Bullies

Posted on 14 August 2017 by eehines

Recall how Google, last week, outed a Conservative employee and his critique of Google personnel practices, then bullied him with public opprobrium, then fired him.

Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai was going to have an all-hands town hall this week to address the matter, but then, after employees expressed concerns

about their safety and worried they may be “outed” publicly for asking a question in the Town Hall[,]

he cancelled the whole affair. The company put the original teapot tempest into the public’s eye, but when allegedly faced with the same outcome for themselves, they skittered back into their baseboard holes in the walls.

This is a preview of Bullies. Read the full post (167 words, estimated 40 secs reading time)

Gun Control

Posted on 8 August 2017 by eehines

A bill is making progress in Congress that would allow concealed carry license holders, whose license was issued in one State (their State of residence) to concealed carry their weapons in all States: the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017. The bill also would require such a carrier to abide by the laws of the State they’re visiting, including all of that State’s gun-free zone designations. In this way, the reciprocity law is similar to drivers license reciprocity, under which it’s legal to drive in any State so long as the driver both is licensed in his home State and obeys the driving laws of the State he’s visiting.

This is a preview of Gun Control. Read the full post (619 words, estimated 2:29 mins reading time)

Asset Forfeiture

Posted on 30 July 2017 by eehines

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has withdrawn President Barack Obama’s (D) blanket hold on asset seizure, but with safeguards. I think those safeguards need improvement.

Stop sharing seized assets with local law enforcement. Each State has its own laws regarding asset seizure by local law enforcement; these laws should be respected and not bypassed.

Also:

Sessions’ new guidelines say that state or local agencies seeking forfeiture under federal law must demonstrate probable cause within 15 days of the seizure. The sponsoring federal agency must notify the property’s owner within 45 days, so he can challenge it, including by going to court.

This is a preview of Asset Forfeiture. Read the full post (304 words, estimated 1:13 mins reading time)

International Censorship

Posted on 22 July 2017 by eehines

France wants to enforce a “right to be forgotten” law (recently enacted by the EU that allows persons to demand publicly available information about them to be erased from links in search engine results) inside other nations than the EU membership—inside the United States, for instance. Google, et al., is demurring, and France has taken the matter to the EU’s highest administrative court, the Court of Justice.

The case will help determine how far EU regulators can go in enforcing the bloc’s strict new privacy law….

This is a preview of International Censorship. Read the full post (235 words, estimated 56 secs reading time)

Free Elections

Posted on 12 July 2017 by eehines

The Progressive-Democratic Party version is playing out in California. The good citizens of the state senatorial district straddling Orange, San Bernardino, and Los Angeles counties want to recall state Senator Josh Newman (D), who voted for a 12/gal gasoline tax increase. A successful recall also would jeopardize the Progressive-Democrats’ supermajority in each house of California’s legislature, and so the one-party rule that’s currently devastating the state but accruing political power to those Progressive-Democrat incumbents.

Can’t have that.

This is where free elections, Progressive-Democrat style, comes in.

This is a preview of Free Elections. Read the full post (250 words, estimated 1:00 mins reading time)

Charlie Gard and the British Government

Posted on 10 July 2017 by eehines

Or, Charlie Gard and sovereignty.

Charlie Gard is the baby with a rare genetic disease that has damaged his brain, probably fatally and soon. The baby’s parents want to be able to try alternative treatments, or in the alternative, be allowed to bring him home to die there with his parents who love him rather than encumbered by the state’s bureaucrats and representatives, his parents also by-the-way present, in an emptily sterile hospital room.

This is a preview of Charlie Gard and the British Government. Read the full post (334 words, estimated 1:20 mins reading time)

“Pre-Crime”

Posted on 27 June 2017 by eehines

Another word for Government’s prior restraint of private citizens, a word used by Holman Jenkins in his Friday op-ed to disguise this assault on our freedoms.

Let’s face it, with big data, with impersonal algorithms that could track every earthly resident’s web activity, travels, purchases and electronic interactions with the world, it might be quite possible to know whose life and personality are disintegrating, who might seek to resolve the impasse by going on murder binge.

This is a preview of “Pre-Crime”. Read the full post (323 words, estimated 1:18 mins reading time)

The Supreme Court is Considering the Limits of Partisan Gerrymandering

Posted on 21 June 2017 by eehines

The case stems from a Wisconsin state districting case

where a three-judge lower court last year invalidated a redistricting plan enacted by the Republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature in 2011.

That court insisted that, following the 2010 census, the Republican State legislature redrew its legislative districts to favor Republicans and disfavor Democrats.

Election results since then have shown the redistricting had its intended effect, with the GOP winning a larger majority in the state assembly, even as the statewide tally of votes was nearly even between Republicans and Democrats, the lower court said.

This is a preview of The Supreme Court is Considering the Limits of Partisan Gerrymandering. Read the full post (353 words, estimated 1:25 mins reading time)

Timidity

Posted on 12 June 2017 by eehines

A group of perpetually-offended atheists, agnostics and freethinkers are threatening to sue a small Wisconsin town because of two welcome signs.

Here’s an example of the signs, which have been up 50 years or more:

The churches extend the welcome, not the town’s government in the name of any church or all of them.

Of what are these folks so terrified? There’s nothing stopping them from putting up their own welcome sign: “Atheists of Oconomowoc Welcome You.” If the town’s government objected to that, only then might there be an actual beef.

This is a preview of Timidity. Read the full post (182 words, 1 image, estimated 44 secs reading time)

A Party’s True Character

Posted on 11 June 2017 by eehines

A Party’s True Character

The Progressive-Democratic Party leader of the time, President Woodrow Wilson, said of segregation, “segregation is not a humiliation but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen.” The Progressive-Democratic Party also is the party of Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan.

The Progressive-Democratic Party is the party that made national minimum wage laws for the explicit purpose of keeping blacks on the plantation—literally—instead of migrating north and competing for jobs by being willing to work for less than white union members were.

The Progressive-Democratic Party is the party of racist and sexist affirmative action programs.

This is a preview of A Party’s True Character. Read the full post (523 words, estimated 2:06 mins reading time)

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