Courtroom Calvinball

No Words

2012-01-02T21:52:00.001-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE9ArzjnkeY

That Word . . . I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means

2011-11-29T06:12:00.001-08:00

Police officer causes traffic accident. Higher up police officer gives him a ticket for breaking the law. Even higher up police officer voids the ticket. Why, you might ask?

"In the interest of justice," of course. When asked to explain his comment, he refused to answer.

4th Amendment Takes Another Hit

2011-10-31T17:40:00.000-07:00

Every time I think they couldn't possibly weaken the 4th any more than they have already, something like this comes along.

So the cops have a suspect for a burglary and want DNA evidence, but they don't have enough to get a warrant, so what do they do? Well, they just stop him under the pretense of administering a DUI test, and then keep the saliva he leaves on the machine as "abandoned" property. Certainly, a court we see straight through this sham and reprimand the police who tried to pull the stunt, right?

Nope, California Court of Appeals says such a tactic is just fine.

So the police can't order you to give them a DNA sample directly, but they can order you to do something that gives them a sample indirectly, even if they order you to do it merely to get said sample. Make sense? Thought not.

Texas Makes It A Felony To Steal an Aluminum Can

2011-10-07T15:01:00.000-07:00

Via the removal of a clause in a statute obviously meant to combat the theft of copper wiring and such, Texas has now made it a felony to steal an aluminum can . . . or a penny (pre-1982). That means no voting and no gun ownership, not to mention the fact that a felony record pretty much screws your chances at getting a job forever.

Now, some people will claim that a prosecutor would never interpret the statute in such a manner, but I think we've seen where prosecutors naturally drift to when confronted with someone they really, really want to put in jail for something.

It's Not About Safety, It's About Power

2011-10-05T17:55:00.000-07:00

Washington D.C. cops are now arresting people who are caught driving with expired tags. Does forgetting to pay your yearly ~~protection money~~ "tag fee" constitute a threat to public safety, or merely to authority?

That's a rhetorical question.

Maybe next they can start seizing the cars through civil asset forfeiture too. You know, for more "safety".

Environmental Progress

2011-09-23T14:54:00.000-07:00

So, apparently we now pay corporations and corrupt foreign governments to beat people and burn them alive in their homes, so that we can re-purpose the arable land they own towards trees and away from the food production they so desperately need.

But you know, global warming, so I guess that makes it all okay.

Funny How That Works

2011-09-07T21:45:00.000-07:00

You know how we desperately needed the Patriot Act passed, so that law enforcement officers could act to protect us from the big, bad terrorists without bothering with little things like warrants ahead of time?

Via New York magazine, here's what they are using that new-found power for:
Funny how that works, isn't it?

Unbelievable

2011-09-07T21:31:00.000-07:00

Via Radley Balko comes this unbelievable story that can only be summarized as follows:

1. Cop has suspect for fraudulent charges on her husband's credit card.
2. Cop stages a takedown of the alleged perpetrator with fellow officers.
3. Cop uses police truck to push the suspect and his car into fellow officers.
4. Fellow officers respond with deadly force against the suspect.
5. Cop lies in sworn statement, claiming suspect tried to run over fellow officers.
6. Video surfaces showing the story to be bald-faced lie.
7. Attempted murder charges dropped. Man still charged with "eluding" the police.
8. Officer will receive no punishment. Police department sees nothing wrong.

I'm pretty sure that if I rammed a car through a line of police, the police then shot the driver of that vehicle, and then I lied about my actions under oath afterward, you'd never see me again. But for a police officer? Don't worry! Her friends have done a thorough investigation and decided she's squeaky clean.

Nothing to see here, move along!

Armed Federal Marshals Raid Gibson Guitars

2011-08-29T08:40:00.000-07:00

Hostage situation? Employee gone postal? Nope, the government was concerned with the type of wood being used in Gibson's guitars, which Gibson claims are licensed and imported appropriately from India. Gibson was raided two years ago for the same reason, and had their wood confiscated then too. No charges have ever been filed.

I guess that's what you get for manufacturing something in the US instead of India in the first place. I'm sure any companies who haven't learned that lesson already are taking note now.

Gibson's CEO explains his frustration on camera with this continued harassment and lack of due process here.

CBO Projections

2011-08-14T10:10:00.000-07:00

I saw a chart of CBO-projected government spending/revenue to 2021 in a meeting the other day, and the numbers are so hilarious that I wonder if anyone actually buys this stuff. I've taken the liberty of adding some of my own commentary:

I particularly like the fact that even after all of their rosy predictions about revenue, they still show the US running a massive deficit for the next ten years. At least we agree on that much, I guess.

Public Education: Trying Desparately to Hold Children Back

2011-07-27T07:43:00.000-07:00

Cato makes a stunning catch when reviewing a Wired piece about Khan academy:

Even if Khan is truly liberating students to advance at their own pace, it’s not clear that the schools will be able to cope. The very concept of grade levels implies groups of students moving along together at an even pace. So what happens when, using Khan Academy, you wind up with a kid in fifth grade who has mastered high school trigonometry and physics—but is still functioning like a regular 10-year-old when it comes to writing, history, and social studies? Khan’s programmer, Ben Kamens, has heard from teachers who’ve seen Khan Academy presentations and loved the idea but wondered whether they could modify it “to stop students from becoming this advanced.”

Thats our public education system for you in a nutshell. Perhaps "No Child Left Behind" should be changed to "No Child Moves Ahead".

How Speedy Is Speedy?

2011-07-03T13:27:00.000-07:00

This being Independence Day weekend and all, it seems like the perfect time to talk about the sixth amendment to the constitution, including, among other things, your right to a speedy trial. The Mississippi Supreme Court recently came to the conclusion that being incarcerated for two years prior to the state allowing you to go to trial does not violate your right to a speedy trial.

It appears that, like the 4th amendment, the 6th amendment is just so much paper; a bothersome relic of the past with no real teeth in today's world. What makes a seizure "reasonable"? If the government says it is! What makes a trial "speedy"? If the government says it is!

Drinking in Indiana? Don't Use a Designated Driver!

2011-07-02T00:34:00.000-07:00

The Indiana Supreme Court concludes that the passenger seat of a car is still a public place, and thus the very same police officer that just pulled your designated driver over for anything under the sun can also arrest you for public intoxication.

Way to go, Indiana! Your war on responsible drinkers will no doubt bear tremendous fruits!

We Live In Interesting Times

2011-07-01T09:31:00.000-07:00

Inactivity is activity.
Equality is inequality.
Bombings are not hostilities

If you have the chance, make sure your children all attend law school. It's the only way to warp a person's brain enough to hold all the contradictory opinions they'll need to survive in this century.

Ohio Police Tase, Pepper Spray, and Beat Mentally Handicapped Kid

2011-07-01T07:47:00.000-07:00

More heros:

Hooper "apparently took Jesse's speech impediment for disrespect ... [and] began yelling at Jesse after Jesse attempted to communicate with him[.] Jesse, being a minor and mentally challenged/handicapped, turned and rode his bike back to his home in an attempt to ask his mother, Ford, to help him communicate with defendant Cooper," according to the complaint in Montgomery County Court.

On the way, the mom says, "A neighbor attempted to communicate with Officer Hooper about Jesse's disabilities and was told to go back into his home, or he would be arrested."

As Ford opened her front door, she says, Hooper and co-defendant Officer John Howard, "fired their Tasers, striking Jesse in the back with both probes."

"Once inside the house, defendant Hooper and defendant Howard began to struggle with Jesse, who was standing against the back door with his hands up in front of his face, saying 'Please quit, please quit.'

"On numerous occasions, Ford and a family friend, Christopher Peyton, informed Officer Hooper that Jesse was mentally challenged/handicapped, and that Jesse did not understand what was happening," the complaint states.

But the mom says the cops continued their assault: "Officer Howard utilized his Cap-Stun pepper spray and sprayed Jesse ... [and] struck Jesse with a closed fist in the upper chest area.

"Officer Howard utilized his ASP and repeatedly struck Jesse in the upper left side of his left thigh.

"Back-up units were requested to Jesse's house, wherein upward of 20 police officers from different jurisdictions were present. "At no point, even after being advised of Jesse's mental challenge/handicap by Jesse's family and numerous bystanders, did defendant Hooper, defendant Howard, or any other police officer present, attempt to communicate with Jesse or explain in terms he could understand as to why Jesse was being chased.

