Category Archives: rights

What She Said

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Cynthia Millen, the erstwhile USA Swimming official who resigned over the NCAA’s and UPenn’s decision to let transgender swimmer Lia Thomas compete in women’s swimming meets, had some further thoughts on the larger matter.

The fact is that swimming is a sport in which bodies compete against bodies. Identities do not compete against identities[.]

And

The statement for women then is you do not matter, what you do is not important, and little girls are going to be thrown under the bus by all of this[.]

And

…boys will always have larger lung capacity, larger hearts, greater circulation, a bigger skeleton, and less fat.

And

While Lia Thomas is a child of God, he is a biological male who is competing against women. And no matter how much testosterone suppression drugs he takes, he will always be a biological male and have the advantage.

And

All these women who worked so hard before Title IX when they didn’t have the opportunities that men had. It would be such a shame, such a travesty to throw it away now. This is what will happen.

Indeed, where is Title IX? Transgender athletes should have their own, equally funded and equally supported, athletic programs.

Contempt

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A Wall Street Journal piece centered on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D, NY) supposed plan to bring President Joe Biden’s (D) and his Progressive-Democratic Party’s “Build Back Better Act” to a Senate floor vote in January, and therewith dare Senator Joe Manchin (D, VA) to vote against it, had the following highly instructive bit buried toward the end.

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (D, WA), Chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, castigated Manchin over his decision regarding the Progressive-Democrats’ reconciliation bill:

We cannot hang the futures of millions of Americans on the words of one man who represents a state that has a tiny percentage of the country’s entire population.

Never mind that Senators and Representatives, at least nominally, work for their constituents and not for Party or the nation at large. Never mind, either, that pesky 10th Amendment, much less the 9th Amendment.

This is the utter contempt that Progressive-Democrats have for our Constitution and for the federal republican structure of our government that our Constitution creates.

This is the utter contempt that Progressive-Democrats have for us average Americans.

Everything from the center, and the center over everyone.

Insisting on your Rights is Uncooperative

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That’s the view of one lawyer.

It seems that the actor Alec Baldwin wanted a search warrant before he would turn over his cell phone to the Santa Fe Sheriff’s Department. Supposedly, Baldwin asked for one even before the sheriff asked for his cell in the apparent expectation that the sheriff would be asking.

Lawyer Christopher Melcher says that’s being uncooperative.

It is spin by Alec’s lawyer to say that he suggested the warrant. He refused to provide his phone without a warrant. That is not cooperation or a proactive suggestion.

What we think of Baldwin doesn’t matter. Nor does it matter whether he asked for the search warrant before or after the sheriff asked for his cell phone. Not only his right to have a search warrant implied by our Constitution. The government’s requirement to get one before any search is written in black letters in our Constitution:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

What would be uncooperative would be the sheriff demanding Baldwin give up his cell phone without that warrant (which is different from the sheriff asking for it before getting the warrant in order to save some administrative hassle).

It’s attitudes like Melcher’s that give law enforcement and prosecutorial proceedings a bad name, whether or not Melcher is associated with either.

“Coy,” Is It?

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The Biden-Harris administration, in its argument for the government’s appeal in the 8th Circuit of a trial court’s rulings in Religious Sisters of Mercy v Azar and Catholic Benefits Association v Azar, steadfastly refused to say whether, in fact, these entities would be subject to government suit were those entities, in fact, to refuse to provide and cover so-called “gender transition” procedures. The case and the government’s “enforcement” vagaries center on

how the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) interpret Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination by gender identity, and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in relation to RFRA [Religious Freedom Restoration Act].

Just the News mildly referred to that as the government being coy.

The government’s attorney, Assistant US Attorney Ashley Chung, then went so far as to tacitly threaten the judges:

She warned the judges not to “open the floodgates to premature litigation” based on “uncertainty” over how agencies might respond to new legal interpretations or court rulings.

This is a cynical argument by Chung. The judges won’t be opening floodgates for “premature” litigation. HHS and EEOC already have opened those floodgates with their carefully thought out decision to be “uncertain” in their “interpretation” of Obamacare, Title VII, and associated regulations and to be vague on their enforcement procedures for those.

“Trial” Doesn’t Mean the Same to Progressive-Democrats…

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…as it does to the rest of us. This is in the subtext of Aaron Kliegman’s Just the News piece regarding Progressive-Democrat Congressmen pushing for a revival of their Bivens Act proposal, which would

allow citizens to recover damages for constitutional violations committed against them by federal law enforcement officials.

Kliegman, though, also pointed out another effect of the Act’s simple proposal:

the legislation would incidentally offer a path to civil remedy for those imprisoned without trial for alleged involvement in the January 6 Capitol breach who say they’ve been mistreated by federal authorities to sue.

That’s certainly true, but I suggest that the prisoners held on claimed beefs related to the 6 January riot already have strong Constitutional grounds for dismissal of the charges and denial of qualified immunity against many of the gaolers–the prison warden included.

Most of them are being held without bail and without being actually charged, hence the “claimed beefs.”

They’re being unconstitutionally held on at least three counts:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury….

That’s from the 5th Amendment. No indictment or even the convening of a Grand Jury has occurred. That it’s allegedly an infamous crime is amply demonstrated by the number of Progressive-Democrats who are loudly proclaiming the riot to have been an insurrection.

…nor shall be compelled in any criminal case…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law….

That’s also from the 5th Amendment. Plainly the prisoners are being denied their liberty without due process; they’re being held for indefinite periods on no charges and no bail opportunity.

…the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial….

That’s from the 6th Amendment. This count has two specifications: they aren’t even accused yet, except by those Progressive-Democrats, but not formally in court, and they’ve been denied a speedy and public trial for so long that they cannot ever have a speedy trial.

Plainly, “speedy trial,” or merely “trial,” don’t have the same meaning for Progressive-Democrats that the terms have for us average Americans, for whom they have such contempt.

Those worthies’ pronouncements notwithstanding, the only cure here is the prisoners’ unconditional release with all current proceedings against them dismissed and any future proceedings related to the riot barred from being brought.