From Reason: 2015: The Year in Religious Liberty Controversies

Expect questions about the establishment and free exercise clauses. This article should put these in contemporary context.

- Click here for the article.

In summer 2014, passions were already running hot. The Supreme Court was about to hand down a ruling that the federal government could not force a family-run business to pay for free birth control for its workers if the owners had religious objections to doing so. The left would cry out that this amounted to allowing employers to force their beliefs on everyone else. The right would hail the decision as a landmark blow for faith-based freedom. Little did we know then that Burwell v. Hobby Lobby was more prologue than main event.

In 2015, the tension around what is meant by "religious liberty" and where its limits should be drawn came to a head. One after another, controversies boiled over. Ink was spilled. Protests were organized. Arguments were made. Decisions were written. At least one person went to jail, and more than one small business was forced to shut its doors. Below is a chronological roundup of the many times this year when people and institutions clashed on the battlefield of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. 

Read on for more.

 

From FORA.TV: The Equal Protection Clause Forbids Racial Preferences in State University Admissions

I can't stress the importance of being familiar with the 14th Amendment generally, and the  Equal Protection Clause specifically. It's not a bad idea to be up on the controversies associated with affirmative action either.

- This debate promises to help with both.

From the Washington Post: Content-based restriction on doctors’ speech to patients about guns passes ‘strict scrutiny’

A like asking questions about strict scrutiny - and intermediate and rational basis review. Be up on each.

- Click here for the article.

Monday, a three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit panel handed down a third opinion inWollschlaeger v. Governor, the Florida “Docs vs. Glocks” case. Florida law limits doctors’ conversations with patients about guns. The first opinion in the case held that the law wasn’t really a speech restriction, because it just regulated the practice of medicine (a deeply unsound view, I think). The second opinion, issued after a petition for rehearing, changed course and held that the law was a speech restriction, but that — as a restriction on professional-client speech — it had to be judged under “intermediate scrutiny,” which it passed. (For more on professional-client speech, see item 2 in this post.)

Then the panel asked for further briefing in light of Reed v. Town of Gilbert (2015), a recent Supreme Court decision that had to do with content-based sign restrictions, but that the panel thought might be relevant to content-based restrictions more broadly, including restrictions on professional-client speech. Monday, the court concluded that, after Reed, such restrictions might be subject to strict scrutiny. But it didn’t decide whether that was so, or whether a more pro-government standard of review should be applied, because the panel concluded (by a 2-to-1 vote) that the Florida doctor speech restriction passed even strict scrutiny (usually a very hard standard to satisfy).

This, I think, is quite wrong — and because strict scrutiny is the standard for evaluating content-based speech restrictions generally, and not just doctor-patient or professional-client speech restrictions, the error risks undermining free speech rights more broadly. In fact, much of the argument that the 11th Circuit panel accepted is structurally very similar to arguments used for restrictions on “hate speech,” campus speech codes and the like. I hope the 11th Circuit reconsiders the matter en banc, and adopts the dissenting judge’s view; or, failing that, I hope the U.S. Supreme Court decides to hear the case.

From The Hill: 2015's wildest moments on the House floor

Expect a small handful of questions about the bill making process.

- Click here for the story.

Their list:

1. Chaos ensues as Homeland Security spending bill fails

2. Hoyer calls McCarthy a coward

3. Rep. Gutiérrez invokes “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie”

4. President Obama’s trade package survives scare

5. Education bill almost fails

6. Spending bills halt over Confederate flag controversy

7. Moment of silence for Oregon shooting prompts outcry

8. Boehner bids the House farewell

9. Rep. Schiff sings Mets song after losing bet

10. Rep. Jolly calls on Donald Trump to drop out

Due process in the news

A few cases related to terms you should be familiar with.

Probable Cause:

- Federal judge: Drinking tea, shopping at a gardening store is probable cause for a SWAT raid on your home. 