"Jesse was handcuffed and hogtied before being placed in the back of a police cruiser. "Jesse was charged with assault on a peace officer, resisting arrest, and obstructing official business."

Good job Ohio; the founding fathers would be proud to know you are keeping America's streets safe from the peril of speech impediments.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

2011-06-27T08:44:00.000-07:00

Remember when Bush trotted out the old "if you're not with us, you're against us" canard with respect to the Iraq war, that the Democrats rightly objected to because it was complete crap? Well, now that our president is engaged in illegal hostilities (yes, dropping bombs on a foreign country is a hostile act, despite what our esteemed president claims) with his own white-whale dictator, the shoe is on the other foot: Hillary Clinton Asks "Whose side are you on?"

Some of us are on the side of our constitutional republic and the rule of law. Whose side are you on, you opportunistic, hypocritical hack?

State Police and Feds Collude to Steal from Gamblers

2011-06-17T11:19:00.000-07:00

This is insane. Every time I think the government couldn't sink any lower, I am amazed at the new scams they come up with.

Maryland Police teamed up with the feds to create a fake online poker payment business, and then simply kept any deposits made, totaling $30 million dollars. The trusting souls who desposited their money with the fraudulent agency won't get their cash back:

"The government is not going to give the money to gamblers."

Well there you have it. Setting up a fake business to scam customers is okay as long as you are the police, and they are merely "gamblers".

They Aren't Even Pretending Anymore

2011-06-16T12:04:00.000-07:00

Congress is moving to ban the sale of genetically modified salmon that grow twice as fast as regular salmon on one-tenth of the feed. The reason?

[Alaska Republican Rep. Don] Young argued that the modified fish would compete with wild salmon in his state.

What? Couldn't you at least have the decency to make up something about how genetically modified foods cause autism in children, or how drug smugglers prefer to store their illicit goods in bigger fish? That's your job, man! I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to just come out and say "because consumers would like their product over ours".

Even Police Dogs Have More Rights Than You

2011-06-14T15:43:00.000-07:00

Based on the increasing number of police stories I'm beginning to accumulate here, it may seem obvious to most that police officers are entitled to (or at least believe they are entitled to) many more rights than your average citizen. It may surprise some people to learn, however, that even police dogs are members of that elite and privileged class.

If you so much as make a noise the dog doesn't like, you might be facing up to 60 days in jail:

Stephens, 25, faces up to 60 days in jail if convicted of a charge of teasing a police dog when he allegedly got the dog riled up early April 3 when police were investigating a car crash outside the Mason Pub on Reading Road. [...]

"The defendant's words and actions created 'a clear and present danger' to the well being of the police dog as the dog violently attempted to exit the car, (and was) a danger to anyone who entered the car and a danger to anyone outside the car if the door or window had been opened," she wrote in a motion opposing Stephens' request to dismiss the charge.

You'd think a question of your free speech rights vs. the rights of a dog (whatever they are) would be an open and shut case, but then again, this is a police dog we're talking about. Normal rules need not apply (Presumably "teasing" a non-police dog is not a crime; non-police dogs being the proles of the canine kingdom).

And as for your dogs? Well, let's just say they are in mortal danger if they are on the scene in any way when the police show up.

Life Imitates Art Imitates Life

2011-06-14T15:23:00.000-07:00

Via this story about a police officer who feels he was retaliated against by his department when he arrested a DA for drunk driving comes this gem:

Zinstein was later told in a visit from a Personnel Bureau lieutenant "that the department wanted to do right by him," sources said.

"He was told to figure out where he wants to work," one source said. "The lieutenant said he would make it happen for him."

As a fan of The Wire, my first reaction was "For God's sake, tell him you really, really want a job in the harbor patrol!"

Debt Collectors Haul Father Out of House at Gunpoint

2011-06-08T08:57:00.000-07:00

Heavily armed debt collectors break down a man's door, haul him outside in his underwear, throw him to the ground, plant a knee in his back, and in front of his three kids, demand to know the whereabouts of his estranged wife, who owes them money. Call the police, you say?

They were the police; a SWAT team run by the Department of Education, in fact. The man's wife had defaulted on her student loans. Even after they determined that she was not present at the location, the man and his three children spent six hours handcuffed in the back a police cruiser.

If this is how the DoE treats the innocent, woe to the person who gets on the wrong side of the Department of Fish and Wildlife's SWAT team.

UPDATE:

The DoE has responded to the story and insisted that the SWAT raid was not performed because of a loan in default, but instead because of loan fraud (you know, because that makes sending in a SWAT team and holding an innocent man and his children in a squad car for six hours so much more rational).

I Have No Words

2011-05-28T00:10:00.000-07:00

Marine Survives War in Iraq, Killed in War on Drugs

2011-05-19T13:36:00.000-07:00

Jose Guerena, a 26-year-old marine who had completed two tours of duty in Iraq, was gunned down by a SWAT team in Arizona. His wife had told him she had seen someone lurking outside his home, and after he told her to hide in the closet with his child, he grabbed his rifle and went to to investigate. Outside, an officer with an itchy finger and poor trigger discipline accidentally fired a round into a door frame, which caused the rest of the team to rain gunfire down on the man to the tune of 71 bullets. Out of safety concerns, the police waited for an hour before they let the paramedics in. He had already bled to death by that time, his rifle having never having been switched off its safety.

The sheriff refuses to say if they found any contraband in Guerena's house, but does that really matter? Sure, sometimes you leave a soldier who served his country bleeding to death on his kitchen floor, and maybe his kid grows up without a father now, but at least we can breathe a sigh of relief that (possibly) less people are getting high in Arizona tonight. And isn't that worth it? Doesn't that make you feel safe?

"You Have No Right to Challenge Me"

2011-05-18T13:17:00.000-07:00

This video says it all. A Philadelphia officer draws his gun on a man walking down the street merely because the guy has a pistol holstered on his waist (which is not illegal in Philly if you have a permit, which he does). The guy puts up his hands, speaks in a respectful tone, attempts to engage the officer in conversation to let him know he's wrong on the facts, and in return is verbally abused and detained by police officers while they verify that they are ignorant of their own rules.

The justification given by the police officer for this treatment?

"You have no right to challenge me."

As a bonus, after posting the audio to YouTube, the DA came back and charged the guy with "reckless endangerment" and "disorderly conduct", which is only an "interfering with a police officer" charge away from the "Contempt of Cop" trifecta.

I guess that's where our "Land of the Free" is these days. Obey or else.

4th Amendment Takes Two More Hits

2011-05-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

Police are supposed to need a warrant to search your house, but the courts have previously carved out an exception for "exigent circumstances", where (for example) the police think that a person inside may be destroying evidence (as immortalized in the 4th amendment text, which reads "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, unless the police really want in."). That gap was widened quite a bit this week when the supreme court decided that the police can use exigent circumstance to search a home, even if they're the ones that created the exigent circumstances in the first place. Police in the case claimed they "heard movement" behind the door after they had knocked and shouted "Police!", and therefore feared the occupants were destroying evidence. Apparently, the appropriate thing to do to preserve your rights when the police knock on your door is to stay perfectly still, make absolutely no noise whatsoever, and hope to God your neighbor in the next apartment doesn't flush his toilet.

And in a second blow, the Indiana Supreme Court decided that you don't have the right to resist police when they illegally enter your home, under the argument that even if it's an illegal entry, you can always sue them later rather than resist them now (lawsuits against police misconduct being so easy to win, of course).

So there you have it. The police can easily manufacturer themselves a reason to enter your house without a warrant, but even if they don't bother, there's nothing you can do to stop them anyway. What's does the 4th Amendment actually guard against anymore?

TSA Decides to Look for Dissenters Instead of Terrorists

2011-04-15T16:05:00.000-07:00

CNN has an article up about the various signs that the TSA uses to determine if a person might be dangerous and require heightened "screening". Among them, the following: "Very arrogant and expresses contempt against airport passenger procedures."

Does it seem to you like a terrorist trying to blend in with a crowd is likely to be calling attention to themselves by decrying the security practices of the TSA while standing in line at the airport? If not, you might ask yourself why they would bother to screen such people more thoroughly. The answer becomes clear immediately: It's not about safety, and it was never about safety. It's about authority. Dare to question the government, and an agent will be around shortly to humiliate you in any way possible, and maybe next time you'll think twice and shut up in line like the good little obedient citizen they want you to be.

