Category: crime and punishment

Categories
crime and punishment folly free trade & free markets

Allowed to Make a Living

Bureau of Occupational Affairs

In 2014, Sally Ladd started a service to help clients in the Poconos rent out their vacation homes. She posted notices on Airbnb, arranged for cleaning, and performed other chores.

But then, in 2017, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs — one of the many government agencies in the world that should not exist — told her that she was operating in Pennsylvania as a real estate broker without a license and must get one or shut down.

The obstacle was senseless. Ladd was already satisfying her customers. And getting the license would have entailed more than 300 hours of schooling, two exams, three years of apprenticeship, and opening an office in Pennsylvania. (Ladd lives in New Jersey.)

She had to shut down.

But she didn’t give up. 

She teamed up with Institute for Justice, which filed suit, arguing, in IJ’s words, that “forcing her to get a full-blown real-estate license violated her right to earn an honest living under the Pennsylvania Constitution.”

At first, a lower court would not even consider the case, a decision overruled by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2020. Finally, on October 31, 2022, a trial court affirmed that the “licensing requirements are unreasonable, unduly oppressive, and patently beyond the necessities of the case,” and therefore unconstitutional.

Once again, it’s IJ to the rescue! 

In a world filled with government agencies that shouldn’t exist, the Institute for Justice exists to check them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-E 2

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
Accountability crime and punishment insider corruption

Are 1,000 Pages Enough?

Congress, FBI, security, surveillance, freedom

The GOP has just issued a 1,000-page report about corruption in the Department of Justice and its Federal Bureau of Investigation. Based largely on the disclosures of 14 whistleblowers, plus what’s in plain sight — what we’ve all been able to see for ourselves over the last several years — the report details “a rampant culture of unaccountability, manipulation, and abuse.”

  • To support its political agendas, the FBI has deliberately inflated statistics about “domestic violent extremism” and has diverted resources from legitimate investigations — like those into child trafficking.
  • The Justice Department and FBI have averted their gaze from blatant and multifarious wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, son of the president.
  • The FBI has “purged” employees who disagree with the left-leaning ideology of top brass.
  • The FBI has targeted parents for investigation simply for protesting school board policies.
  • Without cause, the FBI has been spying on US citizens, including persons who worked for candidate Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
  • Like other agencies, the FBI has worked with Big Tech social-media companies to censor viewpoints that FBI honchos find uncongenial.
  • While targeting anti-abortion activists who have perpetrated no violent acts, DOJ and FBI have ignored attacks on churches and pregnancy centers.

To be sure, the recent conduct of these agencies has plenty of precedent; thousands more pages could be produced.

From initial election results (before I got too sleepy), Republicans will have control of the House of Representatives, at the very least, and perhaps a Senate majority. They will have the power to press their investigation further and compel reforms.

The House controls the purse strings . . . if it dares. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-E

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom

Minority Medical Opinion Squelched

covid, censorship, wrong think

The Bill of Rights was originally understood as curbing the power only of the federal government.

This began to change with the Fourteenth Amendment, which prohibits states from depriving persons “of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Thanks to the “incorporation doctrine” interpretation of this amendment, provisions like the First Amendment now apply as much to state and local governments as to the federal government.

Except that many officials, disdaining these protections, simply ignore them.

So although obliged to make no law “abridging the freedom of speech,” California’s government is abridging the freedom of speech of doctors. A new law authorizes state medical boards to penalize doctors who utter speech contradicting “contemporary scientific consensus” about COVID-19.

Doctors are suing the Newsom administration to block the law from taking effect. According to their complaint, this anti-“misinformation” law would impede their ability to communicate with patients.

The doctors argue that the First Amendment protection of freedom of speech applies to expression of minority views as well as majority views; indeed, that minority views “particularly need protection from government censorship.”

Also that nobody can ever know “the ‘consensus’ of doctors and scientists on various matters related to prevention and treatment of COVID-19.”

Of course, free speech rights should protect even persons who say the moon is made of green cheese, let alone of those who disagree with official pronouncements about a vexing new virus and what to do about it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-E

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom

The FBI Is Misinformed

disinformation, FBI, free speech, 1st Amendment

The FBI is misinformed if it thinks that prosecuting persons who misinform solely for misinforming is consistent with freedom of speech.

The utterance of false statements, whether unknowingly or willfully, is nothing new in human history. And such utterances are impossible to avoid in any kind of discourse — for example, political debates — in which people disagree with each other about facts as well as values.

Indeed, one often hears both true things and false things. We must evaluate claims as best we can, using observation, logic, common sense and so forth.

