Trump, Lori Loughlin and William Barr

OK, so you are probably wondering what all three of these have in common?  Not too much, except justice.  It's just that all three cases have really been bothering me over the past few days.

Despite being cleared by the Mueller report, Trump got screwed--again.  The world got to see his frustration with the probe, and his desire to end it.  He didn't end it, and in fact, he didn't do any acts of obstruction.  He allowed everyone to talk without invoking executive privilege and he freely gave all documents requested in the probe.  Yet we still are told about his private frustration expressed in communications with the White House lawyer and his other aids.  Who would not have been frustrated and wanted the probe ended?  Anyone who claims otherwise is a hypocrite.  The report actually gives me a low opinion of several people: 1) the White House counsel who did not invoke attorney-client privilege when no crime was committed, 2) Mueller and his team for spilling non-prosecutable dirt on Trump, 3) William Barr for releasing 'dirt' that was not a crime, and 4) all the media and readers that condemn Trump for being infuriated.

Lori Loughlin is a bit different.  At someone else's suggestion (Rick Singer), she provided him funds to bribe a USC coach to get her daughters into college.  She paid the funds to Singer's non-profit to make it look like a donation.  Supposedly, the feds charged 50 other parents with similar actions.  But she wasn't charged with bribery--that federal crime only applies to bribing government officials.  I read that the multiple federal charges against her have a penalty of up to 40 years.  The charges against Singer are only 70 years in total.  And I've read nothing about a penalty for the coach--except termination.

For full disclosure, I really like Lori Loughlin's mystery movies on Hallmark (Garage Sale Mysteries).  They are clean, moral, and just good fun--unlike most movies produced today.  So if you paid a bribe to get your child into college, would you think it fair to be threatened with 40 years in jail?  It's not on the level of murder, armed robbery, assault, or even embezzlement.  Yet she is getting charged with more years, on average, than many of those violent crimes.  Yet who did she hurt?  Potentially, two students weren't accepted at USC because of her actions.  I was not accepted at lots of prestigious universities that I thought I should have been accepted at (but couldn't afford anyway).  My conclusion is it's prosecutorial overreach.  She's being charged with federal crimes like fraudulently sending money through the 'federal' postal system and money laundering.  Crimes that were intended to catch serious criminals such as drug cartels and the mafia.  I'm just disgusted.

Finally, I come to William Barr.  As I said earlier, I don't like his release of derogatory information that does not reflect a crime.  He blacked out such material on others, who he says were not in the public eye.  So it's okay to do something to our president that isn't okay to do to someone else who was not charged?  But what's really bugging me is all of the bloggers who believe Barr will investigate FBI misbehavior and charge the wrong-doers.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, you aren't a conservative who thinks the swamp has been breaking laws in going after Trump.

Way too many of those bloggers think because Barr spoke honestly to Congress and the press, that he will do what is right, and punish those who broke laws.  What I think will happen is that Barr will investigate the FBI's behavior, and he will change the regulations under which they operate so it won't happen (he thinks) again in the future.  He will satisfy his desire for justice by rationalizing that he cannot change what has happened, but he can stop it from occurring again in the future.  Congress and the bureaucracy do this all the time.  Congress stops future behavior by passing laws.  Bureaucracy prevents unwanted future behavior by passing regulations.  Unfortunately, bad actors don't usually pay attention to regs or laws.  If they cannot work around them, they will just hide their actions.

I think Barr will try to minimize future controversy over his actions.  Charging people like Strozck and Comey would bring an uproar from the press and an attempt to destroy Barr's reputation (more than the current slander).  I'll think he'll avoid that and take the easy way out.  I agree with the bloggers that any FBI (or others) that broke laws in the probe's instigation or investigation ought to be prosecuted.  We have crimes on the book as deterrents.  If you don't use them, no one is deterred, and this will happen again to another, future president.

The Despicable Judge Napolitano

Before Trump was elected, I used to like reading Judge Napolitano's articles on Fox News.  He was a pretty good libertarian and believed in constitutional government.  I didn't like his articles where every sentence was a question, but the other stuff was pretty good.

Then came President Trump's election.  Suddenly everything President Trump did was despicable, repellent, abhorrent, and likely subject to prosecution.  No longer did Judge Napolitano believe in freedom of speech, believe in innocent until proven guilty, or the primacy of constitutional protections and authorities.  Instead, his articles left out anything on the exoneration side of an argument against Trump. 