You'll Eat What the Government Gives You Or You Won't Eat

2011-04-12T09:41:00.000-07:00

"At Little Village, most students must take the meals served in the cafeteria or go hungry"

Seriously.

At his public school, Little Village Academy on Chicago's West Side, students are not allowed to pack lunches from home. Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria.

Principal Elsa Carmona said her intention is to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices.

What she means is, it's their intention to protect students from the food choices of their parents. I sometimes wonder why the government doesn't just cut out parents entirely and go straight to government care facilities for children 0-18. If you can't trust parents to even feed their children, how can you entrust them with the responsibility of finishing at night the indoctrination you've spent all day cramming into their heads? Seems a bit inconsistent to me.

I'm also sure this had nothing to do with it either:

Any school that bans homemade lunches also puts more money in the pockets of the district's food provider, Chartwells-Thompson. The federal government pays the district for each free or reduced-price lunch taken, and the caterer receives a set fee from the district per lunch.

Shifting more power from parents to the government and conveniently lining the pockets of a local corporation? In statist terms, that's what they'd call a "win-win" situation.

The Face of Our Benevolent FDA

2011-03-11T22:59:00.000-08:00

The brilliant minds in the FDA have decided to grant a monopoly to Ther-Rx on the production of Makena, a drug to prevent premature births, that was previously produced by non-FDA-approved compounding facilities for about $10 an injection. The new, FDA-approved, "under monopoly" price?

$1,500 per injection.

Did I mention that an at-risk mother may need up to 20 injections throughout her pregnancy? Must be part of the government's push to "lower health care costs" by cutting out that greedy "free market".

I think this sentence says it all:

"The cost is justified to avoid the mental and physical disabilities that can come with very premature births, said KV Pharmaceutical chief executive Gregory J. Divis Jr."

For anyone who needs it, the translation to that sentence is: "We know parents will pay anything to save their child, and now that we have government guns backing up our cease-and-desist letters to the cheap producers, we'll get a chance to see just exactly how much that is."

Wisconsin: Just Like Nazi Germany

2011-02-21T15:55:00.000-08:00

You couldn't make this stuff up, folks:

Apparently, the logical process goes something like this:

1. Ask you to contribute a small percentage to your own retirement and healthcare instead of dumping it all on the taxpayers.
2. ???
3. Round up all the Jews!

Torture-Lite Yields No Confession from Manning

2011-02-21T15:51:00.000-08:00

U.S. Can't Link Accused Army Private to Assange

U.S. military officials tell NBC News that investigators have been unable to make any direct connection between a jailed army private suspected with leaking secret documents and Julian Assange, founder of the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

The officials say that while investigators have determined that Manning had allegedly unlawfully downloaded tens of thousands of documents onto his own computer and passed them to an unauthorized person, there is apparently no evidence he passed the files directly to Assange, or had any direct contact with the controversial WikiLeaks figure.

Maybe now they'll put bamboo shoots under his nails until he "confesses".

Government Admits to Lying About Wikileaks Repercussions

2011-01-20T16:16:00.000-08:00

Reuters: U.S. Officials Privately Say WikiLeaks Damage Limited

A congressional official briefed on the reviews said the administration felt compelled to say publicly that the revelations had seriously damaged American interests in order to bolster legal efforts to shut down the WikiLeaks website and bring charges against the leakers. [..] "We were told (the impact of WikiLeaks revelations) was embarrassing but not damaging," said the official

In other words, they lied to the public to bolster their legal case against someone who had publicly embarrassed them. Well, color me surprised.

Never Thought I'd Say This . . .

2010-12-24T09:39:00.001-08:00

. . . but for once I agree with Pat Robertson. Take it away, Pat:

Makes Ya Proud to be an Amer'cun, Don't It?

2010-12-17T19:58:00.000-08:00

After being in mind-breaking isolation for seven straight months:

From the beginning of his detention, Manning has been held in intensive solitary confinement. For 23 out of 24 hours every day -- for seven straight months and counting -- he sits completely alone in his cell. Even inside his cell, his activities are heavily restricted; he's barred even from exercising and is under constant surveillance to enforce those restrictions. For reasons that appear completely punitive, he's being denied many of the most basic attributes of civilized imprisonment, including even a pillow or sheets for his bed (he is not and never has been on suicide watch). [...] the brig's medical personnel now administer regular doses of anti-depressants to Manning to prevent his brain from snapping from the effects of this isolation.

. . . the latest rumor is that Manning is now being offered a plea bargain if he testifies that Assange "conspired" with him.

So for those keeping track, now we can let the guy who actually broke the law off easy, in favor of arresting the guy who didn't break any laws, and all we had to do was torture a US citizen who hasn't even been put on trial for anything yet.

Woo, go team.

City of Aurora Steals $190,000 From Citizen; Refuses to Return It Even After Court Order

2010-12-09T11:30:00.000-08:00

Link

Jesus Martinez, 27, was carrying $190,040 when his pickup truck was stopped by an Aurora police officer about 8:30 p.m. Oct. 18 near Indian Trail and Timberlake roads.

The police officer confiscated the cash, and the city has informed Martinez and his brother, Jose, 34, that Aurora will seek to keep it through civil forfeiture, a procedure that allows police agencies to seize property where the legal standard is lower than proof needed in a criminal forfeiture.

The brothers are home remodelers. Neither has been charged with a crime in this case, and neither has a criminal record, according to Kane County court records.

"I've never seen anything like this in 30 years of practice," said Aurora attorney Patrick Kinnally, who is representing the brothers.

A month after the stop, Kinnally filed a complaint arguing that Aurora had no right to keep the money. Eleven days after that, Kinnally and lawyers representing Aurora appeared before Kane County Circuit Judge Michael Colwell.

"Their lawyers basically said the city was going to file for forfeiture," Kinnally said. "The judge asked on what basis. The lawyer said, 'We don't know,' and the judge said: 'This is America. Give it back.'"

The judge ordered the city to return the $190,040, along with a month's interest and costs. But Kinnally said that when he brought the order to Aurora, the city refused to turn over the cash

Maybe they just really needed a new rec room at police headquarters . . .

CableGate: U.S.-Backed DynCorp Bought Drugs and Child Prostitutes For Police Recruits

2010-12-08T16:20:00.000-08:00

(I'm going to start posting links and snippets of interesting stories arising from the leaked cables.)

Cable Link: guardian.co.uk

Related Link: Houston Press

Many of DynCorp's employees are ex-Green Berets and veterans of other elite units, and the company was commissioned by the US government to provide training for the Afghani police. According to most reports, over 95 percent of its $2 billion annual revenue comes from US taxpayers.

And in Kunduz province, according to the leaked cable, that money was flowing to drug dealers and pimps. Pimps of children, to be more precise. (The exact type of drug was never specified.)

Since this is Afghanistan, you probably already knew this wasn't a kegger. Instead, this DynCorp soiree was a bacha bazi ("boy-play") party, much like the ones uncovered earlier this year by Frontline.

For those that can't or won't click the link, bacha bazi is a pre-Islamic Afghan tradition that was banned by the Taliban. Bacha boys are eight- to 15-years-old. They put on make-up, tie bells to their feet and slip into scanty women's clothing, and then, to the whine of a harmonium and wailing vocals, they dance seductively to smoky roomfuls of leering older men.

After the show is over, their services are auctioned off to the highest bidder, who will sometimes purchase a boy outright. And by services, we mean anal sex: The State Department has called bacha bazi a "widespread, culturally accepted form of male rape." (While it may be culturally accepted, it violates both Sharia law and Afghan civil code.)

It's not everyday you wake up to find that your taxes are being used to pay for child rape in foreign countries.

State Department Announces World Press Freedom Day!

2010-12-07T17:40:00.000-08:00

Seriously.

New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age.

This, right on the heel of Senator Lieberman suggesting that the New York Times be investigated for its role in CableGate. It's nice they are suddenly all about freedom of the press. Perhaps they are planning to bring it to the U.S. soon?

