Civil Asset Forfeiture (CAF) is back in the news as Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced an expanded Federal program just the other day. I was extremely surprised and disappointed in his announcement. Like other Federal forays (and in this case, state), the CAF program has been so abused by law enforcement that it must be […]
Archives
-
Civil Asset Forfeiture: A “Criminal” Action
28 Jul 2017
-
Sharia Law Protests: The Truth About Sharia
10 Jun 2017
It has been reported that today (June 19m 2017) has been set aside for protests around the nation against Sharia law, the legal system used in most Muslim countries to a greater or lesser extent. The principles for Sharia are derived from both the Quran and Hadith, the alleged sayings of Muhammed and have been […]
-
Trump’s Follies: Ethical? Legal? Impeachable?
18 May 2017
My Bereans colleague Mark Smith wrote a blog post the other day that has irritated some people and made others quite happy. In this post, I hope to irritate both sides of the Donald Trump “crisis.” By now, we have all read or heard about President Trump’s misdeeds, or alleged misdeeds, depending on your perspective: […]
-
Democracy: Embrace or Re-think?
11 May 2017
I recently finished a book by Jason Brennan entitled Against Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2015) that I found intriguing. It might not sound glamorous but I think the topic is timely in light of our American love of democracy in its various forms, whether direct or representative. I don’t want to leave the impression that […]
-
Howard Slugh had an interesting article in the National Review Online on April 10, entitled “Obergefell’s Toxic Judicial Legacy.” At the time the case was decided (2015) I wondered whether the language used by Justice Kennedy establishing a right to homosexual marriage might be used to claim other new rights not mentioned in the Constitution […]
-
Once again a Federal district court judge has issued a nationwide Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) prohibiting enforcement of the president’s new executive (EO) order temporarily suspending entry into the United States of non-citizens living outside the United States for a period of 90-120 days, with waivers possible for defined exceptions. The EO identified six nations […]
-
The Deep State: How Deep Is It?
10 Mar 2017
“The Deep State”–what is it? Is it real? Is it fiction? If it is real, is it dangerous? To what extent is it harmful? This is a fascinating subject, perhaps partly because we all love a conspiracy theory, true or not. I will suggest that this one has a basis in reality. But I also […]
-
Democracy: Is It Over-hyped? Or Overdone?
09 Mar 2017
I noticed a poll taken the other day in connection with Fox News (unfortunately I did not catch the purveyor of that poll, perhaps Fox itself). Whether the methodology was right or not, I don’t know but it found that 50% of people polled opposed the elimination of the Obamacare insurance mandate, while 48% supported […]
-
President Trump’s new immigration Executive Order (EO) was issued. You can read it at the New York Times of March 6, 2017: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/us/politics/trump-executive-order-immigration-text.html The order is a variation on his earlier January 27 order which was stopped from taking effect by a Federal court and the Federal Ninth Circuit. How is this one different? First, […]
-
What is Going On in the Surveillance World?
07 Mar 2017
What a morass we have now with regard to the allegations, refutations, and counter-allegations concerning the possibility of intelligence community “wiretapping” of Donald Trump or his associates before the election and after it. At this point, we have an allegation by President Trump that Obama wiretapped the Trump Tower. Now before people go off on […]
Bert Wheeler
Jeff Haymond
Marc Clauson
Mark Caleb Smith
Tom Mach