In my opinion, he became a rabid Never-Trumper who would not apply the principles of freedom he so strongly pushed during the Obama era.

And even after the Mueller report came out, he said there was enough there for prosecution.  I won't ever read another article of his.

Notre Dame Fire - Accident a Cause or Hope?

In general I don't like conspiracy theories.  But I dislike premature government pronouncements even more.  And too often, especially in cases of large disasters, they sound like misdirection of the public.  A recent New York Post article on the Notre Dame fire yesterday contained one of those premature announcements.

The French regional manager announced that the fire was an accident.  The French stated there was no evidence of arson.  Then they stated that 50 investigators were interviewing workers to find out what happened.  And they were supposedly starting from the assumption that it was an accident.

How can you say it was an accident when you have 50 investigators trying to find out what happened?  My presumption would be, when starting an investigation, that it was arson or an act of terrorism.  Sure, you investigate all possibilities.  But you don't want to miss arson because the arsonist says it was an accident.

Since the statement it was an accident was obviously premature, this is one of those cases where I think the French government is intentionally trying to convince the public that the cause was what they prefer to find.  They don't want another blatant act of terrorism or arson, possibly by immigrants who are not Christian, to inflame bad feelings in their nation.

What really bothers me is the possibility that if they find something other than an accidental cause, they will label it a state secret and bury the results.  If that is not a possibility, why say it was an accident rather than that they were still trying to identify the source of the fire?

Whether to Hike?

There have been a couple of events in the past few months that have given me pause to think about my love of hiking and backpacking. 

First, mid-summer, I had a bout of vertigo.  This had never happened to me before.  I was on a four-day backpacking trip around the 4th of July, and the second night, the world started spinning.  I actually fell off my 2" air-filled pad.  It's taken several months, but the symptoms finally went away completely.  The problem was that for about a month, I was afraid to lay down in bed because of the potential for spinning and falling off.  At that time, I couldn't even conceive of the idea of trying to sleep reclined in a tent again.  I was pretty devastated worrying about not being able to backpack.  It made me realize how much I loved backpacking and what it would mean to be unable to backpack in the future.

A couple of months later, when I was feeling better, I started revisiting some of my old backpacking blog sites.  One site, 'Walking with Wired' had essentially been shut down with a good-bye message.  Wired was a triple-crowner, and had been doing thru-hikes around the world for about the last 7 years or so.  Her blogging was terrific.  I really don't know how she was able to do such a fantastic job with mixed text and pictures and interesting details.  Anyway, she said she found a life-partner and was going to stop doing thru hikes as her partner was not a hiker.

I figure she got a bit burnt out with the year-after-year thru's.  But it sure seemed like backpacking was in her blood. I may be wrong, but I suspect she will be back, maybe not with thru hikes, but at least with long backpacking trips.  My wife has always been unhappy with my trips, and at one point I promised her I would stop.  I skipped a year.  But I couldn't resist the lure of the trail, and I broke that promise.  There's only so much you can give up for a spouse.

The last thing that I wanted to mention was a recent decision by a friend that a hike in a certain area was not one that he wanted to repeat.  I wanted to go back and hit an area I walked last year, and inquired whether a couple of friends wanted to join me.  This very nice person pointed out his trip in the 80's to this location and said the scenery was monotonous and his hiking partner had a fall in the river.

It made me realize that not everyone loves the trail and the outdoors just for the joy of it.  I've had two situations that I would hesitate to repeat.  One was crossing nearly endless boulder fields with a high risk of breaking a bone.  The second is trying 13,000' and above peaks without spending the time to properly acclimatize.  Even so, I would be willing to practice on smaller boulder fields and to do some peaks after proper acclimatization (in a leisurely manner).

But every other trail I've been on has been fascinating.  It doesn't have to have majestic scenery or unique landscapes.  I like woods, rivers, desert, mountains, peaks, islands and pasture.  Even the desert sandstorm was fun.  I also liked hiking all day in the rain--though I'm not thrilled with multi-inch deep mud that doesn't end.  Just being out there gives me a feeling of peace.  It doesn't matter whether I'm alone or with other people, I enjoy my time outdoors.

Finally, I wanted to compare a couple of my hobbies.  First, you probably know I've always been a nerd.  My degrees are in physics and electrical engineering.  I love math and science.  My second favorite hobby is writing software.  But given the choice of writing some code or hiking a trail, I'll take the trail any day.

