It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, January 19, 2022
LIBERTARIAN Tulsi Gabbard says people must 'stand up against' Biden’s new domestic terrorism policy
Former Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard sharply criticized the Biden administration's deployment of a domestic terrorism unit to target those with “anti-authority” or “anti-government” beliefs, telling people that "we must all stand up against this."
The Justice Department is creating a task force to combat domestic terrorism, according to a top official, the New York Times reported last week. Gabbard tweeted her rebuke of the new policy, along with a clip of her Fox News appearance Sunday in which she discussed the policy.
“Biden’s new policy of directing a domestic terrorism unit to target those who have an ‘anti-authority’ or ‘anti-government' attitude exposes their anti-liberty/anti-democracy mindset. We must all stand up against this, regardless of our political party,” Gabbard tweeted.
Gabbard explained during the interview why the Biden policy is "authoritarianism."
“We have the deputy attorney general of the United States speaking to the American people about how they are standing up a domestic terrorism unit to support their efforts to target those who hold anti-government or anti-authority ideologies,” Gabbard explained. “When we stop and think about that for a second, what does that really mean? The authorities in our government, the Biden administration, are targeting Americans for holding anti-authority views. That is authoritarianism,” she added.
Gabbard has recently begun to express strong disapproval of President Joe Biden and his policies. On Friday, she posted a video to Twitter explaining why she no longer supports the Biden administration, saying the president has succeeded in dividing the country more than ever, along with another rebuke of his new domestic terrorism policy.
“Biden promised to unite our country. Instead he betrayed us, pouring fuel on the fire of divisiveness, tearing our country apart. Biden compares those who disagree with him to racists, traitors & enemies, & has his AG target Americans as domestic terrorists. Unfit to lead,” Gabbard tweeted along with her video.
An interview in the metaverse BY AVI LOEB, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR
When I opened the link to my first interview in the metaverse, the interviewer appeared to be a monkey with heart-shaped glasses. He introduced himself as the avatar of the real interviewer, “Club Metaverse” podcast host Marc Fernandez, whose voice I could hear. Fernandez reasoned that this monkey is a non-fungible token (NFT) worth tens of thousands of dollars — because it is part of a rare digital collection.
During the Q&A, I explained to the metaverse monkey with heart glasses that as a scientist, I am in love with the actual reality of the physical world, shared by all humans. And as a result of being in love with the physical reality, I want to know everything about it and not be distracted by fictitious notions of it. Just like cosmetic make-up, these notions hide true beauty along with any pimples. Naturally, I’d prefer to see my real interviewer’s face and not the avatar, even if the latter is digital art worth a lot of money.
Metaverse assets could disappear as a result of a global electricity blackout. But other virtual realities are entrenched in our mind. For example, mainstream theoretical physicists dedicate their careers to exploring the multiverse in the string theory landscape, without goggles attached to their heads. It is human nature to fly high on the wings of imagined narratives rather than be chained by the constraints of scientific evidence.
The metaverse interview focused on the question of whether `Oumuamua, the first interstellar object spotted near Earth by the Pan-STARRS observatory, might have been technological equipment sent by another civilization.
Three days later, I was interviewed by William Shatner who portrayed Captain James T. Kirk on the imagined USS Enterprise in “Star Trek.” I had never enjoyed “Star Trek” because its storyline violates the laws of physics — and that bothers me as a physicist.
Following both interviews, I came to realize that the metaverse would be a fertile backdrop for science fiction narratives. However, in dealing with the reality we all share, we must separate science from fiction. And as Galileo Galilei advocated, this is best done by subjecting ideas to experimental tests. In that vein, a science fiction idea such as the possibility that an interstellar object might be technological equipment manufactured by an advanced technological civilization will be tested experimentally by the Galileo Project that I am leading.
Some extraterrestrial equipment that the Galileo Project finds might be defunct. NASA launched five spacecraft that will exit the solar system within tens of thousands of years. They were intended to report back on what they probed in the solar system, but in a billion years they will be space trash. Most interstellar equipment might be like unusable plastic bottles on the surface of the ocean, accumulated over the billions of years of the cosmic star formation history, during which most stars were born before the Sun.
