Tag: posts

“I’m ashamed of you,” Jay
Rockefeller told Jason Healy and Craig Weiss during a Senate
hearing last week. “I don’t know how you go to sleep at
night.…You’re what’s wrong with this country.” What had
Healy and Weiss done to rouse Rockefeller’s ire? As the presidents
of two leading electronic cigarette companies, they had promoted
what Healy plausibly called “the most significant tobacco harm
reduction product ever.” Jacob Sullum says Rockefeller’s
sanctimonious outburst illustrates the baffling hostility to that
product among people who claim to care about smoking-related
disease and death.

View this article.

The Richmond County, Georgia, school
system has agreed to pay $1,000 and legal expenses to a mother who
was barred from her child’s elementary school after
she posted
a photo of her state weapon carry license on Facebook.
Police gave Tanya Mount a criminal trespass warning after she tried
to visit the school. She says they questioned her not only about
her carry permit but about the fact she is in the Army.

Tonight’s
episode of The
Independents (Fox Business Network, 9 p.m. ET, 6 p.m. PT,
with re-airs three hours later) begins on a happy note: The U.S.
District Court in Oregon has
declared that the process for people to appeal their improper
inclusion on the federal no-fly list is
unconstitutional. On hand to react are Party Panelists Julie Roginsky of Fox News,
and conservative commentator Kayleigh McEnany,
who will also discuss a plan by House Democrats to provide
free legal counsel to the abandoned immigrant children piling
up on the southern border, and Dick Cheney’s prediction in a

radio interview today that the United States will be hit by a
worse-than-9/11 terrorist attack within the next decade.

Dan Caldwell, the
issue and legislative campaign manager of Concerned Veterans for
America, will break down the
latest grim V.A. report; Amity Shlaes will discuss the new
graphic novelization of her 2007 F.D.R. bio
The Forgotten Man (hopefully providing some
Obama-administration comparisons); and the co-hosts will discuss
actor Gary Oldman’s politics-outing Playboy
interview and also the new
proposal from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) to
re-enfranchise some ex-felons.

Sexy aftershow begins on http://ift.tt/QYHXdy
a few beats after 10. Follow The Independents on Facebook
at http://ift.tt/QYHXdB,
follow on Twitter @ independentsFBN, tweet
during the show & we’ll use the best of ‘em. Click on this page
for more video of past segments.

Shawn Cowley, a former narcotics
officer in West Valley City, Utah, is facing a single count of
manslaughter for fatally shooting an unarmed woman in a parking lot
during an undercover drug operation.
Via the Associated Press:

Cowley fired at the unarmed [Danielle] Willard as she backed her
car out of an apartment complex parking spot. He contended his life
was in danger, but [the district attorney, Sim] Gill said that’s
not the case because Cowley was standing on the side of the woman’s
car.

Cowley’s attorney Lindsay Jarvis has called Gill’s decision to
prosecute the former officer “incredibly disappointing” and said
Cowley continues to maintain his innocence.

The district attorney previously found the shooting, which also
involved another cop who is not facing any criminal charges, not
justified, opening the door up to the current prosecution the cop’s
attorney calls “disappointing.” Willard’s mother, too, said she was
disappointed, that Cowley wasn’t charged with anything more
serious, although she says she’s happy he was charged at all.

Cowley was fired after the incident, but it doesn’t sound like
it was quite because he killed someone while on duty. The
Deseret News
explains:

Cowley and [the other cop, Kevin] Salmon were members of West
Valley’s now disbanded Neighborhood Narcotics Unit. After the
shooting, Cowley was fired from the department for allegedly
mishandling evidence and being insubordinate. Salmon has remained
on paid administrative leave since the incident. Cowley is in the
process of appealing his firing before the West Valley City Civil
Service Commission. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Aug.
25.

The generous labor protections afforded to police officers as
public employees means Cowley could get his job back before he’s
convicted or acquitted, and could get paid for it. His first
criminal hearing is July 7.

This
week Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)
plans to introduce a bill that would restore the federal voting
rights of nonviolent felons who have completed their prison terms
or served at least a year of probation. Citing figures from the
Sentencing Project, Politico notes
that “nearly 8 percent of the black population currently
cannot vote, compared with 1.8 percent of the nonblack
population.” As Paul
points out, blacks are also disproportionately affected by the
mandatory minimum sentences he wants to
abolish. Politico cites evidence that Paul’s support
for such reforms is helping him among African-American voters:
“A recent poll in
Kentucky showed Paul garnering 29 percent of the African-American
vote—a huge bump from the 13 percent he received during his 2010
Senate campaign.” Asked about the political
calculus underlying his criminal-justice proposals, Paul
says: “I believe in these issues. But I’m
a politician, and we want more votes. Even if Republicans don’t get
more votes, we feel like we’ve done the right thing.”

