A Murder of a Black Man

Posted on 4 June 2020 by eehines

Dave Patrick Underwood was a black man in front of the Ronald V Dellums Federal Building and US Courthouse in Oakland, CA. He was murdered in a drive-by shooting as part of the larger rioting and looting that’s going on throughout California under cover of “protesting” the murder of George Floyd, another black man, 2,000 miles away in Minneapolis, MN.

Underwood was employed by the DHS’ Federal Protective Service, he was on duty guarding the building, and he was in uniform.

California’s Progressive-Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom,

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Biden and Lawlessness

Posted on 2 June 2020 by eehines

Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidate Joe Biden has his staff bailing out those arrested for taking part in the riots that are so dishonoring George Floyd’s death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer and that are so thoroughly dismembering the peaceful protests of that murder and the city’s handling of it.

At least 13 members of Joe Biden’s campaign staff have made donations to a group that helps Minneapolis protesters get out of jail on bail, according to a report.

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A Judge Makes a Clear Ruling

Posted on 1 June 2020 by eehines

It’s “only” a Temporary Restraining Order by a county judge—Clay County, Illinois, Judge Michael McHaney—but the judge’s ruling is clear, plain spoken, and he speaks for Americans all across these United States.

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Censorship

Posted on 30 May 2020 by eehines

Twitter has made itself an open, enthusiastic censor of political speech.

Twitter applied…fact-checking notices late Tuesday to two tweets from the president about the potential for fraud involving mail-in ballots. With a small label—”Get the facts about mail-in ballots”—and a link to more information, Twitter alerted its users that those claims were unsubstantiated.
The tweets “contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots,” a Twitter spokesman said.

Never mind that Twitter’s “fact” checking is done by the likes of CNN and The Washington Post.

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Limit FISA Surveillance?

Posted on 24 May 2020 by eehines

Certainly, the process is beset with vast, and serious, problems.

Mr [DoJ Inspector General] Horowitz’s staff reviewed a sample from a recent five-year period, October 2014 to September 2019, during which the eight FBI field offices applied for more than 700 surveillance warrants on US persons. Each of the reviewed files contained errors, inconsistencies and omissions. After reviewing the report, the FISA court’s Chief Judge James E Boasberg issued a rare public order. He told the government to undertake steps to ensure the accuracy of FISA applications. Yet inaccuracy isn’t the only problem. The use of FISA against a US citizen presents a fundamental threat to civil liberties. It essentially suspends the Constitution.

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An Expansionist Germany

Posted on 23 May 2020 by eehines

Not military expansion, but a more insidious one: legal expansion.

The German government must come up with a new law regulating its secret services, after the country’s highest court [Federal Constitutional Court] ruled that the current practice of monitoring telecommunications of foreign citizens at will violates constitutionally-enshrined press freedoms and the privacy of communications.

And:

The key legal question was whether foreign nationals in other countries were covered by Germany’s constitution….

Why, yes, yes they are. Because German sovereignty reaches deep inside other nations’ borders, other nations’ legal and political jurisdictions, overrides those nations’ own sovereignty. Germany’s laws not only apply outside German borders, they apply inside other nations’ borders.

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Usages

Posted on 20 May 2020 by eehines

The Associated Press has decided, from the depths of it Politically Correct garbage can, that “mistress” ought not be used anymore. Instead, folks should use “companion” or “lover” instead.

This means, of course, that Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, must be a companion to the Dark. Or maybe the Dark Lover.

A woman can no longer be Mistress of Ceremonies. Is it companions or lovers that ceremonies and rites have?

Nor can a woman be Mistress of her own home. No, the lady of the house must be her husband’s companion. Or lover. Either way, she’s no longer…mistress…of her fate, but merely an object for the man of the house.

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Time for a New Plan

Posted on 18 May 2020 by eehines

That’s what Dr Marty Makary, Professor of Surgery at Johns Hopkins Medicine, says. Broad lockdowns might have been justified at the outset of the present Wuhan Virus situation, but new information has arisen.

Since that time, we have data that has taught us that this infection is associated with public transit, with density, with mass gatherings, with city-to-city travel and it is associated with climate[.]

And

What we do know, [is that] there are safe ways to conduct activities in society if we use certain precautions and we probably need a targeted approach where we find areas where there is either an outbreak or an ongoing increase in cases, and use some of the more aggressive strategies in that particular location.

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Finally, Some Recognition

Posted on 11 May 2020 by eehines

…of the role of Federal laws in State activities. Recall that two New Jersey officials of then-Governor Chris Christie’s (R) administration were convicted in Federal court for

hav[ing] participated in a 2013 scheme to create traffic backups in Fort Lee, NJ, by limiting motorists’ access to the George Washington Bridge that crosses into New York—in retaliation against Fort Lee’s Democratic mayor, Mark Sokolich, for not supporting the re-election bid of Mr Christie, a Republican.

The Supreme Court, unanimously, tossed those convictions. The unanimity of the throwing out is made the more noteworthy by this money quote, by none other than Justice Elena Kagan, who wroteg for the Court:

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It’s a Start

Posted on 11 May 2020 by eehines

But it can’t possibly be the final answer; it doesn’t go nearly far enough. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has issued the final rule regarding college/university sexual harassment complaints and how colleges/universities must handle them. Along the way, DeVos revoked with finality the Obama DoEd rule that eliminated the rights of the accused.

It allows both the accused and accuser to submit evidence and participate in cross-examination in live proceedings, and both parties can also appeal a school’s ruling. Victims-rights advocates say the provision for cross-examinations could traumatize those alleging misconduct and potentially keep them from filing complaints at all.
It also allows institutions to choose one of two standards of evidence—”clear and convincing,” or the lower “preponderance of the evidence,” which just requires a greater than 50% likelihood of wrongdoing—as long as they apply the standard evenly for all cases

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