In April 2012, a Kansas SWAT team raided the home of Robert and Addie Harte, their 7-year-old daughter and their 13-year-old son. The couple, both former CIA analysts, awoke to pounding at the door. When Robert Harte answered, SWAT agents flooded the home. He was told to lie on the floor. When Addie Harte came out to see what was going on, she saw her husband on his stomach as SWAT cop stood over him with a gun. The family was then held at gunpoint for more than two hours while the police searched their home. Though they claimed to be looking for evidence of a major marijuana growing operation, they later stated that they knew within about 20 minutes that they wouldn't find any such operation. So they switched to search for evidence of "personal use." They found no evidence of any criminal activity.

Search Warrants:

- U.S. Supreme Court considers legality of DUI breath tests.

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether a person can be charged with a crime for refusing a breath, blood or alcohol test if the police do not have a search warrant in what could have huge implications for drunk driving cases.

Aaron Delgado, a criminal defense attorney in Daytona Beach, said that he is anticipating the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling is going to benefit about 50 clients he is defending in DUI cases. Delgado said a breath, blood or urine test is a search and people are protected against searches by the Fourth Amendment. “If the police came to your house and wanted to search and you said, ‘Gosh no, I’m sorry. You can’t come in without a warrant and I’m not going to answer any questions without a lawyer,’ they couldn’t use that against you,” Delgado said. “But in the case of a DUI they can and there’s no real difference legally between those two.”

Grand Jury Indictments:

- Backlash against Tamir Rice shooting decision. Are grand jury reforms ahead?

After the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor's Office announced on Monday that a grand jury did not indict the officer who fatally shot Tamir Rice, age 12, online backlash was immediate, reflecting deep divides over the fairness of the US justice system for African Americans.

"Tamir Rice was not on trial, but he might as well have been," the Huffington Post's Daniel Marans wrote, reflecting many observers' view that the boy's size and race fueled officers' decision to shoot him within two seconds of arriving at a park, where they were responding to a 911 call about a young man pointing a "probably fake" gun at others.

Self Incrimination:

- Defendant’s Platinum Teeth Not Protected by Self-Incrimination Clause.

Ramon Gonzalez was required to show the jury his platinum teeth during his trial for battery against a fellow jail inmate. Recently, the state Supreme Court rejected Gonzalez’s argument that this violated his right against self-incrimination. The victim had testified that one of his attackers had platinum teeth. In general, defendants have a constitutional right to avoid “testifying” in response to questions that could self-incriminate, a right under both the U.S. and Wisconsin constitutions. Although Gonzalez was not “testifying” when he showed the jury his teeth, he argued that his teeth had a testimonial aspect – they conveyed a negative message by looking “fierce” – and physical evidence with a testimonial aspect is constitutionally protected.

Due Process:

- Here's Why the ACLU Is Suing the Government over the No-Fly List—and Winning.

Last night, President Barack Obama made it abundantly clear in his speech that his administration is behind the push to deny guns to those who show up on federal no-fly lists. He said, "Congress should act to make sure no one on a no-fly list is able to buy a gun. What could possibly be the argument for allowing a terrorist suspect to buy a semi-automatic weapon? This is a matter of national security." 

Obama, a constitutional scholar, knows full well about this little thing called "due process," which prohibits the government from simply depriving people of their rights on the basis of just official suspicion. And he also knows full well that the lack of due process with the no-fly list is causing the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security some serious legal headaches. It's not the National Rifle Association (NRA) that's keeping the administration from depriving people on the no-fly list their rights; it's the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Double Jeopardy:

- 'Affluenza' teen caught, but will he get off easy?

Couch drew the ire of many after a judge sentenced the then 16-year-old to 10 years of probation for a 2013 drunk driving crash that killed four people. Those who felt the sentence too lenient felt validated when Couch violated his probation and fled. He was detained Monday in Mexico. But if you are expecting a judge to throw the book at him, be warned that the book might not be too heavy. As of now, the most severe punishment Couch could face is 120 days in adult jail, Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson said at a press conference Tuesday.

. . . The judge who hears the case "will throw the book at him, but the book is only a few more months because he turns 19," said Larry Seidlin, a former state court and juvenile court judge in Florida. "So the legal issue is: Can the prosecutor move this case to adult court and try to get adult sanctions, get some state prison time. It's a close question because double jeopardy is going to take effect. We've already gone through his case. We've already done a plea bargain."