The Business of Forging Student Assignments

2010-11-16T00:01:00.000-08:00

Not government related, but extremely interesting nonetheless:

The Ghost Scholar

The article is about a man (and his team of 50 writers) who are paid by students to churn out college papers on every conceivable topic, from admission essays to graduate dissertations. If it doesn't turn out to be bogus, it's a great read.

State Kidnaps Child Over Bagel

2010-11-15T18:52:00.000-08:00

Gotta love the "war on drugs".

What's the obvious thing to do when a woman gives birth and her urine tests positive for "drugs"? Well, if you're Lawrence County, PA, the first thing you do is shows up at the parents' door and takes the child by force, and only after that do you figure out whether or not any drugs were actually involved, and whether or not the child was in any danger.

Then later, when you find out the woman simply had an "Everything" bagel from Dunkin' Donuts the day before, you say "Oops! What a silly misunderstanding!" and give the kid back all bashful like.

(Then you get sued by the ACLU, the taxpayer foots the bill for your incompetence, and you probably won't even get a reprimand! Teehee!)

TSA: Refusing to let us grope you? We'll fine you $10,000 for that!

2010-11-15T18:28:00.000-08:00

More TSA idiocy.

1. Man researches airport online and finds that the airport does not have nude-imaging machines installed.
2. Man shows up at airport and finds they do in fact have nude-imaging machines.
3. Man refuses to go through the nude-imaging machine, and have a pat down instead, but objects to the intention of the TSA to grope his crotch.
4. Man is told he can't fly and will have to leave, which he agrees to.
5. On the way out, he's intercepted and told he'll be fined $10,000 for leaving the line like they told him to in the first place.

And for a bonus, the people who made him leave won't be subject to any punishment at all (you know, because they are in charge and all).

Totally Hilarious: Obama = Keynesian?

2010-11-03T23:15:00.000-07:00

Hopefully not representative of the population at large, but hilarious nonetheless:

Talk About What A Great, Free Country We Live In, Or I'll Send You To Jail

2010-10-07T11:15:00.000-07:00

Apparently the irony of the above statement would be lost on Judge Littlejohn of Mississippi, who recently sent a lawyer to jail on contempt of court charges for failing to recite the pledge of allegiance.

In a just world, he'd be kicked off the bench for such an egregious decision before you could say "failure to uphold the constitution", but given the current state of our justice system, I'll just be happy if anyone bothers to call him on it.

Administration Threatens Insurers Whose Costs Contradict Administration Theory

2010-09-11T13:05:00.000-07:00

Health and Human Services has issued a letter to the insurance industry, promising "zero tolerance" for any insurer who dares to blame the administration for rising health insurance costs. You see, the white house has models to predict what should happen, and if it doesn't turn out that way in reality, then reality is the one in the wrong:

(Courtesy of The Volokh Conspiracy)

It has come to my attention that several health insurer carriers are sending letters to their enrollees falsely blaming premium increases for 2011 on the patient protections in the Affordable Care Act. I urge you to inform your members that there will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases....

According to our analysis and those of some industry and academic experts, any potential premium impact from the new consumer protections and increased quality provisions under the Affordable Care Act will be minimal.... Any premium increases will be moderated by out-of-pocket savings resulting from the law....

Given the importance of the new protections and the facts about their impact on costs, I ask for your help in stopping misinformation and scare tactics about the Affordable Care Act. Moreover, I want AHIP’s members to be put on notice: the Administration, in partnership with states, will not tolerate unjustified rate hikes in the name of consumer protections....

Already, my Department has provided 46 states with resources to strengthen the review and transparency of proposed premiums. Later this fall, we will issue a regulation that will require state or federal review of all potentially unreasonable rate increases filed by health insurers, with the justification for increases posted publicly for consumers and employers. We will also keep track of insurers with a record of unjustified rate increases: those plans may be excluded from health insurance Exchanges in 2014. Simply stated, we will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes and increased profits on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections....

It is my hope we can work together to stop misinformation and misleading marketing from the start....

"Nice health insurance company ya got there. Shame if anything were to happen to it . . ."

Arrested for Videotaping Police: Round 2

2010-09-10T11:58:00.000-07:00

This time, the man was in his own house while he recorded police officers who were "subduing" a college student outside who had allegedly pushed a police officer. The police arrested the camera operator for "disorderly conduct" for his "failure to disperse". No word on exactly where they wanted him to disperse to, since he was already in his house.

Just because what you are doing is perfectly legal doesn't mean they won't arrest you for something.

Spectacular Response by Gov. Chris Christie

2010-09-10T09:54:00.000-07:00

New Jersey governor Chris Christie gives a spectacular, detailed smackdown to a disgruntled member of a teacher's union:

Perhaps not relevant to most people's lives outside New Jersey, but I do enjoy seeing a politician answer questions in such a straightforward manner.

A Sobering Look at the World's Financial Future

2010-09-03T08:09:00.000-07:00

Illegally Confiscating Property and Detaining People is Okay . . .

2010-09-03T08:05:00.000-07:00

. . . says Philadelphia's Lt. Fran Healy, as long as "officers' safety" is involved.

Nice to see Philadelphia's police force "protecting and serving" themselves at the expense of the citizens. I'm sure the city will sleep easier knowing that their police force is spending its time and resource cracking down on such miscreants as uniformed security officers carrying perfectly legal concealed weapon permits.

Supreme Court Strikes Down Chicago Handgun Ban

2010-06-28T16:13:00.000-07:00

CNN: High Court Strikes Down Chicago Handgun Ban

In another dramatic victory for firearm owners, the Supreme Court has ruled unconstitutional Chicago, Illinois', 28-year-old strict ban on handgun ownership, a potentially far-reaching case over the ability of state and local governments to enforce limits on weapons.

A 5-4 conservative majority of justices on Monday reiterated its 2-year-old conclusion that the Constitution gives individuals equal or greater power than states on the issue of possession of certain firearms for self-protection.

"It cannot be doubted that the right to bear arms was regarded as a substantive guarantee, not a prohibition that could be ignored so long as states legislated in an evenhanded manner," wrote Justice Samuel Alito.

While encouraging, it isn't a complete victory. The standard used to reach this decision was not taken from the Privileges and Immunities clause of the constitution, which would have made state governments as beholden to the second amendment as the federal government, but from the Due Process clause, which simply means that the states cannot presumptively declare that a person cannot own a handgun, with no due process given.

The difference between the two standards is apparent if we use an analogy and change the amendment in question from the second to the first. Imagine Chicago had a law saying that you couldn't criticize any elected city official at any time. Also imagine, that when you went to the supreme court and challenged this law under the first amendment, they said "The first amendment really only applies to the federal government, and not to state and local government. However, we will limit them and say they can only restrict the speech of people through due process instead."

Sure, it's nice that they slapped down an obviously unconstitutional law, but at the same time they left the path wide open for other "lesser" restrictions of free speech. Instead of the "no one can ever criticize an elected city official" law, you get laws like "No convicted felon can ever criticize an elected city official" or "No one is permitted to criticize a city official in public" or "No one is permitted to use the following words when discussing a city official" and so on.

Better? yes. Fixed? Not by a long shot.

More "Heroic" Police Videos

2010-06-22T19:07:00.000-07:00

Police gun down a chained, subdued dog, then cite and fine the owner for failure to muzzle the "vicious animal" that "attacked" them:

Police tell grandma to put her dog in the bathroom while they search her house, then open the bathroom door and gun the dog down anyway:

Quiz time: Which of the following are vicious attack dogs, requiring police officers, when confronting the dog, to use immediate deadly force?

A.

D. All of the above.

Answer: D!

And lest you think I am engaging in hyperbole:
Jack Russel Terrier, Dachshund, Corgi

The Tax On Being Financially Responsible

2010-06-15T23:01:00.000-07:00

We live in a world of taxes. Everything you or I buy is subject to taxation, either specifically (as in gas and cigarette taxes) or in general (sales tax). We are taxed on our salaries (payroll tax), on our investments (capital gains tax), and even on death (the estate tax). Each of these taxes hits different segments of the population more-so than others, depending on things such as income, net worth, and even personal habits.

But there is another tax, relatively unknown but extremely insidious, that targets only the financially responsible. Before we get into the specifics of that tax, however, I should define exactly what I mean by financially responsibility, since the tax affects each category differently. In my opinion, there are three types of people when it comes to finances:

The first type of people are what I will call the "financially irresponsible". These are the people that spend more than they make, have a chronic lack of cash in the bank, and rack up a large amount of unsecured debt.

