Tag: news

Twelve thousand U.S. troops will be leaving Germany, although 5,600 troops will stay in other parts of Europe, including Italy and Belgium, while 6,400 troops are coming back to the U.S. (although some of them may still do rotations in Europe, according to Defense Secretary Mark Esper). As President Trump said to reporters outside the White House, “They’ve taken advantage of us for many years. We don’t want to be the suckers anymore.”

Twenty-four thousand U.S. troops will remain in Germany, and the specific time table for any of the troops actually leaving is not yet clear. As Reuters reports, “U.S. officials stressed that only a relatively small number of advanced units would move anytime soon. The rest of the troop movements would take years to fully implement, in part given the potentially billions of dollars in additional cost.” The U.S. is, at the same time, engaging deeper with plans for more troops and new bases in Poland.

Germany itself has spent over the past decade about a billion dollars related to the costs of our troops being there, though the U.S. still spends more on defense than all other 29 NATO allies combined, and Germany is now spending only about 1.38 percent of its GDP on defense, compared to the U.S.’s 3.4 percent.

This plan to move troops out of Germany did not come out of the blue; Trump had announced last month his intention to move what was then announced as 10,000 troops from the NATO ally, largely because he’s peeved at them for not spending up to 2 percent of their GDP on their own defense.  

The American ambassador in Germany, Emily Haber, learned about these plans last month through the media, she told NPR. Congress immediately began griping about the plan, with Sen. Mitt Romney (R–Utah) announcing plans to freeze our troop numbers in Germany via an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act this year. He had Trump allies, but defense hawks, such as Sens. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) and Marco Rubio (R–Fla.) as cosponsors, but the amendment never came to a vote.

The Democratic House didn’t like the idea, either. As Defense News reported at the time, “House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith (D–Wash.), said…the plan seemed strategically unsound and that Congress should block the administration until it makes its case.” Various German states began lobbying Congress to stop Trump as soon as his plans became clear. Germany has been home to the largest number of U.S. troops in Europe. Germany’s defense minister reacted to the initial announcement weeks ago by reminding America that Russia is still a threat and that U.S. troops are still needed in Europe to pivot to problems in Africa or the Middle East.

Sen. James Inhofe (R–Okla.), chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was sold on the troop withdrawal plan but as of last week believed it would take “months to plan and years to execute.” While he may have been wrong on the “plan” part, the “execute” part is still uncertain. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has already announced he’d rethink such withdrawal plans if elected.

Trump has remained mostly alone in Washington establishment circles in his belief that our current force structures around the globe aren’t sacrosanct.

Defense Priorities, a right-leaning group promoting a more restrained and limited U.S. military presence around the world, said in an emailed statement from Senior Fellow Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, Ret. that “[t]he U.S. force posture in Europe continues to reflect Cold War dynamics that no longer exist…Europe enjoys a high degree of safety and is largely wealthy and technologically advanced. Russia, whose power has declined substantially since its Soviet days, is mostly a threat to its smaller immediate neighbors. Germany, the continent’s leading economy, is set to rebound rapidly from the current pandemic, and has long had the means to contribute more to continental security….Troops withdrawn from Germany should be returned to the U.S. rather than reshuffled among other allies. The era of great power competition demands that U.S. allies be capable partners, not security dependents.”

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2P7CDEF
via IFTTT

From a Kansas Supreme Court majority opinion (by Justice Stegall) earlier this month in State v. Harris (a 4-3 decision):

In Kansas, it is a crime for a convicted felon to possess a knife[, defined] … as “a dagger, dirk, switchblade, stiletto, straight-edged razor or any other dangerous or deadly cutting instrument of like character.” … [F]iguring out when an object is a “knife” because it is a “dangerous or deadly cutting instrument of like character” is not as easy as one might suppose. See, e.g., Crocodile Dundee (Rimfire Films 1986) (“That’s not a knife … That’s a knife.”).

Indeed, no one has argued the statute makes it illegal for convicted felons to possess the utensil commonly used in kitchens to butter bread or slice vegetables. But does it? After all, it is a cutting instrument, is universally referred to as a knife, and it could conceivably be dangerous. Today we are tasked with deciding whether the uncertainty in the residual phrase in [the statute] is so great that the law is impermissibly and unconstitutionally vague. We conclude it is….