Takings Clause:

- SCOTUS Orders Just Compensation for a Regulatory Taking: Agency Regulations Could Endanger the Public Fisc.

The United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) today ruled inHorne v. Department of Agriculture that the government must give just compensation for personal property actually taken in agency price support programs. Horne clarifies how the United States Constitution’s “Just Compensation” or “Takings” clause limits one regulatory program. Future litigation applyingHorne’s teachings to other agency regulations may foist the government on the horns of a regulatory or fiscal dilemma.

Confrontation Clause:

- The Supreme Court Splinters Apart Over the Confrontation Clause.

The United States Supreme Court Monday morning, in a relatively simple case about the scope of the Confrontation Clause, displayed virtually all the dysfunction the justices' most vocal and powerful critics ever could realistically contemplate.

The case, styled Williams v. Illinois, generated no fewer than four separate opinions, no clear and meaningful majority ruling, and another plain-spoken dissent from Justice Elena Kagan, who called out her colleagues for "endorsing a prosecutorial dodge."
Here's the dodge: At Sandy Williams' Illinois rape trial in 2006, a trial held without a jury, prosecutors got an expert witness to testify that there was, indeed, a DNA "match" between samples from Williams and from the victim. However, the witness against Williams that day was not the laboratory analyst who had compiled the scientific information upon which the testimony was based. The incriminating trial testimony came instead from a "state-employed scientist" who had no relationship whatsoever with the contents of the report.

Right to Counsel:

- Right to counsel doesn't require 'perfect advocacy,' SCOTUS says; murder conviction is reinstated.

Lawyers for a criminal defendant were not constitutionally required to predict the demise of bullet analysis that was once widely accepted, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week in a per curiam opinion.

The Oct. 5 decision (PDF) reinstates the murder conviction of James Kulbicki, convicted for the 1993 fatal shooting of his mistress, the Baltimore Sun reports. Maryland’s top court had cited ineffective assistance of counsel when it overturned Kulbicki’s conviction.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment:

- Cruel and Unusual Punishments Before the Supreme Court.

On Tuesday the Supreme Court heard cases involving the two most extreme punishments in the American criminal justice system: life without the possibility of parole and the death penalty. The capital case comes to the justices, as it often does, from Florida. Only last year the court struck down the state’s rigid, unscientific law that tried to skirt around the court’s ban on executing intellectually disabled people.

This time the issue is the jury’s role in capital sentencing. Florida, alone among the states and the federal government, allows a non-unanimous jury to vote for a death sentence — which is why a man named Timothy Lee Hurst sits on the state’s death row even though five of the 12 jurors in his case voted against the death penalty.

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Americans Evaluate the Balance between Security and Civil Liberties

Here's the poll the previous story referred to.

- Click here for it.

And here are a few of its graphs:

From EurekAlert: Survey finds majority who believe it is sometimes necessary for government to sacrifice freedoms

Its a perennial trade off - security v freedom. People are willing to give up lot's in the way of personal freedom in exchange for security - even if its just the illusion of security. There's little surprise in these findings. File this under a variety of things, including individual liberty, Bill of Rights, foreign policy, and public opinion.

- Click here for the article. 

A majority of Americans say it can be necessary for the government to sacrifice freedoms to fight terrorism, according to a new national survey conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Fifty-four percent of Americans say it can be necessary, 45 percent disagree. And about half of Americans think it is acceptable to allow warrantless government analysis of internet activities and communications--even of American citizens--in order to keep an eye out for suspicious activity, but about 3 in 10 are against this type of government investigation.

"In the aftermath of the attacks in Paris and California, we are seeing the public's concern about being personally affected by terrorism evolve. For instance, 20 percent of Americans are very concerned that they or a family member could be a victim of a terrorist attack, up from 10 percent in 2013," said Trevor Tompson, director of The AP-NORC Center. "The survey also found that respondents are just as concerned about attacks by Islamic extremists as they are about home-grown terrorists."

Here's something from the study that might be helpful for your paper. The candidates from each party have to respond to the opinions of the activists in their party, so this info helps us understand why Democratic and Republican candidates are taking different positions on the issue.

