Supreme Court Nails Local Cops For Stealing Stuff

The Notorious RBG wrote Wednesday's U.S. Supreme Court
decision restricting civil forfeiture. 

I've complained before in this here blog thingy about something called "civil forfeiture."

It's been increasingly popular among some local law enforcement agencies across the country. It's basically "legal" theft.

Though as of Wednesday, it wasn't so legal anymore. The U.S. Supreme Court decided unanimiously that the Constitution's ban on excessive fines applies to individual states as well. That makes total sense to me and should be obvious.

Nonetheless, if you can get the most conservative and the most liberal Supreme Court justices to agree on something, that probably means they want to get rid of something that's terribly wrong.

There's no doubt about it. Civil forfeiture is indeed wrong.

Civil forfeiture essentially occurs outside the court system. It started as a pretty good idea: Civil forfeiture targeted large criminal enterprises by siphoning their money and supplies and resources away. No money supply and the cartel or whatever shrivels.

But then, many police departments discovered forfeiture was a way to boost their budgets. They would seize money and goods from people they arrested, which might be OK if the people involved were actually convicted of a crime and the amount of stuff taken was in line what the fines and such would have been anyway.

However, local law enforcement in some jurisdictions got into the habit of seizing cash, cars, real estate and other property from people who were not convicted of a crime, or in many cases, not even charged with a criminal offense. Then, these law enforcement agencies would make it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for people to get their property and cash back.

It's gotten so bad that some police departments have taken to randomly pulling over people with out of state license plates over for trumped up traffic violations. The police would then take any cash that was in the vehicle and that's it. To me, that's theft. To these corrupt police department, they called it "law enforcement."

Yeah, right.

A lot of people besides the nine members of the Supreme Court are saying good riddance to civil forfeiture, although I'm sure it wil continue in some form as crafty law enforcement agencies find loopholes around the ruling.

Again, forfeiture opposition makes strange bedfellows. I mean, the ACLU and the conservative Cato Institute are against civil forfeiture. If you can get those two groups to agree, that's something.

There are countless horror stories out there about civil forfeiture. One of them was the case the Supreme Court decided on Wednesday, Timbs v. Indiana. Police confiscated Tyson Timbs' $40,000 Land Rover after he was caught selling $400 worth of heroin.

Nobody questioned the fact that Timbs needed to bear consequences for his crime.  But Timbs had purchased the Land Rover legally: He used a life insurance settlement from his father's estate.

As the Huffington Post describes the case, Indiana law says people convicted of crimes like Timbs' should pay no more than $10,000 in fines. The Land Rover the cops seized was worth four times that.

One Indiana judge said the seizing the car was disproportionate to the crime. But Indiana's highest court overruled that lower court judge, saying the U.S. Supreme Court has never said that the Eighth Amendment's ban on excessive fines applies to states as well as the federal government.

So, the U.S. Supreme Court had to state the obvious today, in a ruling written by the Notorious RBG, Ruth Bader Ginsburg: That the Constitution - not just parts of it, but all of it, applies to the states.

The Supremes also based their decision in large part on the 14th Amendment, which says "no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

Well, again, duh!

I guess Supreme Court watchers could see this decision coming since November, when the Supremes had oral arguments in the case. Justic Neil Gorsuch scoffed at Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher, who was arguing that it how the 8th and 14th amendment had supposedly never been tested this way. "Here we are in 2018 still litigating incorporation of the Bill of Rights... Come on, General," Gorsuch said.

Indeed!

Even before Wednesday's Supreme Court decision, states had been feeling the heat and beginning to at least consider cracking down on civil forfeiture.  Frankly, I think the only people who liked this grifting was corrupt so-called law enforcement agencies.

In South Carolina, the Greenville News recently published the results of a two-year investigation it conducted with other news organizations regarding civil forfeiture in that state. The Greenville News reported that South Carolina police collected $17 million in forfeiture money and property between 2014 and 2016.

In almost a fifth of those South Carolina seizures, people whose property was taken by police were never even charged with a crime, never mind convicted. One South Carolina example that Reason cited was of an elderly woman whose house was nearly taken away by the cops because a few small-time drug deals were conducted on her property.

The woman had nothing to do with the drug deals, and any time she became aware of somebody dealing drugs on or near her property, she tried to shoo them away. (Which is brave of an old lady. You never know what these drug dealers can do.)

The Greenville news investigation results were so odious that the conservate law-and-order South Carolina legislature began considering a bill that would require a criminal conviction before any property could be seized from someone.

That legislative effort might have something to do with something that Jarrod Bruder realizes now that he shouldn't have said out loud, but it is what everybody assumes.

Bruder is the Executive Director of the South Carolina Sheriff's Association.  As the Greenville News reported: 

"(Bruder) said without the incentive of profit from civil forfeiture, officers probably wouldn't pursue drug dealers and their cash as hard as they do now. If police don't get to keep the money from forfeiture, 'what is the incentive to go out and make a special effort?' Bruder said. 'What is the incentive for interdiction.'"

Um, maybe police incentive to enforce laws is because it's their job? Wild suggestion, I know.

Reason said three states had already passed similar laws and 29 states had passed some sort of civil forfeiture reform, so you know this was getting pretty unpopular.  Still law enforcement is still  resisting the trend, and many of them will have to be dragged kicking and screaming to comply.

New Mexico passed a law last year in which civil forfeiture could only take place if there is a criminal conviction. Incredibly, some New Mexico cities ignored the law, saying the municipalites could opt in to the law if they wished, but didn't have to.

Nope. New Mexico courts said, again, being a version of Captain Obvious, that a law was a law and everybody had to obey it.

In Oakland, California, the FBI cracked down on a crooked landlord who was illegally trying to evict residents so he could make a lot more money on rent. So far, so good. But then, says KQUED, U.S. Marshalls seized the property.

They now want to evict the residents so they can have an empty building that would sell for a huge profit in the Bay Area's tight housing market. Who cares if they make people homeless if there's profit to be made, right?

The residents, and Oakland, and California officials are fighting this.

All this means that the Supreme Court ruling was a victory, but local, state and federal jurisdictions better keep an eye on rogue law enforcement agencies out there.  They're supposed to enforce the law, but some of them are stealing just as boldly as a guy with a gun holding up a liquor store.

You Are Treasonous If You Don't Bow To His Lordship Trump, Apparently

Trump thinks anyone who criticizes him is treasonous
Time to teach this boy a lesson

Donald Trump, as always, was pissed today.

One of the many things that made him pissed was the fact that Democrats in Congress did not applaud him at all, or nearly as much or as enthusiastically as they should have.

During a speech near Cincinnati today, Trump said this: "Even on positive news - really positive news, like that - they were like death and un-American. Un-American......Somebody said treasonous. Yeah, I guess, why not? Can we call that treason? Why not? I mean they certainly didn't seem to love our country very much."

Yeah, yeah, I know, Trump says dumb, divisive things multiple times every day. And a huge amount of what Trump says is terribly damaging and divisive for the United States. We're right to react against it, but it's hard, because this stupidity is becoming old hat.

But Trump's comments today are a big step forward in his efforts to become some sort of autocratic dictator, and today's comments should really bring the outrage level to new heights. And notice Trump went to his usual trope, "somebody said." As if he thinks pawning his thoughts off on some anonymous loser gives him cover. What an idiot!

