Anti-Abortion Lawmakers Are Just Getting Weirder And Weirder

This idiot, Oklahoma State Senator A.J. Griffin, wanted to
pass a law requiring restaurants and public schools to
post anti-abortion propaganda at their expense. 

Some social conservatives are anxious to take away a woman's right to abortion.

Despite U.S. Supreme Court rulings, Republican legislatures enacted at least 60 new abortion restriction laws, says the Center for Reproductive Rights.

So far ten of those laws were ruled unconstitional by courts, but the efforts continue.  

With Roe Vs. Wade still the law of the land, at least for now, I have to admire the, um, creativity of some lawmakers to restrict abortions.  It's getting very, very weird.

In Texas, a proposal has been held up in the courts, at least for now. to require cremation or burial ceremonies for miscarried or aborted fetuses.

Nobody actually wants this law passed except the anti-abortion zealots in the Texas legislature. Even the funeral home and cremation industry, which would stand to gain from this, is icked out by it and is unenthusiastic about the idea.

Of course, some people who have had miscarriages want a cremation or interment, and that's their right.

However, creating this law might actually prevent people who want these ceremonies from actually having them.

Acccording to the Texas Tribune:

"For those in the funeral business, the increased demand for cremations could mean ending their practice of charitably cremating the tissue  from a miscarriage for parents who wished to have a funeral. 

'What had always been pretty much a charitable process is now going to become costing quite a bit of more,' (Texas Funeral Directors Association spokesma Michael) Land said. It's estimated that 10 to 20 percet of pregnacies end in miscarriage."

In other words, Texas lawmakers are so intent on making abortions so excruciating and difficult for women that they think it's worth it to make tragedies like miscarriages excruciating and difficult for parents, too.

Proves that the pro-life crowd is pro-life only until the baby is born. Then it's time to start making life hard.

It's even worse in Oklahoma. (Isn't that often the case?)

According to the Associated Press:

"Oklahoma plans to force hospitals, nursing homes, restaurants and public schools to post signs inside public restrooms directing pregnant women where to receive services as part of an effort to reduce abortions in the state.

Te State Board of Health will consider regulations for the signs on Tuesday. Businesses and other organizations will have to pay an estimated $2.3 million to put up the signs because the Legislature didn't approve any money for them."

The Tuesday referenced in the AP story was last week. We've since learned the Board of Health has approved this ridiculousness. 

 They were probably pissed off because on the same day, the Oklahoma Supreme Court blocked a regulation that would  have required doctors who had admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.

However, we have learned since that the Oklahoma State Senator who introduced the legislation, A. J. Griffin, has since recinded the idea.

Before she did that,  we has the legislature in Oklahoma,  making restaurants and such pay for anti-abortion propaganda that they don't want in their businesses.

I don't think this would have passed  the First Amendment test - the government telling people and businesses what to say or else - but hey, Constitution Smonstitutiion, if it enables you to pander to your most conservative base, right quote, unquote Oklahoma lawmakers?

It appears Griffin backtracked because of the backlash against the cost imposed on businesses by the bill. She now wants to make the anti-abortion propaganda a social media thing, and she theorized it would have a greater reach that way.

But would you want to read anything Griffin or her minions put out on social media?

Oklahoma Taking Roadside Asset Seizures To A New, Chilling Level

Republican Oklahoma State Senator Kyle Loveless
wisely distrusts asset forfeitures and new devices
that read prepaid gift cards to seize those, too.  

I've always hated the idea of asset seizures, the ability of police and prosecutors to seize money and other valuables from people without first determining through the justice system whether said people are guilty.  

Oklahoma is taking it to a whole new level.

They now have card readers that can take assets from pre-paid cards, you know, those gift credit cards or those things from Walgreens or whatever that you can use to buy stuff there.

So far, they can't read regular debit or credit cards, but I'm afraid that day will come soon, since the techology seems to be there.

According to Oklahoma's News9, the devices are called Electronic Recovery and Access Devices, or ERADS. These devices read prepaid cards and allows police to seize money from the cards without getting a warrant from a judge and without filing criminal charges.

The motivation behind using ERADS is fine: Apparently, drug runners use pre-paid cards to conduct their business and the Oklahoma Highway Patrol sees ERADS as a way to thwart this activity.

But you can see how a corrupt cop and just stop people randomly and get rich quick. Who would know?