The second type of people are what I will call "financially on-the-fence". These are the people that spend exactly as much as they earn. No more, no less. When the first unexpected bill arrives (e.g. car repair, medical deductible, etc.), they will often fall, if only temporarily, into the first category,.

The third type of people, as you might have guessed, are the "financially responsible". They not only refrain from going into debt, but also consistently put money away into a "rainy day" fund, either for emergency situations or retirement.

The financially responsible are the bedrock of banking industry, being the least likely to default on any loans they do take on (e.g. mortgages), so it may surprise you to learn that this mysterious tax not only targets the financially responsible, but actually works to the advantage of the financially irresponsible! What is this tax, you ask?

I'll call it the "Fed Tax".

As you may have surmised, I'm talking about the Federal Reserve. Most people don't really have a grasp of how the Federal Reserve works, so before I can explain the tax to you in detail, we'll start with a primer on central banking.

As (I hope) most people know, the bank itself does not keep on-hand 100% of the money it takes from you in deposits. Banks make money by taking the money you deposit, and loaning it out to people and businesses that need it and can afford, in the bank's estimation, to pay it back with interest. Obviously, they can't loan all of it out at once, or there would be nothing to give you when you come into the bank to make a withdrawal. Banks, therefore, keep a small percentage of total funds on hand to accommodate these day-to-day transactions. This is known as fractional-reserve banking, and the minimum reserve percentage a bank must keep on hand (typically 10%) is mandated by the Federal Reserve, for banks in the US.

Sometimes, however, after making a loan, a bank finds that it does not have this minimum reserve amount on-hand. In this case, the bank with too little reserves may take out a loan from another bank that does have reserves in excess of the minimum. The weighted average of the interest rates on all of these loans across the banking industry is known as the federal funds rate. Like any economic scenario, this rate is subject to supply and demand. If a bank has a large reserve on-hand, the price of borrowing money from them (the interest rate) goes down. Likewise, if a bank has very little reserve cash on hand, the price of borrowing that money from the bank goes up. So we can see that if all banks in the system have little cash on hand, the federal funds rate (being the average of all transactions) will be high.

In a situation where there is little to no money to borrow in the banking system as a whole, and the interest rates for such loans are high, what is a bank under the reserve minimum to do? This is where the Federal Reserve comes in. The Federal Reserve may lend money to a bank to increase its liquidity. This allows the Federal Reserve to manipulate the federal funds rate, since the liquidity of the system as a whole is the major factor in the interest rate at which banks loan to one another.

Where does the Federal Reserve get the money to loan? The answer, as you may have guessed, is "Nowhere". Some might say that the Federal Reserve simply "prints" the money, but this is not literally the case in the modern banking system. In simple terms, the Federal Reserve just adds some zeros to the accounts of the banks in question. Whether by printing money or adding zeros, however, the result is the same: inflation.

Inflation, of course, is the devaluing of a currency, a decrease in the purchasing power of the money in your pocket. What would buy a certain amount of a good yesterday now buys less of that good today. The new, lower value of your money is inversely proportional to the amount of new money "printed". Simplistically, if the Federal Reserve were to double the total amount of money in the system, the money in your pocket would then be worth half of what it was before.

"But wait!" I hear you say, "Isn't that the same as if the Federal Reserve had simply taken half my money directly out of my bank account?" The answer, of course, is yes. And notice both where that money goes, and who it impacts the most.

As to where it goes: In essence, the Federal Reserve takes the money from you and gives it to the banks. The banks then use their newfound liquidity to loan that money back to you, with demands for interest. Also note that your decreased purchasing power makes it more likely that you will require such loans from the banks.

Also note the group it impacts most: The people with the most money in the bank. The "financially responsible" group is hit hardest, since they have the most money to devalue. The "financially on-the-fence" are not impacted at all, since they have no money to devalue. The "financially irresponsible", on the other hand actually gain when this happens, since their debts are worth less due to the reduced value of the dollar!

And now you know of the Fed Tax.

"Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose." - John Maynard Keynes

(Note also that the artificial manipulation of interest rates by the Federal Reserve can cause other economic problems, since low interest rates represent "cheap money" to people looking to make long term investments. Since the increased liquidity of the banks is not due to people having built up excess savings, but instead is due to people having been divested of their savings by subterfuge, this temporary "bubble" in economic development meets reality when there is no consumer on the other end with cash to spend on the results. Oops.)

SWAT Raids Revisited

2010-06-14T20:26:00.000-07:00

The second "Related Reading" link on a previous post (SWAT Teams: Non-Proportional Response) about the increasing militarization of our nation's SWAT teams contained a situation where a SWAT team on a "drug raid" showed up in force at a family's house in the dark, went in guns first, shot the family's two dogs (one of which was caged, and the other was a Corgi) in front of the couple's children, found only a small amount of marijuana, and still had the gall to charge the parents with child endangerment when all was said and done.

A video of the raid is now available on YouTube:

I have to say that if I had the choice between having either the potheads or the SWAT team members as my next door neighbors, I'd take the potheads. They're much less likely to break into my house in the middle of the night to discharge automatic weapons into my harmless family pets in full view of my children. What heroes.

(And then there's Detroit, where a SWAT team set a 7-year old on fire with a flashbang grenade, then fatally shot her in front of her grandmother. A video crew was with the police there too, but given how protective law enforcement is of video evidence showing off their colossal screwups, I have my doubts as to whether or not it will ever see the light of day.)

Senate Primary Hilarity

2010-06-10T20:43:00.000-07:00

He's unemployed, he lives with his parents, he's under investigation for federal pornography charges, and he just won the Democratic primary for the South Carolina Senate seat with 59% of the vote. He's Alvin Greene.

He has no website, he held no campaign events, and despite being unemployed mysteriously ponied up the $10k required for a filing fee to run. His interviews with the press after this startling upset have been terrificly bad.

James Clyburn (D-SC) for the House has gone as far as to call him a Republican plant (South Carolina has open primaries), and has demanded an investigation by the U.S. attorney and the FEC.

God bless America . . .

Land of the Mostly Free

2010-06-09T19:30:00.000-07:00

Some interesting charts from the Center for Economic and Policy Research on the incarceration rate in the US compared to other countries:

And lest you think that perhaps we imprison so many people out of necessity, the following chart should shock you:

Sure, we're killing and stealing less, but little things like that won't stop the government from finding reasons to lock people up.

On-Duty Officers Have Expectation of Privacy When They Pull You Over . . .

2010-05-29T16:57:00.000-07:00

. . . but you don't. At least, that's the theory being proposed by Maryland officials. And that expectation of privacy is the difference between a legal videotape that embarrasses the police and a 5-year felony charge for illegal surveillance.

While Anthony Graber was videotaping (via helmet cam) his reckless motorcycle stunt driving, a man exits a vehicle, pulls out a gun, and rushes at him. As it turns out, that man was a plain-clothes police officer, though it takes him a while to identify himself.

If you think it seems like a bit of an overreaction to pull a gun during a traffic stop, so did Anthony. He posted his helmet-cam video to YouTube. In a normal world, perhaps the police would have used this as a teaching moment to instruct their officers in how not to make a traffic stop. In bizarro-world Maryland, however what the police do is raid your house at 6:45 in the morning, turn it upside down, and arrest you for felony eavesdropping.

The kicker? It's only illegal to record someone in Maryland if they have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Does a police officer have an expectation of privacy while on the job, with his gun drawn, in full view of the public, and with a conspicuous helmet-camera trained on him? I don't think you could find a single reasonable person who would argue that they do. In fact, the Maryland Attorney General has argued against the expectation of privacy when dealing with the police:

It is also notable that many encounters between uniformed police officers and citizens could hardly be characterized as “private conversations.” For example, any driver pulled over by a uniformed officer in a traffic stop is acutely aware that his or her statements are being made to a police officer and, indeed, that they may be repeated as evidence in a courtroom. It is difficult to characterize such a conversation as “private.”

So if the justice department of Maryland doesn't consider police encounters "private", why did they arrest him? The answer is simple: contempt of cop. You embarrass them, they put you in jail, by any means necessary. Even the judge who signed off on the illegal warrant to search the house declined to put his name on it for "privacy" reasons.