As NPR helpfully explains, the U.S. Constitution defines treason against the country  "only in levying  War against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

As is obvious, the Democrats who did not applaud Trump did no such thing. Again, as is obvious, the Democrats were exercising their First Amendment rights. They were publicly disagreeing with the President, which we all have the right to do. So technically, the Democrats were actually being patriotic in voicing their dissent. Even if you don't agree with them.

Of course, nobody has to agree with the Democrats for not applauding. Trump and everyone else is free to criticize them for not showing support for the President's policies.

How, exactly, is it un-American to speak up against someone or something to which we disagree. I always thought it was patriotic to stand up for what you think is right in this country, and to blast anything you think is wrong. Don't we all have a duty as Americans to influence the best ways to run this nation?

Republicans regularly failed to applaud former President Barack Obama during his speeches. If you didn't like Obama and his policies, you were free to say so. Then South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson shouted "You lie!" to Obama during one of his speeches in 2009.

Yep, Wilson was rude, but he wasn't treasonous, and his remarks fell well within his First Amendment rights.  You didn't want to applaud Obama during his State of the Union addresses? Well, that was totally, 100% your right. So, how is it treasonous to criticize Trump?

It isn't. But Trump thinks of himself as the Grand Pooh-Ba, and that anyone who disagrees with him is somehow against America. Yes, he's that stupid, but what are you going to do

I'll tell you what we're going to do. If you don't like Trump, hate his policies, hate his attitude, we speak up louder than ever.

Again, being Captain Obvious here, we do not owe Trump or any other politician absolute loyalty. We either vote for them, or we don't. And that's where it needs to stand.

Trump's rhetoric is dangerous as well as spectacularly ignorant. If you think Trump's policies and opinions are awesome, then terrific! Support him all you want. But despite what you might think, you are totally un-American and unpatriotic if you consider any criticism of Trump or any other politician "treasonous."

If you do think such criticism is "treasonous." I suggest you move to North Korea. If you don't like dissent and think it should be crushed, North Korea is the nation for you!

Is Trump Administration Trampling The Rights Of Gold Star Dad Khizr Khan?

Is the Trump administration thinking of restricting
Khizr Khan's right to travel?

I'm really, REALLY hoping breaking news reports about Khizr Khan this afternoon are not true.

If the reports are true, we are in desperate straights.

You might remember Khan and his wife delivering a speech at the Democratic National Convention last summer.

He waved a copy of the Constitution and urged then-Republican candidate Donald Trump to read it.

Khan has been an American citizen for 30 years and his son, died in a bomb explosion as a member of the U.S. military in 2004.

If the reports this afternoon are true, then Trump did not read the Constitution, as Khizr Kahn suggested.

Kahn was scheduled to speak at a Toronto, Canada luncheon Tuesday, but canceled reportedly because his "freedom to travel abroad" is under review, according to several news outlets, including Politico.

"This turn of events is not just of deep concern to me but to all my fellow Americans who cherish our freedom to travel abroad.....I have not been given any reason as to why. I am grateful for your support and looking forward to visiting Toronto in the near future," Kahn said in a statement.

I'm writing this, but I'm still skeptical, because it seems so over the top. But you never know with Trump.

I'm hoping the whole thing is some sort of weird misunderstanding.

But if Kahn is right we should be totally worried about this if it's true.  I'll update if there's more confirmation, or it this turns out not to be true.

Arizona Republicans Want To Make The First Amendment Cost You, Big Time

Some Republican state lawmakers are trying to find ways to
stop mostly peaceful demonstrations like this one

UPDATE: 

Public outcry over a bad idea by lawmakers is always a good thing.

That bill that I describe below that could have led to racketeering charges and asset seizures for even the most innocent protest organizers is gone. 

Stick a fork in it.

Arizona House Speaker J.D. Menard said his office got manhy calls about the proposal and the conversation around it had become "toxic"

He will not be moving the bill forward, so it's dead.

Remember, folks, if something doesn't sound or look right, speak up! It worked here in Arizona.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION:

There's been lots of protests around the nation lately, mostly by liberal groups and people opposed to Donald Trump, and by extension, Republicans who are propping him up.

That's cool. It's always refreshing to see people express their First Amendment rights to speak out.

Be assured, I'd say exactly the same thing had it been a bunch of conservative Republicans marching out in the streets.

One thing I don't like, and few people do, is when demonstrations turn violent and ugly. Usually, it's a peaceful protest, and then a few yahoos in the crowd smash windows or set fires or do something stupid.

Sometimes, it's an anarchist who generally agrees with what the protesters are saying, but want to take it further and cause trouble.

Other times, it's provocateurs who oppose what the protesters stand for and want to undermine their message.

Either way, that behavior is criminal, and I'm all for arresting people who do that type of thing.

However, Republican lawmakers in Arizona want to take this beyond criminally charging idiots who cause injury or damage.

They've introduced a bill that would allow the state to charge protest organizers with racketeering and seize their property if somebody turns violent during the demonstration. 

Never mind if the protest organizers intended a peaceful demonstration. Never mind if the organizers had no way to know that somebody would end up causing trouble. If one moron causes trouble, the protest organizer is in big trouble under this legislation.

You can see pretty plainly what the Arizona Republicans are trying to do here. Many Republicans are increasingly hostile to First Amendment rights and are really sick and tired of people going out into the streets to publicly criticize their policies.

So their trying to shut everybody up so they can do what they want, voters and constituent sbe damned.

This legislation would mean that everybody would be afraid to organize a demonstration. Or, if someone does organize a march, somebody who doesn't like the demonstrators' point of view would break a window or start a fire.

That way, the organizers woud be in hot financial water (or worse) and not organize future protests. And everybody who knows that the organizer who has his or her assets seized because of the actions of someone they had nothing to do with would never set up any new protests.

As Arizona Democratic State Senator Martin Quezada said, "This bill only serves to chill people's rights to free speech by allowing one bad actor to turn peaceful demonstration organizers into racketeering felons."

Why do so many Republicans hate democracy lately?

As Quezada points out, it's already illegal to start riots, break windows and set arson fires.

Sponsors of the bill say they want to stop riots before they start, and dragged out that Donald Trump trope that people are paid to demonstrate and cause trouble, so they want to stop those allegedly paid thugs.

Democrats point out that, besides the legislation probably being unconstitutional, it could backfire on the Republicans. 

Say a Tea Party group wants to hold a demonstration to cheer on something Trump or Republicans in Congress are doing. Great! Then some idiot, maybe a liberal activist, smashes some car windows during the Tea Party party.

Would these Republicans be willing to charge a fellow Republican with racketeering if that happened? I wonder.

Either Arizona Republicans can't think ahead to such circumstances, or they would only apply their proposed law to liberal demonstrations.

Which is it?

In any event, this crackdown of First Amendment rights is spreading among Republican controlled legislatures nationwide.

According to Alternet:

"In recent weeks and months, politicians in at least 11 states - Minnesota, Washington, Iowa, Michigan, North Dakota, Indiana, Virginia,  Colorado, Missouri, North Carolina and Arizona - have either introduced or threatened to introduce bills that make it more dangerous or costly to attend protests, or be anywhere near them."

The Arizona legislation, like some of the others, could hold people who merely peaceably participate in demonstrations to those racketeering charges and asset seizures.

Say you object to Trump's immigration policy and your city is holding a demonstration against that and you want to participate. Would you go if you knew if some moron caused even a tiny bit of trouble that you could have your life ruined?

This legislation is the stuff of dictatorships.

Let's hope everybody protests against this type of legislation, before they essentially become illegal.