Christopher M. Harris is a convicted felon. When he and another man got into an altercation on a Wichita street, Harris pulled out a pocketknife. A police cruiser was in the area and the officer turned his spotlight onto the men. The officer observed Harris dropping an object which turned out to be the pocketknife.

The State charged Harris with aggravated assault, criminal possession of a weapon by a convicted felon, and criminal use of a weapon. At his jury trial, Harris testified he felt in fear of his life and opened the knife only for protection. The pocketknife had a 3 and 1/2-inch blade with serrations. A jury convicted Harris of criminal possession of a weapon and acquitted him of the other two charges….

Most litigation concerning vagueness in statutes has tended to focus on the due process elements of the vagueness doctrine. Does the statute fairly put people on notice as to the conduct proscribed? Are the words used common and understandable enough to allow persons of ordinary intelligence to easily grasp their meaning? This hurdle is often described as requiring no more than a “‘commonsense determination of fundamental fairness.'” … And when the analysis is confined to these questions, the rationale of the Court of Appeals panel—as well as the dissent—[rejecting the vagueness challenge] is understandable. The statute bars possession of knives by convicted felons. A pocketknife is a knife. People of ordinary intelligence are on notice as to what conduct the statute restricts, and the demands of fundamental fairness are met.

But our focus today is on the second hurdle—the one intended to ensure that the Legislature has not impermissibly delegated its authority to write the laws to officials or actors in either the executive or judicial branches of government…. The primary problem with a law that fails to “provide explicit standards” for enforcement … is that such laws “invite arbitrary power.” That is, these laws “threaten to transfer legislative power to” police, prosecutors, judges, and juries, which leaves “them the job of shaping a vague statute’s contours through their enforcement decisions.”

Because an impermissible delegation of legislative power will often lead to arbitrary enforcement based on subjective or even prejudicial criteria, the United States Supreme Court has indicated that the “more important” prong of the “vagueness doctrine ‘is not actual notice, but the other principal element of the doctrine—the requirement that a legislature establish minimal guidelines to govern law enforcement.’ [Without these], a criminal statute may permit ‘a standardless sweep [that] allows policemen, prosecutors, and juries to pursue their personal predilections.’ [Citations omitted.]” See also United States v. Davis (2019) (“Vague statutes threaten to hand responsibility for defining crimes to relatively unaccountable police, prosecutors, and judges, eroding the people’s ability to oversee the creation of the laws they are expected to abide.”); United States v. Reese (1875) (“It would certainly be dangerous if the legislature could set a net large enough to catch all possible offenders, and leave it to the courts to step inside and say who could be rightfully detained, and who should be set at large. This would, to some extent, substitute the judicial for the legislative department of the government.”).

It is the very overbreadth of such laws that renders them impermissibly vague. It is not necessarily because they are ambiguous on their face—an overbroad law can be very clear. The problem, in fact, may be amplified by clarity. If a law “makes everyone” a violator, then “prosecutors and the police [will] both define the law on the street and decide who has violated it.” This is a world in which “almost anyone can be arrested for something.” Nieves v. Bartlett (2019) (Gorsuch, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

It is appropriate to call such clear-but-overbroad laws “vague” because by failing to provide adequate enforcement guidelines, the Legislature has left it up to other actors to give the law teeth through their enforcement decisions and actions. As Justice Robert Jackson once wrote, without clear legal standards to guide us, we human beings “usually end up … condemning all that we personally disapprove and for no better reason than that we disapprove it.”

Within constitutional boundaries, legislators have this liberty. This is by design. Prosecutors, judges, law enforcement officers, and juries—that is, actors constrained by the law—do not have such freedom. This, too, is by design. Whether or not a person is arrested, charged, and convicted for violating a law must depend more on objective and discernable legal rules than on the mere discretion, guesswork, or whim of government officials. See Davis (“Only the people’s elected representatives in the legislature are authorized to ‘make an act a crime.'”)….

Today’s case gives us a textbook example of the … enforcement guesswork that can result from a vague law. The statute makes it a crime for Harris to possess a weapon. A weapon “means a firearm or … a dagger, dirk, switchblade, stiletto, straight-edged razor or any other dangerous or deadly cutting instrument of like character.” It is undisputed that Harris did not possess a firearm, a dagger, a dirk, a switchblade, a stiletto, or a straight-edged razor. In these circumstances, enforcement officials must ask, what exactly is a dangerous cutting instrument of like character? We are unable to discern a sufficiently objective standard of enforcement in this language. Instead, we are left with the subjective judgment of the enforcement agencies and actors. A pair of scissors? Maybe. A safety razor blade? Perhaps. A box cutter? Probably, but would that decision be driven by an objective rule or a historically contingent fear of box cutters?

