Alleged Democrat Memo Advises to Avoid Discussing CBO Scores

A memo allegedly from the higher-ups of the Democratic Party has been circulating, advising Democrats to avoid discussions on the details of the CBO report on Obamacare, and tells them to actively mislead the public on some points of the Obamacare bill.

Politico initially ran the story, but has pulled it upon claims by Democrats that it is a Republican hoax. Fortunately, it was covered elsewhere. Ed Morrissey at Hot Air discloses that he was sent a scan of the memo by an Washington source, and provides the pdf here. Moe Lane at Red State also has a pdf of the memo.

Non-Sex Offending Sex Offenders

The Georgia Supreme Court has upheld(pdf) the right to list non-sex offenders on the state’s sex-offender registry, due to statutory requirements that don’t consider whether there was any sexual content to crimes involving minors. From Wired:

Atlanta criminal defense attorney Ann Marie Fitz estimated that perhaps thousands of convicts convicted of non-sexual crimes have been placed in sex-offender databases. Fitz represents a convict who was charged with false imprisonment when he was 18 for briefly detaining a 17-year-old girl during a soured drug deal. He unsuccessfully challenged his mandatory, lifelong sex-offender listing to the Georgia Supreme Court, which ruled against him Monday.

Fear the Repo Review

Peter Suderman at Reason Magazine reviews the latest Hollywood drivel, Repo Men. Set in a dystopian future in which almost everyone has a replacement organ from an evil, mega-corporation, people who can’t keep up on their payments are chased down and brutally killed, the organs repossessed.

There isn’t much to the story, and what there is doesn’t make much sense. Instead of plot, the movie’s got setting: a near future in which a decidedly non-union-like company called The Union sells sells artificial body parts using the line “the days of waiting and praying are over” (though desperately waiting and praying—for the movie’s end—is almost certainly what everyone in the audience is up to). The Union’s parts appear to be the only lifesaving solutions for many of their clients, so they charge exorbitant fees while offering outrageous financing terms to those who can’t pay up front. And in the movie’s world, that seems to be just about everyone.

Free Markets Make People More Fair

Ronald Bailey at Reason Magazine comments on an interesting study that shows that free markets cause people to treat each other more fairly. Bailey has discussed similar ideas previously.

Are people innately fair-minded or is it learned behavior? A fascinating new study, “Markets, Religion, Community Size, and the Evolution of Fairness and Punishment,” that is a big step toward resolving this question is being published today in the journal Science [subscription required]. The researchers find strong evidence that market institutions cause people to treat each other, especially, strangers more fairly. The research is based on the results of behaviorial experiments in 15 different societies which have varying amounts of integration into markets.

Privatizing City Services

Leonard Gilroy at Reason Magazine writes an article on why and how cities should privatize municipal services:

Over the last half century, governments of all political complexions have increasingly embraced privatization-shifting some or all aspects of service delivery to the private sector. This is a strategy to lower the costs of government and achieve higher performance and better outcomes for tax dollars spent. Local policymakers in many jurisdictions in the U.S. and around the world have used privatization to better the lives of citizens by offering them higher quality services at lower costs, delivering greater choice and more efficient, effective government.

The reason for the widespread appeal of privatization is simple: It works. Decades of successful privatization policies have proven that private sector innovation and initiative can do certain things better than the public sector.

The article follows Episode Three of Reason Saves Cleveland with Drew Carey: Privatize It!

Fixing Failing Schools

Lisa Snell at Reason Magazine pens an article on methods to fix ineffective schools that have been successfully employed in New Orleans, and how they might be employed in other cities. In specific, Snell compares the innovations and free-market approaches being taken in New Orleans to he debt-laden school system in Cleveland, Ohio.

New York Cracks Down on “Smoke-easies”

From Jacom Sullum at Reason Magazine:

New York City is cracking down on “smoke-easies,” bars and clubs that let their customers light up despite a municipal edict that forbids such accommodation …  Because many of the targeted night spots are defended by nearly impregnable barriers of coolness, the health department “has deputized a team of inspectors—many of them younger and hipper-looking than the stereotypical bureaucrat—to work into the wee hours, posing as patrons and hunting for tolerance of smoking by clubs’ employees.”