Stolen Votes and Elections?

I remember back in 2008 watching the Minnesota election up north where Al Franken (D) was running against incumbent Norm Coleman (R) for a senate seat.  Coleman was ahead election night by about 212 votes.  But then challenged votes and 'wrongly' rejected absentee ballots were counted, and all of a sudden Al Franken was ahead by 312 votes.  If I remember correctly, all of the new votes came from blue (D) districts.  Minnesota was a blue state, and Coleman's legal challenges were rejected.

Now, I have no evidence to suggest that illegal or unfair action took place that year.  But it seems to have started a trend where in close elections where the Democrat candidate is behind, we suddenly find 'lost' boxes of votes or ballot errors in the Democrat's favor in strongly Democrat cities or districts.  And this happens only after election day.

In my opinion, dead people voting is so 'old hat.'   It was a fine approach (and I'm being sarcastic), when you were handling a city, town or county election.  A few tens or hundreds of dead votes could matter.

Over time, the masters of election cheating had to come up with something better.  Consider the fact (and I'm fudging as I am guesstimating from hearing previous numbers) that in most elections, no more than 50% of the registered voters actually vote.  And I hear repeatedly, that it is worse for Democrats than Republicans.  That's a LOT of votes that some one committed to stealing an election can use.  Especially if the 'lost' votes show up AFTER election day.

Now this is hypothetical, but it tends to fit the facts.  For example, the current vote changes in the Florida senate and governor's races.

Most of the voting now is electronic.  I received two texts after I voted early, purportedly from a gubernatorial candidate, stating that I had not voted yet and that there was still time to vote during early voting in my state.  I don't know if the texts were legitimate.  If they were, my vote apparently got lost.  But the point I want to make is that there are electronic or written lists of who votes and who do not, at least on election day.  I cannot say for those who submit absentee ballots, I suspect in some states they are tallied early.  So, the district or county election manager, who in a strongly blue region will be Democrat, has lists of who did and did not vote on election day.

Those lists have to be available to the election manager, who is responsible for assuring that people did not vote twice.  Voting twice would be something that a recount would find, as well as a lawsuit alleging cheating.

But you've got 50% of your party's voters that did not vote.  If you can create new ballots with those non-voters' names, you can submit them as 'lost' ballots a day or two after election day.  If you are using voting machines with no paper ballots, those new votes could be submitted as 'new' absentee ballots.

Electronic voting machines present other challenges and 'opportunities'.  First, you could change the code to 'switch' a small percentage of votes either during voting or on voter confirmation.  Someone has done that coding, and they are one party or the other.  Some of those coders could be unscrupulous or bought.  You would assume the purchasers of the machines would test them.  But it would be easy enough to include a code switch that only makes changes on election day or during early voting.  I doubt many purchasers actually review the code, or are competent to do so.  Most code is proprietary anyway, and usually won't be released to purchasers except in compiled form.

There were a number of Texans complaining the machine changed their vote.  The 'official' cause reported in the news was that the voters hit a button before a screen change.  I'm kind of curious if my vote even was registered (given the two text messages I received).  It would be just as easy to 'drop' an opponent's vote as to change it.  Though that would likely create a discrepancy between the signed-in voter list and the number of votes that could be found in an audit.  But what could they do?  They would live with it, and justify it as voter error.

So, any process that allows 'new' or 'lost' votes to be counted after election day must be considered fraudulent.

If 'lost' votes are found, there is practically no way to identify fraud.  The only way would be to go back to voters and ask each one if they voted.  That will not happen.

So watch your elections.  If the final vote and result doesn't happen on election day or night, look at the continuing results.  My assumption in any multi-day result that turns around the initial count is that an election has been stolen. 

Birthright Citizenship

Recently, President Trump made the statement that he was going to change birthright citizenship by executive order, and more recently said it would be more appropriate for Congress to make the change.  I've read lots of pro and con editorials saying why he should or cannot do this.  Perhaps the best was a New York Post opinion piece by John Eastman entitled "Revoking Birthright Citizenship Would Enforce the Constitution."  I highly recommend reading the whole article.

President Trump's intent was to stop granting citizenship to the children borne to visitors to our country and to illegal immigrants.  Apparently there is also a big industry called 'Birth Tourism' where people pay to come here and give birth, granting their children citizenship with all the rights and benefits that entails.