Now The Darker Theory Of What's Going On With Trump And His Minions

Is Donald Trump willing to go so far as to become a dictator
and throw out centuries of American Constitutional democracy.
Those fears could well be overblown but you never know with the Orange One

Yesterday, I cheered all those spontaneous protests against President Trump's executive order regarding Muslims entering the country and all that.

In addition to being immoral and possibly unconstitutional, I complained about how poorly thought out and stupid the implementation of it was.

That's still more than possible. Chances are, it's the simple reality. Trump and his minions are just stupid.

However I have a much darker and scarier theory.

Before I explain it to you, I get it the dark theory I'll describe could be quite farfetched. I'm also stringing together a bunch of facts to put the theory together. These facts could be unrelated or tenuously related, I'm not 100 percent sure.

Plus, it's possible I've been watching too many gloomy conspiratorial movies.

But, and this is a BIG but, everything I'm seeing is straight from the white supremecist and authoritarian handbook followed by megalomaniac wannabe dictators. Everything that's been going on in the past few days could be a grand plan. And a very dangerous one at that.

Given the white supremicists and wannabe dictators suddenly running the country, what I'm about to lay out feels frighteningly plausible. So here goes:

The sudden Trump executive order to block people coming from certain Muslim countries and to block Syrian refugees, among other things, caused chaos at the nation's airports as many people found themselves suddenly detained.

Even the State Department and Congressional leaders, including top Republicans, were blindsided.

The conventional wisdom, one that I adhere to, or at least wish for, was that everything was poorly thought out and executed, so it made a bigger logistical mess than you would have expected from a competent president.

But is Trump trying to create a white supremist dictatorship out of the United States? Or, slightly more likely, is Trump a dumb patsy being used by the likes of his Svengali, Steve Bannon and his crew of potential neo Nazis doing this?

The airport chaos with the Trump executive order naturally created a LOT of news media attention, and a lot of protest, which created even more media attention.

Was this situation intended?

Writing in Mother Jones, Kevin Jones wonders about this.

Like me, Jones admits the confusion and chaos could well have been just incompetence.  But he says there might be something else to it, and I find his argument intriguing.

He noted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not want to apply the ban to people with lawful permanent residence, Trump and his chief poobah, Steve Bannon, overruled them. To the unfamiliar, these are people who have green cards we're talking about

Jones writes:

"The decision to apply the executive order to green card holders, including THOSE IN TRANSIT, is almost insane. (Jones' emphasis.) Whatever else he is, Steve Bannon is a smart guy, and he had to know this would produce turmoil at airports around the country and widespread condemnation from the press. Why would he do this?"

Jones posits that Bannon really wanted turmoil and condemnation and bad press, and the airport chaos was intentional to create this flurry of media attention.  He totally wanted all this publicity. He wanted the ACLU and refugee advocates to freak out.

They did. The executive orders brought out thousands of protesters, and condemnation from the main stream media. The executive order pissed off a lot of people, including radical Islamists.

Maybe Bannon actually hoped for some terrorist attack so that he could point to the protesters and the media as un-American, and thus gain loyalty from Americans frightened by the terrorist attack.

It seems like the ground work is already being laid. There was a terrorist attack against a mosque in Quebec last night that killed at least six people.  Note that this happened in Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has very publicly supported refugees as the United States "Muslim ban" went into effect.

Note also how Bannon vilified the media as the opposition and said the press should "keep its mouth shut" about Trump. The president's counselor, Kellyanne Conway, wondered on Sunday why pundits at major media companies hadn't been fired for crticizing Trump.

See, they're trying to cow the press into being their PR department, rather than report what happened.

Bannon could also use the Quebec terrorist attack to vilify sane national leaders like Trudeau.

Then there's Trump's decision to bring Bannon into the Joint Chiefs of Staff and demoting the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

This is a big departure from past presidential practices of both parties who tried to keep politics out of the critical military decisions by the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now, the decisions made will be more political, hewed toward Bannon's white supremecist views, and away from the traditional strategic military thinking the panel had always done in the past.

There's also signs a constitutional crisis might already be brewing. There are reports the Trump administration is ignoring this weekend's court orders that would allow some refugees and green card holders into the country, instead of detaining them.

The President is subject to the law just like everybody else, and if President Trump is ignoring court orders, is he trying to be our white supremacist dictator instead of the head of a Constitutional democracy?

That's the dark scenario.

The more this goes on, the more demonstrators hit the streets. Huge crowds of protesters showed up spontaneously in cities like New York, Washington DC, Boston and many others on Sunday decrying Trump's unconstitutional moves.

Democratic lawmakers have been howling, too. But with few exceptions, Republicans have remained silent. Are these Republicans complicit in Trump's possible moves to become Dictator for Life? Or maybe just OK with it, because what the hell, Trump fits their agenda and to hell with democracy.

I'm not the only one coming up with theories like this. When I was almost finished writing this, I found an analysis, much more detailed than mine, that covers exactly the same ground I did. 

The article, and my thoughts, could be paranoia, but maybe not. It's so hard to tell at this point.

Even if I'm wrong, Trump is terribly damaging the United States morally and economically, and destroying our standing in the world.

Like I said, my fears might be overblown, but let's all remain vigilant and active anyway. The nation you save might be your own.

At Least People Are Keeping Up The Pressure On Trump, So Far

Massive anti-Trump protest at JFK airport Saturday

President Trump said yesterday that his un-American, incredibly poorly thought out sudden ban on Muslims entering the United States is "working out very nicely."

Which is one way to look at it, I suppose.

Another way to look at it is through the lens of reality - what a concept!  There have been a few, um, complications, as I'm sure you've seen on the news.

To review:

--- A federal judge in Brooklyn blocked part of the executive order not much more than 24 hours after Trump issued it.  The judge helped prevent some of the people who had just arrived from being deported, and freed them from a weird airport limbo, because they arrived just as the executive order was implemented.  Federal judges in Virginia, Washington State and Boston have made similar rulings.

---- Speaking of that, the world noticed how incredibly poorly executed Trump's executive order was. Even if you agree with all of its goals. (I surely do not) can you believe you incompetently it was laid out?  My wonderful but dopey cocker spaniel Jackson could have done a better job with implementation.

I'm sure Trump's dopeyness increased his standing in the world, ha!

---- Thousands of Americans rushed out to airports Saturday to demonstrate against Trump's ban and to support refugees. This is a biggie. Mr. Rogers famously said that whenever bad things happen, look for the helpers. There's always helpers. Sure enough, the airports were packed with 'em. Take that, Trump!

It's especially telling that the demonstrations pretty much started spontaneously. No real advocacy group slowly organizing a movement. Just a bunch of Americans heading to the airports to protest. And a bunch of immigration lawyers heading out there with them for some patriotic pro bono work.

This isn't to say I've gone all Pollyanna on everybody. Trump will continue to make everything more dangerous, tilt us toward war and ever-increasing terrorist attacks, wreck the economy, hopelessly smear America's reputation and make us a world embarrassment.

Tough times are ahead because of this.

I just have a small sense of relief, anyway, that many Americans are not taking this sitting down. The Women's March last weekend was "Yuuuuge!!!" as Trump might say, had he supported the demonstration.

It's also good that some of the leaders, not enough of them, but some of them, are following the protesters. I noticed the mayors of New York and Boston, two cities that have suffered terrorist attacks, are all gung-ho about the anti-Trump protests.  

