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North Korean Leader’s Assassinated Half-Brother Was A CIA Informant: WSJ

The half brother of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un – who was assassinated in Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia in February 2017, when two women smeared his face with the nerve agent VX – was an informant for the Central Intelligence Agency and met with agency operatives on several occasions, Wall Street Journal reports, citing a person who knew about the matter.

Kim Jong Nam was once considered to be the heir to late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il but he fell out of favor with his father in 2001 after he was caught trying to enter Japan on a false passport, and was arrested at Tokyo airport, apparently en route to Disneyland. Kim Jong Nam had been critical of Kim Jong Un, reportedly saying in 2012 that he “won’t last long” because of his youth and inexperience. The two brothers have different mothers, Bloomberg reports.

While details of Kim’s relationship with the CIA are not clear, several former U.S. officials told WSJ that he had no known power base in Pyongyang and would unlikely be able to give details of North Korea’s inner workings. The same unnamed U.S. officials also told the Journal that Kim was also in contact with security services of China.

WSJ notes that the CIA has long taken an intensive interest in North Korea, although its totalitarian culture, and the lack of a U.S. embassy there, makes it one of the agency’s hardest targets.  As Joel Wit, a former State Department official and senior fellow at the Stimson Center think tank, noted:

“My experience has been that the CIA has repeatedly thought that it had well-placed sources in North Korea, human sources, that really knew what was going on… Those sources have more often than not proved to not know what’s going on.”

The two women involved in Kim Jong Nam’s murder have since been released from Malaysian prison.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2I7DdzG Tyler Durden

What Universities Won’t Teach College Students About The Economics Of Climate Change

Authored by Robert Murphy via The Institute for Energy Research,

I recently gave a talk to a student group at Connecticut College on the economics of climate change. (The video is broken up into three parts on my YouTube channel: one, two, and three.) In this post I’ll summarize three of my main points:

(1) There is a huge disconnect between what the published economics research actually says about government policies to limit global warming, and how the media is reporting it.

(2) President Trump taking the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement doesn’t really affect anything on the margin, even if we stipulate the alarmist position on climate change. And

(3) If I’m wrong, and human-caused climate change really does pose a dire threat to humanity in the next few decades, then scientists are currently working on several lines of research of practical ways to actually deal with the problem.

The “Consensus Research” Does Not Justify Radical Political Intervention

I first clarified to the students that throughout my talk, I wasn’t going to grab results from right-wing think tanks, or from “fringe” scientists who were considered cranks by their peers. On the contrary, I would be relaying results from sources such as the work of a Nobel laureate William Nordhaus (whose model on climate change policy had been one of three used by the Obama Administration) and from the UN’s own periodic report summarizing the latest research on climate change science and policy.

To demonstrate just how wide the chasm is between the actual economics research and the media treatment of these issues, I described to the students the spectacle I observed back in the fall of 2018, when on the same weekend news came out that William Nordhaus had won the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work on the economics of climate change and that the UN released a “Special Report” advising governments to try to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The media treatment (sometimes in the same story) presented these events with no sense of conflict or irony, leading regular citizens to assume that Nordhaus’ Nobel-winning work supported the UN’s goals for policymakers.

But that is not true at all. Here’s a graph from a 2017 Nordhaus publication that I included in my presentation:

As the figure shows, Nordhaus’ model—and again, this isn’t cooked up by the Heritage Foundation, but instead was one selected by the Obama Administration’s EPA and was the reason he won the Nobel Prize—projects that if governments “did nothing,” total global warming would reach about 4.1 degrees Celsius. In contrast, if governments implemented the “optimal carbon tax,” as Nordhaus would recommend in a perfect world, then total warming would be about 3.5 degrees Celsius.

Anyone remotely familiar with the climate change policy debate knows that such an amount of warming would terrify the prominent activists and groups advocating for a political solution. They would quite confidently tell the public that warming of this amount would spell absolute catastrophe for future generations.

My point here isn’t to endorse Nordhaus’ model. My point is simply that Americans never heard anything about this when the media simultaneously covered Nordhaus’ award and the UN’s document calling for a 1.5°C limit. And yet, Nordhaus’ own work—not shown in the figure above, but I spell it out here—clearly concludes that such an aggressive target would cause far more damage to humans in the form of reduced economic output, that it would be better for governments to “do nothing” about climate change at all.

With or Without the United States, the Paris Agreement Was Going to “Fail”

To continue with the theme of how they’ve been misinformed, I reminded the students of the media’s apoplexy when Trump announced his intention to remove the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement (or treaty, in lay terms). I showed them a headline in which famed physicist Stephen Hawking said Trump was pushing the planet “over the brink.”

I then asked the students rhetorically, “You would think that the Paris Agreement was going to ‘work’ to contain the threat of climate change, except for Trump pulling out and wrecking it, right?”

And yet, the pro-intervention group ClimateActionTracker.org nicely illustrates that even if all countries met their pledges (including the U.S.), it wouldn’t come close to limiting warming to the weaker benchmark of 2°C, let alone the newer, more chic target of 1.5°C. Things were even worse if we evaluated the actual policies of governments (as opposed to what they stated they intended to do, about limiting their emissions).

Further, I included a screenshot (in the top left of the slide) from a Vox article published before Trump’s Paris announcement, which said not a single country on Earth was taking the 2°C target seriously.

Technological Solutions

After spending so much time showing that the political “solutions” were failing even on their own terms, I summarized a few avenues of research (see this article for details) where scientists are exploring techniques to either remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or reflect some incoming sunlight. Although I personally do not think human-caused climate change is a crisis, and do think that adaptation coming from normal economic growth will be more than sufficient to deal with any problems along the way, nonetheless scientists do have these other techniques in their back pocket, should they become necessary to “buy humanity a few decades of breathing room” while technology advances in the transportation and energy sectors.