The likelihood of success in finding mail within our mailbox — the orbit of the Earth around the sun, depends on the abundance of artificial objects per unit volume. There may be many more small objects than large objects, and Pan-STARRS telescope is only able to detect reflected sunlight from objects bigger than a football field within the Earth-sun separation. NASA never sent out a craft that big but many smaller ones. Also, some spacecraft might move much faster than comets or asteroids and all the search algorithms employed by astronomers would miss very fast-moving objects.
The senders may not be alive at present. But even if we imagine electromagnetic communication of some probes with their senders, it would likely be done in brief, sporadic, directional, narrow-band transmissions to save power, and so we could easily miss them. The travel time of signals is very long, tens of thousands of years across the Milky Way disk. It, therefore, makes more sense for probes to pursue a task assigned to them by their senders without feedback, like a group of ants on a journey to a distant hill without the ability to communicate with their base colony in real time.
In an email correspondence I had with former NSF Director France Cordova, she noted insightfully that most of the exodus of probes might occur near the end in the life of the star hosting a civilization. The civilization from where probes were sent in a final act of distress might have died by now. In this case, it would be just the technological descendants that we will encounter.
Experimental data from the Galileo Project will serve as the meeting place between what is possible and what exists, similarly to my first interview in the metaverse. The metaverse allows a virtual reality, which violates the laws of physics. But when we take its goggles off, we must accept the pleasure and pain of the real world in which the laws of physics do not budge. Pain because those laws dictate that humans cannot live a long life when exposed to cosmic-rays on the surface of Mars. Pleasure because the same laws allow humans to live long on Earth, where if they choose, they can pretend to be monkeys with sunglasses in the metaverse.
Avi Loeb is the head of the Galileo Project, founding director of Harvard University's Black Hole Initiative, director of the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the former chair of the astronomy department at Harvard University (2011-2020). He chairs the advisory board for the Breakthrough Starshot project and is a former member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and a former chair of the Board on Physics and Astronomy of the National Academies. He is the bestselling author of “Extraterrestrial:The First Sign of Intelligent Life Beyond Earth” and a co-author of the textbook “Life in the Cosmos,” both published in 2021.
Florida suspends health official in probe over vaccine law
A central Florida health official has been put on administrative leave as state officials investigate whether he tried to compel employees to get vaccinated for COVID-19 in violation of state law
Via AP news wire Virus Outbreak-Governors (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)
A health official who has helped lead central Florida s response to the pandemic has been put on administrative leave as state officials investigate whether he tried to compel employees to get vaccinated for COVID-19 in violation of state law.
The state health agency is conducting an inquiry into Raul Pino, director of the Florida Department of Health in Orange County “to determine if any laws were broken in this case,” Florida Department of Health press secretary Jeremy Redfern said in an email.
A measure Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law last fall prohibits government agencies from implementing vaccine mandates and restricts private businesses from having vaccine requirements unless they allow workers to opt out for medical reasons, religious beliefs, immunity based on a previous infection, regular testing or an agreement to wear protective gear.
“The Department is committed to upholding all laws, including the ban on vaccine mandates for government employees and will take appropriate action once additional information is known," Redfern said in the email. He didn't offer further details.
Orlando s WFTV reports that Pino was put on leave after he sent an email to staff earlier this month critical of their vaccination rate.
Pino wrote that out of 568 staffers, only 77 had received booster shots, 219 had gotten two vaccines doses and 34 only had a single dose, according to the television station.
“I am sorry but in the absence of reasonable and real reasons it is irresponsible not to be vaccinated,” Pino wrote. “We have been at this for two years, we were the first to give vaccines to the masses, we have done more than 300,000 and we are not even at 50% pathetic.”
Pino has led the health agency in Orange County since 2019 and has served as a leading figure in the public response to the pandemic in metro Orlando.
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M THE AMERICAN WAY
Glendale Man, Companies Ordered To Pay Restitution For Ponzi Sheme
The Arizona Corporation Commission ordered Tony Spooner of Glendale, First Federal Security, Inc., and Rokay Unlimited, LLC to pay $774,158 in restitution and a $50,000 administrative penalty for defrauding investors.