I swear my slightly dopey but loveable dog
Jackson could run the country more competently
than Donald Trump

Trump's backers often say that people who protest against the president are "snowflakes" who are overly sensitive, and get their feelings hurt over every so-called bold move the president makes.

One of my Vermont friends on Twitter, Caitlin Maroney said that when a whole bunch of snowflakes get together, you end up with a blizzard. You know how disruptive blizzards can be. Don't you, Mr. Trump?

I  hope all these protests remain peaceful. We're playing into Trump's hands, his lie that we've become a nation out of control, if things become violent. All those airport protests were peaceful. More are planned today.

These big demonstrations won't alone get rid of Trump. But each outbreak of peaceful outrage does tear down his authority a little bit. He's big on optics, and these demonstrations are terrible optics for Trump on the world stage.

He'll keep overreaching and being stupid and authoritarian, just like his henchman and shadow dictator Steve Bannon.

People power can win in the end.

Welcome To The (Permanent) Oligarchy

This man might have just killed American constitutional democracy
and the American voters let him.  

Yesterday, the American people threw away the Constitution and many of the freedoms they assumed would be there forever.

Many voters wanted that outcome. The people that supported Trump agreed with him that niceties like press freedom, religous freedom (unless you're a Christian!) and due process just got in the way of, well, I don't know, but apparently they thought it got in the way of something.

The majority of voters just wanted an authoritarian who steamrolls through everything, legal or not.

America, you made your choice. What you don't realize is, if you find out you don't like your choice,  you'll never be able to change it. Think you can vote in a new Congress two years from now, or a new President four years from now ?

Hah!

Trump and his Republican minions now control everything, including the Supreme Court. If Trump sets the nation on a disastrous course, there's nothing we can do about it.

Trump and Co. will surely change voting laws to severely restrict the vote among people who might not want him to continue in office. That's what right wind oligarchs do. Team Trump will lie and lie to its gullible supporters, so that dwindling crowd will keep him in for a long, long time.

Maybe after eight years, Trump will make is so he has a third term. Or one of his henchmen will become President when he's done. Surely it won't be someone in favor of true democracy.

If Trump becomes involved in misdeed, we probably won't find out what Trump might be doing wrong. Yes, the media has its problems but we won't have investigative journalism, as it will be suppressed if not outright banned.

Team Trump team will suppress dissension. Taking it to the streets for peaceful demonstrations against him might someday become illegal. Or at least always be met with rubber bullets or worse.

So much for Free Speech. Right wing authoritarians suppress dissension any way they can.

I've already criticized Trump a lot, so it's part of my permanent record. The Internet is forever. I literally think I might be in jail or at least facing an expensive lawsuit within two years. Not because of what I will do, but because of what I have done - criticize and mock Trump.   (I'm still criticizing him now because I have nothing to lose. The damage is done.)

I wouldn't be surprised if people are jailed for criticizing his government some day. Or at the very least the more likely threat of jail or lawsuits will suppress any kind of vocal opposition.

If a Trump presidency impoverishes you or otherwise harms you, there's nothing you can do. If you have Muslim or Hispanic friends, there's a chance you'll have to say bye bye to some of them. If America doesn't become "great again," as Trump promised, too bad. You lose.

You made your choice America. Now you have to live with it.

Permanently.

In A Sanders Snit, Washington State Electoral College Members Might Throw Election To Trump

Will this Electoral College elector from Washington State
throw the election to Trump even if Clinton wins the
popular vote. There's a slight chance he could, all because
he's still in a snit that Bernie Sanders didn't win the
Democratic nomination. 

Washington State is likely to go with Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in tomorrow's pivotal election.

But if the election is close, two Democratic members of the Electoral College, which ultimately picks the president, say they won't, or might not cast votes for Hillary Clinton, even if she wins the popular vote.  

The most adamant of the Washington Electoral College members is Robert Satiacum, who supported Bernie Sanders during the primary, says the Seattle Times. 

Satiacum is still in a snit because Sanders did not win the Democratic primary, so he won't vote for Clinton if she wins Washington. Never mind that Sanders had repeatedly said those who supported hi in the primary should vote Clinton to ensure Trump doesn't win.

"No, no, no on Hillary. Absolutely not. No way," Satiacum told the Seattle Times. "I hope it comes down to a swing vote and it's me....Good. She ain't getting it. Maybe it'll wake this country up."

Judging fron Satiacum's quotes, he's as arrogant and narcissistic as Trump. Oh, he'll single handedly save the country from itself. Sounds like Trump's famous quote that he alone can save this country.

I guess Satiacum wants Trump to win to really ruin the country in the bonehead theory that everybody will come around to his line of thinking, which is to the left of Clinton.

Satiacum, a member of Washington's Puyallup Native American Tribe, is at the Dakota Access pipeline demonstration in North Dakota. (Native Americans and many others are demonstrating against the pipeline because it threatens drinking water for native Americans and it impinges on burial grounds.)

Satiacum says he doesn't like Clinton because he doesn't trust her on environmental and tribal issues.

He doesn't support Trump, but his actions have the slightest threat of throwing the election to Trump. Trump has said that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by China and strongly advocates the coal and oil industries, which certainly contribute to global warming.

Bret Chiafalo, another Democratic elector from Washington State, is also considering not voting for Clinton, even if the popular vote goes her way.

Interestingly, Satiacum, as noted, is a member of the Puyallup Tribe. The Tribal Council strongly backs Clinton, and has donated $460,000 to her campaign, one of the largest contributors from Washington State, says the Seattle Times.

Washington State has 12 of the nation's 538 electors from the U.S Electoral College, which would finalize the presidential results in December. The winner needs 270 votes from the Electoral College to become president.

The chances that Satiacum and Chiafalo could throw the election to Trump despite the will of the people is slim, but it is just that kind of arrogance that makes me wonder why the Founding Fathers established the Electoral College. 

Another Journalist Arrested, Jailed For Covering Anti-Pipeline Protests In North Dakota.

Filmmaker Deia Schlosberg was arrested in North Dakota
for filming anti-pipeline demonstrators and could face
up to 45 years in prison. Add caption 

Last week, I thought sanity finally prevailed when a North Dakota judge dropped charges against Democracy Now! journalist Amy Goodman.

She'd documented an anti-oil pipeline demonstration by Native Americans that turned rather violent. (Guards for the company building the pipeline pepper sprayed protestors and threatened them with attack dogs.)

Goodman was charged with "rioting," mostly because her film of the incident turned viral, but a judge last week said the charge was unwarranted.

Yay! right?

Um, no.

Another journalist/film maker, Deia Schlosberg, was arrested in North Dakota more than a week ago and faces up to 45 years in jail, charged with conspiracy, along with activists Samuel Jessup and Michael Foster.

Reuters says the criminal complaint accuses Schlosberg of agreeing with Jessup and Foster two weeks in advance to "engage in conduct that would constitute theft of property" and of traveling to the pipeline site in the same vehicle as Jessup and Foster.

According to Reuters and other sources, Schlosberg was taken into custody early this month. For 48 hours, she was reported denied access to a lawyer.

The reports don't make clear what Schlosberg was supposedly going to steal, and of course a documentarian with a point of view would travel with people she's interviewing, and probably agreeing with.

Reuters said the Pembina County Sheriff's Office has repeatedly declined to comment. As if shutting up will make this mess go away.

Especially with the publicity this latest round of North Dakota anti-First Amendment censorship is getting.

