If You Criticize Wealthy Donors, You’re Basically Hitler, David Weigel, Slate, April 3, 2014

The Charles Koch standard is problematic if you think (like I think) that campaign donations should be uncapped but totally disclosed. That, according to the donors (though not McCutcheon himself), leads to character assassination. Donors have a First Amendment right to give money, but their opponents flout that right when they criticize them. Why? That’s an excellent question.

Self-Regulation Means No Regulation: Five Lessons We Should Have Learned from Agent Orange, PR Newswire, April 2, 2014

Economic crises. Foodborne disease outbreaks. Oil and chemical spills. According to Peter Sills, each is the natural result of the widespread demonization of a tool our government should wield more often. Regulation.

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Many politicians and industries push for self-regulation, and Sills says that might actually work in a perfect world. But in the real world, he insists, it won’t—and here are five reasons why:

If a hard, unpleasant task is optional, then most companies won’t do it (especially if it will cost them money). Consider Wyeth Pharmaceuticals’ refusal to change the label requirements on Phenergan even though it knew the method suggested could lead to infection and amputation. Wyeth finally made the change after being sued by a patient who had lost most of her arm.

“Sometimes, for the safety of the public, it is necessary for the government to force companies into performing unpleasant tasks,” says Sills.

Photo credit: By Djembayz (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.