Tag: hit&run

President Trump’s executive orders came so fast and furious in his first week in office, causing so much chaos and constitutional strife, that some fairly chilling details buried in the orders were drowned out in all the rabble.

In last Wednesday’s executive order on “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” section 9 dealing with sanctuary cities called for a “public…comprehensive list of criminal actions committed by aliens and any jurisdiction that ignored or otherwise failed to honor any detainers with respect to such aliens.”

Despite ample documentation showing native-born Americans commit more crime than immigrants (including undocumented immigrants), and that since 1990 increased immigration has coincided with an overall drop in crime nationwide, and that sanctuary cities have better economies and lower crime rates than their non-sanctuary counterparts, President Trump shows every intention of following through with his campaign promises to crack down on illegal immigration using any means possible. The supposedly anti-regulation president also wants to create some new federal bureaucracies to aid those efforts.

As Reason‘s Damon Root noted, the order’s threat to deny federal funds to sanctuary cities is unconstitutional for a number of reasons. And even though the language of the order was specifically designed to appease police unions by exempting federal funds “deemed necessary for law enforcement purposes,” in Los Angeles—a metropolis where one in every ten residents is an undocumented immigrant—both the police chief and the rank-and-file want no part of the Trump administration’s plan to use local law enforcement to round up people for deportation.

The police’s primary reason: it makes their job fighting crime (real crime, not imagined crime) harder if “you create a shadow population…that fears any interaction” with police, as LAPD Chief Charlie Beck told the Los Angeles Times.

Section 13 of last Wednesday’s executive order also calls for the creation of an “Office for Victims of Crimes Committed by Removable Aliens,” which according to the order will “provide proactive, timely, adequate, and professional services to victims of crimes committed by removable aliens and the family members of such victims. This office shall provide quarterly reports studying the effects of the victimization by criminal aliens present in the United States.”

The language in this section is so broad it is difficult to discern what level of crime would qualify for action by this proposed office. Would shoplifting by an undocumented immigrant lead to federal action for the “victims”? How about an undocumented immigrant driving without a license, or holding down a job? Considering immigration hard-liners consider every thing an “illegal” does in this country to be a crime, how many “victims” are we talking about? And how much will this office cost taxpayers?

Moving on to last Friday’s executive order, “Protecting the Nation From Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States“—which will likely always best be remembered as Trump’s “Muslim travel ban“—there is some curious language regarding the collection of “information regarding the number and types of acts of gender-based violence against women, including honor killings.”

To be sure, domestic violence and abuse of women are serious problems afflicting the United States, and “honor killings“—where a family member kills another to restore honor to the family after the violation some religious code—occur approximately 5,000 times a year worldwide, according to the United Nations. But in the U.S., that figure is “between 23 and 27” annually, according to a 2014 report commissioned by the Department of Justice.

For some context on how “honor killings” compare with other violent crimes in the United States, the report says, “Expressed as a rate, honor killing occurs approximately 0.008 offenses per 100,000 persons…compared with 4.7 for homicide, 27 for rape/sexual assault, and 113 for robbery…”

While even one “honor killing” is one too many, these numbers lay bare the exaggerated threat to the nation posed by the despicable practice in Trump’s executive order. And while it’s true that some undocumented immigrants do commit crime, the creation of new federal bureaucracies whose primary function appears to be to make the public absolutely terrified by the scourge of “Crimes Committed by Removable Aliens” is both a waste of time and a prime example of the “big government” the GOP once at least pretended to oppose.

Watch Reason TV’s doc “The GOP is Wrong About Sanctuary Cities” below:

Remember Amherst College student “John Doe,” who was expelled for sexual misconduct, even though he had good reason to believe that his accuser had actually assaulted him? A judge recently blocked Doe’s attempt to subpoena his female accuser’s text messages on grounds that re-litigating the matter “would impose emotional and psychological trauma” on her.

Consider the implications of this decision. According to Seattle District Judge James Robart, a student who believes Amherst violated his due process rights, wrongfully expelled him, and ignored subsequent evidence that his accuser, “Sandra Jones,” was the actual violator of the college’s sexual misconduct policies, does not deserve the opportunity to make his case because someone else’s feelings are more important.

Whatever happened to believing the victim?