A number of random celebrities are rallying around Schlosberg, including Neil Young, Mark Ruffalo,
and Daryl Hannah.

Whether the celebrities have any influence or not, North Dakota prosecutors really need to brush up on their Constitution.

I'm sure Schlosberg's work has a specific point of view, a slant, a bias, if you will, that North Dakota prosecutors don't like.  I'm guessing for sure she's on the side of the anti-pipeline demonstrators.

Of course those prosecutors are under no requirement to like her work. They, too have the First Amendment right to say she's biased, her journalism is unfair, her work is shoddy, if that's what they believe. They can yell these opinions from the rooftops and we'll all just have to suck it up and let them.

That's the deal in America.

What the state's attorneys and prosecutors in North Dakota can't do is shut journalists and documentarians up via criminal charges because they don't like what they're saying, or the way they're saying it.

State sponsored censorship, anyone?

State's Attorneys in North Dakota are elected positions, and it would be interesting to find out to what extent the oil pipeline companies contribute to their campaigns. I wonder how much those likely contributions are influencing decisions to press charges.

Meanwhile, the protests against the pipelines continue in North Dakota, with or without people filming it. About 80 people were arrested in demonstrations Saturday, says Reuters. 

An Open Letter To The American Patriot Khizr Khan

Khizr Kahn offers Donald Trump a copy of the
Constitutiion while his wife looks on
at the Democratic National Convention.  

Like a huge number of Americans, I was awed by the address given Thursday at the Democratic National Convention by Khizr Khan, the father of the deceased American soldier who took Donald Trump to task in the best way possible.

Khan does not know me, I don't know him. I'm sure he'll never see what follows, but I want to write this open letter to him anyway.

Dear Mr. Khan:

Like millions of Americans, I watched your address to the Democratic National Convention in which you invoked patriotism, duty and sacrifice as you, in the most dignified way possible, helped us understand the dangers of Donald Trump.

We all know you and your family already sacrificed way too much, losing a son as he heroically saved the lives of other soldiers and civilians.

Yet, you walked out onto a stage and gave even more, in the name of duty and patriotism.

I don't think you fully realize what a great service you did. It seems I never hear anymore about how we should serve our country. It seems all I hear from people is, "these are my rights," without adding that with those rights come responsibility.

This nation needed so desperately to be reminded of this. Thank you for doing just that.

And it stuck. Days later, everybody is still talking about what you said and did. It's cleansing America's soul, at least a little bit

You rightly suggest that people in our political system must serve to advance our nation, not just themselves. To me it's shocking that we had to be reminded of this, but I'm grateful you did.

On Friday, during an appearance on MSNBC, you appealed to Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan's patriotism in asking them to take a moral stand by telling Trump, "enough."

You said:

"There is so much at stake, and I appeal to both of these leaders, this is the time. There comes a time in the history of a nation where an ethical, moral stand has to be taken regardless of the political costs.....The only reason they're not repudiating his behavior, his threat to our democracy, our decency, our foundations, is just because of the political consequences."

Let's hope these leaders' sense of patriotism outweighs their fears of political consequences.

I'm sure you're not surprised Trump didn't take your message to heart. He said your wife didn't speak at the convention because you didn't allow him to, that his sacrifice in "creating jobs" is somehow on par with yours, and that the Clinton campaign orchestrated everything you said.

Of course, you didn't read from a paper or a teleprompter, politely declined to use the services of a Clinton campaign speechwriter, and spoke from the heart.  Your wife was too overcome by emotion to speak, which everybody except Trump apparently understands.

Ultimately, what the rest of the nation thinks about your convention speech matters much more than how Trump takes it.

In a world of packaged soundbites, your very human and humane address made your message resonate even more. Which is incredibly important, given our noisy politics and news cycles and all that clutter.

The world can often seem hateful, violent and cold-hearted. Some people, like Trump, embrace that darkness.

You chose not to, though given the fact you lost your wonderful and brave son to war could have easily led you in that direction.

Instead, you found light in work, kindness, compassion and strength. That we saw these characters on full display as you gave your address Thursday will inspire me and countless others.  Maybe many of us will become better people because of what you did.

At least I hope so.

Mr. Kahn, your son was a hero..So are you.

Sincerely, Matt

Mississippi Latest State To Screw Itself Over Because Jesus

The Mississippi billboard says it all...A 

It seems to be a required ritual of Republican state legislatures across the United States.

Prove to their voters they are Christians by passing odious and usually unconstitutional laws "legalizing" discrimination against gays, and transgender people and anybody else they deem as not going to be Saved.

The latest is Mississippi, and as is that state's style, basically every business, every service provider, every government agency and every church can now refuse service to gay people, and anybody else they deem immoral, like people who have sex outside of marriage, whether straight or gay, divorcees, you name it.

The only protected people in Mississippi are monogamous, straight married couples. Presumably only ones that are Christian.

I don't know how you determine whether somebody who walks into your store is following these rules without interrogating them, but I'll let Mississippi figure that out.

That state sure does have a lot to figure out, especially this: Why does the Mississippi legislature and governor do something like this, knowing that there will be an outcry that will hurt its already meager and sad economy, budget and everything else?

I don't have a good answer, and they probably don't, either.

I know these weird "religious liberty" bills are coming fast and furious nationwide from wackos who want us to turn into a theocracy.

It's everywhere, it seems, not just Mississippi. Tennessee. Idaho.

The governor of Idaho just had to veto a bill that would have said schools can use the Bible in public school instruction. The gov, and his attorney general, wisely said this would have been unconstitutional.

Tennessee State Senate, not to be outdone, approved a bill designating the Bible as the official state book. The state's attorney general, along with every other legal eagle, says the measure violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

One Tennessee senator, according to Slate, said "the very founding of our nation, the very form of government we have to today" is based on the Holy Scripture.

Um, no. They created a secular government in which the freedom of religion was bestowed on the citzenry. Quite a different thing.

 The Tennessee legislature, in its "wisdom" also passed a bill that would allow mental health couselors to not help someone if doing so would conflict with their "sincerely held religious beliefs."

As the website thenewcivilrightsmovement.com put it:

"The ACLU of Tennessee warns the bill, should it become law, would allow counselors to 'refuse to see clients for almost unlimited reasons. For instance, a counselor could refuse to see a lesbian simply because of her sexual orientation, or see a couple involved in an interfaith relationship A counselor who is an atheist could refuse to see a Catholic client - and the list goes on.'"

That last sentence is important, and could really screw the right wing evangelists who are trying to create this evangelical Christian theocracy.

All this anti-gay, right wing evangelical Christian faux lawmaking is being done in large part to distract from the real problems facing their constituents that the legislatures are too stupid, or too in the pocket of wealthy campaign donors to tackle.

Let's not deal with an iffy economy, creating jobs, paying for schools and infrastructure, all that stuff is too hard!

So the resort to the tried and true "the gays did it" or "the atheists did it" or whatever to redirect voters' ire. That way, when the economy, the state, the schools, the roads and everything else is a mess, they can just blame it all on the gays and the ungodly, and pretend it's not their fault.

OK, then, Christianity is saved from the heathens! Our laws work!

Or not.

What happens if some smart aleck gay person, atheists, activist or prankster tries to take advantage of these new rules and laws to turn them on their heads?

The unconstitional lawmaking is designed to "protect Christians" from the "attack" their under from society as a whole, not to mention the big bad heathen U.S. Supreme Court.