Conclusion

Americans, especially students, are being whipped into a panic over the allegedly existential threat of climate change. Yet the actual research, summarized in the UN’s own periodic reports and in the research of a Nobel laureate in the field, shows that at best only a modest “leaning against the wind” could be justified according to standard economic science.

By their own criteria, the alarmist activists are admitting that political measures are nowhere near achieving their goals. Their own rhetoric says that these activists are wasting everyone’s time pushing solutions that will end in catastrophe. Occasionally they slip up, as for example when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez admits that her “we have 12 years left” was not to be taken literally.

In order to bring light to the climate change debate, at this point one just needs to actually screenshot and explain the evidence from the establishment sources. The rhetorical framing of the issue is so far removed from the underlying research that this alone is heretical.

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2IwLQ5U Tyler Durden

Hong Kong Pushes Forward On China-Backed Extradition Bill Despite Massive Protests

The leader of Hong Kong has pledged to move forward with legislation that will ease extraditions to China despite a massive protest from hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of citizens over the weekend. The legislation is backed by Beijing, according to Bloomberg, and would allow Hong Kong to enter into one-time agreements with places like China and Taiwan to move criminal suspects. 

Chief Executive Carrie Lam said that the government “could see people are still concerned about the bill.” Generally, a million people taking to the streets in protest can make that point clear. 

Lam has said that the legislation has been amended to protect human rights and called on Hong Kong’s elected Legislative Council to make further changes.

Lam remarked:

“The society has been closely and intensely discussing the amendment bill for four months. It should be returned to the Legislative Council, which should carry out its constitutional duty. This means after vetting the bill, legislators can amend or approve the bill or whatever. Our stand is still our stand today.”

“There is very little merit to be gained by delaying the bill,” Lam concluded. 

Hong Kong arrested 7 people who were parties to the protest on charges of “suspicion of attacking the police”. Lee Kwai-wah, senior superintendent of the city’s Organized Crime and Triad Bureau, said another 12 people were arrested for blocking roads. 

Jimmy Sham of the Civil Human Rights Front, the organizer of Sunday’s protest, pushed back on Lam’s comments: “Carrie Lam is provoking us. I don’t understand why a government doesn’t want us to live a comfortable life but to challenge us to see what price we can pay.”

Sham’s group plans on holding another protest outside of the legislature on Wednesday during the second of three required readings of the bill. 

Opposition lawmaker Claudia Mo said: “We don’t need any more written or verbal safeguards. We want the bill to be scrapped all together.”

China, meanwhile, has said it “firmly” supports Hong Kong’s stance on the bill.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters in Beijing that China  “opposes external intervention in Hong Kong’s internal legislation.”

Yesterday we noted that over 1 million people had marched in protest against the bill. 

According to the SCMP, it was the most unified protest march in the city in more than a decade, with some calling it the ultimate showdown over the bill, which goes to a vote on June 12.

If turnout numbers are accurate, it would represent the biggest protest since 2003, when 500,000 people demonstrated against national security legislation that was later withdrawn by the government.  The sea of marchers set off from Victoria Park just before 3pm and streets in nearby Causeway Bay were soon brought to a standstill as protesters clad in white chanted and sang songs as they walked in the oppressive heat, according to the SCMP.

Tensions escalated in recent weeks as Hongkongers from all walks of life have spoken out against the proposal. Petitions against the bill have circulated, thousands of lawyers staged a silent march and several chambers of commerce have voiced concerns. The bill’s proponents, mostly the city’s administration, see it as vital tool to fight transnational crime and maintain the rule of law.

“This is the last fight for Hong Kong,” the WSJ quoted Martin  Lee, a veteran opposition leader who founded the city’s Democratic Party. “The proposal is the most dangerous threat to our freedoms and way of life since the handover” of sovereignty, he said.

While the protests were mostly peaceful, there were occasional reports of scuffles between protesters and police, seven arrests and a fire in Central – but no major violence. Police gave the protesters a midnight deadline to disperse from government headquarters.

“I needed to let my voice be heard,” said Kitty Wong, a 38-year-old teacher who joined a protest for the first time. Gesturing to her two children, ages 8 and 9, she said: “We need to defend our home for the next generation.”

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2R3jeor Tyler Durden

Legal Scholars’ Letter on Initiating a Congressional Lawsuit to End Illegal US Role in the Yemen War

Children walk through a badly damaged neighborhood in Aden, Yemen.

A cross-ideological group of constitutional and national security law scholars recently submitted a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi urging her and the House of Representatives to initiate a lawsuit to halt the illegal US role supporting Saudi Arabia and its allies in the war in Yemen. The letter was drafted by Yale Law School Professor Bruce Ackerman, with assistance from the other participants. Signatories include Ackerman, Richard Albert (University of Texas), Rosa Brooks (Georgetown), Erwin Chemerinsky (dean of the law school at UC Berkeley), Mary Dudziak (Emory), Michael Glennon (Tufts), Jon Michaels (UCLA), Mary Ellen O’Connell (Notre Dame), Michael Ramsey (Univ. of San Diego, and one of the authors of the Originalism Blog), Aziz Rana (Cornell), Scott Shapiro (Yale), Ruti Teitel (New York Law School), and myself, among others (institutional affiliations listed for identification purposes only).