The dissent chides us for reciting these hypothetical examples, though in doing so it issues its own subjective interpretation of what really counts as a knife. The dissent goes so far as to attempt to distinguish between the relative deadliness of the cutting edges on a box cutter (prohibited) and a pair of scissors (not prohibited). But the statutory language at issue—”dangerous or deadly cutting instruments of like character”—does not permit such fine distinctions….

[A] legislative enactment … has impermissibly delegated legislative power to the executive and judicial branches. Thus, we hold that the residual clause in K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 21-6304 is unconstitutionally vague….

From Justice Biles’ dissent:

The “pocketknife” in this case features a sharp, serrated blade, 3 and 1/2 inches long, that folds back into its handle. It is about 7 inches long fully extended. And even though the oversized bowie knife of Crocodile Dundee movie fame dwarfs it by comparison, it cannot reasonably be mistaken as something outside the foreseeable statutory meaning of “knife” in a measure designed to keep convicted felons from possessing a weapon…. I dissent because the majority’s decision inappropriately conjures facts not supported by the record, while improperly drifting past the undisputed facts in favor of hypotheticals. And by doing this, the majority imposes too strict of a standard on the Legislature’s ability to formulate criminal laws by now requiring “an explicit and objective standard of enforcement.”

That said, Christopher Harris may still prevail. In my view, he is entitled to pursue the mistake-of-law defense denied to him by the district court. I would reverse his conviction on that basis and return this case to the district court for a new trial….

The directive to consider a statute’s vagueness in the actual context of the facts should control. Courts decide whether a statute is vague as applied to the particular facts at issue because a litigant who engages in clearly proscribed conduct cannot complain about a law’s vagueness as applied to someone else’s conduct….

Analyzing K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 21-6304(c)(1) in light of the facts in Harris’ case reinforces our two traditional analytical polestars: (1) the statute is sufficiently clear to have informed him it was unlawful to possess his knife, and (2) the statute is sufficiently clear to stave off any contention that authorities arbitrarily prosecuted him for having it….

The criminal-possession statute makes clear not all objects with a blade are prohibited. It provides instead that “‘[k]nife’ means a dagger, dirk, switchblade, stiletto, straight-edged razor or any other dangerous or deadly cutting instrument of like character.” This statutory description supplants the term’s ordinary meaning. And the phrase with which we are concerned—”dangerous or deadly cutting instruments of like character” is given understandable dimension by the five listed items that precede it—dagger, dirk, switchblade, stiletto, and straight-edged razor.

When the Legislature decided to use the word “means” in defining “knife,” it made that definition both complete and exclusive. And nothing can be added or deleted by interpretation. So the majority’s hypothetical examples (“[a] pair of scissors and [a] safety razor blade”) would be excluded from the Legislature’s restrictive definition of “knife.” Similarly, and as the majority seems to concede, its box cutter example may very well fit within the restrictive definition of “knife.”

Nevertheless, the five descriptors provided are easily and reasonably understood to describe per se dangerous or deadly cutting instruments. The dictionary defines “dagger” as “a weapon with a short, pointed blade, used for stabbing”; “dirk” as “a long, straight dagger”; “switch-blade” as “a large jackknife that snaps open when a release button on the handle is pressed”; “stiletto” as “a small dagger, having a slender, tapering blade”; and “straight razor” as “a razor with a long, unguarded blade that can be folded into the handle.” And this then carries through for the disjunctive phrase “or any other dangerous or deadly cutting instrument of like character,” which is simply intended to prevent convicted felons from carrying a broader range of dangerous or deadly cutting instruments with features similar to those listed. Most importantly, the statutory language does not insert subjective judgment unmoored from the statute’s specifics. Harris’ knife—with its sharp, serrated, 3 and ½-inch blade that folds into its 4-inch handle—falls well within this statute’s foreseeable bounds….

If we embrace the majority’s view, our standard for the appropriate degree of specificity is transformed from a requirement for commonsense adequate protections against arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement to an unbearably exacting requirement that all statutes making specific conduct criminal must be wholly expressed by the Legislature. This goes too far.

