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July 2017
Yahoo News lets Katie Couric go
Story here.
I'm sure Virginia Citizens Defense League is breaking out the champagne, after the way she deceptively edited footage of their members in a "documentary."
The Mass Media and Self-Parody
Let's see, Democratic House members (including members of the Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committee) hire a Pakistani national named Imran Awan to control their IT and have access to all their email and files. Their employers applied for him and several relatives (also hired on staff) to get the highest of security clearances, Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmentalized Information. What could possibly go wrong?
It's discovered that he and several other aides have been stealing equipment, including hard drives that he afterward smashes with a hammer. The others are fired five months ago, but Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz keeps him on staff.... Paying him $160,000 a year (a huge Hill salary: legislative aides' salaries average about $38K, and even chiefs of staff makes about $143,000). He's also allowed to take out a $165,000 unsecured loan from the Congressional Federal Credit Union and wire that to Pakistan.
Capitol Hill Police discover a laptop Awan has stolen from Schultz and hidden away, seize it as evidence, and Schultz publicly threatens, during the police's appropriations hearings, that there will be "consequences" if they don't give it back, now.
Awan is arrested at Dulles International Airport as he tries to flee the country to Pakistan, and charged with bank fraud. Only after the arrest does Debbie Wasserman Schultz fire him.
My local paper picks up the AP story and runs it under the headline of "Wasserman Schultz Fires IT Staffer Following Fraud Arrest".
(PS: the judge RELEASED him at the initial appearance? Some sort of "high intensity supervision" that says he can't travel more than 50 miles? The fellow was obviously trying to flee the country when arrested....
Two More Mayors against Guns Bite the Dust
Story here. Allentown mayor Ed Pawlowshi is charged with fifty counts of corruption-related charges, bribery, and with gaining $150,000 in "pay to play" schemes. Former Reading mayor Vaughn Spencer is charged with a dozen counts.
According to the US Attorney, "The mayor of Allentown and the former mayor of Reading charged in the two indictments unsealed today sold their offices to the highest bidder -- violating the trust and confidence of the citizens of their cities. Both mayors, working with other corrupt officials and businesspeople, directed lucrative contracts to companies who agreed to provide campaign contributions in exchange for work."
Good discussion of DC Circuit's recent 2A ruling
Here. By Prof. Joseph Blocker, who in Heller assisted in the briefing for the other side, the D of C.
Hat tip to Alice Beard....
Sounds like the medical journal articles on gun control
Four "scientific journals" agree to publish an article explaining how The Force in Star Wars is created by sub-cellular creatures, with a digression on the death of Darth Plagueis, Lord of the Sith.
Issue regarding Independent Counsel
Fox raises the question of how many attorneys with the Independent Counsel's office donated to Democratic causes. I think the ones who didn't donate raise a more interesting question.
Of the 15 attorneys, 7 are "on detail" from the US Department of Justice (the last, Aaron Belinsky, is described as "on detail from the District of Maryland." He's actually on detail from the US Attorney's office there.)
The independent counsel is supposed to be, well, independent. Specifically, independent of the Department of Justice. The statute (28 U.S.C. ยง597) provides that upon appointment of an independent counsel, "the Department of Justice, the Attorney General, and all other officers and employees of the Department of Justice shall suspend all investigations and proceedings regarding such matter," except where the IC authorizes it in writing. The implication of the last is that the DoJ employees would remain in the DoJ. Fundamentally, the independent counsel was called into being because DoJ was tainted or potentially tainted in the matter. But then why are nearly half the independent counsel's attorneys DoJ lawyers?
In governmentalese, being "detailed" to other work means you get a temporary assignment outside your normal unit. I was detailed a few times. I stayed in my same office, drew the same paycheck, and answered to and was evaluated by the same bosses.
Wrenn v. DC: Big Win on Carrying
Opinion here. Alan Gura racks up another win, a big one. Rather dramatic. It involves two joined appeals, and below one court had temporarily enjoined the DC "may issue" carrying license law, and the other court refused to do so. The DC Circuit says that it's not going to send the appeals back down to the lower court, or deal with whether a temporary injunction (based on likelihood of winning rather than giving an actual win) is proper, instead it's going to order the lower courts to jump ahead and issue a permanent injunction against the law.
