Category: crime and punishment

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.” 

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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.

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crime and punishment general freedom national politics & policies

The Middle of the Beginning of the End

Presidential powers, pardons, marijuana

President Biden’s decision to pardon everyone federally convicted for a simple marijuana possession is not the true beginning of the end of the federal war on drug-taking people.

In 2018, the federal government legalized certain products with cannabinoids derived from hemp. That’s something, even if the feds still ban buying and selling marijuana.

On the other hand, for years many states have been legalizing pot, inspiring the federal government to somewhat slacken enforcement of its own pot ban — sometimes.

These developments constitute the beginning of the end for the federal war on drug-taking people.

Call Biden’s gesture the middle of the beginning. That it won’t be rapidly followed by full federal legalization of unapproved drugs or even marijuana is shown by the objections of other politicians.

Senator Tom Cotton laments that Biden is “giving blanket pardons to pot heads — many of whom pled down from more serious charges.”*

The argument would be equally valid if it were illegal to blow soap bubbles and some people had pled down from a charge of smashing windows to a charge of blowing soap bubbles. Granted, plea deals are often horrible, wrongly abetting the guilty and hurting the innocent. So reform the plea-deal regime. 

But don’t criminalize non-crimes.

The real impact? The White House admits that “while no-one is currently in prison for ‘simple possession,’ a pardon for those who have convictions could allow better access to housing or employment.”

Call it a half-start at the middle of the beginning of the end.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Another lament is that Biden’s pardon is just cynical election-eve politics. Well . . . let’s have more such pandering to the people; it seems the only way to get good policy from bad politicians. 

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crime and punishment Fourth Amendment rights general freedom

Fourth Amendment Dead?

4th Amendment, search, privacy, law

Unconstitutional actions are constitutional.

A federal judge doesn’t say so explicitly, but that’s what his ruling amounts to.

The case, which we discussed previously, involves U.S. Private Vaults, a Beverly Hills company that the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided last year. The company has been fined $1.1 million for money laundering because it let dealers anonymously keep cash in its safe deposit boxes.

Judge Gary Klausner concedes that the FBI lied to obtain a warrant, planning to seize the property of all boxholders whether or not there was any evidence of a crime against a given boxholder. And to this day, “specific criminal conduct has not been alleged against customers.” Nevertheless, Klausner ruled that despite the lie, it was constitutional for the FBI to grab the boxes’ contents.

Of course, if the warrant authorizing the FBI to ignore Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures had been honestly solicited, that still would not have transmuted unconstitutional actions into constitutional ones.

“The court does not deny that the government had an improper motive when it applied for its warrant,” observes Rob Johnson, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, which is representing the boxholders.

“But it says that fact is irrelevant unless the improper investigatory motive was the only reason that the Government opened the safety deposit boxes. . . . If today’s shocking decision stands, it will set a dangerous precedent that will allow the FBI and other law enforcement agencies to bypass the Fourth Amendment.”

Thankfully, the Institute for Justice doesn’t regard the case as closed. It will appeal.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment general freedom national politics & policies Second Amendment rights

The Indicted Have Gun Rights

self defense, gun rights, gun control, 2nd Amendment

The idea that those who are indicted for a serious crime may not buy a gun, is, I think, what many in America might think of as “common sense gun control.”

But it isn’t, for it rubs against the grain of the American legal tradition.

The pseudo-commonsense view appears nonsensical when boldly defended by the U.S. attorney’s office, which, The Texas Tribune informs us, argued that a “law to prohibit those under felony indictment from obtaining guns does not interfere with the Second Amendment ‘because it does not disarm felony indictees who already had guns and does not prohibit possession or public carry.’”

That argument boils down to this: if you retain some relevant gun rights, others may be taken away. 

Compare it to free speech: if the government allows you to talk freely with your family, its regulation of your conversations with neighbors is hunky-dory!

“The Second Amendment has always allowed laws restricting the gun rights of groups viewed by legislatures as posing a public-safety risk,” the prosecution elucidated, “including those accused but not convicted of wrongdoing.”

But U.S. District Judge David Counts, introduced in every account of this I’ve read so far as “appointed by former President Donald Trump” — so that must be important, eh? — denies this. He found no historical precedent for disallowing the accused and indicted from buying firearms.

Therefore, based on the recent Supreme Court decision,* Judge Countssays the government has no case. It’s still innocent until proven guilty.

That is, governments may not “take away” our rights until convicted of a specific crime, punishment for which is loss of liberty.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* That U.S. Supreme Court case is New York State Rifle & Pistol Assoc. v. Bruen.

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crime and punishment education and schooling First Amendment rights folly general freedom

Freedom of Disassociation?

forced inclusion

Groucho Marx famously quipped that he wouldn’t want to join any club that would have him as a member. Some people take this hankering to an extreme: they want to force every group averse to their membership to accept them.

Keywords: forced inclusion. The current political rage — thought to be a “right.”

Now, Yeshiva University, which calls itself “the world’s premier Torah-based institution of higher education,” does not accept homosexuality. It’s against the Law.

And by “the Law” they mean: the ancient Jewish scriptures.

For those of us who are neither Jewish nor gay, we might look upon both groups as “clubs.”  And being in neither, we might just shrug; we aren’t going to be accepted in the either ranks and that’s just fine.

But some students at Yeshiva University tried to form an LGBT group on campus. The university resisted, the case went to court, and a court ordered the university to accept the group. And then last week, the Supreme Court refused to order a stay on the lower court’s order.

In reaction, Yeshiva University has suspended all campus club activities.

“Every faith-based university in the country has the right to work with its students, including its LGBTQ students, to establish the clubs, places and spaces that fit within its faith tradition,” the university’s president proclaimed. “Yeshiva University simply seeks that same right of self-determination.”

Since the right to “freedom of association” is part of the Bill of Rights, one might think this would be non-controversial in America. And settled law. 

But one would be wrong. On both counts. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights free trade & free markets general freedom ideological culture

Okay Not to Harm

freedom, slavery, equity, health, trans

A recent appeals court ruling means that (some) doctors and other medical practitioners won’t be forced to violate their ethical principles against doing harm.

The Fifth Circuit ruling affirms a lower-court decision “permanently enjoining [HHS] from requiring Franciscan Alliance to perform gender-reassignment surgeries or abortions in violation of its sincerely held religious beliefs.”

What is troubling about the decision is its apparent incompleteness.

In a truly free society, no private professionals or organizations would be coerced to offer their services to anybody. Everybody would be free to participate or to decline to participate in any transaction with a prospective customer related to any medical procedure. Just as any person is now (mostly) free to patronize or not patronize any provider of a good or service.

We don’t live in that free society. But at least we can hope that no person will be compelled to provide the types of services that violate the person’s moral conscience.

Like services they believe harm others.

That harm children . . . including the unborn.

So the court’s ruling is fine — as far as it goes. But it seems to protect only persons making religious objections, or only members of the Franciscan Alliance, not also non-religious medical practitioners who also morally object to providing abortions or sex-change operations.

Which means that there is more legal work to be done to protect the rights of all of us.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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