Archive for the 'Politics' Category

Reason.

An Arizona bill requiring police and prosecutors to get a criminal conviction before they could attempt to force defendants to forfeit their assets died Thursday at the hands of a bloc of mostly Democratic lawmakers.

Civil asset forfeiture is a mechanism that lets law enforcement seize and keep the assets of people believed to have committed crimes. Many states do not require defendants to actually be convicted—or sometimes even charged—with a crime before police take their property. People are thus put in the position of having to prove their innocence in order to get the money back, subverting due process. Meanwhile, police agencies keep the money they seize and sell the other property they take, thus filling in gaps in their budgets.

This leads inevitably to corruption, as cops look for a pretext to stop people, search them or their vehicles, and—if they find large sums of cash or other valuable property—claim it simply must be proceeds from drug trafficking and try to keep it for themselves. This process was sold to the public as a way to fight drug cartels and other criminal kingpins, but in reality most forfeitures are for relatively small amounts taken from underprivileged people who lack the resources to fight back.

[ … ]

What’s extremely unusual is for all the Democrats to vote against a forfeiture reform bill, especially after the same legislation passed out of the Senate unanimously. In their explanation for why they voted no, a couple of legislators said the quiet part loud: The pandemic is hurting government budgets, and they don’t want to give up the revenue.

Dam the constitution and due process rights.  Money is money, and if it’s gotten immorally, then so be it.

We are rulers.  “All of your money are belong to us.”

Politico.

A federal judge on Sunday dismantled Florida’s restrictive felon voting rights law in a ruling that could open the door to hundreds of thousands of new voters being added to rolls just ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle declared key portions of the state’s felon voting law unconstitutional, ordering the state to put in place a new process that would help people register to vote in the state.

And just like that, he likely handed Florida to the democrats in the upcoming election.

Plan accordingly.

News from Missouri.

Relatives of one of three people shot to death in Springfield in 2018 are suing Academy Sports and Outdoors for selling bullets to a woman who gave them to the man charged in the killings.

The lawsuit alleges a worker at Academy Sports in Springfield should have realized the woman who bought the bullets, Nyadia Burden, intended to give them to Luiz Perez. The 24-year-old Perez couldn’t buy ammunition because he was in the country illegally, had no driver’s license and was facing felony charges, according to police. The lawsuit also names Burden.

Perez is facing the death penalty in the Oct. 31, 2018, deaths of his ex-roommates, 38-year-old Steven Marler and 23-year-old Aaron “Josh” Hampton, and the wounding of two others. Prosecutors allege he fatally shot Sabrina Starr, 21, the next day. She had provided him with the gun he used, police said.

The lawsuit alleges that Perez, Burden and Aaron Anderson went to Academy Sports after a Walmart worker refused to sell them bullets.

The lawsuit contends Academy employees did not try to determine whether Perez was legally able to buy ammunition, even though it was clear that Perez and Burden were together, The Springfield News-Leader reported. He handed her the box of bullets and gave her $20 to pay.

A spokeswoman for Texas-based Academy Sports did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

Federal immigration authorities said in 2018 that Perez should have faced deportation proceedings after a previous arrest in Middlesex County, New Jersey, but he was released because the Immigration and Customs Enforcement request didn’t meet the county’s required criteria.

Perez was charged with three counts of first-degree murder. Anderson was charged with being an accessory to first-degree murder and Burden pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder.

The lawsuit was filed May 1 on behalf of Hampton’s parents and son. The relatives are asking for compensation for pain and suffering and for costs such as funeral expenses.

Hampton’s family’s attorney, Craig Heidemann, said the family respects people’s right to bear arms but wants to encourage firearm dealers to obey regulations designed to keep guns and ammunition out of the wrong hands.

This is an interesting case but not really dissimilar from the one faced by Remington (in Connecticut) or by Daniel Defense (in Nevada).

Follow me.  To begin with, this would never have happened if illegals were not allowed in the country.  The very same courts that prevent the deportation of illegals and find virtually every immigration law unconstitutional complain about guns when one of them uses a weapon to commit a crime.  The fault is never the person or system of laws.

