Category Archives: Rights

UPDATED: How Will Kelly Excuse Sandra Bland’s Arrest?!

Justice, Law, Natural Law, Rights, The State

It’ll be interesting to see how Megyn Kelly excuses the inexcusable and justifies the unjustifiable chain of events that culminated in Sandra Bland’s death, in a Waller County holding cell, in Texas. It’s probably futile to remind Ms. Kelly that what is permitted in law is often naturally illicit—in other words, wrong in natural law. Here follows the story of the demise of a young, innocent woman, via CNN:

Anger over Sandra Bland’s death in a Texas jail has boiled over after newly released video showed what happened at the traffic stop that led to her arrest.

Now, many question whether she should have been arrested at all.

The dashcam video shows Texas state Trooper Brian Encinia pulling Bland over July 10 for allegedly failing to use her turn signal. What started as normal conversation gets testy after Encinia asks her to put out her cigarette.

“I am in my car. I don’t have to put out my cigarette,” Bland says.

“You can step on out now,” Encinia replies.

Bland refuses to get out of her car, and the trooper opens her door and starts trying to pull her out of the vehicle.

What happens after that has ignited a debate about what the officer could have done versus what he should have done. …

MORE.

UPDATE: Kelly covered the arrest of Ms. Bland predictably. The less said, the better. This New York Times headline confuses matters:

“Dispute Over Sandra Bland’s Mental State Follows Death in a Texas Jail.”

The issue is Ms. Bland’s harassment and subsequent incarceration for no good reason; actions without which she would almost surely be alive today.

The Hispandering Effect

Classical Liberalism, Constitution, Crime, IMMIGRATION, Reason, Rights

“The Hispandering Effect” counters the illogic of the La Raza Lobby. It is now on The Unz Review, America’s smartest webzine. An excerpt:

From her bright eyes and big smile to her sun-kissed, luscious locks, Kathryn Steinle was the consummate California girl. The 32-year-old was shot dead by a proxy of the American Immigration-Industrial-Complex.

ICE, the federal wing of The Complex, was quick to blame its local branch: the City of San Francisco. San Francisco is the sanctuary city that unleashed confessed killer Francisco Sanchez. As a matter of policy, sanctuary cities commit to protecting their illegal population as they would their endangered species.

Yes, San Francisco provided sanctuary not for Kathryn Steinle, but for the likes of Francisco Sanchez. Alas, this criminal alien had accessories to the crime. The murder of Ms. Steinle was a murder-by-proxy. For regularly unleashing predators on people they swore to protect, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement is just as culpable as the sanctuary cities. Last year, reports CNSNews, ICE alone loosed approximately 30,000 convicted criminal aliens, “including those convicted of sex crimes, homicide, drunk driving, kidnapping and robbery.” Recidivism among them is proving rife.

Francisco Sanchez is the face of successive American administrations—lawmakers and enforcers; city, state and federal—who’ve refused to uphold negative rights; who’ve rejected a duty that falls perfectly within the purview of the “night-watchman state of classical-liberal theory.” And well within the ambit of the U.S. Constitution, Article IV, Section 4:

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

Ms. Steinle joins a litany of lives lost. Criminal aliens commit crimes all the time. However, until the rise of The Donald and The Coulter duo, a few weeks back—those who determine the “conversation” du jour had been otherwise occupied in northern New York State. For three weeks, they followed a manhunt for local killers escaped. …

… Read the rest. “The Hispandering Effect” is now on The Unz Review. Read it.

UPDATED: Breaking News: Tectonic Shift At CNN

Barack Obama, Ethics, Journalism, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Rights

Did CNN just break a pattern by reporting on Barack Obama’s law-breaking?

Today, Jeffry Toobin, a senior legal analyst and one among an army of Obama sycophants at CNN, was briefly seen admitting that Obama did indeed break the law when he arranged the Bergdahl prisoner swap without giving Congress 30-day notice, required when releasing detainees.

Then, when I went in search of this historical event—a CNN pundit calling a spade a spade vis-a-vis Barack Obama—I was unable to trace the snippet.

Was The Event a figment of my imagination, or did this BHO shill tell it like it is, for once?

It happened! Via National Review:

The Obama administration’s failure to notify Congress of the release of five Guantanamo Bay detainees ahead of his exchanging them for American soldier Bowe Bergdahl is a direct violation of the law, according to CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.
“I think he clearly broke the law,” Toobin said on Monday, adding that the president’s signing statement in which he called the law unconstitutional does not automatically make it so. “Certainly this is an example of a signing statement where the president is taking power for himself that the law didn’t give him — he’s explicitly contradicting it.”

As the articulate Nathan Bradley Bethea seconded today, also on CNN, unaltered is the ethical obligation to retrieve this man (whose parents are pretty off-putting).

The 30-day, notice-to-Congress law is procedural in nature. In exchanging Taliban terrorists for Bowe Bergdahl, Obama, who most certainly tramples rights daily, was, this once, flouting protocol, not rights.

UPDATE: WHAT DOES ROBERT REDFORD THINK? Yeah, that’s CNN’s headline with respect to “Obama’s big green move”:
What Robert Redford thinks about it.