- Two-thirds of Republicans favor the analysis of internet activity and communication by the government without a warrant. Fifty-five percent of Democrats and only 40 percent of independents agree. 

- While Republicans and Democrats are equally anxious about the possibility of being personally affected by domestic terrorism, two-thirds of Republicans and half of Democrats are greatly or somewhat concerned about becoming a victim of Islamic extremism in the United States.

- Click here for more commentary on the poll.

Regarding Judicial Review

Be up on all your checks and balances - and anything related to the separated powers. Not all the checks and balances are written out in the U.S. Constitution, key among them is judicial review. Since there's a separate section on it, expect a few question related to it and its application.

Some trivia: The Supreme Court found 158 laws unconstitutional between 1803 and 2002. Click here for a list of them all.

I stumbled across a couple items which focus on issues and controversies associated with it judicial review. You might find them helpful as you prep for the final.

- The Supreme Court vs. Congress.

The author points out three categories of cases involving judicial review:

First, the Court has declared many federal laws unconstitutional because they infringe upon individual rights protected by the Constitution, particularly by the First Amendment.

A second category of cases involves the Court's function as arbitrator among the branches of government. One of the key protections of freedom in the Constitution is the structural separation of powers among the three branches. Congress must pass laws, the president must execute them, and the courts must interpret those laws. If one branch encroaches on the authority of others, there is a danger that such encroachment will upset the balance of power between them and increase the possibility of one branch dominating the others.

The third area involves the most questionable use of Supreme Court power. The Court assumes the power to say to Congress, not that it violated anyone's rights or that it passed a law that crossed the line that separated one branch of government from another, but simply that Congress lacked the power to act. States have the power to pass any law they choose (subject to both state and federal constitutional restraints). But when Congress passes a law, it must rely on specific grants of power contained in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

- The Supreme Court and Congress.

This author suggests that laws struck down as unconstitutional are not necessarily completely nullified.

When most Americans read that the Supreme Court has used judicial review to strike down federal legislation, they usually understand the Court’s action as an invalidation of the legislation. In other words, the Court has undone the work of Congress and ended the life of the statute—kaput, poof, and it’s gone. It is not surprising that this would be the common reaction: it is how the Court’s power of judicial review is most commonly taught in high school, college, and even law school classes on the subject. However, what many deem to be conventional wisdom about the death sentence imposed on legislation by judicial review turns out to be false wisdom. The reality is that judicial review does not usually end the life of federal legislation, and Congress often responds to the Court by amending legislation to make it constitutional. This is an important insight into the balance of powers between the Court and Congress because that relationship is nearly always mischaracterized as one in which the Court has the final say over the constitutionality of a statute.

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Is Bernie Sanders a Socialist?

Same issue with Sanders - he's been identified as a Democratic Socialist (which is a modified version of a socialist) but what does that mean and is that true? As with libertarianism - among other ideologies - it can be on the test, so be sure to prep.

- Bernie Sanders — socialist or democratic socialist?

Sanders himself eschewed the term "socialist" early in his career, but both his and the public’s attitudes towards the word have since evolved. A 2011 report by the Pew Center shows that while most Americans still view the word negatively, 49 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds reacted positively to socialism (compared with 46 percent who viewed capitalism positively).

Experts told us that that’s because the word itself has evolved, "untethered from its original meaning," said Samuel Goldman, who studies the history and philosophy of political thought at George Washington University. The millennials and Gen-Xers who are more open to socialism aren’t associating it with a state-controlled economy. Rather than Soviet-style governing, they think of and admire Nordic models of living.

- Bernie’s Strange Brew of Nationalism and Socialism.

Aside from Grandma Stalin there, there’s not a lot of overtly Soviet iconography on display around the Bernieverse, but the word “socialism” is on a great many lips. Not Bernie’s lips, for heaven’s sake: The guy’s running for president. But Tara Monson, a young mother who has come out to the UAW hall to support her candidate, is pretty straightforward about her issues: “Socialism,” she says. “My husband’s been trying to get me to move to a socialist country for years — but now, maybe, we’ll get it here.” The socialist country she has in mind is Norway, which of course isn’t a socialist country at all: It’s an oil emirate.

