The New York Times' decision to hire Robert Rubin to review a new book on the Federal Reserve — and the content of Mr. Rubin's book review — are the topic of my column this week. Please check out the column at the New York Sun (here), Reason (here), and Newsmax (here).

The California Department of Motor Vehicles is warning Tesla that its "referral program" offering incentives to help sell cars is against state law, the Sacramento Bee reports:

In his letter to Musk, Frank Alvarez, chief of DMV's Investigations Division, said the Tesla program "violates California laws." He described the Tesla offer as "a practice commonly referred to in the vehicle sales industry as offering 'bird dog fees.' "lvarez goes on to allege specific violations, citing the California Automobile Sales Finance Act, which says it is "unlawful for any seller to induce or attempt to induce any person to enter into a contract subject to this chapter by offering a rebate, discount, commission, or other consideration, contingent upon the happening of a future event, on the condition that the buyer either sells, or gives information or assistance for the purpose leading to a sale by the seller of, the same or related goods."

Further to the earlier item on Theranos and the Wall Street Journal, check out the interview the Theranos CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, gave CNBC's Jim Cramer.

A Wall Street Journal article critical of blood-testing company Theranos is getting a lot of attention this morning. One of the nice things about the Internet is that it allows companies to respond immediately and in their own space to critical articles rather than waiting to send in a letter to the editor and hoping that some editor will allow an edited version of it to see print days later. Another nice thing about the Internet is that it allows readers to look up other coverage that can provide a context. So if you are interested in the topic, read the Journal's Theranos article in the context of this New Yorker article about the company and the company's response to the Journal article. You'll almost certainly come out better informed than if you had read the Journal article alone.

The decision by New York restaurateur Danny Meyer to move to a no-tip policy at his restaurants — and to charge customers higher base prices instead — is the subject of a New York Times news article. To me the fascinating part of it is how the decision was driven by state and federal laws and regulations. From the Times article:

The Modern will be the pilot restaurant, Mr. Meyer said, because its chef, Abram Bissell, has been agitating for higher pay to attract skilled cooks. The average hourly wage for kitchen employees at the restaurant is expected to rise to $15.25 from $11.75. Mr. Meyer said that restaurants such as his needed to stay competitive as the state moved to a $15 minimum wage for fast-food workers....

Under federal labor laws, pooled tips can be distributed only to customer service workers who typically receive gratuities, and cannot be shared with the kitchen staff or managers...

Jeb Bush has been talking on the campaign trail about a Colorado V.A. hospital whose construction cost, originally estimated at $600 million, soared to $1.7 billion. The Atlantic's CityLab site has an article reporting on an example of another amazing government construction cost overrun, the reconstruction of the San Francisco Bay Bridge. It started out at $250 million, and now could cost as much as $13 billion when interest and financing costs are included.

The article quotes a professor who wrote a book about the project: "Here you tell the public in '95: we can do the whole thing for $250 million. They vote on a bond measure that allows them to fund this plus other retrofits in the state. Then they come back and go, actually it's $1 billion."

Contrast this lovely New York Times obituary of Kenneth Koe, "an inventor of Zoloft, the antidepressant that has helped tens of millions of people since it was introduced a quarter-century ago..a chemist who spent four decades on the staff of Pfizer" with Hillary Clinton's answer, in partial response to the question in last night's Democratic presidential debate of which enemy she is most proud of having, of "drug companies." Senator Bernie Sanders also answered the question, in part, with "the pharmaceutical industry."

Jeb Bush released his health care plan (short, long) today (though not a Medicare plan, which will come later). Also today, the New York Times ran this article by a doctor at New York's Bellevue Hospital, suggesting that ObamaCare hasn't yet succeeded in fixing the incentives of physicians:

our reimbursement system favors procedures over discussing and thinking about a case. That is, more money would be paid out if I ordered a magnetic resonance imaging exam for my patient with abdominal pain than if I spent extra time talking with her and sorting out the details.

The British government sold off its remaining 13% stake in the Royal Mail, the U.K.'s version of our postal service, overnight, "raising the equivalent of $907 million," the New York Times reports.

It's puzzling to me, in the midst of a presidential campaign and given the size of the national debt, that no one here in America seems to be talking about doing this here, at least in any way that is getting much attention. Between the real estate assets — all those post offices located on choice central sites — and the underlying delivery business that could be worth something to companies such as FedEx, UPS, Amazon, or Walmart, you'd think that there would be some interest.

The new book Jack Kemp: The Bleeding Heart Conservative Who Changed America, by Morton Kondracke and Fred Barnes, is the topic of my column this week:

the most fascinating part of the story is the role played by another former professional athlete, Bill Bradley, a Democrat and a senator from New Jersey who used to play for the New York Knicks.

Messrs. Kondracke and Barnes report that Mr. Bradley read Milton Friedman and that he disliked the tax code because of "the gyrations he and other athletes went through to avoid taxes." In August of 1982, Mr. Bradley and, of all people, Rep. Richard Gephardt introduced a bill reducing the number of tax brackets to three from 14 and reducing the top rate to 30 percent from 50 percent.

Wolfeboro, N.H. — Call it the tragedy of Marco Rubio.

The senator from Florida seeking the Republican nomination for president has an inspiring personal story, and has, at age 44, generational appeal. Even Jeb Bush says Mr. Rubio is "probably the most articulate conservative elected official on the scene today."

At his best, Mr. Rubio speaks movingly about his own personal story. His fresh young face and last name offers a contrast that he stresses against Jeb Bush (62), Joseph Biden (72), Hillary Clinton (67), and Bernie Sanders (74). "We keep sending the same people, we keep getting the same result," Mr. Rubio says on the campaign trail. "This election is a generational choice," he says. "My country and my party must turn the page on yesterday."

At WNYC, my former New York Sun colleague Julie Satow has a report about what she describes as a dilemma for Mayor De Blasio:

affordable housing developers say they won't be able to meet the mayor's housing goal if they are forced to hire union laborers.

"It is really a question of the math," said Jolie Milstein, the president and CEO of the New York Association for Affordable Housing. "If you look at the cost of constructing affordable housing, particularly in an environment of increasing land costs, you just get very many fewer units built if you have to use expensive union labor."

Hillary Clinton's assault on the pharmaceutical industry is the topic of my column this week. Please check it out at the New York Sun (here), Reason (here), and Newsmax (here).

The Supreme Court declined the request of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, to hear an appeal of the Second Circuit opinion overturning the convictions of Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson. Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal have coverage.

Mets baseball player turned broadcaster Keith Hernandez grants the New York Times an interview from his house at Sag Harbor, N.Y.:

Mr. Hernandez spends winters in Juno Beach, Fla. It's a little boring, he says. So why does he go there? He waggles his eyebrows. "Taxes, obviously."