You saw the example above of the atheist counselor not treating a Catholic client. You know somebody is going to refuse to serve somebody in Mississippi or North Carolina because that would-be client is an evangelical Christian.

"It's against my closely held religous belief to serve a Christian, so I'm not going to do it."

Will these upstanding Christians cling to their weird theocratic laws then? It will be fun to watch.

Meanwhile, the economies in the states with the bigoted legislatures are going to suffer because of their actions. (But as noted, it's the gays fault! And the atheists!)

We know North Carolina is losing lots of investment and business from people repelled by their bad anti-LGBT law. North Carolina has potentially a lot to lose: Its business sector is pretty vibrant.

You'd think the Mississippi legislature and its governor would work on fixing the state's really big problems. And they're YUUGGEE! as Donald Trump might say.

As ThinkProgress notes, Mississippi's economy is ranked worst of all the 50 states. It has the highest unemployment rate, the lowest gross domestic product per capita, the lowest averge money spent on personal consumption and the lowest average annual wages.

Mississippi also ranks lowest on its innovation and technology efforts, its educational attainment and health.

The state sounds like a helluva fun place, huh?

Their legislature and governor are only making things worse in Mississippi.

What happens when Mississippi gets too poor to even maintain its Christian churches?

Trump Violence A Hallmark Of World's Most Ignorant, Entitled Candidate

Anti and pro Trump partisans confront each other
in Chicago Friday night.  

Trumps famous incendiary words are only part of the reason why there's so much hate and trouble surrouding his increasingly odious rallies.

A lot of the trouble comes with Trump's attitude that he's going to do what he wants, when he wants, without ever consulting with anybody else.

He lies to get his way.  He's a classic bully who gets what he wants at the snap of a finger, and he's not going to stop now.

That's to everybody's detriment. Except Trump, of course.

It appears a lot of the trouble in Chicago Friday night came when Trump abruptly canceled the rally for safety reasons "after meeting with law enforcement."

Note the artful dodge here. Somebody in Trump's camp probably did talk with someone in law enforcement, so you technically have a "meeting" here with law enforcement.

However, both Chicago and University of Illinois police said they played no part in the decision to cancel the rally and as Acting Police Superintendent John J. Escalante said, "were kind of taken by surprise" by the announcement to call off the rally.

Surprising the police like this is never a good situation, especially when you have two large groups of people angry at each other - the Trump partisans and those demonstrating against the candidate.

Police usually have crowd control methods that work a lot better when they know something is coming, i.e. a rally with 10,000 people being cancelled.

I bet the police, through no real fault of their own, were caught flat footed by the announcement the rally would be canceled, and inevitably chaos erupted.

This plays right into Trump's (small) hands and perhaps that was his plan all along. Trump had been under escalating criticism for the violence at his rallies.

Now, he had a bunch of anti-Trump protesters here, and an abrupt rally cancellation would inflame the situation. The anti-Trump crowd would  get into fights, and then Trump could blame the liberal "goons" for all the trouble at his rallies, deflecting the blame away from Trump and his supporters.

I might have gotten too conspiratorial here with my theory but I wouldn't put it past Trump.

A Trump rally earlier Friday in St. Louis, which until Chicago was one of the worst yet, lends credence to my theory.

There's no question Trump is a goon. In St. Louis he said of the protests: "Part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long (to kick protesters out) is nobody wants to hurt each other anymore....There used to be consequences. There are none anymore."

Essentially he was saying it was OK to beat up a protester, then. I'm all for arresting and charging someone if, IF they're doing something illegal. There's you consequence right there. It shouldn't be assault, as Trump advocates, at least implicitly.

I get it that Trump isn't the one that made many of his supporters so angry. A complex, messy stew of economic turmoil, social change and other frustrations did that, not Trump. But Trump is using that anger to his advantage, and creating a show by whipping up that anger until we literally get sucker punches being thrown at his rallies.

Trump is a showman, and he realizes the rage he fans just makes the show all that much better. At least to his fans. And his ego. It's all about his ego, after all.

Trump said the protesters were "so bad for our country." Really? Protest, peaceful protest, anyway, is enshrined in the First Amendment.

But I know how much Trump hates the First Amendment except in the moments it benefits him.

Not all anti-Trump demonstrators are blameless. True,  rhe vast majority were peaceful, as were the vast majority of the Trump supporters, Neither side should resort to violence. It was a fail to see fists flying.

I'm also gratified there were large anti-Trump protests, but if their aim was to shut down the Trump rally rather than just demonstrate against it, that makes me uncomfortable. Free speech, even odious free speech, should be encouraged, not shut down.

The antidote to bad free speech is more free speech, so of course peaceful demonstrations are fine here.

I'm definitely no fan of Trump's GOP rivals in the presidential campaign, but I have to say they were spot on and  made some very good points in reacting to Trump's Friday Night Fiasco..

"There aren't fights breaking out at my rallies, Ted Cruz rallies, John Kasich rallies, Bernie Sanders rallies," noted GOP candidate Marco Rubio, the Senator from Florida.

Cruz correctly chimed in: "There's no doubt that a candidate bears responsibility for the culture that is set from the top."

Which proves Cruz and Rubio at least occasionally understand something Trump does not.  That with rights come responsibilities. We are free to say what we want in this nation, but there are consequences to what we say.

Trump, as noted above, wants consequences all right. As long as he never has to deal with any of thoae consequences.

Consequences, apparently, are for the little people.

The Kim Davis Anti Gay Bigot Hypocricy Train Rolls On. Sigh.

The mug shot of jailed idiot Kentucky county
clerk has the right wing inflamed, and the rest
of us thinking about how tedious she and her friends are.

I know I've maybe written quite enough of Kim Davis, that idiot county clerk from Kentucky who decided to go to jail rather than issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.

I also know I won't change the minds of the people who inexplicably support her, but really, I'm one of zillions of people who MUST vent about her.

In the grand scheme of things, she's not all that important, but I still always worry when people hijack politics and policy in an attempt to force the nation to embrace their toxic "religion."

There are a lot of villians here besides Davis, that's for sure. It's amazing the creative ways find to justify this bigotry.

Some of this bigotry is just downright hilarious.  Rich Wiles, an End Times nutcase, suggested China and Russia might launch nuclear strikes against the United States in retaliation for jailing Davis and supporting the "Homosexual Gaystapo."

Um, right.

The most common trope I've seen is with the jailing of Davis, the government is rounding up Christians because of their beliefs. "The federal government has started to incarcerate Christians," Todd Starnes of Fox News breathlessly Tweeted.

No, the jailing of one person for failing to uphold the oath of an elected office after failing to follow orders of the court.

I'm being Captain Obvious here, but nobody is being jailed for their religious beliefs. Davis can say whatever she wants. And if we're rounding up Christians for proclaiming their beliefs, then why isn't Davis' fourth husband in jail as he has been very publicly supporting her beliefs.

Because the First Amendment is still solidly in place, that's why.

We'd better hope presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is never elected, as he obviously wants to turn this nation into a theocracy. Here's his Tweet: "Kim Davis in federal custody removes all doubts about the criminalization of Christianuty in this country."

Presidential candidate Ted Cruz basically said the same thing. And on the bright side, Huckabee's planned "Free Kim Davis" rally next week at the jail she's being held at ought to be a hoot

So it's OK for the government to deny services to the public because of the government official's religion?

Of course, the goverment was giving Davis some religious accommodation. She could have stepped aside and let a deputy issue marriage licenses, but she would not let anybody in her office do that.