The Commission found the respondents offered and sold unregistered securities and notes issued by companies controlled by EquiAlt, LLC to at least 47 investors, the majority of whom were senior citizens investing a significant portion of their life savings. However, the respondents were not registered to offer or sell securities in Arizona.
The Commission found the respondents, during the offer or sale of EquiAlt securities, made material misrepresentations and omissions to the investors regarding the securities’ risk and liquidity.
The Corporation Commission found Spooner and his affiliated companies represented to investors that EquiAlt, LLC was raising capital to purchase, improve, lease, and dispose of distressed real property. In actuality, EquiAlt, LLC was operating as a nationwide Ponzi scheme.
Paradise Valley Serial Securities Violator Ordered To Pay $733,606 In Restitution
The Arizona Corporation Commission has ordered Michael Barry Eckerman of Paradise Valley, Luxury Management Group and MTE 2013 Trust to pay restitution and administrative penalties for defrauding investors with an investment involving real estate and luxury automobile rentals.
The Commission ordered the respondents to pay $733,606 in restitution. The Commission ordered Eckerman to pay an administrative penalty of $100,000 and Luxury Management Group to pay a $70,000 penalty.
The Commission found Luxury Management Group, LLC was a short-term real estate and automobile rental company that sold unregistered promissory notes to three investors, two of whom also were sold future options in company stock and one of whom was also sold investment contracts. One investor placed her life’s savings with respondents.
The Commission found the respondents titled their contracts as “commercial paper loans” when they were actually securities subject to the Commission’s jurisdiction. None of the respondents were authorized to offer or sell securities in Arizona.
The Commission found Michael Eckerman was the subject of prior temporary cease and desist orders filed by the Corporation Commission, Michael Eckerman’s prior companies failed to pay investors and Luxury Management Group’s house rentals were threatened by injunction litigation initiated by a Paradise Valley homeowner’s association.
Sellers Penalized For Unlawful $114 Million Investment In Social Media Business
The Arizona Corporation Commission ordered Voice of Guo Media, Inc. (VGM) and Lihong Wei Lafrenz of Tucson to pay a $100,000 administrative penalty for defrauding investors in connection with a social media business.
The Commission found Lafrenz, also known as Sara Wei, offered and sold securities issued by GTV Media Group, Inc. (GTV), an entity controlled by Guo Wengui, also known as Miles Kwok or Miles Guo. Investors were told they would receive a return related to GTV’s social media business. However, Lafrenz and Voice of Guo Media, Inc. were not registered to offer or sell securities in Arizona.
The Commission found the respondents sold approximately $114 million in GTV stock to more than 4,500 investors from 39 countries, including U.S. investors from at least 37 states.
The Commission found the respondents promoted the stock offering in online chatrooms and through emails to investors, some of whom were accredited and non-accredited. There was no minimum investment amount to invest in the stock offering through VGM and investment amounts were generally in the amount of $100 or more.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also filed an action against Voice of Guo Media, Inc. and Lihong Wei Lafrenz, and has already ordered VGM to pay disgorgement to the SEC in its action.
Happy Tuesday and welcome to On The Money, your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line.
Today’s Big Deal: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice's antitrust division have launched a new inquiry aimed at updating guidelines to block illegal mergers. We’ll also look at the Supreme Court’s recent rejection of a request to block a federal mask mandate for air travel.
But first, check out the massive asteroid passing by Earth today.
The FTC and Department of Justice's antitrust division on Tuesday launched a new inquiry aimed at updating guidelines to block illegal mergers.
The agencies are seeking public input to update guidelines over the next 60 days.
“Illegal mergers can inflict a host of harms, from higher prices and lower wages to diminished opportunity, reduced innovation and less resiliency,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a statement.
The inquiry comes amid a surge in new mergers, filings for which doubled between 2020 and 2021.
The two agencies tasked with antitrust enforcement spent 18 months reviewing their joint guidance on vertical mergers during the Trump administration. The FTC voted last fall to withdraw those guidelines on a party-line vote.
The Department of Justice separately said it intends to review guidelines for both vertical mergers — referring to acquisitions within the same supply chain — and horizontal ones, which deal with competitors.
