Disclaimer: abuse of prisoners, either through commission or omission, is never acceptable. The Caesar Rodney Institute has apparently forced the General Assembly to examine these practices at Sussex Correctional. This is a good thing; the immediate politicization of this issue is not. I have some issues with the CRI report, but not the substance of the allegation: bad--even evil--shit is happening at SCI. However: it is equally true and disturbing that instead of acknowledging a mess made the State and ignored by all of its elected representatives [from both ruling parties] for years, it has already been bundled and politicized with the bizarre false equivalency regarding Gitmo and the interrogation of suspects there. I will use Cato's succinct presentation at Delmarva Dealings of the same case that has been made by a variety of folks on the right, because it adroitly captures the essence of this argument in a couple of paragraphs: It’s ironic that Democrats believe that fo...

Dave Burris has issued an impulsive, insulting, and idiotic fatwah [and, yes, Dave, it qualifies for all three adjectives] about the most recent Caesar Rodney Institute exclusive that only serves to detract from any serious evaluation of CRI's work: Many of you wondered why the administration and the left went after and continue to go after CRI. It’s because they’re scared of things like this. Anyone who opposes the revelation of critical information by trying to shoot the messenger will be given no quarter. CRI has operated and will continue to operate as the highest example of Brandeis’ sunlight on the operation of government. Impressive. Personally, I could care less who writes CRI material, except when it is substandard work with illegitimate use of source material , or when the author's identity and resume are germane to the conscious bias of the paper , and I will continue to report when CRI material fails to live up to any reasonable think-tank standard. That said: m...

Two important issues before we start a very long post. I am a believer in free markets, but I am also a believer in intellectual honesty and factual accuracy. That's why it is incumbent upon me not to give any organization--especially one that pretends to libertarian leanings in its boilerplate--a pass on shoddy work. Second: I am going to do something here that some people might consider exceptionally insensitive. I am going to take issue with a cancer survivor's account of her experience with health care, and her conclusions about what that means. I do not assert that she is intentionally misrepresenting her own experience: I am quite sure that's how she remembers it. But when you begin using your own anecdotal experiences to attempt to sway a public policy debate, and when you do so in the service of a non-partisan think-tank, then you have chosen to lay that all on the table. The document in question is Thoughts on Nationalized Healthcare by Joanne Butler , publi...

Consider this a first superficial look. Tonight I perused Thinking Logically About Health Care Reform , authored by Garret Wozniak and James Patterson and published by the Caesar Rodney Institute. Aside from being more of a thinly sourced philosophical document than any sort of research report, the shallowness of the research is ... disturbing. Let's take a single, but important example: Medical Malpractice and Tort Reform. Medical Malpractice Reform Even without excessive mandates, health care may still be too expensive for a great many Americans. One of the least cited, but according to the Government Accountability Office most costly, areas of price-increases in health care includes torts and medical malpractice suits. In 2003, the GAO released a report entitled, “Medical Malpractice Insurance: Multiple Factors Have Contributed to Increased Premium Rates” attributing a large, albeit numerically indeterminate, proportion of rate increases over the preceding years to medical mal...

The rightwing, conservative [did I cover all the bases?] Delaware thinktank Caesar Rodney Institute has created a web page entitled Delaware Spends , which--under the "Payroll" subsection-- provides a database of names, positions and salaries for employees of the State of Delaware, Kent County, Sussex County and Delaware's 19 school districts. This is not new. Those of you who have been around Delaware since longer than last weekend will recall that about 1992-1993 the Delaware State News printed--forty names at a time--the exact salaries of every single State employee, with names and job titles attached. [There were a lot fewer State employees in those days.] I remember that you would go to the paper every morning to see if it was your turn in the barrel. CRI's new database undoubtedly exists for partisan reasons, but as long as it is accurate, should that matter? Some of my friends, who have long been strident advocates for open government and government trans...