The incident in question took place years ago, during the late night / early morning hours of February 4-5, 2012. Jones was Doe’s girlfriend’s roommate at the time. Jones went to Doe’s dorm room and sexual activity ensued: Jones performed oral sex on Doe.

But Jones was blackout drunk at the time—a detail that Amherst administrators deemed “credible,” on subsequent review. Of course, it’s questionable whether a blackout drunk student can actually provide the level of consent that Amherst’s sexual misconduct policy requires.

Other factors cast doubt on the idea that Jones was the victim and Doe the perpetrator. After leaving Doe’s dorm room, Jones texted another male student and asked him to come to her dorm room for sex. She also texted a residential advisor about her “stupid” decision to engage in sexual activity with her roommate’s boyfriend. In these text messages, Jones admitted that she was “not an innocent bystander.” She also complained about how long it was taking this second male student to do anything sexual with her. She did not file a complaint against Doe until two years later.

It’s certainly possible that Jones was forced by Doe to give him oral sex without her consent, left the encounter with a fervent desire for another hookup, mischaracterized her own level of responsibility in a message to the RA, and didn’t realize she had been sexually assaulted for another two years (after befriending a number of victims’ advocates). It just doesn’t seem like the most probable explanation for what happened. But, based on a preponderance of the evidence presented to Amherst administrators, Doe was expelled.

Keep in mind that administrators never reviewed the text messages, and when Doe asked the administration to re-open the case in light of this error, Amherst refused. Doe was given just seven days to appeal the finding of responsibility, but he didn’t find out about the texts until months later.

Doe has filed suit against Amherst for mistreating him. He has not sued Jones, although maybe he should have. As part of his case against Amherst, Doe’s legal team subpoenaed Jones to testify at the trial and turn over certain documents and records of statements she made about the alleged assault. Jones refused to cooperate.

And, according to Judge Robart’s ruling, she doesn’t have to:

An in-person deposition of boundless scope would impose a substantial burden on Ms. Jones. (Subpoena at 1; see also Resp. at 7 (“Until a deposition begins, it is very difficult to know where it will lead and impossible to predict all the topics that may be explored with a witness.”).) The deposition would force Ms. Jones to relive a night in which she asserts Mr. Doe sexually assaulted her. (See, e.g., Clune Decl. ¶ 3, Ex. 4; Resp. at 6-7.) It would also reraise the subsequent investigation, hearing, and period of publicity that Ms. Jones has endured. (Id. ¶ 3, Ex. 5 at 11-12; Am. Compl. ¶¶ 54, 56.) It takes no leap of logic to reason that a live deposition would impose emotional and psychological trauma upon Ms. Jones.

Robart essentially argues that since Doe isn’t suing Jones directly, he has no right to involve her in his case against Amherst. He also argues that Amherst is in possession of the relevant documents, and thus Jones’s involvement is unnecessary. But, as KC Johnson explains, that isn’t quite right:

Yet much of the requested material couldn’t come from Amherst employees. For instance, a critical aspect of the accused student’s case is the basic unfairness of an adjudication that went forward under the false premise that A.S. had not reduced anything about the incident to writing. So the subpoena asked A.S. for “all communications, including text messages or emails, between you and anyone else on February 5, 2012.” The only conceivable source of this material would be A.S., not any Amherst employees.

Johnson notes that this decision might actually represent a setback for victims’ rights organizations, since it incentivizes accused students to sue their accusers in addition to their colleges:

Ironically, whatever minor assistance the ruling might have to frustrating the Amherst student’s quest for justice, the victory might be a Pyrrhic one for the accusers’ rights movement as a whole. Judge Robart sent a message that the only way an accused student can obtain relevant evidence involving his accuser is—as a handful of accused students have done—to sue his accuser as well as the college. Expect more accusers to be added to future lawsuits as a result.

Johnson is a co-author of The Campus Rape Frenzy, a new book about the death of due process on college campuses. He calls the Amherst case “perhaps the most egregiously unfair” one he has covered. Who could disagree?

• President Donald Trump is expected to announce his Supreme Court nominee today.
• Acting Attorney General Sally Yates has been fired by President Trump for refusing to defend his executive order on immigration.
• The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote today on Jeff Sessions’s nomination for attorney general.
• An executive order on LGBTQ workplace rights signed by President Barack Obama will still be enforced by President Trump, the White House said today.
• “The U.N. Security Council will hold an emergency meeting Tuesday, at the request of the United States, to discuss Iran’s latest ballistic missile test.”