I could have been worse for the department, I suppose. The officer could have lied about drawing his gun, the police could had categorically denied everything, and then a video could have surfaced.

But it could have been worse for Anthony too. He could have been Jack McKenna, who was charged with disorderly conduct after police beat him during a post-game celebration. When the surveillance video of the park was requested, the camera pointed at the corner where Jack was beaten had mysteriously gone missing. Later, when the police did "find" the footage, another mysterious "technical error" had deleted a key two minutes of the beating. Coincidentally, the woman who heads campus surveillance happens to be married to one of the officers involved in the beating. Luckily for Jack, there were other recordings made by people at the scene, or it is likely he would now be in jail, since the police initially claimed that he had thrown things at the horse, and that he was injured when the horse "kicked" him.

Land of the free indeed.

Supreme Court Says Government Can Hold Prisoners Indefinitely After Sentence is Completed

2010-05-18T08:35:00.000-07:00

NY Times Link

Of course, right now it only applies to "sexually dangerous" people, because presumably that's the hardest group of offenses for people to argue against (won't somebody think of the children??), but I think we can all see that if it can arbitrarily apply to one kind of crime, it can and will eventually be extended to others.

Also note that the case in question involved a man convicted not for sexually abusing anyone, but for receiving child pornography. Surely, if there's one crime that justifies giving the federal government the power to detain citizens indefinitely even after they have served their time, a person watching illegal videos is it.

Economist Rap

2010-04-30T11:08:00.000-07:00

Well done, sirs. Well done.

The quotes by Keynes and Hayek at the end are truly excellent:

"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist." - John Maynard Keynes

"The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." - F.A. Hayek

GM Declares Success, Pays Back Government Loan With Government Money

2010-04-29T07:55:00.000-07:00

I have seen some gloating in the previous week by people who believe GM's "early" loan payback is proof that government bailouts work, and that concerns from enraged citizens who are being taxed to bankroll GM's ineptitude are unfounded. It's time to set the record straight on this point.

As noted in the article, the government bailed out GM to the tune of $49.5 billion. However, of that amount, only $6.7 billion was a pure loan (the rest was the government buying equity stake in the company). When GM says it paid back its loan, it is only talking about the $6.7 billion, not the full amount.

"But wait!" I hear you say, "GM is still posting losses! How did they get the cash to pay back even the $6.7 billion loan?" That's a good question, and it has an easy answer: They took the cash from their government-created escrow account. In other words, they used government money to pay back their government loan. Hardly a ringing success story, though you won't see it mentioned in all the TV spots and political campaigning.

(Furthermore, if Shikha Dalmia's predictions are correct, they may have only done this to be in a better position to secure even more government money.)

Legalized Theft: And You Thought Taxes Were Bad

2010-04-26T10:07:00.000-07:00

What rights do you have to your property, and what do the police need to legally take that property from you? Do you think you have the right to be convicted of a crime first? Do you think that you should at least be charged with a crime first?

The answer to those questions may surprise you. In fact, the police need neither a conviction nor even a criminal charge to seize your property. The name of the game is "civil asset forfeiture", and police across the nation are waking up to the fact that it's a lucrative business. It starts out simply enough: Laws are passed that allow police to confiscate property they suspect was acquired as the gains of unlawful activity. For example, if you deal drugs and pay for a sweet new ride with the proceeds from your drug selling, the police can confiscate the car. Most people never see the twisted side of these laws, a side that enables police officers to take the property of law-abiding citizens without anything approaching the kind of evidence that would be permissible in a criminal court case.

Many of these cases require nothing but a showing of "probable cause", the police are allowed to use hearsay as evidence, and the accused has no recourse but to attempt to prove his innocence (and here you thought that you were innocent until proven guilty). Even if you win, the state is likely to keep a portion of the forfeited property as a fee or demand a fee to return your property to you, not to mention that you will be out quite a bit of cash for court costs that the state has no obligation to repay. Add to this the fact that the police are usually the recipients of these forfeited assets, and you have a situation in which the police have a perverse incentive not to confiscate just the proceeds of illegal activity, but instead everything they can get their hands on.

Here are just some examples:

Example: Officers initiate legal proceedings to confiscate $17,500 from a motorist because a drug dog indicated that drugs might be found in his car. Upon a search, no drugs were found, and the man was never charged with any crime. The police took the money anyway.

Examples: A woman waiting for her friend to pick her up from the bank allegedly "makes eye-contact" with a passing motorist. When her friend finally comes to pick her up, the police charge her with soliciting prostitution and her car is seized. A man has his van seized because police says he "slowed down" in front of a known drug house. No drugs were found in the van.

Example: A man sells a truck to another man on credit. The buyer goes to jail for a DUI charge. The police seize the truck for themselves, even though they were made aware the buyer of the truck was not the owner of the title.

And then there's just plain robbery:

Law enforcement authorities in this East Texas town of 1,000 people seized property from at least 140 motorists between 2006 and 2008, and, to date, filed criminal charges against fewer than half, according to a review of court documents by the San Antonio Express-News.

Virtually anything of value was up for grabs: cash, cell phones, personal jewelry, a pair of sneakers, and often, the very car that was being driven through town.

Some affidavits filed by officers relied on the presence of seemingly innocuous property as the only evidence that a crime had occurred.

Linda Dorman, an Akron, Ohio, great-grandmother had $4,000 in cash taken from her by local authorities when she was stopped while driving through town after visiting Houston in April 2007. Court records make no mention that anything illegal was found in her van. She’s still hoping for the return of what she calls “her life savings.”

(...)

Guillory alleges in the lawsuit that while his clients were detained, they were presented with an ultimatum: waive your rights to your property in exchange for a promise to be released and not be criminally charged.

It doesn't stop at the state level, either. The ATF has had Leathermans distributed to its officers with the words "Always Think Forfeiture" engraved on them.

It just goes to show you what the government is concerned with these days. It's not about bringing criminals to justice, it's not about preventing crimes, it's about drudging up revenue in any way possible.

(For further reading, this would be a good place to start.)

The Coming California Meltdown

2010-04-20T17:55:00.000-07:00

Oh, California, how I love thee. Every time I think about the incompetence of all the innumerable and unaccountable layers of government above me, I can at least take solace in one simple fact: It could be worse. I could live in California.

If anyone has been paying attention lately, California is in big trouble. They are basically bankrupt, but without the legal means to declare bankruptcy. One of the glaring missteps in California's long list of financial mismanagements has been its capitulation to the outrageous demands of the public employee unions, which are now crippling the state.

An enlightening article on the topic:

The unions’ political triumphs have molded a California in which government workers thrive at the expense of a struggling private sector. The state’s public school teachers are the highest-paid in the nation. Its prison guards can easily earn six-figure salaries. State workers routinely retire at 55 with pensions higher than their base pay for most of their working life. Meanwhile, what was once the most prosperous state now suffers from an unemployment rate far steeper than the nation’s and a flood of firms and jobs escaping high taxes and stifling regulations. This toxic combination—high public-sector employee costs and sagging economic fortunes—has produced recurring budget crises in Sacramento and in virtually every municipality in the state.

The article is long, but well worth reading in its entirety. It highlights some of the perils of unions in the public sector. Private sector unions walk a delicate tight-rope with the corporations with which they bargain. If they aren't careful, they can bargain themselves right out of a job. The market has a means to correct such over-zealous bargaining: bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is costly for everyone involved, but it wipes the slate clean and allows the economy to rid itself of inefficiencies and misappropriations.

But if your boss is the government, and bankruptcy isn't an option, what do you do when the state ends up with an empty wallet? California is about to find out.

That is, California will find out if they don't first get bailed out by the federal government (And let me tell you, as a Florida taxpayer, there's nothing I'd love more than to spend a portion of my day working to subsidize California's over-stuffed union coffers!) Will the federal government do it? I don't know. If you listened to Obama's recent fundraising speech in California, you would have heard him extol the state as the role model that the other states should follow in hoisting ourselves out of the recession.

I guess if spending your way into insolvency is the method by which we can achieve economic prosperity (and all evidence suggests that Obama himself believes that is is), then perhaps with their own irresponsible spending, the other great states of this union can also look forward to a 12.6% unemployment rate.