Says German Lopez at Vox:

"So when people like Huckabee and Cruz come to Davis's defense, they're not standing for religious liberties They're advocating for someone's ability to use her role as a government official to impose her religion on others, including people on her own staff in a way that discriminates against same sex couples. If that doesn't violate the separation of church and state enshrined in the Constitution, I'm not sure what does."

Huckabee and his ilk are just rewriting history. If you don't like the facts, change the "facts" to suit your ideology.

For instance, faux historian and evangelical David Barton said the Founding Fathers "made it real clear that the laws of God are higher than the laws of man."

So that whole separation of church and state thing was just put in there as a joke then?

Some people are comparing Davis to civil rights icon Rosa Parks.

One insightful, sarcastic Tweet I saw written by Kip Manley puts that idea to shame. "Kim Davis is the bus driver, unjustly prevented from being able to force Rosa Parks to sit in the back."

The hypocricy among the Davis crowd is something else. One classic example was cited by the JoeMyGod blog yesterday. A flight attendant who is a recent convert to Islam is suing because her newfound religious fervor makes it a moral issue to serve alcohol to people on planes.

Over at the very conservative site Brietbart, Pam Geller is having none of it, asking why the Muslim would want to be a flight attendant in the first place if it involves serving alcohol. And what about the right of passengers to be served alcohol, which is completely legal in the United States. And the flight attendant is asking for special rights, which is unfair, Geller said.

All possibly valid points, really. So why doesn't it apply to Davis?

As Joe Jervis of JoeMyGod writes:

"Brand new religious fervor? Check. Won't do the job she was hired for? Check. Demand for special exemption? Check. Public denied totally legal service? Check. But hey - this time it's not a godly white Christian woman, therefore very suddenly (and only-this-one-time-plus-for-all-other Muslims) separation of church and state is an actual THING."

All these threats to civil and religious liberties that Davis thinks she is "protecting" is reason to worry, of course. We need to counter their silly arguments even as we know we won't convince people like Davis, Huckabee and the Right Wing Nut Brigade.

Still, we need to laugh, too.

To celebrate our contempt for Davis, here's a nice ditty Sandy and Richard Riccardi wrote and posted about her, called "Shut Up And Do Your Motherfucking Job"

As you can tell by the title, there is some NSFW language in here, but it is FUN!
Watch:

Fired Law Professor And Jerk Says U.S. ISIS Policy Critics Are Treasonous. Ugh.

William Bradford thinks people who criticize
the War on Terror or military actions
are guilty of treason. So much for the 1st Amendment

West Point law professor William Bradford is now a former West Point law professor.

He was found to have exaggerated his academic achievements.

But that's not what's really infuriating about Bradford.  I don't know bow a scary guy like this got into the position of teaching law to West Point cadets.

Here's the deal: Basically, he's saying anyone who criticizes U.S. policy toward ISIS is treasonous.

According to The Atlantic, academic scholars who disagree with Bradford's views on the terrible terrorist group ought to be arrested because they are somehow aiding and abetting the terrorists.

It's not that the professors Bradford targets like ISIS. They hate those awful people, like most of us do. They just don't completely agree with all of the "war on terror" policies the United States has had in the past decade or so.

Bradford's language as to how these scholars are guilty of treason are straight out the McCarthy Red Scare tactics of the 1950s. The supposed pro-ISIS scholars, who are anything but, are guilty of "professional socialization, pernicious pacifism and cosmopolitanism."

So apparently it's treason for these professors to socialize with each other, call for peace and tend not to be particularly nationalistic.

Bradford calls the academics he opposes the "fifth column." The Atlantic says Bradford actually believes the scholars should be treated as "unlawful enemy combatants" which would theoretically open them, the schools they work at, their homes, and even  journalists who quote them to a military attack.

Well, then. There goes the First Amendment! And let's combat ISIS by becoming as militaristic, fundamentalist and lacking in human rights as they are! That'll teach 'em!

Luckily, Bradford is out of West Point now, and presumably there are more sane law professors teaching our fine young men and women there.

However, as The Atlantic puts it: 

"But it leaves unanswered the question of how he got hired there in the first place, given his checkered past and allegedly exaggerated credentials. And it also fails to explain how a scholar pushing these ideas seems not to have raised red flags any earlier."

Indeed!

Anti-Gay County Clerk Is Milking The Martyr Bit For Fun And Profit

Rowan County Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis
is enjoying her role of rubbing her
"religious" convictions in all of our faces.  

UPDATE: 

This dumb clerk said she would wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule all the lower courts that have in recent weeks ruled against her efforts to not issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.

The U.S. Supreme Court basically blew her off Monday, so now the ball is back in her court. She has vowed to go to jail rather than comply with court rulings.

The Martyr Complex again.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION

A county clerk in Kentucky named Kim Davis is really milking her 15 minutes of fame, extending that 15 minutes longer and longer for the fun and profit of martyrdom.

Her schtick: Refusing to obey orders to marry same sex couples along with straight couples to comply with the June U.S. Supreme Court ruling saying there is a Constitutional right to gay marriage.   

True, not everybody likes that ruling, but if you're a sworn government official, you have to uphold the law.

Davis said God's law is more important, or at least her interpretation of it is. It goes against her religious beliefs to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples.

Fair enough. If her religious beliefs bar her from issuing such marriage licenses, then she shouldn't. However, even though she considers God's law more important, she still has to comply with U.S. law.

The solution would be to resign as county clerk if her religious beliefs conflict with her job. Several clerks across the nation have taken that route. Those clerks, I support. I don't agree with their stance on gay marriage, but they took the honorable way out. They can't do their job because of their religious beliefs, so they found other jobs.

The clerks who resigned stayed honest and true to themselves. Can't argue with that.

I CAN argue with Davis. Courts have repeatedly ordered her to issue licenses, but she still won't.

(In a funny side note, Davis recently issued a marriage license to a straight couple. But what she didn't know was the male half of the couple is transgender. His birth certificate lists him as female, and Davis failed to check it. Ha Ha!!!)

Still, Davis is having her fun with her anti-gay lawyers.

As Michelangelo Signorile notes, Davis' intractability is a win/win. She gets to be part of the Conservative Martyr complex, in which you win notoriety and probably money for being "persecuted" by those "awful homo-fascists"

The right wing politicians win, too. Because if Davis ends up facing criminal charges or is forced out of her job as county clerk, they can point to the false notion that Christians are being persecuted in this country, religious liberty is under assault, yada yada yada.

Which is bullshit, of course.

Judge David L. Bunning of the U.S. District Court for Kentucky's Eastern District said this about Davis' religious rights:

"The state is not asking her to condone same sex unions on moral or religious grounds,  nor is it restricting her from engaging in a variety of religous activites. ....She is even free to believe that marriage is a union between one many and one woman, as many Americans do. However, her religious convictions cannot excuse her from performing the duties that she took an oath to perform as Rowan County clerk."

An editorial in the Lexington, Kentucky Herald-Leader said it best about Davis and her lawyers from the conservative Liberty Counsel:

"Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver continues to insist that elected public officials have a constitutional right to pick and choose which of their government duties they will perform based on their religious beliefs - in other words, that public officials can use religion to discriminate against certain citizens. 

Nothing could be more un-American. What he is advocating would destroy the rule of law, a foundation of our republic. And imagine the chaos, given the wide range of religious beliefs."