The announcement Tuesday is one of the first major collaborations between Khan and Kanter, two nominees of President Biden who were strongly backed by progressives.
Two-thirds of Americans support banning lawmakers from trading stocks: poll
Sixty-seven percent of Americans support banning lawmakers from trading stocks, according to a new poll from progressive firm Data for Progress.
The poll, released on Tuesday, found that figure increased to 74 percent when respondents were given arguments for and against a ban.
Seventy-five percent of Democrats said they strongly or somewhat support a ban on lawmaker stock trading alongside 76 percent of independents and 70 percent of Republicans.
It follows another poll from the Trafalgar Group and conservative advocacy group Convention of States Action finding that 76 percent of voters believe that lawmakers and their spouses have an “unfair advantage” when trading stocks.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has said that lawmakers have the right to make private investments, but she recently announced that Congress may need stricter penalties for those who violate stock trading rules.
Several lawmakers, including Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) recently introduced bills to prevent members of Congress from trading stocks.
Several Wisconsin Republican lawmakers have introduced legislation that would restrict the state's unemployment benefits, shortening the period they could be claimed and opening the possibility that benefits could be canceled if a recipient declines or skips a job interview, among other changes.
The lawmakers introduced several bills to address what they said is still a labor crisis in their state, according to The Associated Press.
"We have such an immense number of jobs available," Senate President Chris Kapenga said at a news conference introducing the bills, the AP reported. "The people who are on benefits are not in the workforce. We want to reduce that so we don't have dependency on government. No person has ever become prosperous and independent on a welfare check."
The Republicans also said they expect to pass the legislation by the end of next month because they have a majority in both chambers of the state legislature, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
However, it is unclear what future the bills would face if they make it to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, and a spokesperson for his office did not confirm to the Journal Sentinel whether Evers would veto the measures.
The bills cover a wide range of qualifications governing unemployment and state medical benefits, including requiring the Department of Workforce Development to audit at least 50 percent of the required employment search activity that benefit recipients are required to submit to prove they are looking for work.
Barricades are seen in front of the State Capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, on Jan. 17, 2021. Republican lawmakers in the state recently introduced legislation proposing changes to the state's unemployment benefits program.
KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Another key change would be connecting the state unemployment rate to the amount of time recipients can collect unemployment benefits. Currently, the benefits can be collected for 26 weeks and under the proposed legislation, the unemployment rate would have to be over 9 percent for recipients to be able to collect benefits for that long, according to the Journal Sentinel.
At the state's current reported unemployment rate of 3 percent, unemployment benefits would be available for 14 weeks.
The AP also reported that "able-bodied, childless adults" could lose Medicaid benefits if they turn down a job offer, and employers could report people who skip or reject job interviews, which could lead to their unemployment benefits being denied.
Last week, Republican lawmakers in the state also continued to push a bill that would allow people to use a prior COVID infection and recovery as immunity instead of a vaccine, and would allow people who are fired for not complying with vaccine mandates to still qualify for unemployment benefits, the Journal Sentinel reported.
Similar bills extending benefits to those who lose their jobs over being unvaccinated have been passed, discussed or enacted into law in at least five other Republican-led states, according to a December report from The Washington Post.
Upcoming study aims to gauge prevalence and impact of traumatic brain injury on juveniles in detention
ByMicah Danney |
U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jason Couillard/Released
A U.S. Military neuropsychologist examines brains for traumatic injury,
which criminal justice researchers are exploring among Floridians in juvenile detention facilities.
Traumatic brain injury among juvenile offenders will be assessed as part of a three-year research project that’s slated to enroll the first of roughly 110 youth and young adult study participants in Florida as early as late January. Ultimately, the study aims to determine which TBI treatments might help keep those youth from cycling in and out of detention, complete their education and succeed at work.
The upcoming probe follows several previous studies suggesting that as many as 60% of men incarcerated in U.S. prisons had such head injuries.
The research to detect TBIs in juveniles will involve youth from five Florida detention facilities run by Youth Opportunity Investments, a private company that says its rehabilitation programs are trauma-informed, taking into consideration detainees, physical, mental and behavioral histories. Its services include mental and behavioral health counseling.