Here is an excerpt:

In vetoing Congress’ joint resolution on Yemen, President Trump has defied fundamental principles of constitutional law laid down by the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in the [1953] Steel Seizure Case. The Court’s decision involved a genuine emergency. A steelworkers’ strike had halted production, and this led to a dramatic reduction of crucial war materiel required by American troops fighting in Korea. Faced with a clear and present danger to the war effort, President Truman seized the steel mills in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief and ordered the workers back to work. In taking this step, Truman refused to follow specific provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act that Congress had laid out to deal with strikes in national emergencies. He instead declared that, as Commander-in-Chief, he had the power to act independently of the law laid down by Congress. The Supreme Court rejected Truman’s assertion of unilateral power as unconstitutional in the Steel Seizure Case…

We call upon you, as Speaker of the House, to initiate a law-suit which calls upon the judiciary to vindicate Steel Seizure in the case of President Trump’s military support of the Saudi war against Yemen. President Trump raises the very same constitutional question decided by Youngstown – only this time, it is the War Powers Resolution, not the Taft-Hartley Act, which explicitly prohibits the president from using his power as commander-in-chief to engage in unilateral war-making.

President Trump’s decision to support the war in Yemen represents a clear violation of the [1973] War Power Resolution’s reaffirmation of the Founder’s grant to Congress over the ultimate question of war and peace. Section 8(a)(c) not only grants Congress power to forbid American troops from engaging in “hostilities” involving direct acts of violence. It explicitly defines “hostilities” very broadly to enable the House and Senate to prohibit American armed forces from engaging in actions which “coordinate” or “accompany” the “regular or irregular military forces of any foreign country.” Congress was acting well within its constitutional authority in insisting on this broad definition of “hostilities.” Given the ease with which military “coordination” with foreign powers can escalate into full-blown war under modern conditions, the Constitution’s “necessary and proper” clause gave Congress ample authority to include these indirect forms of military support in order to preserve its ultimate authority “to declare war.”

I offered some additional analysis of the illegality of US intervention in the Yemen War here (in a post that reflects solely my own views, and not necessarily those of other signers of the letter):

[In April], President Donald Trump vetoed a congressional resolution that would have terminated US military aid to Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Yemen conflict….

But Trump’s veto of the resolution is not enough to make the US role in this conflict legal. It is still in violation of the 1973 War Powers Resolution…  That legislation forbids the “introduction” of US forces into “into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances,” for a period of more than 90 days without congressional authorization…. Significantly, the WPR defines “introduction” into hostilities to include  “the assignment of member[s] of [the US] armed forces to command, coordinate, participate in the movement of, or accompany the regular or irregular military forces of any foreign country or government when such military forces are engaged, or there exists an imminent threat that such forces will become engaged, in hostilities.”

While US forces are not directly engaged in combat in Yemen, the Trump Administration itself admits that they have provided intelligence, logistical support, and—at times—even in-flight refueling of Saudi aircraft. As Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee…, puts it, “We’re literally telling the Saudis what to bomb, what to hit, and what and who to take out.” That pretty clearly amounts to US involvement in the command, coordination, and “movement” of Saudi forces—exactly the sort of thing that the WPR forbids, absent congressional authorization.

US involvement in the Yemen War dates back to the Obama administration, and has long since passed the 90 day WPR deadline. Congress has never voted to authorize that involvement. Thus, it is illegal.

There is widespread bipartisan concern in Congress about the illegality of this conflict and the very dangerous precedent it sets. That is why the Yemen resolution passed in the first place, with support ranging from conservatives such as Senator Lee, to libertarians like Justin Amash, and virtually all Democrats. Rep. Ro Khanna, Vice-Chair of the House Progressive Caucus likewise supported the Yemen resolution, and now has also endorsed the lawsuit plan.

Unfortunately, widespread concern cannot stop the intervention by traditional legislative means alone, because the president can veto any congressional resolution he opposes, and the veto can only be overriden by an overwhelming two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress. By circumventing the War Powers Act Trump (like Obama before him) has shifted authority away from Congress to himself, ensuring that the default position is that he can continue the intervention, rather than that he must stop it unless Congress gives its affirmative consent. That makes a hash of the Founding Fathers’ scheme to ensure that the president cannot enter into new international conflicts without getting advance congressional approval.

A lawsuit could help redress this imbalance by enabling Congress to stop the illegal legislation without having to through a process in which the president can use the veto to shield his power grab. Even though success is far from certain, it is a strategy that deserves to be tried.

Some will likely condemn this strategy because the courts may dismiss such a lawsuit for lack of “standing.” But, in my view, Congress has a strong basis for standing in cases where the president has appropriated a core congressional power for himself.

[In order to get standing to sue, a plaintiff] must prove that it has 1) suffered an “injury in fact” that is “concrete” and “particularized,” 2) that there is a causal link between the injury and the defendant’s supposedly illegal conduct, and 3) that the injury can be redressed by a judicial ruling. Presidential circumvention of the War Powers Act  inflicts a “concrete” and “particularized” injury on Congress by depriving it of its share of control over the deployment of US military forces—an extremely important national asset. In addition, there is no doubt there is a causal link between the president’s actions and Congress’ injury. And a court can redress the injury by ordering a halt to unauthorized US military assistance to the Saudis and their allies.

Presidential usurpation of congressional war powers is not a new problem. Along with others, Bruce Ackerman and I spoke out against it during the Obama years. The time has come to consider new strategies for reining in the executive in order to ensure that no one person has the power to take the nation to war. As James Madison put it, “[i]n no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department…. [T]he trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man…”

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2KcZi1Y
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Punished Regardless

Authored by Eric Peters via EricPetersAutos.com,

Did you know that when you’re stopped for no reason at a drunk driving checkpoint – well, stopped for no reason having anything to do with something you did to suggest you might be “drunk” – your refusal to participate in self-incrimination can result in your arrest, loss of your government permission slip to travel as well as the impounding of your car?

Your “cooperation” is not only appreciated – it is required.