Crippled Boy Told to Remove Leg Braces At Airport Metal Detector

2010-04-12T14:10:00.000-07:00

I think the story speaks for itself:

The boy is developmentally delayed, one of the effects of being born 16 weeks prematurely. His ankles are malformed and his legs have low muscle tone. In March he was just starting to walk.

Mid-morning on March 19, his parents wheeled his stroller to the TSA security point, a couple of hours before their Southwest Airlines flight was to depart.

The boy's father broke down the stroller and put it on the conveyor belt as Leona Thomas walked Ryan through the metal detector.

The alarm went off.

The screener told them to take off the boy's braces.

The Thomases were dumbfounded. "I told them he can't walk without them on his own," Bob Thomas said.

"He said, 'He'll need to take them off.' "

Ryan's mother offered to walk him through the detector after they removed the braces, which are custom-made of metal and hardened plastic.

No, the screener replied. The boy had to walk on his own.

That's the TSA for you: Protecting us from the 4 year-old crippled terrorist children of active police officers everywhere.

By then, Bob Thomas was furious. He demanded to see a supervisor. The supervisor asked what was wrong.

"I told him, 'This is overkill. He's 4 years old. I don't think he's a terrorist.' "

The supervisor replied, "You know why we're doing this," Thomas said.

Feel safe yet?

Federal Court Says Tasering of Pregnant Woman Was Justified

2010-03-29T13:52:00.000-07:00

The story goes like this: A woman is pulled over for doing 32 MPH in a school zone. She contends that it was the car in front of her that was speeding, and therefore she refuses to sign the ticket (being under the incorrect impression that it would be tantamount to admitting guilt).

Now, as the police officer on the scene, you have two options. You can (A) give her the ticket anyway and send her on her way (it is not required that the driver sign the ticket) or (B) attempt to arrest her and tase her when she refuses to get out of the car. The police opted for second strategy, naturally, and now the court has sided with the officers, saying that the tasing was justified as a response to her resisting arrest. The problem is, as the dissenting judge notes, that failure to sign a traffic ticket is not an offense you can be arrested for, and you can't be charged with resisting arrest if the arrest itself is unlawful.

For me, however, the issue is much more basic: The use of tasers by police was billed as a less-injurious, non-lethal method of incapacitating an unruly suspect than a standard police baton. Therefore, the test for whether or not to use a taser on someone is as simple as: "If I didn't have the taser, would I hit them with my baton instead?" Unfortunately, since it usually leaves little or no obvious injuries, the taser is now often used not as a method to subdue dangerous suspects, but instead as an all-purpose "do as I say" device and in situations where no danger to the officers is present.

Would we, as a society, as readily accept the use of a police baton in cases like this across the country? Would the court find the use of a baton on a pregnant mother accused of speeding "justified"? I would hope not, but I've been surprised before.

Health Care "Reform" Passes: Will it Reform Anything?

2010-03-25T13:24:00.000-07:00

If the major goals of this bill were to allow coverage for all citizens, and simultaneously reduce the price of that coverage, my prediction is that this bill will fail spectacularly on both counts, and indeed could make things considerably worse than they are now. There are two key parts of the bill that turn the current system on its head:

The first part requires insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions. This means, for example, that someone who has smoked two packs a day for thirty years cannot be denied health insurance for his newly discovered lung cancer, even if he has never paid a dime into the insurance system previously. This is obviously very bad for insurance companies, since the incentive to buy insurance before a major health crisis hits is effectively removed. With everybody signing up to take money out of the system, but no one signing up to put money in, insurance companies would be unable to operate.

To attempt to fix this problem, the bill introduces a new "individual mandate" that requires all citizens to buy health insurance or face a fine (to be filed with your tax return each year). This fine starts at 1% of your income, or $90, whichever is higher. By 2016, the fine will be 2.5% of your income, or $695, whichever is higher. The goal, of course, is to force healthy people into paying into the system so their insurance premiums can subsidize the sick people taking money out of the system.

There is a huge practical problem with this plan (not including any philosophical, moral, or constitutional objections, which abound as well). The problem is incentive; the fine is too low. First, it should be said that I make a pretty good living as a software engineer and that I get group discount health insurance through my employer, so when I say that 2.5% of my income is less than I spend on health insurance currently, the next question that should pop into your head is "Then why wouldn't you just drop your coverage and pay the fine each year?" That's an excellent question, and given that most people make less than me and pay more for coverage, it's a question that's going to be going through many peoples' minds. The second issue with the fine is that it is not currently enforceable. If I don't pay up at tax time, I'm not subject to any penalty.

What's the practical upshot of all this? It will make more sense to just pay the government fine each year (or not), and only get insurance right when you need it. The result of this is that less people will be covered. And what happens when fewer healthy people are paying into the system? The people who do get insurance will pay a much higher premium. And when premiums go up, what happens? It makes dropping coverage and just paying the government fine a more attractive option for many people. Notice the self-perpetuating cycle here; the more people opt out, the more it makes sense to opt out.

Only time will tell, of course, but it seems to me that the system is unsustainable, even in the short term.

Corporatist Threats: Real and Imagined

2010-03-14T19:53:00.000-07:00

The threat of corporatism (defined here as a state of politics where corporations are pulling the strings of government) is a ongoing threat to most people, including free-market adherents such as myself. But many times, it seems that some fiercely discussed threats are simply imagined, while real threats slip beneath the radar. In this post, I'd like to highlight what I feel is an example of each category, the recent Citizens United ruling by the Supreme Court, and New York's eminent domain landgrab.

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Citizens United
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The story, for those who don't know, goes like this: A non-profit entity called Citizens United made a movie criticizing Hillary Clinton. Under the McCain-Feingold Act, corporations and unions are prohibited from airing any speech that could be regarded as attempting to influence an election ("electioneering communication") within 30 days of a primary or 60 days of a general election. As the movie made by Citizens United was to be shown before the 2008 Democratic primaries, the FEC prohibited its release. Citizens United took the FEC to court over the issue, and the Supreme Court recently ruled in the favor of Citizens United, striking down the McCain-Feingold ban on corporation funded speech.

This Supreme Court decision was met with strong criticism by many, including President Obama, who said that the decision "gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington - while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates." There are even calls by politicians and groups to amend the constitution itself to make this type of speech illegal. Does this ruling really destroy the first amendment, as some are claiming? Will it usher in a new era of corporatism and bought elections?

Personally, I'm shocked that anyone would think so! Here we had government censors prohibiting a group of citizens from speaking out on an election issue, and when the court intervenes on constitutional grounds, we consider it sad day for democracy? How does restricting a group of people from speaking enhance free speech? As Judge Clarence Thomas notes, there are already corporations who do this year after year with no restriction: we call them the media. The major newspapers are happy to come out and endorse candidates and politicians in their editorials, but when they write about the recent supreme court case, they apparently believe other groups should be censored. Does this reek of hypocrisy to you too?

This quote from Thomas really sums up the issue:

“If 10 of you got together and decided to speak, just as a group, you’d say you have First Amendment rights to speak and the First Amendment right of association. If you all then formed a partnership to speak, you’d say we still have that First Amendment right to speak and of association. But what if you put yourself in a corporate form?"

Indeed. I see this as an imagined threat, not a real one. More free speech is never a bad thing.

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Atlantic Yards
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Ah, eminent domain, the ability of the government to take your property for "public use".Originally, "public use" was constrained to things like roads and other infrastructure items. With the Kelo ruling in 2005, however, eminent domain was expanded to include anything in the "public interest" (Would a shopping mall serve public interest more than your house? Pack your bags!) And now, eminent domain rears its ugly head again in New York.

Bruce Ratner, a billionaire real estate tycoon, had a problem. You see, he purchased the Nets and wanted to relocate them to New York, but the land on which he wanted to build the stadium was not easily purchased. Not only were more than half of the necessary 22 acres owned by various private parties, but 8 acres were owned by the Metro Transit Authority, and for icing on the cake, his proposal would have violated numerous zoning restrictions.

To anyone else, these might seem like insurmountable odds, but to a politically well-connected person like Ratner, the solution was simple: Have your friends in government take the land by force from the private citizens via eminent domain, nullify the zoning laws in your favor, and secretly negotiate and bid for the MTA land. Voila! Instant ~~private profit~~ public use. The NY Supreme Court has declined to rule in this case, as it does not see how is is "primarily a judicial exercise" to determine if the use of eminent domain was proper in this case (although I'm sure it has, for example, no problem determining if a police search was lawful. Funny how that selective blindness works.). So for now, the owners of some of these properties have chained themselves to said property in civil protest.
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Which is the true case of corporatism that people should be up in arms over? I know where my vote goes.