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Rep. Justin Amash slammed President Trump’s “unlawful” executive order barring certain immigrants from entering the U.S.

Demonstrating once again that he is among the most principled members of Congress, the libertarian-leaning Republican from Michigan neatly laid out the case against Trump’s latest pronouncement.

“It’s not lawful to ban immigrants on basis of nationality,” Amash wrote on Twitter. “If the president wants to change immigration law, he must work with Congress.”

On his Facebook page, Amash explained that immigration law prohibits the government from denying entry to legal immigrants because of their country of origin, as Trump has done. And while it is legal for the government to prohibit refugees from entering, “banning all refugees from particular countries is harsh and unwise,” wrote Amash. “We still should admit well-vetted persons.”

President Obama’s executive order did not violate the law, according to Amash, because it only applied to refugees.

Unfortunately, there are very few people in Congress who are willing to call out their own party when its leader breaks the law and undermines the rights of American citizens.

Admitting that both parties routinely ignore the Constitution, reject the Rule of Law, and erode liberty is the first step to recovery.

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) January 30, 2017

In the Senate, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse has also criticized Trump’s immigration order for being “too broad.” Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham have expressed concern as well.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s degraded United States from a “full democracy” to a “flawed democracy” in its latest Democracy Index, stressing that Trump was not the cause but the beneficiary of the deteriorating situation.

Marian Tupy writes:

Of course, not all the news is positive!

Last week, I posted a typically upbeat note about the state of the world and some readers have criticized me for being too Panglossian. In fact, as I have explained in a Reason article some years ago, I do not see human progress as inevitable or irreversible. And while I am optimistic about the prospects of our species in the long run, I do not ignore short term reversals.

Take America, for example. After decades of decline, the homicide rate has risen in recent years. Similarly, life expectancy has fallen for the first time since 1993. Economically too, we are not doing particular well. It took our GDP per capita seven years (2008-2014) to recover from the Great Recession and our growth remains, by historical standards, anemic.

View this article.

In Arizona, Boulder Creek High School principal Lauren Sheahan and assistant principal Jay Kopas have been placed on administrative leave while the district investigates a Donald Trump parody video the two made for staff members. In the video, the two star as Trump and adviser Kellyanne Conway with Trump promising to build a wall to keep “those moron parents and weak and loser students out.”

The Department of Justice announced today it would not defend the legality of Donald Trump’s executive order temporarily banning refugee entry and virtually all travel from seven countries of concern.

In a letter to DOJ lawyers, acting Attorney General Sally Yates wrote that the department would not defend the executive order, saying that while the Office of Legal Counsel is charged with the “narrow question” of whether an executive order is “lawful on its face and properly drafted” and the DOJ’s Civil Division is charged with “advancing reasonable legal arguments that can be made supporting an Executive Order,” her role as head of the DOJ was “different and broader.”

My responsibility is to ensure that the position of the Department of Justice is not only legally defensible, but is informed by our best view of what the law is after consideration of all the facts, she wrote. “In addition, I am responsible for ensuring that the positions we take in court remain consistent with this institution’s solemn obligation to always seek justice and stand for what is right.”

Yates concluded that she was not convinced that defending this executive order was “consistent with these responsibilities” or lawful, and that as long as she is acting Attorney General the DOJ would not present legal arguments defending the EO until she was convinced it was appropriate.

Yates, a holdover from the Obama administration, was asked by the Trump White House to take the position of acting Attorney General. Nevertheless, Trump took to Twitter earlier today to complain that he had an “Obama A.G.” because of Democrat obstruction. Although CNN reports the White House could choose to dismiss Yates, there’s no indication of that yet. A vote on Trump attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions is expected in the Senate Judiciary Committee tomorrow.

At the Washington Post‘s Volokh Conspiracy Jonathan Adler writes that to his knowledge Yates’ move is unprecedented, and points to a 2011 lecture by potential Supreme Court nominee William Pryor about when it’s appropriate for an executive branch official to refuse to enforce and defend the law.

