Category: crime and punishment

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crime and punishment ideological culture Popular

Propaganda Bombs

panic, explosion, fear, hysteria, terrorism

“In these times, we have to unify,” President Donald Trump said in response to reports of bombs sent to high-level Democratic public officials, “we have to come together and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message that acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America.”

He also assured that “a major federal investigation is now underway.”

It sure looks like a concerted operation, considering the number of targets: political funder George Soros, former CIA director John Brennan, former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Rep. Maxine Waters, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, et al.

Given the political affiliations of the recipients, many people assume it was a partisan terrorist from the Republican side of the proverbial “aisle.”

But note the obvious: not one putative bomb went off. Or even got close to the ostensible targets.

Massive incompetence?

One device seems to have “ISIS” scrawled on it, but experts tell us that device is well below ISIS standards. It turns out that the marking is an ISIS parody symbol. The perp is not likely a jihadist “lone wolf” wannabe.

Bombs going off is serious terrorism, deadly evil. But bombs not going off is serious . . . propaganda by the dud.

What if the point is not to explode and hurt people, but to “explode” in human minds?

Could this be an “October surprise,” the false flag of some demented person or “cell” on “the left” to impugn “the right”?

As Matt Walsh hazarded at The Daily Wire, “It does not take a conspiracy theorist to wonder about the timing and methods in this case.”

We do not know much yet. Questions will hopefully soon be answered.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Illustration: pixabay

 

Categories
crime and punishment ideological culture national politics & policies

Our Leaders’ Favored Anarchy

mob

“In a sane democracy,” I wrote this weekend at Townhall.com, “the side with the most violent nutcases loses.”

Too hopeful?

Independent video journalist Tim Pool made a similar point yesterday, covering Antifa versus Proud Boys fights in New York, as well as Antifa taking over the downtown streets of Portland, Oregon. He cautions those who defend themselves from going too far, for the media will simply make hay of violence against Antifa, ignoring Antifa provocations.

“Antifa are the ones who are showing up to marches that are peaceful and starting the violence — and then everyone complains there’s violence,” Mr. Pool explains.*

Reasonable question: who is encouraging leftist mobs?

Perhaps two former Obama Administration officials, Eric Holder and Hillary Clinton. 

“When they go low, we kick them,” Holder said last week. “That’s what the new Democratic Party is about.”

Mrs. Clinton insisted that “you cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for.”

Michelle Obama provided a civilized correction: “Fear is not a proper motivator,” she said on the Today show. “Do you want them afraid of their neighbors? Do you want them angry? Do you want them vengeful?”

Journalist Sam Francis had a term for what seems to be on the rise: anarcho-tyranny. Government leaders let mob violence go unpunished, but crack down hard on peaceful citizens for infractions of onerous regulations. 

In Portland, this weekend, the mayor applauded a police decision to stand down, letting Antifa take over the streets.

And so the violence ramps up.

As the President likes to say: “Not good.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* “Well, if Antifa doesn’t show up,” Pool went on, “I assure you, the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer will walk in a big circle and then break up and go find beers somewhere.”

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crime and punishment media and media people moral hazard national politics & policies

Not an Accusation

Julie Swetnick

Brett Kavanaugh’s weekend confirmation as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 50-48 Senate vote, didn’t settle the allegations of his past sexual conduct in a judicial manner.

Wild disagreement remains.

Many on the Left continue to believe our newest justice repeatedly lied under oath, having abused at least three women when in high school and college. Many on the Right will view all “three” of these female accusers as political players or pawns, who probably should be punished in some way for lying about such a fine man.

While I doubt we can know for certain about a number of the accusations, there should be less doubt on the exact number of accusations. Which were not three but only two.

“I cannot specifically say that he [Brett Kavanaugh] was one of the ones who assaulted me,” Julie Swetnick told NBC News. But she went on to offer a maybe, a could have, some might haves, an I don’t know . . . and more, none of which amounted to an accusation. What she offered was a chain of suppositions: “Because if Brett Kavanaugh was one of those people that did this to me, there is no way in the world that he should go scot-free on this and that he should be on the Supreme Court. . . . If he does, I, uh — there’s no justice in the world.”

As long as this sort of nonsense is treated seriously in the media and among partisans, there can, indeed, be no justice in the world.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Accountability crime and punishment

TSA Abuse

TSA, Transportation Security Administration, civil liberty, privacy, airport security

Among the rights-trampling bureaucracies, many and various, the Transportation Security Administration is far from the most beloved.

Millions of Americans, in the course of trying to catch flights, experience TSA agents up close and personal. 