- Calling Himself a Socialist Was One of Bernie Sanders’ Smartest Moves.

Bernie Sanders famously likes to refer to himself a “democratic socialist.” Not content to label his views as merely liberal or progressive, the presidential candidate reaches all the way for the S-word, which has been basically verboten in post–World War II American national politics. This has led to some debate over what, exactly, a "democratic socialist" actually is, and whether one can accurately or usefully call the man any kind of socialist at all, given that his views actually line up quite well with those of many fairly mainstream members of the American left. The discussion has even sucked in the prime minister of Denmark, which Sanders has held up as a possible model for the United States. (Denmark, the prime minister would like us to know, is “far from a socialist planned economy.”)

- 14 things Bernie Sanders has said about socialism.

Socialist has never been a complimentary term in American political discourse, but it has reached a particularly high level of toxicity during the past six years of President Barack Obama’s administration. While the president and his defenders have spent a great deal of time parrying that attack, Bernie Sanders is using the socialist label to his advantage, packing venues around the country and establishing himself as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s leading challenger for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination.

Sanders, 73, has been preaching socialism for nearly half a century, and he cites Eugene Debs, the five-time presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America, as his hero. But he hasn’t always embraced the label.

Is Rand Paul a Libertarian?

The consensus of these articles is that he is not - and even if he is, the libertarian movement is at best a minor force in the Republican Party.

Be prepared for questions about ideology next week, including what a libertarian is. Those of you writing about the differences between Republican candidates might find these useful.

- The collapse of Rand Paul and the libertarian moment that never was.

The collapse of the Rand Paul campaign speaks volumes. In a 15-person field, Paul is the only candidate who looks even remotely libertarian (social tolerance, foreign policy restraint, and limited government). He started the campaign with decent name recognition, a seat in the United States Senate, lavish media attention, a serious will to win, and a battle-tested, national political operation inherited from his father, Ron. If there were any significant support for Libertarian ideas in the GOP—any at all—Rand Paul would be near the top of an otherwise crowded, fragmented field that is fighting over every non-libertarian voter in the party. Yet he’s polling at a mere 1 percent among Republican voters nationwide and has a higher unfavorability rating than anyone else in the GOP race.

- Rand Paul Is Not A Libertarian.

Libertarians, in general, are fiscally conservative but socially liberal, with a non-interventionist approach to foreign policy. His father, Ron Paul is a “libertarian cult figure” who had tremendous appeal to young Republicans. Rand Paul is clearly marketing himself as the heir apparent to those supporters — the one candidate with a chance of expanding the Republican base. But is Rand Paul a libertarian? He certainly likes to talk like a libertarian. Let’s take a look at where he stands on the issues.

- The strange death of GOP libertarianism: Rand Paul’s collapse and the fading of a political moment.

In a recent article, Jerry Taylor, president of the Niskanen Center, Washington’s newest libertarian think-tank, discusses the collapsing presidential campaign of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and what it means for the larger libertarian movement in the United States. As I pointed out last month, Taylor concludes that the sudden rise of Donald Trump, who may just be the least libertarian of all GOP front-runners, is not a good sign for the libertarian movement, which not too long ago seemed poised to take over a large segment of the Republican Party. Today, this optimism had been shattered.

- IS RAND PAUL A TRUE LIBERTARIAN? NO, HE’S A POLITICIAN.

. . . it seems to me that many people are hitching their wagons to Paul without really looking at his record. While I can appreciate Senator Paul’s filibuster regarding the use of drones abroad and his opposition to the USA Patriot Act and the Freedom Act, he’s hardly the pinnacle of the classical liberal ideal. He’s still a politician.

Let me repeat that. He’s a politician. Look at Paul’s voting record. Far from breaking away from partisan politics, Paul votes align with the Republican Party some 84 percent of the time. This includes affirmative votes for the annual National Defense Authorization Acts.

- Is Rand Paul struggling because he isn't libertarian enough?