But, somehow, the FBI has decided that “misinformation” and “disinformation,” chronic in campaign ads, political pronouncements, and domestic quarrels, are a crime when communicated in the context of an election.

An FBI document leaked to Project Veritas wants to explain “What Are Election Crimes.” This document lumps misleading speech with such actual crimes as electoral fraud and intimidation of voters.

Robert Spencer has questions about this assumption for the FBI’s, ahem, Election Crimes Coordinator, Lindsay Capodilupo. For example, how does the FBI determine what is and is not misinformation? Will there be an appeals process given the fact that certain notorious so-called “misinformation” — like the once-upon-a-time contested claim that Hunter Biden’s laptop is indeed Hunter Biden’s laptop — has turned out to be true information?

And — most important — how can wrongspeak as such be classified as any kind of crime in light of the First Amendment?

Stay tuned for the FBI’s answers. But not with bated breath, okay?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with DALL-E

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
crime and punishment ideological culture media and media people

Right-Wing Nudist from Berkeley

nudist

Last Friday, at 2:30-ish in the morning, a man allegedly broke into Paul and Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home and attacked 82-year-old Paul Pelosi with a hammer.*

The attack fractured Mr. Pelosi’s skull, forcing emergency surgery, but fortunately he’s expected to make a full recovery. 

Police have arrested David DePape for the assault and numerous associated felonies. The 42-year-old is surprisingly well-known in California politics, long “affiliated with a prominent pro-nudist activism group in the Bay Area,” and, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, “a sort of ‘father figure’ at a group home in Berkeley.” 

Police have yet to offer any motive for the attack but say the assailant was asking, “Where is Nancy?” Fortunately, the Speaker of the House wasn’t there, but back in Washington. 

Newsweek reports that DePape has “espoused numerous mainstream and right-wing conspiracy theories, including the belief that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump, climate change denial, COVID-19 vaccine and mask skepticism, and other ideas associated with QAnon.”

In recent weeks, DePape was apparently living in a school bus parked in front of his ex-wife’s home. She — a fellow nudity activist, now serving an unrelated prison term — explains plainly: “He is mentally ill.”

Nevertheless, our statesmen strive for a deeper meaning. One they can harness.

“While the motive is still unknown,” tweeted Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), “we know where this kind of violence is sanctioned and modeled.”

Calling it “the direct result of toxic right-wing rhetoric and incitement,” State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Fran) declared, “Words have consequences, and without question, the GOP’s hate and extremism has bred political violence.”

But then consider what former President Barack Obama told a crowd in Michigan over the weekend: “This habit of saying the worst about other people, demonizing people, that creates a dangerous climate.”

Does it? Left, right and all around? You don’t say.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* I’ve never been attacked by a hammer-wielding man, but it sounds especially unpleasant. On the other hand, I have “attacked” myself with a hammer on several occasions, but that was ostensibly unintentional. 

Note: There is still much we do not know about this crime. For instance, just yesterday it was disclosed that “there was a third person inside the house that opened the door for police.” 

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
crime and punishment folly general freedom too much government

Ian and the Scurvy Knave

Florida, Texas, roofer, licensing, hurricane

Don’t help people after a hurricane! 

Not if you live in another state and there’s no time to lose but . . . you’re licensed only in that other state.

Now, before you declare Houston-based Terence Duque an innocent victim because he was arrested for not being Florida-licensed, let’s take a cold hard look at the facts. Duque is licensed in Texas, has operated a successful roofing business since 2008, is rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau, is called a “preferred contractor” by Owens Corning.

Sounds okay, right?

But hold on. After Hurricane Ian smashed Florida a few weeks ago, what did this scurvy knave do?

Shamelessly and with constructive purposes aforethought, Duque offered his services to residents of hard-hit Charlotte County, Florida!!!! No, seriously. Simply because homeowners had had their roofs ripped up, Duque offered to repair them!!!!! Yet this man calls himself a roofer!!!!!!!!!

Arrested by the Charlotte County sheriff, who says “I will not allow unlicensed contractors to further victimize [sic]” hurricane victims, Duque is charged with “conducting business in Charlotte County without a Florida license.” He faces one to five years in jail.

He says he thought he’d been allowed to help Floridians because licensing regulations had been loosened due to the emergency. 

No.

Justin Pearson, an attorney with Institute for Justice, says Duque was punished for “doing the right thing.”

The right thing??? The man was honestly trying to help people recover from a terrible personal setback and fully qualified to do so!!!!!!! Look at the facts!!!!!!!!!

Throw away the key?

This is, er, Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts