Category: crime and punishment

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crime and punishment national politics & policies

That Other October Surprise?

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

Harken back to those heady days leading up to Election 2020, when six men were arrested for a scheme to snatch Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer from her home.

As with other October surprises, the case was immediately politicized. 

“Democrats on Thursday made it clear they felt President Trump was at least in part to blame for an alleged scheme to kidnap the governor of Michigan,” government-​subsidized NPR noted, “citing the president’s divisive rhetoric that has often found support among white supremacists and other hate groups.” CNN used the phrase “domestic terrorist plot” in relating presidential challenger Joe Biden’s laying of blame against Donald Trump.

Six men were charged in federal court with directly conspiring to nab the governor. Two have pled guilty to the federal charges, but on Friday the trial ended very differently for the four other would-​be abductors.

“A federal jury acquitted two men of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and deadlocked on the counts against two others,” reported The Washington Post, “apparently agreeing to some degree with defense claims that FBI agents entrapped the men in a violent plot shortly before the 2020 election.”

“The Whitmer kidnapping plot,” Reason’s Robby Soave explained months ago, “was extensively directed and encouraged by agents of the government.” 

This was not just a bungled prosecution.* This was the result of a wrongheaded and dangerous policy that, instead of lawfully monitoring suspected criminals to prevent violence, actively nurtures and encourages crimes. 

And breaks the story in early October of an election year.

Sure, I know the government is here to help — but even “domestic terrorists”?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* “Suffice it to say,” Soave wrote about the FBI’s handing of the case, “it’s very hard to tell the cops from the criminals in this matter.” For instance, “the government’s star witness, FBI Agent Robert Trask, was fired by the agency after beating his wife following an orgy at a swingers party.”

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights Fourth Amendment rights

A Guide for the Surveilled 

cyber security, web, internet, crime

If you’re hounded — or merely have reason to suspect you are about to be hounded — by censors and spies, there are things you can do to protect yourself.

Self-​defense often starts with your communication devices, the kind of things that Big Brother and Big Corporate Overlords tend to target. Reclaim the Net has put together a fairly comprehensive overview and explanation of ways to reduce your risk.

For example:

● Use a strong passkey.

● Turn off fingerprint unlock and face unlock.

● Be alert to phishing attempts.

● Delete unused apps and data.

● Delete photo metadata before sending or posting photos.

● Disable location services.

● Use airplane mode when preventing access to you is more important than having access yourself.

● Usea VPN to evade censorship and tracking.

● Be careful what kind of information about yourself you make public.

● Take steps to recover a confiscated or stolen device, or at least to make its data unrecoverable.

● Use anonymous accounts.

● Use encrypted text messengers.

● Switch to more privacy-​conscious browsers, search engines, and ISPs.

Depending on your circumstances, some of these tips will be more relevant than others, of course. But it’s worth perusing the whole list.

Of course, to go to all this trouble, you’d have to believe that big governments and mega-​corporations are trying to surveil you. As if we lived in one of those dystopian futures they talk about in scary science fiction stories.

And who could ever believe that?

Well . . .

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Amazon Retreats from Anarchy

CHAZ, Seattle, crime, progressivism

It turns out that hating on big business while shedding crocodile tears for street criminals and the homeless can have negative consequences.

Seattle, Washington, which in recent years has become increasingly “progressive” with job-​killing minimum wage rate hikes, openly socialist city council members, and a whole mess of bizarre pro-​crime policies, is of course driving businesses (along with decent citizens) out of the city limits.

Amazon, the giant, uber-​successful Internet business announced, last week, that it will “relocate office staff in downtown Seattle due to a sustained uptick in violent crime,” wrote Thomas Kika for Newsweek. And “other businesses in the area” are continuing coronavirus lockdown policies by sticking “with remote work for the same reason.”

Government’s first job is law and order. There’s a case to be made that all other state tasks are decidedly optional, and those other jobs that muck up the first job should be chopped.

Progressives don’t get that.

But speaking of “chopped” — remember CHOP and CHAZ? These were the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest and Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone insurrections of the city’s infamous 2020 “summer of love,” where for weeks on end “protesters” took over the streets and kept out the police and generally behaved like anarchist revolutionaries. It was all very disorderly, yet city officials apologized to-​and-​for the movement for the longest time — presumably because the “protesters” sounded so righteous in standard leftist manner: apparently lacking any arguments against this kind of thing. 

The occupied, autonomous, dangerous inanity was finally stopped, but the rise in vagrancy and crime continues.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment folly ideological culture

Stop & Go on Crime

crime, Democrats, law enforcement

In last week’s news conference, President Biden seemed to wave a green light to Vladimir Putin: Russian military forces may make a “minor incursion” into neighboring Ukraine. Was Biden applying to diplomacy, I wondered, the permissive posture so many other Democratic officials have taken, domestically? Crime’s fine, if small enough. 