This has been the week of articles painting a dismal portrait of Rand Paul's presidential campaign. Hispolling has slipped since the last time I wrote about this topic and his fundraising numbers, including super PACs, have been a major letdown. Disappointed libertarians are starting to speak out about these struggles, somelamenting that Paul hasn't been libertarian enough while others note that he hasn'trecaptured the excitement of his father Ron Paul's Republican presidential campaigns.

The first session of the 114th Congress had a strong finish

There's still another year to go, but so far this Congress seems less dysfunctional than recent ones - at least based on productivity - though it still lags those of the 70s and 80s. This assumes that high levels of activity are desirable. Some like their Congress' less active.

Here's a comparison of congressional legislative activity dating back to 1973:



If you are curious about what made the 93rd Congress so active, click here for the Wikipedia page on it. It was the Congress that met during the height of the Watergate crisis.

Here is more on the subject:

- The 114th Congress had a pretty productive year (by recent standards, at least).
- What Congress Accomplished in 2015.

From The Hill: Why Americans feel politically powerless

An early theme in class is the requirement that citizens in a republic be actively involved in its maintenance. I threw this quote at you for good measure:

The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy.

It was from Charles de Montesquieu - one of the better regarded commentators around the time of the constitutional convention. The great danger to public welfare is if people just check out, this is something that can very easily happen if they feel unable to impact events. Here's an update on the notion.


- Click here for the article.

The author takes the general population to task for failing to live up to its responsibilities - and perhaps having an unreal expectation of what immediate impact they can have on the political system. His key point seems to be that government classes seem to paint an unrealistic picture of the relationship between the governed and the government. People in power will follow the will of the people because we think they are supposed, despite evidence that they tend to follow the money - or at least the engaged. The lesson seems to be "citizenship ain't easy." Not a bad one.

American citizens themselves are a part of the problem and largely responsible for their marginalized status in the world’s most celebrated self-rule democracy. Why have the American people, the popular sovereign of our democracy, not challenged this political take over by the fat cats?

In high school government and civics high school classrooms across America young citizens-to-be are indoctrinated with a version of democracy based more on historic and political myths than political reality.

Magruder's American Government, a widely used textbook revised and published annually since 1917, is a typical example of schoolbook democracy. Here students learn the U.S. Constitution is built on a few basic principles, including popular sovereignty: "In the United States, all political power belongs to the people. The people are sovereign. Popular sovereignty means that people are the only source of governmental power. Government can govern only with the consent of the governed.”

As school kids mature into young adults and gain their own first-hand experience of the political world around them, they soon realize how ill-prepared they—the sovereign people—are to compete with wealthy election campaign donors and professional corporate lobbyists who dominate, between elections, the behind the scenes deal making that determines who gets what.

In addition, studies show that once in office lawmakers give top priority to the care and feeding of their election campaign backers and corporate lobbyists, not the citizens who actually voted them into office.

No wonder citizens feel angry and politically powerless. But why don’t citizens unite and push back?

The late Yale professor Edmund Morgan, author of, Inventing the People: the Rise of Popular Sovereignty in England and America, provides a more complete explanation for the failure of American citizens to react more strongly against the outsourcing of their democracy.

Clinging to their classroom version of democracy in which they are the ultimate and legitimate political power in America, citizens, according to Morgan, willingly suspend their disbelief in schoolbook myths and pretend they are true——even with abundant real-life evidence that they are not.

“The success of government,” says Morgan, “requires the acceptance of fictions, requires the willing suspension of disbelief, requires us to believe that the emperor is clothed even though we can see that he is not…Government requires make-believe…Make believe that the people have a voice or make believe that the representatives of the people are the people.”

This tug-of-war between political myths and political reality has driven citizens out of the political arena and, in effect, outsourced the American democracy to wealthy campaign financiers and powerful corporations.

In the news: Christmastime pardons

You should anticipate a handful of questions about the separated powers and the checks and balances on the final next week. Here are some items that popped regarding on of them.

One of the principle checks the executive has over the judiciary is the pardon (also the reprieve along with granting amnesties for a category of people). Pardons have also become something of a holiday tradition. Both Governor Abbot and President Obama participated in that tradition - the governor was much more stingy.

- Gov. Greg Abbott pardons four Texans who committed minor crimes.