This not-much-discussed aspect of Checkpoint USA is arguably even worse than the existence of Checkpoint USA – which came into being in the ’80s, when the government decided to re-interpret the limits of its own authority (a problem with government) by summarily decreeing it to be “reasonable” to randomly and arbitrarily stop people and treat them as presumptively guilty of having committed a crime.

The thing George Mason and others who insisted on the Bill of Rights as their condition for reluctantly supporting the dodgy Constitution (which was confected by an elitist minority, behind closed doors and without any mandate from “the people” mentioned in the Declaration of Independence) feared would come to pass had come to pass.

Despite the Bill and its very lucid delineation of the the lines across which the government has no rightful authority to tread, the government simply “interpreted” the line more to its liking – at its pleasure.

The government became the arbiter of its own power almost as soon as the ink on the Constitution dried – limiting first freedom of speech (Alien & Sedition acts) and many other formerly sacrosanct rights of the people – including freedom of association and the freedom to actually own property – during the ensuing years.

In the ’80s, it cast aside the Bill of Rights’ very clear prohibition of unreasonablesearches – which by any etymological standard encompasses the arbitrary and random searching of everyone who just happens to be available.

But it’s not just being forced to stop without your having given reason to warrant it – or forced to submit to a search just because the government is powerful and you are not.

In many states, there is the additionalrequirement in law that, if ordered to do so by an armed government worker, you must perform gymnastics by the side of the road to demonstrate you are not “drunk.” Or breathe into a notoriously inaccurate device which provides evidence that can and will be used against you.

If you decline to perform the roadside gymnastics – for any of several practical and moral reasons, including perhaps because you aren’t coordinated and are nervous and the prospect of stumbling in front of the AGW, who will seize that as evidence of your “drunkeness” alarms you . . . or decline to “blow” into the apparatus presented by the AGW because you are aware of the notorious inaccuracy of roadside Breath Tests and prefer not to participate in self-incrimination that way … either is cause by itself for the AGW to apply handcuffs and take you to a cage and your car to an impound lot.

It does not matter that nothing has been proved against you. Your refusal to provide evidence is the evidence.

You are effectively tried, convicted – and punished – for being uncooperative. This has become a very serious de facto offense, even in the absence of any statutory offense.

And the “conviction” sticks even when de jure innocence of any statutory offense – including the “drunk driving” charge you were cuffed and stuffed for – has been established later on.

They win, you lose – regardless.

The person who refuses to cooperate by self-incriminating or who simply objects to the idea of cooperating with those attempting to incriminate him is automatically subject, in many states, to the immediate forfeiture of government permission to travel (i.e., one’s driver’s license) even if it is later determined – as by forced blood draw while in the custody of AGWs – that the victim had zero alcohol in his bloodstream.

It’s only a little bit removed from water-boarding or the use of the Iron Maiden – both of which are probably coming.

The legal concept of subjecting a presumptively innocent person – which used to be every person not actually convicted of a criminal act by a jury after due process of law – to duress in order to suborn his “cooperation” in his own prosecution is literally Medieval. The sort of thing done in dungeons by black robed, hairy-armed inquisitors in the employ of the Church or the King.

Today, the inquisitors wear body armor and have tattoos; are jacked  up on steroids rather than Jesus (though some of them profess that as well) and the duress is administered in a euphemized and bureaucratized manner intended to make it seem All Right.

But it is not All Right for state authority especially to subject an innocent person – whatever you may think he’s done – to hot irons and thumbscrews or any other form of duress in  order to make it easier to prosecute him.

And it is far worse to apply punishment to a presumptively innocent person for objecting to being treated as though presumptively guilty – who insists on being proved guilty of something other than being “uncooperative” before the state applies punishment.

*  *  *

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via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2WvnBKe Tyler Durden

Legal Scholars’ Letter on Initiating a Congressional Lawsuit to End Illegal US Role in the Yemen War

Children walk through a badly damaged neighborhood in Aden, Yemen.

A cross-ideological group of constitutional and national security law scholars recently submitted a letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi urging her and the House of Representatives to initiate a lawsuit to halt the illegal US role supporting Saudi Arabia and its allies in the war in Yemen. The letter was drafted by Yale Law School Professor Bruce Ackerman, with assistance from the other participants. Signatories include Ackerman, Richard Albert (University of Texas), Rosa Brooks (Georgetown), Erwin Chemerinsky (dean of the law school at UC Berkeley), Mary Dudziak (Emory), Michael Glennon (Tufts), Jon Michaels (UCLA), Mary Ellen O’Connell (Notre Dame), Michael Ramsey (Univ. of San Diego, and one of the authors of the Originalism Blog), Aziz Rana (Cornell), Scott Shapiro (Yale), Ruti Teitel (New York Law School), and myself, among others (institutional affiliations listed for identification purposes only).

Here is an excerpt:

In vetoing Congress’ joint resolution on Yemen, President Trump has defied fundamental principles of constitutional law laid down by the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in the [1953] Steel Seizure Case. The Court’s decision involved a genuine emergency. A steelworkers’ strike had halted production, and this led to a dramatic reduction of crucial war materiel required by American troops fighting in Korea. Faced with a clear and present danger to the war effort, President Truman seized the steel mills in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief and ordered the workers back to work. In taking this step, Truman refused to follow specific provisions of the Taft-Hartley Act that Congress had laid out to deal with strikes in national emergencies. He instead declared that, as Commander-in-Chief, he had the power to act independently of the law laid down by Congress. The Supreme Court rejected Truman’s assertion of unilateral power as unconstitutional in the Steel Seizure Case…

We call upon you, as Speaker of the House, to initiate a law-suit which calls upon the judiciary to vindicate Steel Seizure in the case of President Trump’s military support of the Saudi war against Yemen. President Trump raises the very same constitutional question decided by Youngstown – only this time, it is the War Powers Resolution, not the Taft-Hartley Act, which explicitly prohibits the president from using his power as commander-in-chief to engage in unilateral war-making.