“The systems need to be changed to accommodate these kids as they’re being reintroduced into the communities,” said Denny Armington, president of the Youth Opportunity Foundation, an independent arm of the private juvenile corrections company. “The real issue we’re trying to get at is recidivism because that is rampant, and if you don’t do anything to try to change that, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
Because the participating facilities are all-male, the study, conducted by University of South Florida researchers, will enroll 13- through 22-year-old men and boys, said Armington, a former rehabilitation hospital administrator.
They will be selected from among hundreds of individuals screened for moderate and severe TBI as they are admitted to the juvenile facilities. The screening uses an assessment tool developed by Ohio State University that starts by asking interviewees to self-report if they have ever been hit in the head, been in a car accident, been involved in a fight or lost consciousness, for example. Researcher-clinicians will track the health of those diagnosed with such injuries from their entry through their release from juvenile facilities, when they will be linked with community-based clinicians who specialize in brain injury treatment.
Partnering with the Florida Department of Vocational Rehabilitation, the research project also aims to demonstrate whether treating TBI, alongside ensuring that brain-injured youths who re-joining their communities also succeed in school, get a job and access to career development, will help lower rates of recidivism among that population.
Pediatric neuropsychologist: TBI treatment should be individualized
Individualized treatment is critical to helping young people with TBI recognize and manage their disability, said Gerard Gioia, neuropsychology chief at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C. He has studied and treated TBI in children for more than two decades, specializing in pediatric concussion and mild TBI and in disorders involving memory, self-control, ability to follow instructions and other so-called executive functioning skills.
If, for example, someone with pre-existing attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder suffers a concussion or mild TBI, he said, “… some of the impulsivity and that sort of thing gets kids in trouble. And depending on what sort of trouble they get in, you add on top of that a brain injury and now you’re multiplying, or certainly worsening” the situation.
Identifying TBI early is critical to providing effective interventions, and treatment needs to be tailored to patients’ individual needs, said Gioia, who heads his hospital’s Safe Concussion Outcome, Recovery & Education Program. Treatments can include keeping a concussed young person physically active to help that individual’s brain heal; and educating young people about what adversely affects TBI so that they might more readily avoid situations that trigger TBI symptoms.
“Coming out of the justice system is tough enough,” Armington said. “When you have an injury like TBI, it’s tougher. If we don’t do anything about this, that will be a serious mistake on our behalf.”
He continued: “If this topic has been broached, it hasn’t been broached thoroughly. I’m not a clinician. But I continue to be amazed that this has not been a bigger deal.”
JJIE editor Katti Gray contributed to this report.
by Ilanit Turner and Noelle Collins of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, for Right on Crime
Editor’s note This brand new report, which describes why the policy of solitary confinement urgently must be reformed in the federal system, was just released by the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Right on Crime.
At WitnessLA, we have long been big fans of Right on Crime, which comes at justice reform from a politically conservative perspective.
And it does so very effectively.
Here’s the executive summary of the report (with the research cites removed). But the whole report is worth reading. As the authors note, some states—including California—have, at least in part, reformed the provably torturous use of solitary confinement. But the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, has resisted needed change.
In fact, as the authors note, according to Solitary Watch, “swearing, non-violent disobedient behavior, tobacco use, and attempted suicide were among the most frequent reasons prisoners were sent to solitary confinement.”
In any case, we thought you’d like to be aware of this worthwhile report.
Federal solitary confinement is in desperate need of repair. After a 40-year spike in federal incarceration rates beginning in 1980 has tapered off (Gramlich, 2021), a bipartisan consensus for solitary confinement reform is finally starting to crystallize.
What was once considered a last-resort disciplinary practice in federal prisons has morphed into a default option when other correctional and administrative protocols fail on their first try. This paper is the latest installment in the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s series of publications entailing prescriptions for local, state, and federal prison reform.