- Obama’s clemency list brings joy to the lucky and anguish to the disappointed.

Grits for Breakfast is unimpressed with Abbot's 4 pardons and wonders why there isn't a greater call for large scale pardons for non-violent drug offenders. There's been a movement in that direction both on the state and national level.

- Thanks for nothing, Greg Abbott: Why conservatives should demand 'industrial-scale' clemency.

I'm not a great fan of the Christmastime pardon tradition, but at least it acknowledges the gubernatorial function. So far, Greg Abbott has shirked this responsibility. To his discredit, in Abbott's first year as governor, Barack Obama has granted clemency to more Texans than him, and Obama's clemency record is abysmal.
It's not like the Texas governor really does much: Sign or veto bills, make appointments, and clemency really are the main things on his plate under the state constitution. But one of those three has been all but abandoned.

The American Conservative this week published an article lamenting "small trickles of clemency" by President Obama and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo "where what is demanded is a rushing, roaring pipeline scaled to the globally unprecedented size of our prison population and incarceration rate. We need industrial-scale clemency."

As the author recognized, "the real action is at the state level, which handles most policing, sentencing, and imprisoning." In this discussion, former Gov. Rick Perry made an appearance among "recent governors [who] have distinguished themselves with their appalling miserliness." Citing a data point which originated with research on Grits, he declared that "Rick Perry appointed a clemency board of tough-on-crime hardcases, then rejected two-thirds of their pardon and commutation endorsements."
Clemency these days mostly comes up in the context of capital murder and innocence cases. But this article suggests that governors embrace "industrial-scale" clemency aimed at reversing mass incarceration.

And in the world of celebrity pardons:

- A Christmastime Pardon for Robert Downey Jr.

The actor, who spent more than a year in prison following a drug conviction in 1996, was among 91 people pardoned Thursday by California Governor Jerry Brown.

From Vox: Study: Republicans are embarrassed to admit how much they like Donald Trump

The final section in class covers public opinion polls and touches on - insufficiently at the moment - the problems that public opinion poling faces in a changing technological landscape. Telephone based polling was developed during the day of land-lines and has not made the transition to cell phone dominance very well. The novelty of polling has also worm off, so fewer people are participating when the opportunity arises. This has an impact on polling results because the samples that are drawn no longer - necessarily - reflect the nature of the populations they attempt to measure.

Polls are less and less accurate as a result.

Add to this the problems of taking a poll from an actual person as opposed to a computer. Pollsters are finding out that enough people are worried about being judged by the person giving the poll that it can distort results. They might not give their true opinions to a person.

- For more, click here for the Bradley Effect.

Apparently, something along these lines is happening with support for Donald Trump. Computer generated polls are showing more support than person to person polls. As high as Trump's numbers are, they might be higher.

- Click here for the story.

The most likely explanation for this chasm in levels of support is a concept in social psychology known as "social desirability bias." 

"Social desirability bias Is this tendency for survey respondents to provide answers that lead interviewers to hold a more favorable view of them," said Kyle Dropp, a co-founder at Morning Consult and the study’s main author.

This tendency to lie to pollsters is present all over the place. People, for example, severely under report their involvement in taboo activities such as using illegal drugs or masturbating. And the phenomenon works in the opposite direction: People are more likely to tell callers they have donated to charity, for example, than they actually are to donate.

In politics, the idea of social desirability bias first gained notoriety in the early '80s, when longtime Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, one of the most prominent black politicians in the country, ran as a Democrat in the California governor’s race. Though polls projected his victory by a significant margin, he lost narrowly to the Republican candidate, a white man.

Several years later, Douglas Wilder successfully ran for governor in Virginia, becoming the first black governor to hold office since Reconstruction.
Wilder won his 1989 race by a half-point margin, but opinion polling in the months leading up to the election consistently showed him leading his white opponent by as many as 9 percentage points.

After the fact, political scientists discovered that in both races many white voters told pollsters they planned to vote for the nonwhite candidate but ended up voting against him. This became known as the "Bradley effect" (or sometimes "Wilder effect"): Voters voiced false support for the nonwhite candidate to avoid opening themselves up to criticisms that they were racist.

