Government

NPR

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Criminal defense lawyers sound the alarm about mass incarceration if Roe falls : NPR

Picture a court of law, jury in place, set to determine the fate of a woman who has had a miscarriage. And she's been charged with murder.

This hypothetical is part of how the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) is training its members to prepare for a wave of criminal charges if, as expected, the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.

Only it's not a hypothetical — this happened in 2019. After a California woman delivered a stillborn baby at 8 months, she tested positive for meth at the hospital and the staff called the police. The Kings County prosecutor charged her with the "murder of a human fetus" and she spent 16 months in jail before the charges were dismissed.

I have very mixed feelings about Chris Jacobs getting booted out of Congress over his position on gun control 🔫

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I have very mixed feelings about Chris Jacobs getting booted out of Congress over his position on gun control 🔫

For one, I think it’s good that the Republican base and the good hard-working conservative country folk in the Southern Tier are holding their elected officials accountable, and are standing up for their rights. For too long, many of the leftists have thought they can trample on our constitutional rights, allowing the state to seize firearms and personal property with little due cause or recourse, leaving ordinary citizens in fear of their government. Too often Republicans and conservatives have had cowardice, unwilling to stand up to media and jackals on the left, rolling over much like too many did in era of McCarthyism.

At same time, I am no fan of moral purity tests — or how the Republican Party has become a party of arbitrary and capricious restrictions on abortion, while the Democrats have become a party calling for arbitrary and capricious on gun owners. It seems like increasingly that the Republican Party is all about arresting and jailing Democrats, while the Democratic Party is about arresting and jailing Republicans by creating laws to target them. The hell of it all is most politicians aren’t likely to go jail, but the police will be using their new found powers from Republicans and Democrats to attack and imprison the colored and poor.

I agree with the many Republicans activists that Chris Jacob had to go. Any politician that threatens fundamental rights should be kicked out of their party, be it Democrat or Republican. People should vote the gun-grabbers out of the Democratic Party and the abortion-banners out of the Republican Parties. And they shouldn’t make their whole office about kowtowing to jackals of the press and popular culture. Politicians don’t have to be at the public-trough, writing laws that hurt ordinary people, they can get jobs in the private sector where they can do things for their community without hurting the American people at large.

Chris Jacobs Drops Re-Election Bid After Bucking His Party on Guns – The New York Times

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Chris Jacobs Drops Re-Election Bid After Bucking His Party on Guns – The New York Times

On Friday, facing intense backlash from party leaders, a potential primary from the state party chairman and a forceful dressing down from Donald Trump Jr., Mr. Jacobs announced that he would abandon his re-election campaign.

The episode, which played out as President Biden pleaded with lawmakers in Washington to pass a raft of new laws to address gun violence, may be a portent for proponents of gun control, who had welcomed Mr. Jacobs’s evolution on the issue as a sign that the nation’s latest mass tragedies might break a decades-old logjam in Washington.

Just last week, Mr. Jacobs, who is the scion of one of Buffalo’s richest families and was endorsed by the National Rifle Association in 2020, had been an easy favorite to win re-election, even after a court-appointed mapmaker redrew his Western New York district to include some of the state’s reddest rural counties, areas he does not currently represent.

But by Friday, after local gun rights groups had posted his office phone number on the internet and local party leaders had started pulling their support one by one, political analysts predicted he may well lose a primary challenge based solely on his embrace of firearm restrictions.

Voters, not NRA money, drive the resistance to gun control

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Voters, not NRA money, drive the resistance to gun control

In 2020, Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) was the top recipient of money from members of the “gun rights” industry. According to Open Secrets, his campaign received a total of $142,653 for the 2019-2020 cycle. That put the so-called gun lobby at 33 on the list, far behind other industries, like real estate and accounting.

Health professionals alone gave roughly seven times more money to Scalise ($1,072,904) than the gun lobby did. Meanwhile, individuals who simply put down “retired,” instead of any industry at all, gave 100 times more, just shy of $14 million.

Don’t Forget to Vote in School Board Elections

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Many of us forget about School Board Elections.

They are in a strange time of year, the middle of May, as many of us are thinking more about our summer plans, rather then critical questions of local government spending. School board elections, as local elections, are poorly covered by the news, and often are uninteresting. You may no longer attend high school, and you may not have kids in school. Yet those are not good reasons for not voting.

School Board Elections, School Budget Vote, and Library Budget Vote are all important things to vote on for several reasons including:

  • Low turn out, local elections mean your vote can change results easily.
  • Your decision hits your pocketbook directly, especially if pay property taxes.
  • Only chance to directly comment on government spending — should we invest more in our public schools or further increase the crushing tax burden on working folk?

None of us have perfect information. Many years when I vote in school board elections, I don’t even know whose running for school board, and leave those ballots blank. If your concerned about government spending and waste, or think schools and the students being educated are getting cut too much, then either vote Yes or No. It’s that simple.

Don’t Forget to Vote!