Second, the point should be made that even if our borders were secured, this could still happen.  The fact that it happened due to an illegal isn’t relevant to the case.  A gun shop can no more ensure that guns or ammunition aren’t used for nefarious purposes than a car dealership can ensure that the buyer won’t use a new vehicle to intentionally run over people.

And yet here we are, with the system of protection set up by Congress summarily ignored by the courts, people blaming crime on guns, and gun or ammunition manufacturers or sellers being held responsible for everything a buyer does.

It’s quite an effective means of gun control, yes?  So even if Academy Sports wins, they lose because of the legal fees.

Charles Lane writing at The Washington Post (I landed on this page through Google News, since WaPo is a subscription service).  He is an opinion writer employed by WaPo.

On the whole, though, no state worthy of the name can permit exceptions to its monopoly on legitimate deployment of armed force like those in Michigan or North Carolina. Surely no sensible interpretation of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms would say a state must tolerate them.

You will never see a clearer admission than this from a collectivist.  They believe that the only legitimate use of force is when it is employed by the state.

Never wonder why they hate you.  Their world view runs directly contrary to yours.  They cannot help but hate you.

Courtesy of reader Fred Tippens.

American Thinker has related thoughts.

At the Jacobin, an American socialist, Marxist quarterly based in New York, Ben Burgis emphasizes that

Progressives and democratic socialists need to make the case that there’s a third alternative to business-as-usual centrists running the states Trump wants to ‘liberate’ and the cynical demagogues who want to feed low-income workers to the capitalist death machine by prematurely ending the lockouts

[ … ]

The coronavirus has cleared the field for communists. It is an opportune moment for the left in general, but above all, for those who already wield a certain amount of power and want to perpetuate themselves and implant their totalitarian paradise once and for all.

There is no need to wonder about these things.  Governors are taking power to themselves nowhere granted by any state or the federal constitution; rulers unilaterally declare that worshipers cannot gather; stores are shut down, businesses are closed, some forever; cops, working on taxpayer monies, take the time to enter private property without a warrant to harass and lecture people on allowing their children to play with other children; cops arrest surfers, hikers and campers who have paid for the public land they’re on with taxpayer dollars; the elderly are jailed in their facilities to perish, when the safest thing they could have done with them would have been to send them home, or else roll them out into the sun, taken them for a walk, and given them Vitamins C/D3; workers everywhere are told to wear masks so that they re-breath their own effluent and cause the mask itself to be a contaminant trap on both inside and outside surfaces, contributing to their own retrovirus loading because they can’t properly expel their own air; the FedGov prints money like monopoly paper; and communists everywhere want to see the economy fail.

This is all designed to break the bonds of dependency and love between families and church, cause feelings of isolation, and create dependency on the government.  At its root, it is the wicked desire to control other people.  The tools of control are loneliness, poverty and isolation.  Community becomes government.

R.J. Rushdoony said this.

The mainstream of Western civilization is thus apparent, the desire to control and change others as the essence of true power.  This lust for power, the pathology of all fallen men, is common to cultures all over the world.  It is an expression of man’s original sin, his desire to be as God (“The Death of Meaning”).

Man’s attempt to supplant himself upon the throne of the universe never ends well.

Slapped Roy Cooper around like the punk he is.

A federal judge’s order Saturday allows North Carolina religious leaders to open their doors to their congregations, in spite of the governor’s warning that they risk spreading coronavirus.

Gov. Roy Cooper said he wouldn’t appeal the ruling blocking his restrictions on indoor religious services.

Saturday’s order pointed out that while only up to 10 people are allowed inside for religious services under Cooper’s stay-at-home order, that same standard doesn’t apply to other entities, such as businesses that are limited to 50% capacity, and funeral services, which allow up to 50 people.

“The record, at this admittedly early stage of the case, reveals that the Governor appears to trust citizens to perform non-religious activities indoors (such as shopping or working or selling merchandise) but does not trust them to do the same when they worship together indoors,” states Judge James C. Dever III’s ruling in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina Eastern Division.

The temporary order comes after two Baptist churches, a minister and a Christian revival group filing a lawsuit against the Democratic governor Thursday, saying his executive order violates their First Amendment freedom of religion and other constitutional rights, The News & Observer reported.

A hearing is scheduled May 29 on whether the order will become permanent.