Our research is especially timely as prison officials continue to misuse segregated housing units for medical isolation to combat COVID-19. Because prison officials know they have limited alternatives to curb transmission, improperly using COVID-19 as a justification for solitary confinement is apparently a tempting option. Warehousing sick inmates poses a unique challenge as those who report symptoms are unjustifiably forced to endure an experience known to cause mental and physical harm
The current landscape of solitary confinement data released on the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) website is insufficient. The information on the precise order of operations for the types of infractions that land inmates in solitary is vague, publications of hearings considered for segregation are unavailable, and it is nearly impossible to determine the total length of time served in solitary confinement by each inmate. Holding BOP accountable for this information should be emphasized if change is to be effected.
Any information that is known about solitary confinement reaches the outside world a day late and a policy short. Charles Dickens (1842), a notable critic of the American penitentiary system, alluded to the effect of ignorance of solitude in his prescient observation a century and a half earlier, “this slow and daily tampering with the mysteries of the brain, [is] immeasurably worse than any torture of the body… and therefore I denounce it, as a secret punishment which slumbering humanity is not roused up to stay”.
Little has changed.
The prolonged effects of solitary confinement take the form of irreversible physical and mental health disorders. When isolated inmates are granted the long-awaited second chance for release right after solitary confinement, they reoffend in rates disproportionately higher than the general prison population.
Long durations in segregation exacerbate mental illnesses, leading to bouts of psychosis. This prevents inmates from integrating back into the labor market, much less society in general, and is correlated with higher rates of criminal episodes.
The Foundation offers a list of policy solutions to improve the status quo of federal solitary confinement. First and foremost, data transparency is essential. Pulling back he bureaucratic curtain of the federal prison system will reinforce administrative rectitude when deciding to use solitary confinement.
Enhancing due process and ongoing review is another way to redirect prison officials to alternative punitive measures. The BOP should also consider expanding educational and rehabilitative programming for inmates in isolation, as these changes will reduce occupancy and recidivism rates with a single policy adjustment. Lastly, the BOP system owes it to the public to reduce violence and suicide for inmates in solitary by improving mental health assessments. Addressing these issues can also reveal areas of endemic corruption that lead to further misuse of this practice.
For ethical and practical reasons alike, solitary confinement reform is in the interest of both the prisoners and the public. The obstruction and obfuscation of justice at the hands of the BOP presents a compelling case on its own to reassess the morality of current solitary practices.
Key Points
Solitary confinement use continues to grow and reported data on reasons for placement, due process, and rehabilitative programs are lacking
Physical and mental impacts of prolonged solitary confinement are antithetical to the punitive purposes of the prison system
Recidivism rates continue to remain unchanged as a result of releas- ing solitary inmates back into the general population without any intermediary process whether reha- bilitative or educational
Policy solutions include providing more data & transparency, enhanc- ing due process, expanding pro- gramming and privileges for those in solitary, and improving protocols to prevent suicides, violence, and corruption
Co-author Ilanit Turner is a policy scholar for Keep Texas Texan and Alliance for Opportunity at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Turner started working at the Foundation as an intern and has been featured in The Cannon Online for her research on conservative healthcare policy. Turner has experience in hospitals across central Texas as an administrative assistant. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Texas at Austin with a BA in Plan II Honors and a BSA in biochemistry.
Noelle Collins
Co-author Noelle Collins is a policy scholar, who researches and writes for three of the Foundation’s campaigns: Right on Crime, Right on Healthcare, and Right on Immigration Collins is a former intern for both the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D C. She received her B A in political science and religion from Wittenberg University.
RIGHT TO LIFE;CLOSE DEATH-ROW Chairman of Oklahoma Board of Pardons and Parole Forced Out Over Support for Death-Row Prisoners’ Clemency Petitions
#ENDDEATHPENALTY
Posted on Jan 18, 2022
Adam Luck (pictured), the Chairman of Oklahoma’s Board of Pardons and Parole, has resigned from the board under pressure from Governor Kevin Stitt because of Luck’s votes in favor of clemency for death-row prisoners.
“When I began service on this board there was a moratorium on executions in the state of Oklahoma,” Luck wrote in his January 14, 2022 resignation letter to Stitt. “As we resumed executions in October I came to the conclusion that guided my votes during the five clemency hearings our board conducted. I understand these beliefs differ from yours and while I could continue my service I wish to honor your request and allow you to appoint an individual more aligned with your position.”