President Trump’s decision to support the war in Yemen represents a clear violation of the [1973] War Power Resolution’s reaffirmation of the Founder’s grant to Congress over the ultimate question of war and peace. Section 8(a)(c) not only grants Congress power to forbid American troops from engaging in “hostilities” involving direct acts of violence. It explicitly defines “hostilities” very broadly to enable the House and Senate to prohibit American armed forces from engaging in actions which “coordinate” or “accompany” the “regular or irregular military forces of any foreign country.” Congress was acting well within its constitutional authority in insisting on this broad definition of “hostilities.” Given the ease with which military “coordination” with foreign powers can escalate into full-blown war under modern conditions, the Constitution’s “necessary and proper” clause gave Congress ample authority to include these indirect forms of military support in order to preserve its ultimate authority “to declare war.”

I offered some additional analysis of the illegality of US intervention in the Yemen War here (in a post that reflects solely my own views, and not necessarily those of other signers of the letter):

[In April], President Donald Trump vetoed a congressional resolution that would have terminated US military aid to Saudi Arabia and its allies in the Yemen conflict….

But Trump’s veto of the resolution is not enough to make the US role in this conflict legal. It is still in violation of the 1973 War Powers Resolution…  That legislation forbids the “introduction” of US forces into “into hostilities or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances,” for a period of more than 90 days without congressional authorization…. Significantly, the WPR defines “introduction” into hostilities to include  “the assignment of member[s] of [the US] armed forces to command, coordinate, participate in the movement of, or accompany the regular or irregular military forces of any foreign country or government when such military forces are engaged, or there exists an imminent threat that such forces will become engaged, in hostilities.”

While US forces are not directly engaged in combat in Yemen, the Trump Administration itself admits that they have provided intelligence, logistical support, and—at times—even in-flight refueling of Saudi aircraft. As Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee…, puts it, “We’re literally telling the Saudis what to bomb, what to hit, and what and who to take out.” That pretty clearly amounts to US involvement in the command, coordination, and “movement” of Saudi forces—exactly the sort of thing that the WPR forbids, absent congressional authorization.

US involvement in the Yemen War dates back to the Obama administration, and has long since passed the 90 day WPR deadline. Congress has never voted to authorize that involvement. Thus, it is illegal.

There is widespread bipartisan concern in Congress about the illegality of this conflict and the very dangerous precedent it sets. That is why the Yemen resolution passed in the first place, with support ranging from conservatives such as Senator Lee, to libertarians like Justin Amash, and virtually all Democrats. Rep. Ro Khanna, Vice-Chair of the House Progressive Caucus likewise supported the Yemen resolution, and now has also endorsed the lawsuit plan.

Unfortunately, widespread concern cannot stop the intervention by traditional legislative means alone, because the president can veto any congressional resolution he opposes, and the veto can only be overriden by an overwhelming two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress. By circumventing the War Powers Act Trump (like Obama before him) has shifted authority away from Congress to himself, ensuring that the default position is that he can continue the intervention, rather than that he must stop it unless Congress gives its affirmative consent. That makes a hash of the Founding Fathers’ scheme to ensure that the president cannot enter into new international conflicts without getting advance congressional approval.

A lawsuit could help redress this imbalance by enabling Congress to stop the illegal legislation without having to through a process in which the president can use the veto to shield his power grab. Even though success is far from certain, it is a strategy that deserves to be tried.

Some will likely condemn this strategy because the courts may dismiss such a lawsuit for lack of “standing.” But, in my view, Congress has a strong basis for standing in cases where the president has appropriated a core congressional power for himself.

[In order to get standing to sue, a plaintiff] must prove that it has 1) suffered an “injury in fact” that is “concrete” and “particularized,” 2) that there is a causal link between the injury and the defendant’s supposedly illegal conduct, and 3) that the injury can be redressed by a judicial ruling. Presidential circumvention of the War Powers Act  inflicts a “concrete” and “particularized” injury on Congress by depriving it of its share of control over the deployment of US military forces—an extremely important national asset. In addition, there is no doubt there is a causal link between the president’s actions and Congress’ injury. And a court can redress the injury by ordering a halt to unauthorized US military assistance to the Saudis and their allies.

Presidential usurpation of congressional war powers is not a new problem. Along with others, Bruce Ackerman and I spoke out against it during the Obama years. The time has come to consider new strategies for reining in the executive in order to ensure that no one person has the power to take the nation to war. As James Madison put it, “[i]n no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department…. [T]he trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man…”

from Latest – Reason.com http://bit.ly/2KcZi1Y
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Knife Ban and Vagueness Case at Supreme Court Conference

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court conference will consider whether to hear an important case on vagueness, Copeland v. Vance (docket page, with links to all briefs). As an earlier post by Eugene noted, the case arises from unusual knife control laws in New York City and New York State. This post provides some background about the case.

Types of knives. A switchblade or automatic is a knife that has a “bias towards open.” When the blade is folded into the handle, the blade is under constant pressure (from a spring) towards opening. The only reason that the blade stays closed in the handle is that the blade is held in place by a lock. When the user presses a switch or button, the lock is released, and the blade is propelled by the spring into the open position.

Common folding knife (CFK). A common folding knife has a bias towards closure. The closed blade stays in the handle until the user applies force to move the blade to the open position. For example, the blade might have a small hole or a tang that can be engaged by the user’s thumb, so the user can move the blade the full distance into the open position.

