themarketswork

a common sense approach to a liberal world

Civil Asset Forfeiture, Equitable Sharing & Adoption

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions released policy directive 17-1 yesterday in which he announced a new Civil Asset Forfeiture program. What Sessions really did was reinstate the old Asset Forfeiture program that had been in place under AG Eric Holder. Allow me to explain.

Civil asset forfeiture – or civil seizure – occurs when law enforcement agencies seize property they suspect has been used in – or originates from – criminal activity. The item being seized is itself suspected of having been involved in a crime. It is literally a civil action against the property. Criminal charges against the owner of the property are not required – nor is an actual conviction.

In order to get the property back, the property owner must initiate a lawsuit, providing proof that the property was not used in – or acquired by – illegal means. Unlike a criminal trial, where “beyond a reasonable doubt” is the legal threshold – in a civil case, the “preponderance of evidence” standard applies. All the government need do is present enough evidence that makes the claim of illegality more likely than not.Continue Reading

The Frankfurt School, Twitter & False Claims of Anti-Semitism

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The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist – Keyser Soze – (paraphrasing Charles Baudelaire)

An interesting series of events transpired over the last several days.

Australian journalist Chris Uhlmann delivered a critical on-air opinion of President Trump at the G-20 Summit on July 8. You can watch the 2 minute video here. I do not share Mr. Uhlmann’s views on this particular issue but that’s an entirely separate matter.

Mr. Uhlmann’s video was quickly seized upon by those on the Left and widely disseminated across various social media platforms. Mr. Uhlmann was swiftly and widely championed by the Left – the video held aloft as a shining example of international opinion.

Then this happened:Continue Reading

Seattle’s Minimum Wage – Politics Versus Facts

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In 2014, the City of Seattle passed a  three-step minimum wage increase – from $9.32 to $15 per hour. You can find the exact details here. The $15 minimum wage began in 2017 for larger employers who do not provide healthcare benefits – $13.50 for those larger employers who do provide healthcare benefits. Adoption of the $15 rate by small businesses is set for 2021 – with inflation adjustments. Two wage increases have already been fully implemented. The first, from $9.32 to $11, occurred in 2015. A second increase – to $13 – took place in 2016.

And then a funny thing happened. The city, led by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, decided to commission a study on the wage hikes – fully expecting the results would provide support for their position.Continue Reading

Illegal Voting – Some Uncomfortable Facts and Findings

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A while back, in A Voter-Fraud Friendly Environment, I documented the laughably lax voting requirements in my home state of California. Now we have a new report by Just Facts that concludes that “as many as 5.7 million noncitizens may have voted in the 2008 election“. The Washington Times reported on the study yesterday.

I don’t know if the headline number is correct – although the methodology looks sound. I am far more interested in showing that illegal voting took place on some sort of significant scale than I am in determining the actual number. You can examine the Just Facts findings I highlight later in this piece and decide for yourself.

But first, a quick summary of the California voting situation:

  • No ID of any kind is required to actually vote at the ballot box
  • Illegal immigrants are legally allowed and encouraged to obtain CA drivers licenses
  • State officials chose not to make non-citizen license holders searchable in the DMV database
  • Eligible holders of CA driver licenses are automatically registered to vote
  • The California NVRA manual dictates a process of voter registration that makes it difficult not to be registered

Continue Reading

The Beauty of Negative Rights

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“The Constitution is a charter of negative rather than positive liberties” – Judge Richard Posner

Yesterday I stumbled across a quote from Senator Rand Paul that someone had posted in a Facebook Group. The quote comes from a Subcommittee Hearing on Healthcare on May 11, 2017. You can find a video of the hearing here. The quote made by Paul starts at 1:37:05. It reads as follows:

“With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses.

Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services — do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? — you’re basically saying you believe in slavery…

I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care. You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be.”Continue Reading

The Struggle Revealed

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“A Republic, if you can keep it” – Benjamin Franklin

It finally happened.

Townhalls may never be the same.

There were lots of nice words spoken by Senators appearing in bipartisan press conferences. Not so on Twitter.

140 characters do not lend themselves to nuanced discussion.Continue Reading

The Timely Death of the DOJ Slush Fund

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Lots of news this week with the Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing underway and the breathless anticipation of former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony slated for tomorrow. Which is why this action by Attorney General Jeff Sessions has largely slipped under the radar.

A couple months back I wrote about The Department of Justice’s Slush Fund.

The Working Group was created within the Justice Department in 2012 as a means of prosecution and punishment for those perceived to be responsible for the financial crisis of 2008. With the full weight of the Department of Justice behind it, the Working Group reached multi-billion settlements with virtually every major bank in America.

According to a Congressional Committee Report – Stop Settlement Slush Funds Act of 2016:Continue Reading

Free Speech, Acquiescence & Weaponized Compassion

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The other day, David French wrote an article for National Review, in response to twitter outrage over an earlier article he’d written on Chelsea Manning – the trans soldier pardoned by Obama.  French’s refusal to use the pronoun “her” when describing Chelsea Manning – previously Bradley Manning – sparked the outrage. And prompted a twitter response by another journalist, Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept:

“Does @DavidAFrench also bravely walk up to adoptive parents & tell them their kids aren’t *really* their “children”?”

Greenwald’s tweet led to my own, including:

“At the core – two fundamentally opposing views. @DavidAFrench is advocating for free speech. @ggreenwald wants to stifle free speech.”

It also led to my article, An Illustrative Twitter Chat with David & Glenn. The reaction was equally illustrative.Continue Reading

An Illustrative Twitter Chat with David & Glenn

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The social justice people are always on the side of compassion and ‘victim’s rights,’ so objecting to anything they do makes you instantly a perpetrator. The thing is if you replace compassion with resentment, then you understand the authoritarian left. There is resentment, fundamentally. – Dr. Jordan Peterson

I had planned on another topic for the day but a debate on twitter caught my attention. And my initially one-sided participation.

The two engaged participants were both journalists – David French of National Review and Glenn Greenwald of The Intercept.

David French had written what I found to be an articulate and thoughtful article in response to twitter outrage over an earlier article on Chelsea Manning – the trans soldier pardoned by Obama. French’s first piece, titled Chelsea Manning’s Release is Nothing to Celebrate, took issue with the release of Manning. I agree with French’s position. But that wasn’t what sparked the outraged responses. It was French’s refusal to use the pronoun “her” when describing Chelsea Manning – previously Bradley Manning – in his initial article.

And the backlash was fierce.Continue Reading

The Blue Slip Rule – A Senatorial Roadblock to Judicial Appointments

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Yesterday I wrote about President Trump’s many court vacancies – and the vast promise they hold for our courts.

Democrats previously invoked the Nuclear Option – a process that allows a simple majority vote in place of a three-fifths vote on presidential nominations for federal court judgeships. That rule has since been expanded by Republicans to include Supreme Court Justices. And Republicans hold a slight majority at 52 to 48 in the Senate.

All good, right?

Well, there is one hitch to the process – and it has to do with an archaic Senate process – really a tradition – and two small slips of blue paper. Allow me to explain.Continue Reading