When it comes to Donald Trump’s immigration- and refugee-related executive orders (EOs), some of his harshest critics are fellow Republicans. That’s a good sign, as it suggests that the Grand Old Party, which in the not-so-distant past was the pro-immigration party (even illegal immigration!), isn’t simply rolling over for the new president.

Consider, for instance, Pennsylvania Rep. Charlie Dent, who represents the area around Allentown and a large Syrian ex-pat community. The Trump EO banning all visitors, including those holding green cards, from Syria and six other majority-Muslim countries, was put into effect at midnight on Saturday without any warning. “This is ridiculous,” Dent told The Washington Post, “the order appears to have been rushed through without full consideration. You know, there are many, many nuances of immigration policy that can be life or death for many innocent, vulnerable people around the world.”

Sens. John McCain (Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) released a statement that read in part:

We fear this executive order will become a self-inflicted wound in the fight against terrorism. At this very moment, American troops are fighting side-by-side with our Iraqi partners to defeat ISIL. But this executive order bans Iraqi pilots from coming to military bases in Arizona to fight our common enemies. Our most important allies in the fight against ISIL are the vast majority of Muslims who reject its apocalyptic ideology of hatred. This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country. That is why we fear this executive order may do more to help terrorist recruitment than improve our security.

Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) has a long history of being pro-immigration in general and has always shown a principled commitment to aiding those displaced by war, especially wars waged by the United States. At Medium, he wrote:

It’s unacceptable when even legal permanent residents are being detained or turned away at airports and ports of entry. Enhancing long term national security requires that we have a clear-eyed view of radical Islamic terrorism without ascribing radical Islamic terrorist views to all Muslims.

And then there’s Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, a lawyer by training and the son of Syrian and Palestinian parents. Amash explains all of his votes and many of his positions on his Facebook page. Here are some snippets from his reaction to recent actions by the Republican president:

Like President Obama’s executive actions on immigration, President Trump’s executive order overreaches and undermines our constitutional system. It’s not lawful to ban immigrants on the basis of nationality. If the president wants to change immigration law, he must work with Congress.

The president’s denial of entry to lawful permanent residents of the United States (green card holders) is particularly troubling. Green card holders live in the United States as our neighbors and serve in our Armed Forces. They deserve better….

He also points his readers to lengthy responses to “unhinged” supporters of Trump’s actions, explains in detail how the Constitution lays out differences between immigrants and non-immigrants and more. Amash’s Facebook is a miniature master class in how legislators should explain themselves and their stances. No wonder, then, that he opposes Trump in this instance and many others.

Criticism is almost always more important when it comes from within a person’s political party or ideology. It’s a sharp sign that the person being criticized has wandered into some deep and dangerous territory. That’s certainly the case with Trump and his orders on sanctuary cities (read Damon Root’s withering critique here) and on immigration and refugee policy. The laws were not just poorly phrased and timed, they clearly will not work to address the basic issues they ostensibly are meant to ameliorate. As Anthony Fisher noted here earlier today, the U.S. embassay in Iraq has said that Trump’s action is a recruitment tool for jihadists, as pro-American Middle Easterners realize they’re being hung out to dry. As for keeping America safe from terrorists entering the country as refugees, the fact is the country has an incredibly safe record:

No person accepted to the United States as a refugee, Syrian or otherwise, has been implicated in a major fatal terrorist attack since the Refugee Act of 1980 set up systematic procedures for accepting refugees into the United States, according to an analysis of terrorism immigration risks by the Cato Institute.

Before 1980, three refugees had successfully carried out terrorist attacks; all three were Cuban refugees, and a total of three people were killed.

Since the Cato Institute analysis was published in September 2016, a Somalian refugee injured 13 people at Ohio State University in November in what officials investigated as a terrorist attack. No one died.

You got that? Precisely zero foreign-born terrorists admitted as refugees have killed anyone on American soil (and no, the Boston bombers were not refugees). That’s the situation that Trump’s executive order is designed to improve.

Surrounded by a group of business leaders on Monday morning, President Donald Trump paid off one of his campaign promises by signing an executive order telling federal agencies under the president’s control to cut two federal regulations for every new rule added to the books.

“If there’s a new regulation, they have to knock out two. But it goes far beyond that, we’re cutting regulations massively for small business and for large business,” Trump said.