Gravity knife. Technically speaking, a gravity knife is one with no bias towards open or closed. Being neutral, the knife can be opened by gravity. So if the knife is held in a certain position, gravity will take over, and the blade will slide out of the handle. Gravity knives are best-known as paratrooper arms from World War II. Easy one-handed opening was helpful for paratroopers who were entangled in a tree.

New York’s odd definition. In the late 1950s, the New York legislature enacted a law that, among other things, banned gravity knives. But the legislature wrote an unusual definition, backed by a confusing legislative history. At least arguably, the definition is broad enough to encompass a common folding knife that can be flicked open when the user snaps his wrist.

The vagueness of the “flick test.” Some people are very adept at flicking knives, and most are not. While New York City police officers teach each other knife-flicking, most other New Yorkers are not mentored in the skill. As the gravity knife law has been enforced in New York City, any common folding knife is an illegal “gravity knife” if someone can flick it open.

Owners and vendors of common folding knives can never tell whether their folding knives are illegal. Suppose the user tests his knife regularly to make sure it can’t flick; or suppose the user shows the knife to a police officer, and the police officer cannot flick it either. But later, some other officer is able to flick the knife. The user is then a criminal. As the record in Copeland demonstrates, New York City criminally prosecutes cases such as this. Indeed, gravity knife prosecutions in New York City consist almost exclusively of flick cases, and virtually never involve real gravity knives.

Effect of repeal of part of the State “gravity knife” statute. Recently, the New York legislature passed and Governor Cuomo signed a bill repealing the State’s gravity knife ban. Amending the statute that prohibited possession of certain weapons, the bill simply removed every occurrence of the words “gravity knife.” However, the bill did not remove the definition of “gravity knife” from a separate statute in the New York Penal Law.

Unhappy with the repeal, the administration of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has pointed out that the NYC Municipal Code contains a provision against carrying a “gravity knife” on the subway or busses. He has announced that the City will prosecute people who violate this law (that is, people with a common folding knife that at a single police officer has been able to flick open). According to the New York Police Department, the  folding knives that tradesmen buy at Home Depot are actually “rapidly-deployable combat knives.”

Is the case moot? So argue defendants New York City and NY District Attorney Cyrus Vance. But their letter to the Court mentions only the state law repeal statute. As petitioners pointed out in their own letter, the defendants failed to inform the Court about their own plans to prosecute persons who live, work, or travel in the City, based on the city ordinance–an ordinance whose definition of “gravity knife” is parasitic on the still-existing state definition–the definition that has always been the heart of the constitutional challenge in Copeland v. Vance.

Additionally, the state repeal of the gravity knife prohibition was not retroactive. Given the two-year statute of limitations, New York retailers, including one of the plaintiffs, are still subject to prosecution for their sales in the last two years–such as if some officer can flick an individual’s knife that was purchased in the past two years.

Constitutional issues. Copeland was not brought as a Second Amendment case. Given the Second Circuit’s hostility to the Second Amendment (see, e.g., my recent amicus brief on the NYC handgun transport ban, which will be argued next term), the plaintiffs were probably correct to worry that mentioning the Second Amendment would inflame the Second Circuit. This is too bad, since knives are certainly among the “arms” protected by the Second Amendment, as I argued in the law view article Knives and the Second Amendment. [Cited in Seattle v. Evans, 366 P.3d 906, 914 n.10, 919, 926, (Wash. 2015); State v. Herrmann, 873 N.W.2d 257, 262 (Wisc. App. 2015), State v. DeCiccio, 105 A.3d 165, 193, 197 n.34, 200 (Conn. 2014); People of the State of New York v. Anthony Trowells, No. 3015/2013 (Aug. 4, 2014; Sup. Ct., Bronx Cty., Part 92) (Justice Troy Webber); People v. Genel, 2018 WL 1919053 (Cal. App. Apr. 24, 2018).]

Copeland v. Vance, at the Supreme Court stage, involves only a single and very important issue of criminal law. In a facial vagueness challenge to a statute, does the challenger have to prove that the statute is vague in all possible applications? The Supreme Court so indicated in the 1987 U.S. v. Salerno. But more recent cases, namely Johnson v. U.S. (2015) and Sessions v. Dimaya (2018), have taken a different approach. Four federal circuits have followed the newer rules while the Second Circuit clings to the old Salerno standard.

The circuit split is central to Copeland, since all parties agree that the New York statutory definition is not vague as applied to real gravity knives (that is, knives with no bias, such as paratrooper knives).

An amicus brief by law professors, including Eugene Volokh, urges the Court to clarify its rules on facial and as-applied challenges. Another brief from more law professors, plus the Cato Institute, elaborates on the vagueness problem, pointing out that literally millions of people are criminalized under a strict liability statute with no mens rea, and no means of determining whether their conduct is lawful. Finally, a Legal Aid Society brief details the atrocious record of enforcement of the “gravity knife” ban in New York City, where  85% of persons arrested are Black or Hispanic, and 96% are men. As the brief details, some such defendants have been sent to prison for years for peaceably possessing small utility knives that are sold at hardware stores throughout the City. The brief’s photos of some of these knives belie the de Blasio administration’s preposterous rhetoric about “combat knives.”

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Knife Ban and Vagueness Case at Supreme Court Conference

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court conference will consider whether to hear an important case on vagueness, Copeland v. Vance (docket page, with links to all briefs). As an earlier post by Eugene noted, the case arises from unusual knife control laws in New York City and New York State. This post provides some background about the case.

Types of knives. A switchblade or automatic is a knife that has a “bias towards open.” When the blade is folded into the handle, the blade is under constant pressure (from a spring) towards opening. The only reason that the blade stays closed in the handle is that the blade is held in place by a lock. When the user presses a switch or button, the lock is released, and the blade is propelled by the spring into the open position.