Until that time, the judge’s order prevents Cooper from taking enforcement actions against religious worshipers, but also states they should observe recommendations for social distancing and reduce transmission of the virus when possible.

“The court trusts worshipers and their leaders to look after one another and society while exercising their free exercise rights just as they and their fellow citizens (whether religious or not) do when engaged in non-religious activities,” Dever’s order states.

I hope he sees fit to make it a permanent injunction.  Meanwhile, I suspect that Cooper isn’t challenging this because he knows he’ll lose.

Would that American pols had that much courage.

You know all of that celebration over Mitch McConnell pushing through Trump judges and how great that is?  Yea, calm yourself and grab your britches, fan bois.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is pushing forward with an amendment that would let the FBI collect records on Americans’ web-browsing and search histories without a warrant this week.

McConnell proposed the amendment as part of the renewal of the 2001 Patriot Act, The Daily Beast first reported. The Senate is voting on amendments this week.

The McConnell amendment would let Department of Justice officials — overseen by Attorney General Bill Barr — look through anyone’s browsing history without the approval of a judge if they deem the browsing history relevant to an investigation. It blocks the FBI from accessing the “content” of people’s web-browsing history but would let the FBI access records detailing which sites and search terms people entered.

The constitution is for big people, and doesn’t apply to you.  You’re a little person.  The law applies to you, not to the big people.  They get to do whatever they want.

Amusing.

In a portion describing the material sought by lawyers for the 9/11 families, Sanborn refers to a partially declassified 2012 FBI report about an investigation into possible links between the al-Qaida terrorists and Saudi government officials. That probe, the existence of which has only become public in the past few years, initially focused on two individuals: Fahad al-Thumairy, a Saudi Islamic Affairs official and radical cleric who served as the imam of the King Fahd Mosque in Los Angeles and Omar al-Bayoumi, a suspected Saudi government agent who assisted two terrorists, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who participated in the hijacking of the American Airlines plane that flew into the Pentagon, killing 125.

After the two hijackers flew to Los Angeles on Jan. 15, 2000, al-Bayoumi found them an apartment, lent them money and set them up with bank accounts.

A redacted copy of a three-and-a-half page October 2012 FBI “update” about the investigation stated that FBI agents had uncovered “evidence” that Thumairy and Bayoumi had been “tasked” to assist the hijackers by yet another individual whose name was blacked out, prompting lawyers for the families to refer to this person as “the third man” in what they argue is a Saudi-orchestrated conspiracy.

Describing the request by lawyers for the 9/11 families to depose that individual under oath, Sanborn’s declaration says in one instance that it involves “any and all records referring to or relating to Jarrah.”

The reference is to Mussaed Ahmed al-Jarrah, a mid-level Saudi Foreign Ministry official who was assigned to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C., in 1999 and 2000. His duties apparently included overseeing the activities of Ministry of Islamic Affairs employees at Saudi-funded mosques and Islamic centers within the United States.

Relatively little is known about Jarrah, but according to former embassy employees, he reported to the Saudi ambassador in the United States (at the time Prince Bandar), and that he was later reassigned to the Saudi missions in Malaysia and Morocco, where he is believed to have been serving as recently as last year, having been promoted to the position of cultural counselor.

Jarrah has been on the radar screen of the lawyers for the 9/11 families for some time and is among nine current or former Saudi officials who they suspect have important information about the case and have sought to either question them or get access to FBI documents that mention them.

The families have also tapped former agents to help investigate the activities of the potential witnesses, including Jarrah.

Jarrah “was responsible for the placement of Ministry of Islamic Affairs employees known as guides and propagators posted to the United States, including Fahad Al Thumairy,” according to a separate declaration by Catherine Hunt, a former FBI agent based in Los Angeles who has been assisting the families in the case.

Hunt conducted her own investigation into the support provided to the hijackers in Southern California. “The FBI believed that al-Jarrah was ‘supporting’ and ‘maintaining’ al-Thumairy during the 9/11 investigation,” she said in her declaration.

[ … ]

“There were definitely people at FBI headquarters who wanted this closed,” the former official said.

You live in a country run by criminals, who invite foreign criminals into the country and give them credentials.  You don’t have credentials because you’re not special.