientific Innovation Are Just Another Form Of Socialism
“The slide towards socialism is taking root not only at the ballot box, but also from the jury box. Plaintiffs’ lawyers are having wild success in their campaign to redistribute wealth from innovative companies to sympathetic clients—all while taking a healthy cut for themselves, of course. Unjustified and outsized verdicts harm society by discouraging investment in innovative products. Researchers at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Tilburg University recently aggregated data from more than 40,000 lawsuits filed between 1996 and 2011 and found that “frivolous lawsuits tended to focus on highly innovative businesses,” costing the average defendants $1.1 million each year. They found that the cases were, in effect, a disproportionate tax on innovation. Consider the recent $2 billion jury verdict against Bayer AG (which acquired Monsanto) for allegations that its Roundup herbicide, made with glyphosate, caused cancer in plaintiffs. This was the third verdict for plaintiffs in California in the last year, with more than 13,400 cases pending nationwide.”
Prager: Did Your Child Return From College a Better Person?
“It is hard to imagine any parent — left, right, liberal, conservative or apolitical — who would disagree with asking this question. They would disagree about what constituted a desirable outcome — obviously left-wing parents would want their child’s college to send home a child with left-wing views, and a parent on the right would not be happy if their child returned home with left-wing views — but every parent would agree that the question, “What type of person did college produce?” is an important one. My belief is that most of the time, colleges today produce a worse human being or, at the very least, a person who is no better, wiser or more mature than when he or she graduated high school. Let’s begin with behavioral issues.”