If so, Biden’s not leading — Democrats around the country are changing direction. 

“We are in a crisis,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced last month, declaring a state of emergency. “Too many people are dying in this city. Too many people are sprawled all over our streets. And now we have a plan to address it.”

Her approach? Simple: End the “reign of criminals” by taking “the steps to be more aggressive with law enforcement … and less tolerant of all the bullsh*t that has destroyed our city.”

The New York Times called it “a sharp break with the liberal conventions that have guided her city for decades.” 

“About time,” was California Governor Gavin Newsom’s response.

When Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner responded to questions about rising crime by arguing, “We don’t have a crisis of lawlessness, we don’t have a crisis of crime, we don’t have a crisis of violence,” former Mayor Michael Nutter expressed incredulity.

“How many more Black and brown people, and others,” Nutter wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer, “would have to be gunned down in our streets daily to meet your definition of a ‘crisis’?”

Still, upon taking office weeks ago, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg “ordered his prosecutors to stop seeking prison sentences for hordes of criminals and to downgrade felony charges in cases including armed robberies …” the New York Post reported.

“The identical platform,” noted a police supervisor, “has not worked out in San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia and Baltimore.”

Or anywhere else. Ever.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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crime and punishment general freedom ideological culture

Specifically Alarming

Heartland Institute/Rasmussen Reports, covid, Democrat

To see Washington politicians and political hacks behaving badly, demanding the power to roll over the rights of those with whom they disagree, is not nearly as frightening — because it’s now so mundane — as to witness that insiders’ itch also infecting the grassroots of the body politic like a viral contagion.

Specifically alarming? A new Heartland Institute/​Rasmussen Reports survey of voters finds a plurality of self-​identified Democrats (48 percent) support slapping fines and imposing prison sentences on Americans “who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-​19 vaccines.”

No joke, as President Biden would say … but I’m telling the truth. 

Here’s the precise question asked: “Would you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose a proposal for federal or state governments to fine or imprison individuals who publicly question the efficacy of the existing COVID-​19 vaccines on social media, television, radio, or in online or digital publications?”

Thankfully, the overall numbers less portend a totalitarian future, where speech would be thoroughly policed and suppressed (like China today). Pro-​censorship Americans total only 27 percent of the population, with fully two-​thirds of us opposed to shredding the First Amendment.

Still, per this poll, it isn’t free speech alone that Blue Team members are increasingly willing to jettison in fear of COVID:

  • “Forty-​five percent (45%) of Democrats would favor governments requiring citizens to temporarily live in designated facilities or locations if they refuse to get a COVID-​19 vaccine,” explained Rasmussen Reports. 
  • And 47 percent of Democrats support “governments using digital devices to track unvaccinated people.”
  • Nearly a third of “Democratic voters would support temporarily removing parents’ custody of their children if parents refuse to take the COVID-​19 vaccine.”

Constitutional rights belong to everyone … “in sickness and in health.” 

Right? Democrats?  

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment general freedom international affairs moral hazard

Thank Omicron? Or Hypocrisy?

Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson, covid, masks, mandates

It was not immediately clear what had changed regarding “the science,” when, midweek, Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson lifted the Queen’s government’s mask mandates and other coronavirus restrictions.

The case for and against mask efficacy has been about the same for a very long time. There’s no obvious statistical evidence for mask mandates working. And pre-​2020 studies showed ambiguous results for preventing virus transmission by wearing masks — and certainly not for the cloth masks most people wear.

So what changed?

Well, Johnson cited the omicron variant. “Our scientists believe that the omicron wave has now peaked nationally,” he said, adding that hospital admissions had stabilized and that London admissions were falling. 

So he lifted mask requirements in schools, too.

This takes some pressure off him. The vast majority of Brits are tired of masks, especially on students.

Predictably, however, some school masters appear to be clinging to the cloth. 

Regardless, why the change?

Spokespersons for the beleaguered opposition party, Labour, argue it’s mostly political, since Boris was caught at two bigwig parties where no one was wearing masks. “Can the PM share the evidence,” asked one, “behind his decision and that he’s not just protecting his job?” 

And Johnson says that “the scientific evidence is there for everybody to consult” — but, face it, everything these politicians say is half-​assessed and untrustworthy.

Still, at least the people of Britain will receive a little let-​up from the oppressive “scientific” tyranny of their government.

Not all states to the west of the Atlantic can say the same.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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