Common folding knife (CFK). A common folding knife has a bias towards closure. The closed blade stays in the handle until the user applies force to move the blade to the open position. For example, the blade might have a small hole or a tang that can be engaged by the user’s thumb, so the user can move the blade the full distance into the open position.

Gravity knife. Technically speaking, a gravity knife is one with no bias towards open or closed. Being neutral, the knife can be opened by gravity. So if the knife is held in a certain position, gravity will take over, and the blade will slide out of the handle. Gravity knives are best-known as paratrooper arms from World War II. Easy one-handed opening was helpful for paratroopers who were entangled in a tree.

New York’s odd definition. In the late 1950s, the New York legislature enacted a law that, among other things, banned gravity knives. But the legislature wrote an unusual definition, backed by a confusing legislative history. At least arguably, the definition is broad enough to encompass a common folding knife that can be flicked open when the user snaps his wrist.

The vagueness of the “flick test.” Some people are very adept at flicking knives, and most are not. While New York City police officers teach each other knife-flicking, most other New Yorkers are not mentored in the skill. As the gravity knife law has been enforced in New York City, any common folding knife is an illegal “gravity knife” if someone can flick it open.

Owners and vendors of common folding knives can never tell whether their folding knives are illegal. Suppose the user tests his knife regularly to make sure it can’t flick; or suppose the user shows the knife to a police officer, and the police officer cannot flick it either. But later, some other officer is able to flick the knife. The user is then a criminal. As the record in Copeland demonstrates, New York City criminally prosecutes cases such as this. Indeed, gravity knife prosecutions in New York City consist almost exclusively of flick cases, and virtually never involve real gravity knives.

Effect of repeal of part of the State “gravity knife” statute. Recently, the New York legislature passed and Governor Cuomo signed a bill repealing the State’s gravity knife ban. Amending the statute that prohibited possession of certain weapons, the bill simply removed every occurrence of the words “gravity knife.” However, the bill did not remove the definition of “gravity knife” from a separate statute in the New York Penal Law.

Unhappy with the repeal, the administration of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has pointed out that the NYC Municipal Code contains a provision against carrying a “gravity knife” on the subway or busses. He has announced that the City will prosecute people who violate this law (that is, people with a common folding knife that at a single police officer has been able to flick open). According to the New York Police Department, the  folding knives that tradesmen buy at Home Depot are actually “rapidly-deployable combat knives.”

Is the case moot? So argue defendants New York City and NY District Attorney Cyrus Vance. But their letter to the Court mentions only the state law repeal statute. As petitioners pointed out in their own letter, the defendants failed to inform the Court about their own plans to prosecute persons who live, work, or travel in the City, based on the city ordinance–an ordinance whose definition of “gravity knife” is parasitic on the still-existing state definition–the definition that has always been the heart of the constitutional challenge in Copeland v. Vance.

Additionally, the state repeal of the gravity knife prohibition was not retroactive. Given the two-year statute of limitations, New York retailers, including one of the plaintiffs, are still subject to prosecution for their sales in the last two years–such as if some officer can flick an individual’s knife that was purchased in the past two years.

Constitutional issues. Copeland was not brought as a Second Amendment case. Given the Second Circuit’s hostility to the Second Amendment (see, e.g., my recent amicus brief on the NYC handgun transport ban, which will be argued next term), the plaintiffs were probably correct to worry that mentioning the Second Amendment would inflame the Second Circuit. This is too bad, since knives are certainly among the “arms” protected by the Second Amendment, as I argued in the law view article Knives and the Second Amendment. [Cited in Seattle v. Evans, 366 P.3d 906, 914 n.10, 919, 926, (Wash. 2015); State v. Herrmann, 873 N.W.2d 257, 262 (Wisc. App. 2015), State v. DeCiccio, 105 A.3d 165, 193, 197 n.34, 200 (Conn. 2014); People of the State of New York v. Anthony Trowells, No. 3015/2013 (Aug. 4, 2014; Sup. Ct., Bronx Cty., Part 92) (Justice Troy Webber); People v. Genel, 2018 WL 1919053 (Cal. App. Apr. 24, 2018).]

Copeland v. Vance, at the Supreme Court stage, involves only a single and very important issue of criminal law. In a facial vagueness challenge to a statute, does the challenger have to prove that the statute is vague in all possible applications? The Supreme Court so indicated in the 1987 U.S. v. Salerno. But more recent cases, namely Johnson v. U.S. (2015) and Sessions v. Dimaya (2018), have taken a different approach. Four federal circuits have followed the newer rules while the Second Circuit clings to the old Salerno standard.

The circuit split is central to Copeland, since all parties agree that the New York statutory definition is not vague as applied to real gravity knives (that is, knives with no bias, such as paratrooper knives).

An amicus brief by law professors, including Eugene Volokh, urges the Court to clarify its rules on facial and as-applied challenges. Another brief from more law professors, plus the Cato Institute, elaborates on the vagueness problem, pointing out that literally millions of people are criminalized under a strict liability statute with no mens rea, and no means of determining whether their conduct is lawful. Finally, a Legal Aid Society brief details the atrocious record of enforcement of the “gravity knife” ban in New York City, where  85% of persons arrested are Black or Hispanic, and 96% are men. As the brief details, some such defendants have been sent to prison for years for peaceably possessing small utility knives that are sold at hardware stores throughout the City. The brief’s photos of some of these knives belie the de Blasio administration’s preposterous rhetoric about “combat knives.”

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You Won’t Believe Where A $450 Million DaVinci Painting “Vanished” To

Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi – the $450 million painting we wrote about back in April that had “vanished into thin air” – has finally re-surfaced – and you won’t believe where. 