I agree that it’s the right thing, although I would
support the broader approach favored by the ACLU, which would
restore voting rights to all felons who have served their time,
regardless of the crimes they committed. It has
never made sense to me that committing a felony should forever turn
someone into a second-class citizen, which contradicts the goal of
reintegrating people into society after they’ve completed their
sentences. In the same vein, why should everyone convicted of a
felony be
permanently stripped of his Second Amendment rights? Paul likes
to tell the story of a friend’s brother who to this day is not
allowed to vote because of a 20-year-old marijuana conviction. It
makes no more sense that to this day he is not allowed to own a
gun, and I imagine that many Americans attach more value to the
fundamental human right of armed self-defense than they do to the
privilege of checking off the least odious choice on a list of
politicians every couple of years. Amending the
Gun Control Act of 1968 to eliminate such arbitrary
deprivations of liberty seems like another issue that could give
rise to interesting and productive left-right alliances.

Earlier this year a judge
ordered the feds to correct a woman’s improper inclusion on the

no-fly list, which had made her whole life miserable for years
(and it was all due to a clerical error). Today a federal district
judge invoked that case in order to declare that the entire
bureaucratic process for people to challenge their inclusion onto
the no-fly list
is unconstitutional and needs to be reformed.

The win goes to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who
represented 13 Americans who were stuck on the no-fly list and were
trying to get off. Some of them were military veterans, and some of
them claimed that officials told them they could only get off the
list by serving as government informants. The ACLU responds:

The judge ordered the government to create a new process that
remedies these shortcomings, calling the current process “wholly
ineffective” and a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of
due process. The ruling also granted a key request in the lawsuit,
ordering the government to tell the ACLU’s clients why they are on
the No Fly List and give them the opportunity to challenge their
inclusion on the list before the judge.

“For years, in the name of national security the government has
argued for blanket secrecy and judicial deference to its profoundly
unfair No Fly List procedures, and those arguments have now been
resoundingly rejected by the court,” said ACLU National Security
Project Director Hina Shamsi, one of the attorneys who argued the
case.

“Our clients will finally get the due process to which they are
entitled under the Constitution. This excellent decision also
benefits other people wrongly stuck on the No Fly List, with the
promise of a way out from a Kafkaesque bureaucracy causing them no
end of grief and hardship. We hope this serves as a wake-up call
for the government to fix its broken watchlist system, which has
swept up so many innocent people.”

The “Kafkaesque bureaucracy” is one in which people who are
added to the no-fly list are not told why they’re added. There is a
process to petition to get off the list, but it’s secretive. Those
on the list submit information that they hope might get them off
the list (because, again, they aren’t told why they’re on the
list). If they’re rejected, they still don’t know why or what
information might prove their innocence. The judge ruled this is a
violation of due process and ordered the government to come up with
a system where fliers can actually challenge their inclusion.

The previous case of Rahinah Ibraham was brought up because the
feds defended the no-fly list removal process by claiming it had
extensive quality controls to make sure nobody was erroneously
placed on the list in the first place. And yet Ibraham was placed
on the list in 2004 because an FBI agent literally
checked the wrong box on a form. The mistake was only uncovered
in 2013 because of her lawsuit. The judge pointed to this case as
an example of problems with the current system. Furthermore, the
judge notes the inability for people on the no-fly list to review
and correct incorrect information is in violation of the
legislation that gave the government the authority to create and
implement the list.

The judge ordered that the Department of Justice must remedy the
problems with lack of due process in the implementation of the
no-fly list. Read the ruling
here (pdf).

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
highlights two of its staffers, Economist David Wiczer and
Research Associate James Eubanks, for an article they wrote for
Regional
Economist linking many European countries’ sky-high, and
continuing, youth unemployment rates to rigid employment rules.
Basically, several Mediterranean nations that make it expensive and
difficult to hire and fire saw a surge in unemployment for people
under 25 during the recession—a surge that really hasn’t gone away,
and in some cases, is getting worse.

