Tag Archives: government

Too Far

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Senator Marco Rubio (R, FL) has reintroduced his Terror Intelligence Improvement Act, his bill to allow Government to block suspected terrorists from obtaining firearms. This bill, far from improving anything, is a long step back from our rights under our Constitution. As Dana Loesch summarized it in her newsletter (behind a paywall after this month; subscribe now for a discount on her subscription price),

The bill would also provide more authority for law enforcement agencies to go after suspected terrorists, while safeguarding law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment and due process rights.

But, as Loesch goes on to point out, that’s internally contradictory. It’s simply not possible to restrict American citizens’ rights while protecting those same American citizens’ rights. A suspect is just that—a suspect, and so still innocent, regardless of suspicion.

Then, however, Loesch makes her own mistake.

If lawmakers want to stop suspected terrorists placed on a watch list from buying firearms they need to indict them.
I have no problem with this.

I do have a problem with that. All a prosecutor has done with an indictment is convince a secret group of men and women that he has probable enough cause to hale the indictee—possibly an infamous ham sandwich—into criminal court for trial.

The indictee still is innocent; he hasn’t been proven otherwise in that criminal court.

It’s true enough that we do restrict innocent men—we lock them up; we make them wear ankle bracelets; we make them pay a significant something of value to be released, under restrictive conditions, from jail pending trial; and so on.

But those restrictions are done in open court where the prosecutor must convince the judge that his proposed restrictions are warranted, and he must do so in the face of the defendant’s right to answer the proposed restrictions.

Simple indictment isn’t enough. If the suspected terrorist must be denied his 2nd Amendment rights (in the present context), let the prosecutor show in open court that his suspicion is well enough founded that his suspect should be locked up.

As a practical matter, too, that’s the only way to deny such a suspect firearms—outside of jail, there simply are too many means of access to firearms, legal or not.

Beyond that, there’s another, better, way to protect us from terrorists, whether those persons are armed or not. That is for Government to get out of the way of the first responders to any situation—us citizens who happen to be already on scene when the action goes down—carrying our own firearms.

A High School Debate

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The impeachment charge against former President Donald Trump that is before the Senate is one of incitement and causing the riotous invasion of the Capital Building.

The argument led by main House impeachment manager Jamie Raskin (D, MD) is centered on Trump’s claims of election fraud. This has nothing to do with the actual charge, and the change of subject is something that any high school debater would recognize and not be suckered by.

Alan Dershowitz, who is no high school debater, but who is a tremendously successful—because he’s tremendously effective—lawyer, also recognized Raskin’s and his colleagues’ trick, and he has warned Trump’s Senate impeachment trial lawyers—who aren’t as good as a high school debater if their Tuesday afternoon performance is any indication—not to fall for that weak trick.

There are two reasons for Raskin’s move. One is that he and his fellow Progressive-Democrats think that we ordinary Americans—their real audience—are slack-jawed, drooling idiots and will fall for this shenanigan. He also thinks Trump’s lawyers are just as stupid and incompetent.

The other reason is that Raskin and his fellows know they have no case; there was nothing in Trump’s rhetoric that would have caused anyone to riot. (Raskin, et al., also are insulting the intelligence and initiative of the rioters, but that’s for another time.) Lacking a case, they’re bent on raising a smokescreen with misdirection and obfuscation.

Trump’s lawyers need to stick to the subject at hand—the actual charge in the article of impeachment—and show the foolishness of the Progressive-Democrats’ case. They must raise themselves above the cheap tricks of teenage argument.

Coverup

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And so it begins in earnest, again.

The Biden administration will ask U.S. attorneys appointed by President Trump to resign from their posts….

In particular,

…John Durham, the US district attorney in Connecticut who was named special counsel to investigate the origins of the FBI probe into the 2016 election, will resign from his position, but he will stay on as special counsel….

Special counsel. Sure. With much more circumscribed authorities and duties. Durham’s investigations will be slow-walked, now.

As will DoJ’s “probe” into Hunter Biden’s tax behaviors, People’s Republic of China business dealings, and “other transactions”. Even though the prosecutor overseeing that activity will stay on that task, look for it to be slow-moving as well, ultimately just petering out quietly.

“Elections Could Be Avoided”

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The Italian government is in crisis—which is to say things are proceeding normally for the Italians, since that government has been stably unstable since the end of WWII (66 separate Cabinets in those 75 years).

The latest round is Matteo Renzi taking his Italia Viva party out of the four party coalition government (have I mentioned stability?) that currently is in charge and is nominally led by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and the major coalition parties, the 5-Star Movement and the Democratic Party (the Free and Equal party is the fourth coalition member). The withdrawal included the resignations of two IV cabinet ministers, which eliminated the coalition’s parliamentary majority (don’t ask. This is Italian politics).

A couple of things ensue from Renzi’s move: coalition parties attempt to negotiate a new coalition agreement with Italia Viva. If that fails, President Sergio Mattarella assemble a “national unity” government to deal with the Wuhan Virus situation. It Mattarella failed, the only option would be national elections.

That brings me to what drew my eye and to the point of this article.

Renzi said, in the aftermath of his collapsing the coalition government, that (quoting from OANN‘s paraphrase) he thought elections could be avoided.

Elections could be avoided. Avoid letting the people choose their own government whenever possible.

This is an all-too-typical attitude of European politicians. They’re in charge, not the people.

This is the Europe Progressive-Democrats want us to emulate.

Government-Run Medicine

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France provides its own example, after Great Britain’s NHS, of the nightmare that is Government medicine.  Consider France’s nursing folks homes and the nation’s red tape.

The few hours it took to give the first coronavirus vaccine shots to 14 residents of the John XXIII nursing home…took weeks of preparation.
The home’s director, Samuel Robbe, first had to chew his way through a dense 61-page vaccination protocol, one of several hefty guides from the French government that exhaustively detail how to proceed, down to the number of times (10) that each flask of vaccine should be turned upside down to mix its contents.
“Delicately,” the booklet stipulates. “Do not shake.”

And

After the European Union green-lighted use of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine in December, Robbe says it took two weeks to put together all the pieces to this week vaccinate 14 residents, just a fraction of his total of more than 100.

This is the level of red tape and speed of performance we can expect from Joe Biden’s Medicare for All demand. Especially since our Progressive-Democrats are as enamored of red tape as is the French government. All that coming American red tape, after all, represents Biden’s promise of “good union jobs,” here good Government union jobs.

Vive les syndicats. Vive la bureaucratie.