The Justices also disagreed on the significance of certain statements by the state about the knife prohibition. The majority:

Harris [had] sought approval to introduce evidence that the State of Kansas—through Harris’ parole officer Alexis Olave—had told him that the pocketknife was not a prohibited knife. Harris proffered evidence that before the incident, Olave had advised Harris that he could carry the precise knife at issue, and he relied on that advice. Harris also provided a letter he had received from Olave after the incident in which she told him, “[Y]ou are allowed to have a pocket knife less than 4 inches in length while on post release. However, if the pocket knife is used in a threatening manner, then it can be viewed as a violation or as a crime.” … [The trial court rejected this argument, relying on the State’s argument] that parole officers are not legally authorized to interpret any statutes and so anything Olave may have said was legally irrelevant to a potential mistake of law defense ….

Harris moved to reconsider. Along with the evidence already proffered, he submitted the Kansas Department of Corrections Division of Community and Field Services Supervision Handbook. The handbook stated: “An ordinary pocket knife with a blade no longer than 4 inches is not considered by law to be a dangerous knife, or a dangerous or deadly weapon or instrument.” At a hearing on his motion to reconsider, Harris personally testified, “I went to [s]tate orientation just a couple of months before this, the whole place told me, everybody at that place told me and they give me that [handbook] stating and they told me I could own that knife.” The district court ruled again that Olave’s advice—or implicitly, the advice of anyone at the Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC)—on what “counted” as a knife under the relevant statute was not an official opinion upon which Harris could rely….

[W]e have [here] a concrete example of government officials expressing and operating under diametrically opposed, yet plausible, enforcement standards—a sure sign of subjectivity in action. The State of Kansas, through its prosecutors, believes (and has acted on its belief) that K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 21-6304 is meant to be enforced against Harris and his pocketknife. But the State of Kansas has also, through its Department of Corrections, published a handbook and advised parolees (including Harris) that K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 21-6304 is not meant to be enforced against Harris and his pocketknife. Even without any bad faith on the part of the government—and the record here gives us no reason to suspect there is—the circumstances present us with an unmistakable instance of arbitrary enforcement of an inherently subjective standard.

The dissent:

The majority further stretches the record past the breaking point by declaring the KDOC handbook is “a sure sign of subjectivity in action.” The majority’s premise is that KDOC was interpreting the statute under which Harris was convicted. The majority then concludes from the handbook that “the circumstances present us with an unmistakable instance of arbitrary enforcement of an inherently subjective standard.” other words, the majority wants the reader to believe the Sedgwick County District Attorney and KDOC both looked at the same statute and independently came to different legal conclusions about its scope, so the statute must be subject to arbitrary enforcement. Let’s consider a far more likely reality.

The Kansas Department of Corrections Division of Community and Field Services Supervision Handbook that Harris was given, after explaining, “You are prohibited from owning, possessing or purchasing any firearms while on supervision with the KDOC,” stated:

“Other prohibited weapons may include brass knuckles, throwing stars, or any other weapon so defined in K.S.A. 21-6301 (criminal use of weapons). An ordinary pocket knife with a blade no longer than 4 inches is not considered by law to be a dangerous knife, or a dangerous or deadly weapon or instrument.”

The record is a little unclear about this part, but it appears Harris received the handbook in 2014. We at least know he entered a halfway house in May 2014. But the inconvenient truth for the majority’s arbitrary enforcement premise is that the law changed in 2013 regarding criminal use of weapons. The 2013 change struck from K.S.A. 2012 Supp. 21-6301 the following language: “except that an ordinary pocket knife with no blade more than four inches in length shall not be construed to be a dangerous knife, or a dangerous or deadly weapon or instrument.” Note how that language parallels the handbook.

This simply means the handbook’s exception derives from statutory language that was outdated when the handbook was given to Harris—and the outdated language was not even from the statute now challenged…. [T]hese circumstances would be proper areas of inquiry as part of Harris’ mistake-of-law defense; but they do not provide an example of arbitrary enforcement of K.S.A. 2019 Supp. 21-6304 as the majority claims.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/39E8LJr
via IFTTT

In an apparent bid to shore up his support among progressives in the San Francisco Bay Area, President Donald Trump is promising to prevent the construction of new low-income housing in suburban neighborhoods.

“I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood,” Trump said on Twitter, referencing his recent repeal of the Obama-era affirmatively furthering fair housing (AFFH) rule. “Your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule. Enjoy!”