Already, people are becoming wary of driving into Oklahoma because of these ERADS. For instance, News9 said a company called Peak Power Manufacturing of Lake Park, Florida sent a letter saying it's banning its employees from travelilng to or through Oklahoma because their employees use these cards for business travel.

"We simply cannot risk seizure of our employee's and our company's assets based upon the whims of an honorable, dedicated and well-intentioned Oklahoma State Patrol Officer," company officials wrote

Not all lawmakers in Oklahoma are on board with this idea, either. News9 said State Senator Kyle Loveless, R-Oklahoma City, wants to shelve these ERADS, at least temporarily.

"So we're going to be able to tell their balance, tell their records, tell those other things without a warrant, without charges, and without an arrest and without a conviction. That's un-American," Loveless said.

Asset forfeiture has become big business for police agencies. For example, in Oklahoma, law enforcement agencies can keep all of what they take. In the fourteen years ending in 2014, Oklahoma got almost $99 million from seizing cash or selling off seized property, ThinkProgress reports. 

Loveless, the Oklahoma state lawmaker, says he doesn't like asset forfeiture at all, whether its from prepaid cards or other sources.

"We've see single mom's stuff be taken, a cancer survivor his drugs taken, we saw a Christian band being taken.....We've seen innocent people's stuff being taken. We've seen where the money goes and how it's misspent."

It's true people can appeal to get their assets back. But its hard. Largely because the burden of proof is on the victim of the asset forfeiture to prove the stuff is theirs. Whcih is hard.

A lot of the people who have their assets seized are innocent. In five years ending in 2015, Oklahoma seized about $6 million from motorists along Interstate 40 in Oklahoma, and $4 million of that was taken from people who were never charged with a crime.

As I noted last year, in 2014 U.S. Attorneys sized $4.5 billion in assets, more than burglars reportedly took from victims that year.

Asset forfeiture reduces public confidence in law enforcement. It seems outside the rule of law, and it smells of corruption. As I also said last year, we don't need more mistrust in our instititions.

So let's make asset forfeiture harder, not easier, like with the ERADs Oklahoma is using.

Out Of Control Nut Job Judge Forces Couple To Marry

A weird Texas judge ordere Josten Bundy to marry his girlfriend,
Elizabeth Jaynes, as punishment for an assault
conviction. Bundy had punched Jaynes' ex. 

A couple in Texas got married recently, which is very nice.

What's not nice is the couple married only because a wacko judge said the groom must get married or go to jail.

This all started whern Josten Bundy got into a physical fight with his girlfriend's ex who was saying disparaging things about her.

So Bundy punched him, and the ex-boyfriend pressed charges.

Even Bundy says he shouldn't have punched the ex-boyfriend, but told Judge Randall Rogers that, "I was raised with four sisters and if any man was talking to a woman like that......I'd probably do the same thing.

Of course by hitting the ex, Bundy committed a crime, and there's consequences for that. The judtge sentenced him to probation, which make sense. Maybe a fine, a ban on alcohol consumption, how about some mandatory anger management counseling?

That would work, but NOPE. Here's where the judge went off the rails.

According to television station KLTV, Judge Rogers said that as part of his probation, Bundy had to marry his girlfriend or spend 15 days in jail.

Bundy figured it he was in jail, he'd lose his job, so he had no choice but to marry Jaynes, says KLTV.

They were probably going to get married anyway at some point, but they didn't want a rushed courthouse wedding where many of their loved ones couldn't witness it. Jaynes said she wanted one of those "Say Yes To The Dress" weddings with all the trappings of a traditional big ceremony, reception and party.

By the way, the judge was also punishing Jaynes by forcing to get abruptly married. Remember, she was not accused of any crime whatsoever in this whole thing.

The father of the bride was certainly angry, which is understandable. The dad, Kenneth Jaynes told KLTV the judge "can't do this by court ordering somebody to be married...I contacted a couple of lawyers but they tole me someone was trying to pull my leg, that judges don't court order somebody to get married."

Well, this one did.

Of course, dad is right. Forcing Bundy and Jaynes to marry  is almost certainly unconstitutional, but Bundy and Jaynes aren't lawyers, and didn't know what to do about the abrupt marriage sentence, while in the moment with the judge.

The judge also said Bundy must write Bible verses as part of his punishment. So much for separation of Church and State.

What else is this wacko judge Rogers going to do for future sentencings? Force a non-Christian to convert to Christianity?  Order a gay defendent to somehow turn straight, or else go to jail?

KTLV said Judge Rogers wouldn't comment on this case, or his sentencing habits in general.

