Many states have for decades imposed difficult to virtually impossible hurdles that third parties must jump over for their candidates to appear on general election ballots. But, it is not only Libertarian, Green, and other third-party candidates who can be denied their places on election ballots. Alex Isenstadt reported Friday at Politico that the state Republican parties of Arizona, Kansas, Nevada, and South Carolina were “poised to cancel their 2020 GOP presidential primaries and caucuses, a move that would cut off oxygen to Donald Trump’s long-shot primary challengers.”
Tag: Adam Dick
The Extreme Risk Protection Order Act (S 506) is legislation proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in the United States Senate. The bill seeks to subsidize the operation of state red flag law programs in which, via ex parte and low-proof-threshold determinations, people are denied the legal ability to possess guns and subjected to gun confiscation.
Feinstein’s bill, however, does not go far enough: It should be amended to also subsidize ensuring some of those people so deprived of the ability to legally possess guns are also thrown into involuntary mental treatment. That is the recommendation of D.J. Jaffe in a Friday National Review editorial.
Condemning and even barring people who support, or refuse to oppose, boycotting, divesting from, or sanctioning Israel from being employees or contractors of state or local government entities has been the rage in American state legislatures over the last few years. Kentucky has become one of the latest states to impose one of these anti-boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) laws, with Governor Matt Blevin having signed such legislation last week.
On Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution that calls for treating people and businesses who have interacted financially with the National Rifle Association (NRA) much as states with anti-BDS laws treat people with particular ideas related to Israel. The resolution terms the NRA a “domestic terrorist organization” and declares that “the City and County of San Francisco should take every reasonable step to assess the financial and contractual relationships our vendors and contractors have with this domestic terrorist organization” and “should take every reasonable step to limit those entities who do business with the City and County of San Francisco from doing business with this domestic terrorist organization.”
In a Tuesday memorandum to employees, Walmart Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Doug McMillon declared that Walmart, the huge retailer that is among the 50 largest public companies in the world, would be ending some gun and ammunition sales and making other changes to gun policies in its stores. McMillon, in his memo, also says he would be writing that day to United States President Donald Trump and Congress leaders calling for action on several restrictions on the exercise of gun-related rights. McMillon calls these restrictions “common sense measures.”
We have reached the point when over 90 million Americans live in states that have legalized marijuana and when legalization seems set to expand to more states soon. The United States government has already backed off from prosecuting and incarcerating people complying with either this recreational marijuana legalization that varies from state to state or with the medical marijuana legalization in place in many more states. This situation suggests a clear path to the US government adopting a national legalization policy in which it just butts out, leaving marijuana matters to state and local governments.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), soon after his presidential run announcement this year, proclaimed his advocacy for ending the war on drugs. Many people would take such a declaration as indicating Sanders, as president, would work to stop the United States government from arresting, prosecuting, and incarcerating people for the possession, use, transfer, or production of now-illegal drugs.
However, it turns out Sanders supports a mere curtailment of such government actions, not their elimination. In a couple interviews this month, Sanders makes clear that, even if he gets his way as president, much of the US government’s war on drugs will continue.
Argued as needed to prevent mass shootings, government schools across America are operating surveillance programs targeting students. Like surveillance pursued by the United States government’s National Security Agency (NSA), the schools, with the assistance of private companies, are extensively tracking the activities of all students, including students’ social media posts, emails, and use of programs such as Google Docs and Microsoft Office.
Categories
Red Flag Laws Are Far from Harmless
When President Donald Trump presented on August 5 a collection of proposals for government actions to counter mass shootings, advancing red flag laws was part of the package. Briefly describing such laws that operate in several states, Trump said, “we must make sure that those judged to pose a grave risk to public safety do not have access to firearms, and that, if they do, those firearms can be taken through rapid due process.” That description — taking guns only from people who “pose a grave risk to public safety” and only after a judgment has been made in accordance with due process — would make red flag laws sound to many people like a rather harmless means to protect the public from extreme harm. However, the truth is very different.
Yes, the harassment travelers in American airports are forced to undergo for security, or, as some people call it, “security theater,” can become worse. Travelers already arrive early to stand in long lines before having their carry-on baggage inspected and their bodies scanned by machines of questionable safety. In some cases, travelers are frisked. All this despite there being no reason to suspect the particular travelers have committed or will commit a crime. “It’s all for your safety,” a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employee may say if asked why the mass harassment occurs day in and day out.
Yet, there can always be more harassment added to the mix. Don’t be surprised if travelers in America one day are required to answer questions presented by a computer avatar before they can take a flight, or maybe a bus or train ride. Suppose the connected computer program determines some of your answers are not truthful, then no travel for you or, at least, no travel without you being subjected to additional scrutiny. That is the nature of a program now being tested in Europe.
It is a good rule of thumb that bill names in the United States Congress are misleading. A prominent example of that is the USA PATRIOT Act that, instead of supporting the freedom for which American patriots have fought, provides to the US government extensive means to infringe on that freedom.
On Thursday, though, House of Representatives members were offered in an amendment vote the opportunity to replace one such misleading bill name with a name that informs the American people what the bill is really about. Forty-seven House members voted for the change.