…Your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule. Enjoy!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2020

The old “Obama-Biden” AFFH rule did not, in fact, force suburban communities to allow low-income housing construction. Instead, the rather obscure regulation required states and localities who received federal housing funds to report on obstacles to fair housing.

The substance of that now-replaced rule is likely much less important to Trump than its symbolism as an example of the federal government forcing change onto localities that don’t want it.

In that sense, the president shares a lot in common with many of his progressive detractors in deeply blue areas of the country who are also happy to use regulation to keep new housing at bay, and who organize against attempts from higher levels of government to force them to accept new development.

This would include places like Lafayette, California, a wealthy San Francisco suburb nestled in Contra Costa County, where 69 percent of voters supported Hillary Clinton in 2016. Its residents fight to stop a “very urban,” “unsightly” 315-unit housing development was recently profiled by The New York Times.

Over in the suburban community of Cupertino, California—hardly Trump country—local activists spent years trying to stop the development of an abandoned mall into apartments, half of which would be rented out to lower-income tenants at below-market rates.

In the famously liberal city of Berkeley, California, activists often argue against new housing on the grounds that it will threaten their community’s sustainable character.

“Berkeley needs to prioritize a livable, sustainable environment for people who already live here,” said one resident at a 2018 Zoning Adjustment Board meeting, when opposing a 57-unit development of student housing. “We are not obligated to sacrifice what is best about Berkeley to build dorm rooms.”

In February, Curbed reported on how the group Livable California had created an ideology-spanning coalition that included Green Party members, explicit socialists, and anti-gentrification activists to oppose efforts to loosen restrictions on building dense housing.

In San Francisco proper, anti-gentrification groups frequently lead the charge against new apartment buildings, deploying arguments that blend concerns about rising rents and displacement with worries about “monster” developments changing the character and demographics of neighborhoods and (in at least two cases reported by Reason) casting shadows on nearby parks.

Frequently, activists’ crusades against particular projects include demands that developers build only 100 percent below-market-rate housing, something Trump now says he’s against on principle. Nevertheless, activists’ demands for only affordable housing often mean they end up stopping or delaying market-rate projects that would include a significant number of affordable units.

Trump’s attacks on the AFFH rule as an example of federal overreach mirror housing policy fights in California, where anti-development activists of all ideological stripes have opposed state bills that would require local governments to allow for more housing near transit lines and job centers.

The most recent iteration of this idea, Senate Bill (S.B.) 50, was opposed by a number of “equity groups” for including insufficient protections against displacing current residents. Other groups like Housing Is a Human Right—a project of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation—argued against S.B. 50’s liberalization of market-rate development as “trickle-down housing.” That group is instead backing a rent control ballot initiative.

NIMBY (Not in My Backyard) opposition to new housing development is very much a cross-ideological phenomenon. NIMBYs on the right might put more emphasis on property values and crime. Those on the left will fret about gentrification and environmental sustainability. Regardless of the rhetoric, or even intent, the result is less housing gets built, and housing costs go up.

It’s unlikely that Trump will pick up too many votes in the blue suburbs of blue cities, but his defense of local control and low-density zoning probably isn’t hurting him there.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/337WzPS
via IFTTT

What will the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown of our society mean for the hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, refugees, and asylum seekers who apply annually to become Americans? Donald Trump won the presidential election in 2016 in part by vowing to “build a wall,” deport all unauthorized residents, and greatly reduce the number of people welcomed here legally.

COVID-19, which has its origins in China, may help the president to deliver on his campaign promises. Is the mythology of America as a nation of immigrants coming to an end?

A deputy national editor at The New York Times, Jia Lynn Yang is the author of the timely new book, One Mighty and Irresistible Tide: The Epic Struggle Over American Immigration, 1924–1965. The book begins at another dark moment in American immigration policy, when a restrictive law ended a long period of relatively open borders and effectively stopped mass movement to the United States for the next 40 years. It tells the story of the decades-long battle that led the U.S. to begin accepting foreigners once again. And yet almost nobody involved in that fight foresaw the extent to which the 1965 law signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson would open the door once again to large numbers of new immigrants—including Yang’s family, who came here from Taiwan in the 1970s.

Nick Gillespie sat down with Yang first in March and then again in May, after signs that COVID-19 pandemic could have a major effect on U.S. immigration policy, including Trump’s executive order temporarily halting legal migration, a delay in asylum hearings on the Mexican border, and a federal order blocking entry of migrant children that invokes a 1940s-era law.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2BGipyR
via IFTTT