"At the Second Amendment's core lies the right of responsible citizens to carry firearms for personal self-defense beyond the home, subject to longstanding restrictions. These traditional limits include, for instance, licensing requirements, but not bans on carrying in urban areas like D.C. or bans on carrying absent a special need for self-defense. In fact, the Amendment's core at a minimum shields the typically situated citizen's ability to carry common arms generally. The District's good-reason law is necessarily a total ban on exercises of that constitutional right for most D.C. residents. That's enough to sink this law under Heller I.
. . . . . .
[T]he resulting decision rests on a rule so narrow that good-reason laws seem almost uniquely designed to defy it: that the law-abiding citizen's right to bear common arms must enable the typical citizen to carry a gun.
We vacate both orders below and remand with instructions to enter permanent injunctions against enforcement of the District's good-reason law."
Thug Culture and "Stop Snitching"
First I'd heard of the "stop snitching movement" encourages people (inner city residents mostly) to refrain from telling police about criminals, and gives clear threats as to what happens if they disobey.
I only heard about the movement because one of the stars of its video had had a second son murdered. The second son was recently released after charges of murder were dropped against him; the father is still in prison on assault charges. The first son's murder has yet to be solved...
Eagle deaths: an interesting contrast
"Bald Eagle Threat: Lead Ammo Left Behind by Hunters". In New York, "Nine bald eagles were confirmed as lead-poisoning deaths in 2016, and seven so far this year."
"Trump Inflates Wind Turbine Eagle Deaths." "Smallwood says about 100 eagles die each year [in California] due to impacts with the spinning blades on windmills." "By the way, bald eagle deaths appear to be rare. Also, as a species, there is less concern because their population, about 70,000, is growing, while the population of golden eagles, about 20,000, is at best holding steady and could be declining."
When worked at Interior, a quarter century ago, I was told that bird deaths due to wind farms were massive, but orders were to do and say nothing, because wind power was fashionable. Hmmmm...
Gun Violence
To settle the question "do guns kill?" 2ndVote has created streaming video of a Ruger LC9.
One obviously problem is that the LC9 won't commit violent crimes if it knows it is being watched.
The California legislature prefers felons to law-abiding gun owners
To be sure, this comes as no surprise.
Legality vs. legalism
A while ago, the military determined that using the Sierra Matchking bullet, with an "open point" as opposed to a hollow point, would not violate the Hague Declaration.
To the best of my knowledge, neither al-Quadea nor ISIS are signatories to that treaty. They can't be, since they are not nation-states.
The powers that be have tended to present the fight against them as rather law enforcement in nature: the objective is to "bring them to justice" rather than to kill them.
If that is the case, then domestic law enforcement is allowed to use hollow points (and every officer with any sense does so). Armed robbers, etc., are also not signatories to treaties. OK, why can hollow points be used against American criminals, but not against the enemy?
The truth about terminal ballistics
Now, this fellow is straightforward. Though I'd probably prefer Massad Ayoob as an expert witness.
Randy Barnett cleans a "living constitutionalist's" clock
Here. I think the real objection living constitutionalists have to originalism is that it frustrates judges' wills to power. Rather than conduct social engineering, they must execute the will of others (the framers, or framing generations, of 1788, 1791 and 1868).
But, as the framers themselves pointed out, that is precisely why they thought we could have a non-elected judiciary. Judges didn't stand for election, but they only carried out the will of those who did (the framers, or Congress).
Some judges....
Florida judge rules one aspect of "no retreat" (apparently, the fact that the prosecution bears the burden of disproving self-defense) is unconstitutional. Pretty far out in left field. The legislature cannot establish what is a defense to a criminal offense? Or it cannot determine who bears the burden of proof on that?
And as usual the media confuses "no retreat" with every aspect of self-defense. These cases involved who bears the burden of proof on self defense, not whether someone had a duty to retreat. Ditto for the Zimmerman case, where all the witnesses said that Zimmerman was on his back, pinned to the ground, at the moment he fired, and so had no way to retreat.
Article criticizing NFA classification of short barreled rifles
Here, in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. Some very good analysis. In 1934, they were treated as gangster weapons, although I don't ever recall hearing of gangsters using them. They tended to have their fights at pistol or shotgun range, not at 100+ yards. Originally the minimum barrel length was 18"; then the government discovered it had sold millions of M-1 carbines as surplus, and they had 16.5" barrels. So the minimum length was reduced to 16". Which did a nice job of showing how arbitrary it was.