I hope Texas can recall or fire judges. This one is too much.

Chicago Police Apparently Has Their Own Guantanamo

Homan Square in Chicago. Kind of
a Chicago Police Guantanamo Bay. Probably
very unconstitutional. Will it be stopped?  

I've long been suspicious of heavy military equipment owned and operated by local police.

You know, tanks, missile launchers, all that kind of stuff that risks blurring the line between protecting and serving the public and turning areas to tense military zones.

But if a bombshell article in The Guardian is true, I had no idea it was this bad.

It turns out the city of Chicago has what amounts to its own Guantamano, a secret interrogation compound called Homan Square, which the Guardian called the "domestic equivalent of a CIA black box."

That means family or attorneys could not find people who might have been in there, people spent days inside shackled, sometimes beaten, and almost always denied basic Constitutional rights.

The horrifying Guardian article details the following:

"Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases.
Beating by police resulting in head wounds
Shackling for prolonged periods
Denying attorneys access to the "secure" facility
Holding people without legal cousel for between 12 and 24 hours including people as young as 15"

The Guardian said at least one person was found unresponsive in Homan Square and later died.

Not surprisingly, the Guardian said Chicago Police Department officials would not respond to any of the newspaper's questions.

It appears Homan Square has been operating since the late 1990s, but it's been so secretive that there's been little public attention. People who were brought or imprisoned there tend not to talk about. Apparently, it's been made known that discussing it could make Chicago Police act rather unpleasantly toward people who open their mouths.

Many of those brought there are people arrested at protests. I guess out of concern for terrorism.

But many people who are unconstitutionally shelved into Homan Square are just rank and file drug dealers and similar accused criminals. Why not just book them like you normally do when they are arrested?

More sane police officials seem to be quite appalled by Homan Square. It's true police often have an office or building somewhere in which most people don't know what's going on. It's usually a quiet little getaway where police can talk with informants without blowing anybody's cover

Hey, you gotta do things like that in police work, so that's cool.

But Homan Square is different: Says the Guardian:

"But a retired Washington DC homicide detective, James Trainum, could not think of another circumstance nationwide where police held people incommunicado for extended periods.

'I've never known any kind of organized, secret place where they go and just hold somebody before booking for hours and hours and hours. That scares the hell out of me that even exists or might exist,' said Trainum, who now studies national policing issues, to include interrogations, for the Innocence Project and the Constitution Project."

Trainum should be scared on two levels. One, as he pointed out, that this civil liberties hellhouse in Chicago exists, as he points out. He should also be scared that other police departments have their own versions of Homan Square, and we don't even know about it.

Of course, the next important question is who in Chicago knew about this. How high up the chain of command does this go?

But the Guardian article does suggest quite a little coverup. This place seems to violate the official rules of the Chicago Police Department, though I'm sure people follow a lot of looser unofficial rules, too.

The Guardian quotes a former Chicago detective and current private investigator names Bill Dorsch:

"Transferring detainees through police custody to deny them access to legal counsel, would be a 'career ender,' Dorsch said. 'To move just for the purpose of hiding them, I can't see that happening.'"

Then why haven't any cops, detectives or brass had their careers ended by the shenanagans at Homan Square?

I know, I know, focusing on this Guardian piece makes me look like I think all police agencies are a corrupt criminal racket. Obviously, that's not the case. I still have faith in most police departments.

I also know that Chicago has a rich and sordid history of corruption, and Homan Square seems to be just part of that, um, tradition.

But given the fact that this exists, and for all I know exists elsewhere, is disconcerting to say the least.

We keep getting a steady drumbeat of cases concerning police brutality, overreactions and such in the news, and that seems to be unrelenting. Like the case I read about today of a sheriff dragging a mentally incompetent woman by the feet through a Florida courthouse. 

Some of the police unions think police officers and departments can do no wrong. However, every organization has bad apples, and I worry police have more than their share. So why not weed out the bad ones.

Meanwhile, there are some people out there who think all police are awful. That risks encouraging a few wingnut wackos to go off and shoot some innocent cop. That's already happened, of course.

I'll repeat what I've said in the recent past: Maybe it's time for police departments to recognize that when people criticize some of their tactics, that doesn't mean we are anti-police. It can't hurt to at least listen to the critics. If the argument is bullshit, then fine.

But some critics might be exactly right about their police criticism. Really. It's time for reform.

If the Guardian's reporting is correct, time to disband the place One Guantanamo Bay, in Cuba is quite enough. We don't need more in the mainland United States.