But Davis, the Liberty Counsel and their minions don't believe in America as it is. They want us to live in a theocracy, fashioned on their stilted, weird Biblical beliefs. They will not be happy unless everyone in the nation has the same religious beliefs that they do.

That means Davis and the Liberty Counsel really are un-American, as that Kentucky newspaper suggests.

However, most Christianists never take not for an answer, so Davis and the lawyers backing her will keep pestering us.

Sigh.

U.S. Attorney General Tells Corrupt Towns/Cops To Stop Stealing Stuff

A few, but certainly not all police departments
and prosecutors basically steal money
through "civil forfeiture" to fund their departments 

If you or I stood on some rural road somewhere, forced a passing motorist to give us his money, we'd be arrested and locked up for robbery.

However, a few corrupt police departments and towns and prosecutors have been doing just that, all perfectly legal.

Or at least they say it's perfectly legal.

Basically, a lot of them seize property and money for fun and profit, mostly profit, without any attempt at due process. Many of the seizures are from people who are innocent.

It's called civil forfeiture. I'd have no problem with this if someone were convicted of a crime, and their ill-begotten assets were sold and divied up between prosecutors, police departments and other government agencies.

But the key word here is convicted. Corrupt prosecutors and law enforcement agencies are seizing money and property from people all the time without these people even having been charged with a crime, much less convicted of one.

You'd think this would be unconstitutional, but people seem to be getting away with it.

Finally this past week, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is kinda, sort of putting a halt to that sort of thing. But it's been really out of hand and Holder's actions only go so far.

One of the bests primers on this robbery by cop and prosecutor racket came last September when the Washington Post had a lengthy article about what I might call a seizure police-industrial complex, in which police just basically steal money from unsuspecting motorist.

--THE SCAM

Let's get into the infuriating Washington Post article. 

It all started in the aftermath of the September, 2001 terrorist attacks, in which local police were encouraged to focus more on searching suspicious people, drugs and other iffy activities they come across.

But then it morphed. According to the Post:

"......the spread of an aggressive brand of policing that has spurred the seizure of hundreds of millions of dollars in cash from motorists and others not charged with crimes.......Thousands of people have been forced to fight legal battles that can last more than a year to get their money back."

It gets worse:

"Behind the rise in seizures is a little-known cottage industry of private police training firms that teach the techniques of 'highway interdiction' to departments across the country.

"One of those firms created a private intelligence network known as Black Asphalt Electronic Networking and Notification System that enabled police nationwide to share detailed reports about American motorists. - criminals and the innocent alike - including their Social Security numbers, addresses, and identfying tattoos, as well as hunches about which drivers to stop."

Some federal and state officials shave warned this network is probably unconstitutional, but Constitution, Schmonstitution when there's money to be made, or more accurately put, stolen.

"A thriving subculture of road offices on the network now compete to see who can seize the most ash and contraband, describing their exploits in the network's chat rooms and sharing 'trophy shots' of money and drugs. Some police advocate highway interdiction as a way of raising revenue for cash strapped municipalities."

And here's a damning quote in the Washington Post article:

"All of our home towns are sitting on a tax-liberating gold mine," Deputy Ron Hain of Kane County, Illinois wrote in a self-published book under a psedonym. Hain is a marketing specalist for Desert Snow, a leading interdiction training form based in Guthrie Oklahoma, whose founder also created Black Asphalt."

I thought prosecutors and cops were in the law enforcement business, not an extortion racket.

The Post said there have been nearly 62,000 cash seizures made on highways and elsewhere since September, 2001 without search warrants or indictments. A total of $2.5 billion was collected, and state and local agencies were able to keep $1.7 billion of that.

So again, no warrants, no court trials, no due process. Police just took money from people because they thought they were guilty. Or pretended to think they were guilty.

This money and property seizure crime spree, as I like to describe it, has been going on for years, with or without that Black Asphalt intelligence gathering crap.

Some examples:

Back in 2009, Wayne County, Michigan forced a woman named Krista Vaughn to pay $1,400 to get her car back, which had been seized by police after they mistook the woman's co-worker in the car for a prostitute. No charges were filed, but she still had to pay, said the Detroit News. 

It turns out Wayne County regularly did this sort of thing, collecting up to $8 million a year, often in cases in which nobody was charged with a crime, the Detroit News said.

Tellingly, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy would only provide a written statement saying 'If people are soliciting prostitutes, selling drugs or otherwise profiting from criminal activity, as prosecutors we have the right under the law to forfeit property.'

Notice that jerk Worthy (with the totally unworthy last name) didn't even address all the cases of innocent people, and she was far too much of a total wimp to be interviewed.

Back in 2011, authorities try to take a Tewksbury, Mass. motel worth $1 million away from its owners, Russ Caswell and his family, said the Institute for Justice, who helped defend the family. The try by prosecutors and police to seize the property came about because over 14 years, authorities made 15 drug arrests at the motel. During that time, more than 200,000 people stayed at the hotel.

The Caswells were never accused of participating in any crimes, or turning a blind eye to crimes. In fact, everyone acknowledges, the Caswells fully cooperated with police during investigations.

But, probably for the profit motive, police and prosecutors tried to seize the motel.

Thankfully, in 2013, a federal judge put a stop to the forfeiture and let the Caswells keep their property. The judge said police and prosecutors grossly exaggerated the evidence and had no authority to seize the property.

People can fight back, but that takes lawyers, time, legal expertise, and money, assuming they have any left after the cops stole their cash. Even when people fight back and are successful, the damage is done.

Like the people the Post cited:

--A 55 year old Chinese American stopped for speeding on Interstate 10 in Alabama had with him $75,000 raised by relatives so he could buy a restaurant. The dirty cops seized the money, and by the time he got it back, it was way too late for the restaurant deal.

---Mandrel Stuart, 35, said police took $17,550 from him during a minor traffic stop in Fairfax, Virginia. He turned down a settlement offer from the government for half the money because he didnt do anything wrong other than a minor traffic problem so what right did they have to take his money.

Stuart too the case to a jury and won, 'natch, but he lost his business. That's because he couldn't pay overhead after the cops stole the $17,550 from him.

The police will say they didn't steal it, but how else can you describe it?  It's just as bad as if police robbed a bank.

--HONEST COPS, PROSECUTORS

Not all police departments, prosecutors and local governments are in on this racket. Many refuse to participate, citing Constitutional, legal and ethical concerns.

The Washington Post quoted this guy:

"Those laws were meant to take a guy out for selling $1 million in cocaine or who was trying to launder large amounts of money," said Mark Overton, the police chief in Bal Harbor, Fla,. who once oversaw a federal drug task force in South Florida. "It was never meant for a street cop to take a few thousand dollars from a driver by the side of the road."

State law enforcement officials in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and other places backed away from this Black Asphalt idiocy because of Constitutional worries, the Post said

Finally, as I mentioned, one of the other good cops in this saga stepped in. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, is stepping down soon, but he's been taking a flurry of actions against some unconstitutional crap.

Holder's move doesn't go all the way in stopping this "legal" crime syndicate. But it's a start. Holder said police departments can no longer do this civil forfeiture thing unless it's related to a specific warrant or charge.

It might have been better had Holder limited to forfeiture to cases in which there was a criminal conviction, but like I said, it's a start.

I get it. All police departments and prosecutors' offices need adequate funding to truly go after the bad guys and gals.

But it doesn't exactly raise confidence in the criminal justice system when cops and prosecutors steal money to get the funds to arrest people who steal money.