Some of these official gropers are way too “handsy.”

One report comes to our attention from Charlotte Ann Kimbrough, former law enforcement officer. 

When she told TSA agents that she had had two metal hip replacements, she expected to be wanded. Instead, “The woman groped my crotch — twice. She went underneath my dress. I knew I had to be calm for the man I was traveling with. . . . But he could see the look on my face. He started yelling. They got the woman who was groping me out of the way and brought in a boss, who tried to stop the situation from escalating. I do have anger at myself, that I let her do it to to me. . . . I keep getting feelings of guilt.”

Some TSA workers may be uncomfortable with what they are “forced” to do to innocents. Others enjoy the power they have to humiliate people. Still others — whistleblowers — do speak out against abuses.

But they face retaliation from higher-ups for doing so. All of these employees are subject to abuse by TSA bosses. 

A government report details alleged misconduct that includes sexual harassment, verbal abuse of employees, and obstructing investigations into misconduct. 

We should not be surprised. As Reason magazine puts it, “this isn’t an agency with a great track record when it comes to treating people well.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

 

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Categories
crime and punishment First Amendment rights judiciary

Church Not Forced to Encourage Sin

compelled speech, censorship, force,

In Hawaii, those who would compel others to promote abortion have suffered a well-deserved setback.

A U.S. District Court tossed a law requiring pregnancy centers to post ads for abortion clinics. Among the centers that would have been affected was one run by a church opposed to abortion. Of course, whether we’re religious or non-religious, we have the same rights. 

The president of National Institute of Family & Life Advocates (NIFLA), Thomas Glessner, hails the decision as a “major victory for free speech and freedom of religion.” For its reasoning, the district court relied on a Supreme Court decision, NIFLA v. Becerra.

“In NIFLA v. Becerra, the Supreme Court affirmed that we don’t force people to say things they don’t believe,” says Kevin Theriot, a lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom who argued that case before the Supreme Court. Thus, “the district court was correct to permanently halt Hawaii’s enforcement of Act 200’s compelled speech requirement.”

You shouldn’t be forced in any way to abet any conduct that you regard as morally wrong — not if the rest of us respect your rights as a moral agent. And it is worth remembering that a lot of people have moral qualms about all sorts of issues, and that many of the people running Hawaii’s non-church-sponsored centers doubtless also oppose abortion.

Obvious? To you and me, maybe. But some people disagree. They appear eager to compel others to join their various causes. 

The noble cause of leaving other people alone isn’t on the list.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
crime and punishment ideological culture insider corruption media and media people

Socialist Saboteurs Infiltrate

Stuart Karaffa, socialism, DSA, Democratic Socialist,Project Veritas, James O’Keefe

Once upon a time, people who worried about communists infiltrating the government were often dismissed as paranoid. 

“Sure, commies under every bed! Right!”

Communists in the State Department or wherever generally weren’t caught on tape boasting that they were Soviet agents and part of the Resist Truman or Resist Eisenhower movement. Allen Funt did not expose Alger Hiss. But now we have this social-media thing happening. And we have members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) caught on tape touting their illicit exploits as federal employees.

Project Veritas is a conservative group* that conducts hidden-camera interviews with lefty activists. In one of Veritas’s recent exposes, several DSA members confess to abusing their government positions in order to impede Trump Administration policies, including any even slightly pro-market policies. The goal is to “f*ck sh*t up,” as one rebel summarizes.

Several of the Resisters boast that “we can’t really get fired.” That’s probably almost true; they’re federal bureaucrats. But DOJ paralegal Allison Hrabar and others may find that their license to chill is about to expire. 

Hrabar was in the news a few months back for helping chase Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen from a restaurant. Now she has admitted using government resources to dredge up the home address of a DC lobbyist she wanted to target. Address in hand, she and several DSA comrades swooped down on the residence to hold a harassing protest. 

Not quite how taxpayer dollars are supposed to be deployed.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe, whom I know and like, has done enormous good with his undercover stings of ACORN and others. Last year’s failed effort against the Washington Post is the exception. Had Project Veritas succeeded in slipping this false accusation into the newspaper, the result would have been to publicize a harmful lie, not show the truth (per his group’s name.

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Categories
crime and punishment general freedom insider corruption

Puppycide

dogs, puppycide, police, shooting, drug war, abuse, family

The cost of the War on Drugs is not to be reckoned just in dollars. Or in that more serious accounting index: lost lives. The hit to our civil liberties has been enormous, too, and instrumental in setting up the modern Surveillance State.

But beyond these, there is a stranger result: the War on Drugs is also, de facto, a War on Dogs.