According to Kenny Schachter at artnet news, the painting is not only floating somewhere out at sea, but also may not be worth anywhere near the $450 million it last sold for, as it may not have even been painted by DaVinci himself. 

A new book on the topic, “The Last Leonardo” reveals that the Salvator Mundi was likely painted by Leonardo’s studio, then possibly touched up by the master before it was brought to market. In other words, it may not be an actual DaVinci. 

And who is the bagholder? None other than Saudi Prince Mohammad Bin Salman. 

In fact, the claim that the painting was “previously in the collections of three kings of England”, used by a previous auctioneer of the painting, was also disputed in the book. This, however, didn’t stop what is being called a “cartoonish” and “foolish” bid for the painting of $450 million, said to have been placed by an intermediary to Mohammad Bin Salman.

The painting was then gifted to Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of Abu Dhabi, to be displayed at his local Louvre branch, before the painting was pulled from that planned showing, alongside of a planned showing at Paris’ Louvre. 

It was then reported in late May that the Louvre wanted to attribute the painting to “the workshop of Leonardo da Vinci,” instead of to the artist himself. In early June, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Carmen Bambach stated that the work was mostly painted by “Leonardo’s assistant, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio.”

Back in November 2017, we reported that the Mundi was driving the art world crazy because no one could verify its authenticity.

Which is why when the Louvre Abu Dhabi cancelled their showing in April 2019, it caught the eye of art world yet again. Not only that, but the museum’s culture department deflected questions at the time, with workers stating they did “not know where the painting [was]” according to Inquisitr.

Now, the painting is reportedly on Mohammad Bin Salman’s yacht, the Serene. The yacht was originally built in 2011 for the Russian vodka tycoon Yuri Shefler and then rented to Bill Gates for $5 million per week, before making its way to MBS by way of a reported 500 million Euro offer. It seems that MBS just can’t stop shelling out $500 million for things. 

According to Schachter, the art will “remain onboard until MBS finishes transforming the ancient Saudi precinct of Al-Ula into a vast cultural hub—basically an art Disneyland—that will no doubt compete with Abu Dhabi’s Louvre”. 

But the question is, given its attribution, will anyone want to see it?

The Abu Dhabi arrangement to show the painting was cloaked in mystery: nobody knew how the agreement was arranged, leading many to believe at the time that it was indeed Crown Prince Mohammed that bought it. Some speculated at the time that the painting purchase may have simply been a relatively easy way to launder half a billion dollars.

Prior to Schachter’s recent article, the last known stop for the painting was Zurich, when it was inspected by an insurance company before being shipped to “an unknown location” that we now know is floating at sea somewhere. 

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2KAvZWy Tyler Durden

Seismologist Warns “People Ought To Be Concerned” About SoCal Quake Swarm

Authored by Mac Slavo via SHTFplan.com,

A seismologist working on researching the recent earthquakes in Southern California said they have taken an unexpected turn, and that’s a reason to worry.  Caltech seismologist Egill Hauksson says residents should be alert and on their toes.

“People ought to be concerned,” said Hauksson of the earthquake swarm near the city of Fontana, California.

“This is probably the most prolific swarm in that area of the Fontana seismic zone that we’ve seen in the past three decades.”

This swarm of earthquakes has shown remarkable staying power in the area around the Southern California city, according to the LA Times.

The likelihood of a larger seismic event, given how many quakes that have occurred over such an extended period, is higher than normal, Hauksson said. The tremors could turn into a large and destructive quake, although the chances of that aren’t exactly sky high. For all intents and purposes, Hauksson has been rather vague on whether this will be a sizeable and destructive event.

“This is somewhat of an unexpected evolution,” Hauksson said Friday evening. An analysis of the earthquakes showed that activity as of late Friday was fading pretty slowly. Much slower than would be expected for a typical sequence of aftershocks following the main shock, Hauksson said. 

“That would suggest it’s going to continue for — I don’t know — at least several weeks,” Hauksson said Friday. “We’re watching what’s happening and trying to track that activity.”

By Saturday afternoon, earthquake activity had decreased significantly. “This is difficult to interpret, but it suggests that the sequence is now decaying somewhat similar to an aftershock sequence,” Hauksson said. “There will be fewer and fewer events as time goes on.”

Hauksson said the timing of the earthquakes is worth noting, however. The shaking was followed by a lull and then a spurt of new quakes and the earthquakes have been relatively shallow beginning just 1 to 2½ miles under the surface. As a result, the shaking has been widely felt, said Jen Andrews, a Caltech staff seismologist.

Hauksson said that, given all the seismic activity, residents should be ready and make sure to store “plenty of water, make sure there’s nothing that can fall on them.” Residents should be prepared because seismic swarms can be worrying, especially when they occur in areas known to have larger faults that are capable of unleashing catastrophic earthquakes.

Residents in the Fontana area said there is talk about how industrial wastewater ponds built in the last several years off of Jurupa and Beech avenues were drained recently, right around the time the quakes began.

Hauksson said there could be a connection if the pond water was pumped into the ground to a significant depth of at least 0.6 miles. But if the water was trucked away, he would not expect a relationship.

“This will require more research,” he said. It’s already been shown in Oklahoma that earthquakes can be triggered by water being pumped into the ground. –LA Times

Hopefully, even if no large quake occurs, the information will at least prompt some residents to prepare.  In the even of a massive earthquake, mass migration away from the area will likely occur too. Be prepared for anything.

“If we have learned one thing studying the history of disasters, it is this: those who are prepared have a better chance at survival than those who are not.” –Tess Pennington, The Prepper’s Blueprint

via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2EWDrHV Tyler Durden