Most of the critical writers claim that this is a constitutional right and you cannot change that by executive order.  If it were a constitutional right, they would be correct.  However, I, and a significant number of legal minds, believe the constitution is currently being interpreted incorrectly.  Theoretically, that would allow President Trump to change enforcement to a correct/different interpretation.  However, since every executive order appears to be struck down by some liberal federal district judge, I would expect the same thing to happen in this case.  Hence, execution of any executive order would likely have to wait for Supreme Court review.

The 1868 14th Amendment to the Constitution states "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”   Apparently, there is a 1952 immigration and naturalization law that uses the exact same words.  But also covers other aspects of immigration and naturalization.

John Eastman argues that the 14th Amendment authors stated their intention was to assure citizenship to former slaves and their descendants, but not to grant citizenship to visitors who had allegiances to other nations.  That would eliminate the birth tourism, and granting of citizenship to children of visitors and illegal immigrants.  He shows that the understanding of "jurisdiction" has changed in the intervening years, so most people now think it means anyone subject to US laws.

Apparently, most nations do not grant citizenship to everyone, just because they were in their country at the time of their birth.

I don't want to rehash all of those arguments.  What I do want to point out is that if the authors of the constitutional amendment wanted anyone birthed on US soil to have citizenship, they could simply have left out "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof."  For some reason, I have not seen this point anywhere else.  One could argue authors were worried about a few hundred people with diplomatic immunity, but comparing that to tens of thousands (and today a lot more) visitors and illegal immigrants, I don't think that is a valid concern.

Thus, it is obvious to me the intention of the Amendment was NOT to grant citizenship by birth to children of visitors from other countries or illegal immigrants.  Accordingly, President Trump would be within his rights and powers to enforce the laws of the US and the Constitution to change enforcement and execution of the Amendment.

Protests or Attempted Coercion?

My plans for a multi-part blog on moral actions kind of failed.  Not enough planning ahead of time, and I wanted to mix two theses that didn't integrate very well.  But in thinking about moral actions in the public sphere, I settled on a topic dealing with public protests.  I'll first state my thesis, then provide some definitions, and finally get to my arguments.

I don't like protests.  I'm not saying all protests are bad or that a protester is necessarily doing anything wrong.  Many may have admirable motives, and many protests may be pushing a good cause. But there are far too many protests that make the news where the protesters show lack of good judgment in behavior, and far too often are pushing a cause I do not believe in.  And way too many of those appear to break laws with impunity.

My preferred behavior is to vote, write letters to congressmen or local politicians, participate in your community's government, write letters to the editor, and post respectful social commentary. 

An alternative, in some cases, would be to bring a lawsuit.  I don't like that option as too often cases are filed that are trivial or depend on an off-the-wall legal theory.  And they are often misused to slow a process or bankrupt an opponent.

Back to my thesis.  Protests too often are coercive in nature or even lead to behavior that would be characterized as assault (and sometimes battery) if done by an individual.  As an example, protesting a company's factory that is creating noxious odors in the community is probably a good cause.  But blocking their parking lots, walkways, or entrance is coercive and despicable.  If they don't get out of the way when employees, who are trying to make a living, try to enter, it is the equivalent of assault.  If they push or shove employees trying to enter, it's battery.  If they protest on the company's land, such as their parking lot, it is trespass.

Now, we need some definitions. 

• Google's definition of coerce is a fairly generic one: "persuade (an unwilling person) to do something by using force or threats."  
• The freedictionary.com's definition of assault is "... an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact. An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm."  
• The freedictionary.com's definition of battery is "... an intentional unpermitted act causing harmful or offensive contact with the "person" of another. ... The punishment for criminal battery is a fine, imprisonment, or both. Usually battery is prosecuted as a crime only in cases involving serious harm to the victim."
• Cornell's website states that trespass is "... defined by the act of knowingly entering another person's property without permission."

Assault, battery, and trespass are common criminal offenses, and when brought to the police's attention, the offender will usually get arrested and often tried for the offense.  Trespass is not usually considered a serious crime, unlike assault and battery.

Coercion is also found in criminal law, but is applied in different ways in different jurisdictions.  For the purpose of this article, I won't assume there is any criminal penalty for the coercive aspects of protests.  However, if the protests go so far as to commit assault, battery or even trespassing, I do believe protesters should be arrested and tried for those crimes.