Some high points from the article:

• Italy’s youth unemployment rate went from 20 percent in 2008 to
  42 percent at the end of 2013.
• Spain’s youth unemployment rate went from 21 percent to 55
  percent over the same period.
• Greece’s youth unemployment rate went from 22 percent to nearly
  60 percent during that time.
• Portugal’s youth unemployment rate went from about 20 percent
  to a bit less than 40 percent, and has trended upward since
  2000.

By contrast, write Eubank and Wiczer, “the youth unemployment
rate rose from 11.5 percent in early 2008 to a high of 19 percent
in late 2009 and then began a steady decline. Canada had a similar experience, with a peak
of 15.8 percent in late 2009.”

What accounts for the huge difference in youth unemployment
rates and the continuing joblessness?

The World Bank provides one way to quantify the rigidity of a
labor market through its “rigidity of employment index,” with
higher scores indicating a more rigid market. In 2008, the average for the developed
countries in the OECD was 26. Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain
were all considerably more rigid, with index values of 43, 38, 47
and 49, respectively.

For context, on the World Bank index,
Canada has a value of 4 (the U.S. entry on that chart is blank, but
it appears to come in even
lower), while Venezuela chalks up a 73. It just may be that
countries that make it easier to hire employees when needed and
dismiss them when not enjoy—shocker!—healthier employment rates
because businesses don’t feel like they’re assuming huge risk and
expense by taking on employees.

Wiczer and Eubanks conclude:

Bad labor markets have repeatedly been shown to have
long-lasting effects on youth in many different countries. The postponed plans and stalled careers of
millions of young workers are a national concern and should spur
reflection on the institutions, policies and labor market
structures that contribute to such different experiences across
countries.

The World Bank looks in detail at employment regulations

here.

Frank Schaefer was defrocked late last year after the United
Methodist Church (UMC) found him guilty of disobeying church law.
His violation: performing his son’s gay wedding in 2007. Schaefer
appealed that decision, and on Tuesday a nine-person church panel
ruled that his credentials will be
reinstated. 

Schaefer was originally suspended for 30 days but was defrocked
after he refused to promise never to officiate a same-sex wedding
in the future. The appeals panel concluded that the convicting
jury’s punishment was illegal under church law: “revoking his
credentials cannot be squared with the well-established principle
that our clergy can only be punished for what they have been
convicted of doing in the past, not for what they may or may not do
in the future.”

He will get back pay to when his suspension ended in
December.

The UMC Book of
Discipline, which contains the church’s laws and
doctrines, forbids celebrations of same-sex marriages and asserts
that the practice of homosexuality is “incompatible with Christian
teaching.”

Reason TV’s recent documentary on Schaefer and the controversary
of gay marriage within the UMC was first published on May 16,
2014:

Last Thursday, the National Organization for
Marriage (NOM) held its second annual March on Marriage at
the U.S. Capitol Building. Despite boasting big conservative names
such as former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum and former Arkansas Gov.
Mike Huckabee, the event ended up having a tiny turnout.

Less than a month before the protest, Brian Brown, the president
of NOM, wrote a blog post titled “Demand for Buses Is
Overwhelming—We Need Your Help.” He announced that his
friend, New York state Sen. Ruben Diaz, was bringing over 100 buses
and more than 5,000 people. Diaz also put out a
press release the week before saying that anyone could ride the
bus completely free of charge.

The Washington Blade
estimated that there were about 2,000 people total in
attendance. The picture in the top right shows a sparse crowd. The
folks who did show up were surprisingly
lethargic. Gawker noted that:

Even when implored to participate, these people who presumably
took off work to prove how invested they are in maintaining gays’
second-class citizenship, were quiet and otherwise
unenthusiastic.

One reason for the apathy from New York may have been that
same-sex marriage has been legal there for three years already.
Diaz’s press release acknowledges the uphill battle:

You should also know that even though the New York State
Legislature voted to approve the legality of same-sex marriage, we
will still keep fighting the good fight and providing testimony
that there are millions and millions of Americans who believe that
the people should be allowed to vote on this matter. This way,
instead of judges and legislators imposing their definition of
marriage on our society, the people can decide once and for
all.

But it’s not clear a vote would come out how Diaz imagines. The

most recent Gallup poll on the subject from last month shows
that a record high 55 percent of Americans think that same-sex
couples should be “recognized by the law as valid, with the same
rights as traditional marriages.” In many states, the people

have already spoken and have decided in a popular vote that
same-sex marriage should be legal. Abroad, France, Spain, Portugal,
Brazil, Argentina, and many other countries now allow for gay
marriage as well.