UPDATED: Rage Against The Machine & For The Rancher

Justice, Law, Liberty, Natural Law, Private Property, Rights, States' Rights, The State

On April 11, we breathed a sigh of relief: “The Tyrant has disbanded, for now. But He’ll be back. Be vigilant, brave Bundys of Bunkerville, Nevada.” Indeed, as Ben Swann of “The Truth In Media Project” (Via LewRockwell.com) divulges, “Sources Inside The BLM and Las Vegas Metro Say Feds Are Planning A Raid On Bundy Home”:

… hundreds of federal agents are still at the Bundy Ranch and the area continues its status as a no-fly zone. Despite major media reports that the Nevada Bureau of Land Management is retreating, the remaining activity that still surrounds the ranch illustrates a different scenario.

Not only is the BLM not actually backing off of Cliven Bundy, Sheriff Richard Mack of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association has revealed stunning information: on Ben Swann’s radio program, Mack said that he has received intelligence from multiple, credible sources inside the BLM and the Las Vegas Metro that there is “no question” that the federal government is planning a raid on the Bundy home and the homes of their children who live on the property.

According to Mack, the so-called retreat was nothing more than theatrics. “It was a ploy to get people to back off, to get people out of the way. They weren’t expecting us to get this amount of people here. They were surprised by the numbers and so they wanted a way to get us out of here. This was a ploy to get us out of here and then they’re going after the Bundys.” Mack said that when he was at the Bundy ranch on Saturday there were an estimated 600 to 800 protesters present when federal agents were releasing the cattle. …

… Mack said that he had been told by Bundy that the federal government is actively shutting down the ranching industry, specifically in Clark County. He also revealed that there used to be 53 ranches in Clark County. All of those ranchers have been put out of business, except for Bundy who is still trying to hold on. “Every American should be outraged by it,” said Mack. The ranch has been in Bundy’s family since 1877. …

MORE.

UPDATE: What the statists are saying:

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: Clive Bundy ranched in this particular area of Nevada since the 1880s. And he had grazing rights he says that preempts and predates, he says, the federal authority over the land. So when the federal government decided to say that the desert tortoise was endangered and took away, and there you see the tortoise, the BLM, the Bureau of Land Management, took away the grazing rights, Bundy refused to comply, and he lost in court three times. But it started this back and forth that really came to a head this weekend.

Let’s bring in our panel, Tucker Carlson, host of “Fox & Friends Weekend,” A.B. Stoddard, associate editor of The Hill, and Juan Williams, columnist with The Hill. Tucker, it seems like all parties have backed down.

The Bureau of Land Management had this in a statement, “Due to escalating tensions, the cattle have been released” — they were holding the cattle — “from enclosures in order to avoid violence and help restore order. Safety has always been our number one priority and the bureau of land management and national park service appreciates the support of those who called for a peaceful conclusion to the operation.” What about this?

TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: Thanks heaven. It was moving in an ugly direction, and I think the feds exacerbated it by showing up with snarling dogs and drawn weapons. That’s appropriate when you are dealing with a drug cartel, not with an elderly rancher.

On the other hand, the Bundys don’t have a legal case that I can see, to be totally honest about it. And this is public land. This is not land that they own. And if you are going to use public land for profit, you have to pay for it, and they haven’t. And so the bottom line, and I think this is something conservatives ought to remember, if you want a ranch without any impediment at all, you have to buy your own ranch. That is the essence, that is the core principle behind private property which undergirds conservatism. So I have a lot of sympathy for the Bundys. I think they were completely mistreated by the federal government. But I still think it’s important to point out that this land does not belong to them, and that’s not a minor distinction. It’s the essence of private property. Sorry.

BAIER: A.B.?

A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR, THE HILL: It wasn’t that he was denied grazing rights. He refused to pay the grazing fees. So he could have had his cattle grazing on federal land but he refused to pay up to $1 million in grazing feeds.

So the BLM could not have bungled this more by, A, coming in and tasering his son, which then became a viral video. Agents from the BLM also came up behind Cliven Bundy’s sister and knocked her down on the ground. This is something they have been dealing with for 20 years. They knew exactly who would be there protesting with their weapons. They knew how mad everyone would be and how this would escalate. They did not plan well for this.

They have now removed all this cattle and because of raised public concerns, brought the cattle there. They are never getting that cattle off that land. The BLM is out of leverage and it’s been peacefully concluded because they have got nothing left on Mr. Bundy.

BAIER: Juan?

JUAN WILLIAMS, SENIOR EDITOR, THE HILL: Well, I think what really talking about here is conservative angst over the sense that government has grown too large, too powerful. The government controls huge swaths of the western part of this country. And even local and state officials sometimes have disputes with federal authorities.

But the fact is, as Tucker said, this is public land. And despite his claims going back to the 1880s that his more Mormon forefathers used this land, it is public land. It’s not his land. And even by his own admission he owes the government, maybe not $1 million, but $300,000 that he has not paid.

So the courts have ruled against him three times, as you said, Bret. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on in that regard. But in terms of the larger picture, I think you have to worry about Waco, you have to worry about Ruby Ridge when people start showing up with guns and saying they are willing to take on the federal government.

MORE @ Bret Baier’s Special Report