Minority Report: Not a Documentary

2010-03-12T08:46:00.000-08:00

Someone should tell the Medford police department before they take anyone else into custody for pre-crime.

Story here.

To sum up an already short story, an ODOT worker was placed on administrative leave for being "disgruntled". While on leave he purchased several guns, which raised a red flag with the police. The next logical step? Obviously, send a SWAT team to surround his house, evacuate the neighborhood, "negotiate" with him to get him outside, take him into custody for a mental evaluation, and confiscate his guns for "safekeeping". The charges? Well, there aren't any. (Did you think the police needed something like charges to storm your house with a SWAT team, confiscate your property and take you away? What an archaic notion . . . )

It will be interesting to see if he ever gets his guns back, or if the police keep them "safe" for him on a more permanent basis.

Things Nancy Pelosi Has Taught Me About Government

2010-03-10T16:02:00.000-08:00

1. Politicians need the "courage" to pass laws over the objections of the American people they claim to serve. (Link)
2. Politicians need to pass laws first so we can examine them later to make sure they make sense. (Link)
3. Bipartisan support doesn't mean getting votes from the other party. (Link)

Oddly enough, I don't remember any of those lessons from my federal government class. Maybe I was sick that day . . .

SWAT Teams: Non-Proportional Response

2010-03-04T20:30:00.000-08:00

This one requires some back story (story here, and it's a disturbing read, though I suggest you do so). The short version is below:

In 2008, a drug dog at the post office sniffed out some marijuana in a box addressed to the residence of one Cheye Calvo. The police delivered the box to the doorstep, then waited until Cheye, coming back from walking his two dogs, found the package and brought it into the house. A SWAT team followed after him, kicking in his front door, shooting his two black labs dead (one as it ran away), and leaving him and his wife handcuffed on the floor for hours while they trashed his house looking for illegal substances. After destroying his home and killing his pets, the police left with one piece of evidence: the very box of marijuana they had placed on his doorstep in the first place.

You see, Calvo was the mayor of the town. Additionally, the police had long been aware that drug dealers were shipping their drugs through the post office to unwitting homeowners, hoping to snatch the package off their doorstep before the residents were aware it had ever been there. And if that wasn't bad enough, not only did the police apparently do no research before strapping on their automatic weapons and kicking in Calvo's door, but they outright lied afterwards about what had happened in an attempt to save face (Luckily for Calvo, a local police officer had arrived on the scene to see what all the fuss was about, and stuck around just to make sure the truth wasn't lost in the shuffle). The sheriff has since refused to admit that any mistake was made, or that any policy corrections needed to take place.

In the wake of this incident, Calvo used his story, over the strenuous objections of law enforcement, to get a bill passed that would force the police to release statistics detailing how many times the SWAT team was used, and in what capacity. Think the misuse of the SWAT team in Calvo's case was an isolated incident? Think again. The first results were released earlier this week.

The SWAT teams of Maryland were sent out an average of 4.5 times a day (806 raids in 6 months). While SWAT teams were originally created to deal with high risk situations such as bank robberies and hostage taking, 94% of those 806 raids were used to serve simple search and arrest warrants. When did heavily-armed, no-knock raids become so pervasive in our society, especially for minor criminal offenses such as suspected drug possession?

The notion of "better that ten guilty men go free, than one innocent suffer" is quickly being replaced by "better that a few innocent people and their pets are shot dead, than a stoner is allowed to flush his stash before the police can nab him".

Scary stuff.

More Related Reading Here:
1. The Agitator: Ex-Cop Chides Calvo for Questioning the Cops Who Nearly Killed Him
2. Reason: SWAT Team Endangers Child, Parents Charged With Child Endangerment
3. Cato: Wrong Door

9th Circuit Court: 4th Amendment is Just A Suggestion

2010-03-02T22:42:00.000-08:00

The 9th circuit court (not especially known for exercising good judgement in the past) has recently decided that the police can conduct a search of a person's home without any justification at all. The majority decision can be found here. An excerpt:

"The officers continued to tell Lemus to come out, but Lemus instead started to walk into the apartment. The officers were there in an instant, taking hold of Lemus and handcuffing him before he could fully enter the doorway and retreat into his living room.

Detective Longoria thought he’d better check to make sure no one was hiding out in the apartment. He sent Gerardo and Orozco in. They scanned the living room, and didn’t see anyone. Just a couch and a TV. Checked the bedroom and bathroom too. Negative. Lemus was alone.

Diaz, in the living room, got Detective Longoria’s attention. Wasn’t there something sticking out from the couch? Detective Longoria thought it looked like the butt of a weapon. Since Lemus was a felon, having a gun would be a crime. Detective Longoria lifted the couch cushion to make sure, and confirmed that it was a semi-automatic handgun. It was later determined to be a Sturm and Ruger, 9 millimeter.

Detective Longoria let the cushion fall. He thought he should get a search warrant before touching the gun—he didn’t want to lose the chance to seize it. He left the officers at the scene to keep things secure, and headed back to the station. The warrant was issued, and the Ruger was seized."

So the police, by their own account, arrested this man outside his house, searched his house without a warrant, probable cause, or exigent circumstances, found incriminating evidence against him, and only then pursued a warrant so they could come back and claim what they had found. As the dissenting judge in the case notes (dissenting opinion here), this is in clear contradiction to the purpose of the 4th amendment.

The dissenting Chief Judge Kozinski, writes:

This is an extraordinary case: Our court approves, without blinking, a police sweep of a person’s home without a warrant, without probable cause, without reasonable suspicion and without exigency—in other words, with nothing at all to support the entry except the curiosity police always have about what they might find if they go rummaging around a suspect’s home. Once inside, the police managed to turn up a gun “in plain view”—stuck between two cushions of the living room couch—and we reward them by upholding the search.

Did I mention that this was an entry into somebody’s home, the place where the protections of the Fourth Amendment are supposedly at their zenith? The place where the “government bears a heavy burden of demonstrating that exceptional circumstances justif[y] departure from the warrant requirement.”
United States v. Licata, 761 F.2d 537, 543 (9th Cir. 1985). The place where warrantless searches are deemed “presumptively unreasonable.” Payton v. New York, 445 U.S. 573, 586 (1980).

Government encroachment into the home, which I lamented three years ago in United States v. Black, 482 F.3d 1044, 1045-46 (9th Cir. 2007) (Kozinski, J., dissenting from the denial of rehearing en banc), has continued, abetted by the creative collaborators of the courts. This is another example: The panel goes to considerable lengths to approve a fishing expedition by four police officers inside Lemus’s home after he was arrested just outside it. The opinion misapplies Supreme Court precedent, conflicts with our own case law and is contrary to the great weight of authority in the other circuits. It is also the only case I know of, in any jurisdiction covered by the Fourth Amendment, where invasion of the home has been approved based on no showing whatsoever. Nada. Gar nichts. Rien du tout. Bupkes.

Whatever may have been left of the Fourth Amendment after Black is now gone. The evisceration of this crucial constitutional protector of the sanctity and privacy of what Americans consider their castles is pretty much complete.

Welcome to the fish bowl.

One amendment down. We'll see if they can manage to gut a few more before the year is out.

The Beginning

2010-03-02T22:11:00.000-08:00

This is my first attempt at something of this nature. Mostly, I just want a place to collect and record my thoughts on current political events, and given how fast-paced news comes and goes in this area, a blog seemed to be the most practical method.

If you're wondering about the name, it comes from a recent conversation I had (on a topic that I will no doubt repost here shortly). One respondent explained that he didn't find anything wrong with situations in which law enforcement officers perform illegal searches of a person's home, so long as they eventually get the criminals they were after. Another poster fired back with the gem "So you want to play Calvinball? In the courtroom?" (In case you are not familiar with the brilliant work of the Bill Watterson, I direct your attention here.)

I found this analogy so perfect that I decided to appropriate it for my own use. In a time when all three branches of our government seem intent on sacrificing boundary for expediency, we are all truly at the mercy of courtroom Calvinball.