On to the discussion.  It appears to me that protesters have a range of motivations.  1) Some may merely want to bring an issue to the attention of voters, government, or a corporation. 2) Some protesters may be trying to obstruct an activity or operation that they think should be stopped.  3) Some may be trying to actually intimidate other individuals or groups.  4) Same may be trying to express anger or rage about an action.  5) And a few may be trying to destroy property or injure and intimidate individuals because they feel wronged.  I'm not trying to be comprehensive here, and I may have missed a few motives.  But I think these five are pretty representative.

Protests primarily involving motive #1 (getting attention for an issue) can generally be executed in a non-coercive way and with no criminal behavior.  While handheld signs are only sufficient to convey the simplest message, most such protests will get TV or newspaper attention.  If they stay on public lands and get any required local permit, I have no problem with such protests.  However, if they were to tie up my local park during regular park hours, I still wouldn't be happy with them.

I'll jump for a moment to motive #4 (expressing anger at an action).  If there are no other motivations (and related coercive or criminal activities), this is a perfectly understandable motivation for a protest.  An example would be a peaceful protest against rezoning or use of eminent domain.  Unfortunately, protests involving anger often include other motivations and offensive behavior.  Examples of that would be anger at trail verdicts that turns to violence.

In the past, motive #2 (obstructing an activity or operation) was pretty common, and it still is.  Unions, or unionizers, wanted to obstruct a company's operations when they wouldn't allow a union to form or they wouldn't accede to a union's demands.   Protesters blocked abortion clinics or pro-life clinics.  Protesters tried to stop oil pipelines or nuclear reactors from being built.  Most of these protests involved physically preventing entry of employees or customers.  Most I would consider to have passed over the threshold of assault and often battery.  Trespass was common.  This behavior is detestable and way too often, the police seem to look the other way.  Since this usually involves physical action against individuals, I believe it is entirely coercive in nature.

In today's political environment, motive #3 (intimidating individuals or groups) is becoming more common.  Instead of trying to get their message across with signs, people, and the media (where motive #1 is primary), they get in the face of their 'opponents.'  These cases include the protest groups showing up at restaurants to intimidate Trump officials and Republican legislators.  In my opinion, the restaurant owner or manager should ask the protesters to leave immediately and should file trespass charges if they do not.  If the protesters are rowdy or a large group, the police should hold them for assault (unlikely).  Another example is cornering and screaming at Senator Flake in a congressman-only elevator.  Then there is the more generic example of so-called anti-fascist protest groups forming to objective to a speaker or another protest group.  In this case, they tend to get to the pushing and shoving stage, all the way to battery.  Too many police forces are looking the other way in all of these situations--mostly in blue (Democrat run) cities. All of these examples are attempts to coerce their opponents.

Motive #5 (destroying property and injuring individuals) is the most heinous form of protest.   In the past, such protests were called riots.  And in most such cases, the police tried to arrest individuals and stop the riot.  Today, we see Democrat city administrators tell police to stand down, even when the 'protesters' are destroying cars, places of business, and university property.  Black hooded Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters wielding weapons are somewhat common now on the West coast and in places like Baltimore.  Property damage, assault, battery, and obstructing traffic are all chargeable offenses.  But these rioters, in an extreme way, support the message of the democrat party.  To me, its despicable activity and a despicable failure to enforce our laws.

I think I've pointed out examples of many protests that are not 'peaceful and law-abiding.'  But I need to go further and say that I think you should let anyone speak on any topic and opinion.  If they were to encourage criminal activity (such as murder, assault or battery), any permit should be withdrawn and the protest disbanded by the police.  But one should not confuse hateful talk with criminal incitement.  If a speaker's words are not something you don't want to hear, don't listen.  If others think like you, no one will attend.  Heckling a speaker is to me particularly offensive behavior.  It may not be criminal, until the property owner asks the heckler to leave, but its uncivil, discourteous and any person with a sense of decency should abstain from that behavior.  That's my thoughts for public speaking and protests. 

But going into restaurants, or screeching outside someone's home, or intruding into their place of employment is going over the line for civil behavior.  Those types of protest should require immediate police response.

Most protests I see on TV or read about are not a group of well-behaved, respectful individuals just trying to get a message across.  Most are trying to coerce a group or individual to behavior they approve of, often times by behavior that is not lawful, and frequently by ridiculing or heckling opponents. 

My recommendation is stay away from protests.  Find other ways to express your opinions and get your message across.