Luck twicevoted to recommend that Stitt commute Julius Jones’ death sentence to life with the possibility of parole, saying, “I believe in death penalty cases there should be no doubts. And put simply, I have doubts about this case.” He was one of two board members to recommend that John Grant’s death sentence be commuted to life without parole. After Grant’s execution was botched, he was part of the 3-2 majority of the board that, citing concerns about Oklahoma’s execution protocol, recommended that Stitt reduce Bigler Stouffer’s sentence to life without parole.
Four hours before the scheduled execution, Stitt commuted Jones sentence to life without parole, conditioned upon Jones never seeking a pardon or further reduction in sentence. Stitt rejected the board’s clemency recommendation for Stouffer.
Stitt replaced former Luck on the board with Edward Konieczny, who served 17 years as a California police officer and 14 years as the CEO and President of the Episcopal Diocese of Oklahoma. Konieczny’s name appeared on a 2012 Oklahoma Conference of Churches statement opposing the death penalty, but now says his inclusion in the letter was a mistake and that his name was added automatically to the letter while he was out of town.
The board will vote on who takes over the role of chairperson.
Luck is the CEO of City Care, a nonprofit in Oklahoma that provides services to the homeless and supportive housing to people living in poverty. Stitt appointed him to the board in February of 2019.
In November 2019, Luck presided over the board’s unanimous vote to commute the sentences of 462 prisoners, the largest single-day mass commutation in U.S. history. At the time, Stitt lauded the action as a “bold change” and “another mark on our historic timeline as we move the needle in criminal justice reform.”
But prosecutors rankled at Luck’s votes on the board, repeatedly seeking to recuse him from clemency votes because of his purported pro-clemency bias and alleged financial interest in clemency because of the re-entry services his non-profit provides to those newly released from prison. In March 2021, Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater filed a lawsuit against Stitt and the board seeking to enjoin all clemency hearings because the board allegedly had failed to provide notice to prosecutors of upcoming proceedings.
Stitt’s communications director, Carly Atchison, blasted the lawsuit, saying “We are not intimidated by political hit jobs disguised as ‘lawsuits’ in a desperate cry for publicity.” She said Stitt was “proud” of the pardons board members, who “take their jobs seriously and consider each case on its individual merits.”
Prater and Oklahoma Attorney General both filed emergency petitions in the Oklahoma Supreme Court seeking to bar Luck and fellow board member Kelly Doyle from participating in clemency votes in Jones’ case. The court denied the petitions.
Luck’s resignation comes amid a spree of seven scheduled executions in a five-month period. He was also the lone vote for clemency in the cases of Donald Grant and Gilbert Postelle, whose executions are pending. Grant is scheduled to be executed on January 27, 2022 and Postelle’s execution is scheduled for February 17, 2022.
Eric Swalwell warns Republicans will 'never peacefully concede power again'
Rep. Eric Swalwell, a vocal Trump critic, warned that Republicans will "never peacefully concede power again" if they prevail in the midterm elections.
The California Democrat ratcheted up the rhetoric during an interview Monday in which he also asserted that the investigation by the House committee investigating the Capitol riot may not have even been needed to determine that former President Donald Trump committed a crime in connection to the events on Jan. 6.
"This is the greatest crime ever in America where members of Congress were witnesses. We also now formally know it was an act of sedition that has been charged against at least 10 co-defendants," Swalwell told MSNBC host Joy Reid, referring to the federal indictment last week against Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and 10 others.
"The Republicans would absolutely do this to us, so we shouldn't have any sort of notion of virtue that we are better than they are," the congressman added.
The Jan. 6 committee has two Republican members in Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, both of whom are anti-Trump, but the panel's detractors argue that it is being used as a political weapon against the former president and his allies. Among these critics are Reps. Jim Jordan and Jim Banks, two Republicans who were barred from joining the select Jan. 6 committee by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and are now conducting their own counterinvestigation into the Capitol riot.
Swalwell, who is not a member of the panel, turned his focus to November, when Republicans are widely expected to win control of the House and possibly the Senate, and referred to voter integrity measures passed in several red states last year that House Democrats are trying to counter with two election overhaul bills that they say will alleviate efforts to make it harder for people to vote, minorities in particular.