“Detroit police officers shot 54 dogs last year, according to public records obtained by Reason,” writes C.J. Ciaramella. “That’s a marked increase over the number reported by the department in 2016 and 2015, and more than twice as many as Chicago, a city with roughly 2 million more people.”

Reason magazine has been covering the War on Dogs by police forces across the country — identified in Ciaramella’s article as “puppycide” — for years, and I’ve mentioned it here on Common Sense, too. The problem is not dogs shot because they are wild, or have rabies, or the like. One expects that sort of thing.

What is problematic is that a third of the Detroit shootings took place in the course of no-knock raids and other common police actions entailed by contraband interdiction. The Detroit number turns out to be “more animal shootings than the entire Los Angeles Police Department performed — 14 total — in 2016,” Ciaramella relates.

Excessive shooting of dogs is costly to cities, of course — to taxpayers, to be precise — in terms of civil lawsuits filed and settled. And to families, some of them quite innocent of any crime, who lose their pets. 

It is a sign of a police culture corrupted by . . . the War on Drugs.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Categories
crime and punishment general freedom ideological culture too much government

Townhall: Free-Range Kids vs. Deranged Adults

There is something peculiarly anti-life as well as anti-liberty about today’s attitudes towards children — as you can read at Townhall.com.

But for more background, please consider:

This column will be available on this site on Tuesday. You can also download a PDF of this column to share easily with your friends and frenemies.

Categories
Accountability crime and punishment moral hazard property rights U.S. Constitution

Forfeiting Common Sense

civil, asset, forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, cash, grocery bag, Whole Foods, theft, police, corruption

Is it okay to steal if you can get away with it?

A full answer would require a treatise. But most of us common-sensibly understand that evil does not magically become good when perpetrators are not stopped or punished. Thrasymachus was wrong to contend, in Plato’s Republic, that justice is merely the “interest of the stronger.”

When it comes to crimes like bank robberies, muggings and car jackings, we have no doubts about this. In such blatant cases, we suffer nothing like the legitimate confusion to which we may be prone regarding the exact border between adjacent parcels of land or the niceties of intellectual property law.

Well, somebody tell the New Hampshire state police.

Some of them apparently believe it’s okay to steal if you can evade laws against the stealing.

New Hampshire’s recent reform of civil forfeiture laws requires criminal conviction of a person before there can be any forfeiture of his property. But a loophole enabled officers to grab $46,000 of Edward Phipps’s money — from his car, stopped on the road — even though he was never accused of a crime. 

How?

It seems that if state cops collaborate with the feds, safeguards established to prevent such abuse can be evaded.

To retrieve even a little of his money ($7,000), Mr. Phipps was forced to relinquish all claim to the balance ($39,000). Even if lawmakers close the loophole, as they should, the robber-cops will probably get away with this particular larceny. 

They shouldn’t.

That’s injustice, not common sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Photo Credit: N.H. State Police

 

Categories
crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom Second Amendment rights too much government U.S. Constitution

Progressive Designs

Progressive, magazine, H-Bomb, plans, free speech, First Amendment

In February 1979, Professor George Rathjens called the editors of The Progressive, urging them not to publish a story in the works, which included a journalistic best guess as to the design of a hydrogen bomb. The Progressive refused to squelch the story, and the professor of poli-sci (not nuclear physics) contacted the Department of Energy, which sued to suppress the article.

The Progressive defended itself on free speech grounds.

Fast forward to today, with progressives screaming to squelch the freedom of speech and press of Defense Distributed, an Austin, Texas, organization, which expressed its intention to publish easily downloadable plans* to print plastic guns using 3D printing technology.

This hit the news first as the result of a court decision early in the month,** but now Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.) blames the Trump administration, not the court. “Donald Trump will be totally responsible for every downloadable, plastic AR-15 (gun) that will be roaming the streets of our country.”

Why blame the administration? Because the administration settled its lawsuit holding up the publication.

Amusingly, back in 1979, the government dropped its suit against The Progressive.

Progressives were definitely not for nuclear bombs 40 years ago, and The Progressive had its own agenda in publishing a version of the article that saw print in the magazine’s November 1979 issue. Now progressives express more alarm about private individuals having weapons, not about the government’s weaponry. 

But the biggest change? It has something to do with free speech.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* I say “easily downloadable” because plans like this have been available on the not-exactly-easy-to-access Dark Web for some time.

** The decision is clear: “Arguments for tighter restrictions on firearms are, in this case, directly opposed to arguments for the unfettered exchange of information on the internet.”

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