Slavery, Prostitution Ring in ‘Massage Parlors’ across Four Counties in Florida Busted

Bad news, and good news: As you’ll have heard, there is still slavery in the world, and there is still (or again) slavery in America, operating in the shadows. The good-news story is that some of the human traffickers have been busted.

A local sheriff, on the investigation he led:

Well, that’s one of the reasons why this sex trafficking continues at such a pace. Invariably, our methodology has been up until we did this here — send a couple of undercover detectives in. They’ll be solicited for sex, will arrest the workers and shut the place down. And the problem goes away, but not really goes away.

‘Law Lets I.R.S. Seize Accounts on Suspicion, No Crime Required’

The headline is from the liberal New York Times.

Mark Steyn and others have criticized the administrative state (such as the IRS) as acting exempt from our normal constitutional due-process rights (such as “innocent until proven guilty”).  Columbia law professor Philip Hamburger recently wrote a whole book on the subject, Is Administrative Law Unlawful?, as he explains in brief in last month’s issue of Hillsdale’s Imprimis.

I guess this is the kind of thing they’re talking about.  From the New York Times:

More on Texas’s New Loser-pays Law

A couple of weeks ago, I was surprised and pleased to learn that Texas had adopted a “loser pays” reform of their legal system—surprised because such a reform is basically good for everyone else but bad for lawyers, and I figured that lawyers would never let it happen.  In the comments on that entry, we discussed the pros and cons of different possible variations on loser-pays laws.

National Review (July 4th, page 10) now gives us some details about the particular law Texas has passed; it’s a modest change to the system, impeccably sensible: 

Loser-pays Can Win in America?

Today I read that under Governor Rick Perry, Texas has adopted a loser-pays system!

In America, if someone sues you, you pay for a lawyer.  Even if you ultimately win the lawsuit and aren’t held liable for any damages at all, you’ve still lost thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees (not to mention the time taken out of your life, which you can never get back).  A lot of the theory behind tort law revolves around making people “whole” for the wrongs they’ve suffered.  Who will make you whole?