"We get one shot at this before the midterms, where they're trying to put every barrier in place to keep people from voting, and they will never, I promise you — if they win the midterms, they will never peacefully concede power again," Swalwell said, adding that "this is our only shot."
As for Trump, Swalwell noted the former president did not join the hundreds of rioters who stormed the Capitol, disrupting lawmakers as they certified President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory, but he argued that Trump "certainly incited the mob and aimed the mob and told them to go to the Capitol."
"I do have fear that we are overthinking a crime that was committed in plain sight," Swalwell added. "I don't really even think you even need to run much of an investigation around what Donald Trump was doing because he put it on his Twitter, he financed it with the Facebook ads that he paid for, and he said it in plain sight for millions of people to hear and the thousands on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse to take as their instructions. And then afterward, you saw multiple people tell the FBI or tell reporters they were sent there by Trump and left there only once Donald Trump told them it was time to leave."
Trump was impeached on the charge that he incited an insurrection in connection to the Capitol riot but was acquitted by the GOP-led Senate at the time. Although Trump was spared a conviction that would block him from taking back the White House in a couple of years, another member of the Jan. 6 committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin, recently floated using the 14th Amendment as a way to block Trump from holding office again.
WHY NOT BAN STR8 MEN FDA-funded study aims to lift restrictions on blood donation for gay, bisexual men
The study aims to evaluate alternatives to the blood donor deferral policy known as men who have sex with men, or MSM.
GLOBALLY UNPROTECTED STRAIGHT SEX SPREADS HIV
By Brooke Migdon | Jan. 18, 2022
(Europa Press News/Getty Images)
Story at a glance A new study is evaluating an FDA policy barring some men from donating blood. Under current FDA guidelines, men who have sex with other men may not donate blood if they have had sexual contact with another man less than three months prior to donation.
The study aims to develop a questionnaire based on individual risk assessment to replace the FDA’s existing abstinence policy.
A new study currently underway could ease eligibility requirements for gay and bisexual men seeking to donate blood.
The study, funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, aims to evaluate alternatives to the blood donor deferral policy known as men who have sex with men, or MSM, put in place to reduce the transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus, or HIV.
Under current FDA guidelines, men who have sex with men are ineligible to donate blood if they have had sexual contact with another man less than three months prior to donation.
The ADVANCE study (standing for Assessing Donor Variability And New Concepts in Eligibility) will recruit a total of 2,000 gay or bisexual men in eight cities across the U.S., including San Francisco, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, and Washington, D.C., according to the study’s website. Between 250 and 300 participants will be recruited in each city.
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To be eligible for the study, individuals must be between 18 and 39 years old, express an interest in donating blood, have had sex with at least one other man in the three months before joining the study, and agree to an HIV test – the results of which must be negative.
Study participants will test the reliability of a donor history questionnaire based on individual risk of HIV transmission. If the study is successful, the new questionnaire could replace the FDA’s deferral requirement.
The FDA had initiated a lifetime ban for men who have sex with men in 1983 at the start of the AIDS crisis, when little was known about the spread of the disease. That was relaxed to a yearlong abstinence period in 2015.
The agency’s current deferral period of three months was adopted in 2020 to address the “urgent need” for blood during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The American Red Cross last week declared its first-ever national blood crisis, warning that doctors are being cornered into making "difficult decisions" about which patients receive blood transfusions over others.
In a letter sent to the FDA Thursday, a group of House Democrats called on the agency to reassess its current deferral period, writing that the existing policy "continues to stigmatize gay and bisexual men" and "undermine crucial efforts to ensure an adequate and stable national blood supply."
Recruitment efforts for the ADVANCE study, which began in March, are nearing completion.
“We are currently at 276 as of last Friday’s report,” Christopher Cannon, director of research operations at the Whitman-Walker Institute in Washington, D.C., one of the community organizations involved in the study, told the Los Angeles Blade. “The current goal is now 300, so we’re hoping to push this over that goal line in the coming days and weeks.”
According to Cannon, as of last week, organizers had recruited a total of 879 study participants nationwide. Pandemic-related roadblocks have led to some delays in recruitment efforts, but organizers are hopeful the study will be completed by the summer, he said.