Unlike previous attempts to impose similar constraints on federal regulations—like the “one in, one out” proposal from Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) in 2010, which would have required agencies to offset the cost of new regulations by deleting older ones—Trump’s executive order does not specify that the regulations deleted much match or exceed the economic impact of those being added.

Overall, though, the executive order specifies that new regulations issued by the federal government in 2017 “shall be no greater than zero.”

An emphasis on regulatory reform from the new administration is a welcome development, indeed. After another record-breaking year that added more than 90,000 pages to the federal register—if you printed them all out and stacked them up, the pages of the registry would be taller than a brontosaurus—there’s no doubt that the federal regulatory state is out of control.

Still, rolling back federal regulations in a meaningful way will require more than this order.

“Regulations have compounded for decades with very little rollback ever taking place, so President Trump’s executive order requiring agencies to identify two regulations for elimination, for every one new regulation issued, is both reasonable and a step in the right direction,” says Clyde Wayne Crews, vice president for policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market think tank based in Washington, D.C. “However, it is important to focus on eliminating the equivalent regulatory burden rather than a specific number of regulations.”

Last year, for example, Congress passed 211 bills while federal regulatory agencies approved 3,852 regulations, according to CEI, which tracks federal regulations. Including last year’s record-breaker, 13 of the 15 longest registers in American history have been authored by the past two presidential administrations (Barack Obama owns seven of the top eight, with George W. Bush filling in most of the rest), according to the CEI.

Crews says the only way Trump can ensure long-lasting regulatory reform is to work with Congress. Otherwise, the next president could simply undo any executive orders he signs.

Trump seems to have some congressional support in that aim—as long as he doens’t squander his political capital on other issues.

In an op-ed published last week in The Wall Street Journal, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) outlined a series of regulatory reforms that take aim at the federal bureaucracy. The first step, McCarthy says, is passage of the REINS Act, which would require any new regulations that cost $100 million or more to be approved by Congress before taking effect.

As I wrote earlier this month, the REINS Act would only apply to about 3 percent of all federal regulations, but it would be a meaningful reform because it gives Congress a way to check executive rules with the potential to be particularly harmful.

In other ways, Trump’s order isn’t as clear-cut as the “one in, two out” phasing might suggest.

According to the order, there are several parts of the government exempted from the new guideline, including anything having to do with “military, national security, or foreign affairs function of the United States.” Other exemptions include internal regulations dealing with a federal agency’s organization and management. Independent agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Securities and Exchange Commission, which have implemented many of the regulations created as part of the Dodd-Frank Act, passed in the wake of the 2008 economic collapse and often criticized by Trump and others for handcuffing the financial sector of the economy, will also be untouched.

There’s other potential problems with Trump’s order too. As Franklin Harris pointed out on Twitter, giving federal agencies responsibility over what regulations get cut creates potentially bad incentives. Rather than cutting regulations that serve no purpose, agencies would have an incentive to scrap key regulations that create an argument for keeping those rules.

It’s similar to what happens during government shutdowns, when pretty much everything keeps humming along except for national parks—as a way to make a public relations point.

Maybe that will happen here and maybe it won’t—hopefully the White House would exercise the power granted by the executive order allowing its Office of Management and Budget to review which regulations will be scrapped.

Either way, if regulatory reform is going to stick, it will require more than just Trump’s pen.

• President Donald Trump today signed an executive order demanding that the government cut two regulations if it wanted to pass a new regulation. This seems like more of a goal (and a laudable one!) than an actual concrete policy, and analysts are a bit baffled as to how the order would actually be implemented in practice.
• Trump turned to Twitter to defend his immigration order to defend Americans from “bad dudes.”
• Democrats may filibuster Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, regardless of who it might be. What if it’s Merrick Garland? What then?
• In Quebec, authorities have arrested one suspect in the mosque shooting that killed six men and injured eight others. Originally two arrests were reported, but officials have since said that only one was a suspect and one was a witness. The two were identified as Alexandre Bissonnette and Mohamed el Khadir, but it’s not clear which was the suspect and which was the witness.
• Trump is getting blasted for adding adviser Steve Bannon as a regular attendee to National Security Council meetings, while bouncing the director of intelligence and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
• Behold, a robotic barista.

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