From History.com: This day in history: George Washington Resigns as Commander in Chief

OK, so this isn't this day in history, it's yesterday in history, but whatever. I like using this episode in a few different places in class to ficus on the problematic nature of executive power. The story goes that one of the reasons that George Washington was trusted with the executive power was because he had refused the opportunity to become a monarch following the end of the American Revolution. Revolutionary wars tend to result with someone not only claiming executive power, but doing so with the support of the general population - the ones that supported the revolution anyway.

Here's Washington refusing to do so despite the insistence of his officers. The story goes that this gave him a degree of trust - the participants of the Constitutional Convention designed the executive branch with the assumption he would occupy it. As president he was noteworthy in many ways for what he did not do as what he did. Not claiming the right to serve for life was top among them.

I find it worth noting the he pushed for pensions for the officers, not the rank and file soldiers.

Look at past posts tagged presidential powers and George Washington for more. Take note of the comparisons made of Washington with the Roman General Cincinnatus.

- Click here for the article.

Washington’s willingness to return to civilian life was an essential element in the transformation of the War for Independence into a true revolution. During the war, Congress had granted Washington powers equivalent to those of a dictator and he could have easily taken solitary control of the new nation. Indeed, some political factions wanted Washington to become the new nation’s king. His modesty in declining the offer and resigning his military post at the end of the war fortified the republican foundations of the new nation.

The halfway point

I suppose this would be a good time for a midterm break -  few days in Padre if you can afford that sort of thing - but that's not the nature of this beast. I'll spend the rest of the semester posting items that are - more or less - related to the subject matter of the questions you will see on the final. It's set to open at noon on January 3rd, and close on January 4th. Remember that that format is very different than the quizzes - but no reason to cover that now.

I'd suggest you get first drafts of your paper to me quickly so I can offer comments, but mostly so you can just get it out of the way. And while you are at it, try to enjoy the holidays even though I'm doing my best to spoil them.

:)

My advice now is to try to focus on the subject matter of the posts that follow. Good luck wrapping this all up.

From the Council on Foreign Relations: Trends in U.S. Military Spending

This is simply offered to augment the section on budgeting - as well as foreign policy. I stumbled across it and it helps address issues associated with military spending, so I offer it as a general resource.

- Click here for the article.

Some handy charts from the article:

From the Atlantic: The Great Republican Revolt

This applies to the section on political parties, and especially on the conflict within each party, particularly the Republican Party - which you probably figured out from the title.

These tags seem to me to fit the story best. Click on them for past stories if you want.
- Republican coalition.
- 2016 campaigns.
- party factions.
- party coalitions.
- Tea Party Republicans.

The authors tries to make sense of the current fascination Republican rank and file voters have with candidates that the Republican donor class detests. He argues that a class division within the party - as well the Democratic Party - is becoming more pronounced. This is especially resonant on immigration - both legal and illegal. The wealthy like it, the rest don't. The author challenges the idea that Republican rank and file is even "conservative" in the classic sense.

- Click here for the article.

Not so long ago, many observers worried that Americans had lost interest in politics. In his famous book Bowling Alone, published in 2000, the social scientist Robert Putnam bemoaned the collapse in American political participation during the second half of the 20th century. Putnam suggested that this trend would continue as the World War II generation gave way to disengaged Gen Xers.

But even as Putnam’s book went into paperback, that notion was falling behind the times. In the 1996 presidential election, voter turnout had tumbled to the lowest level since the 1920s, less than 52 percent. Turnout rose slightly in November 2000. Then, suddenly: overdrive. In the presidential elections of 2004 and 2008, voter turnout spiked to levels not seen since before the voting age was lowered to 18, and in 2012 it dipped only a little. Voters were excited by a hailstorm of divisive events: the dot-com bust, the Bush-versus-Gore recount, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Iraq War, the financial crisis, the bailouts and stimulus, and the Affordable Care Act.

Putnam was right that Americans were turning away from traditional sources of information. But that was because they were turning to new ones: first cable news channels and partisan political documentaries; then blogs and news aggregators like the Drudge Report and The Huffington Post; after that, and most decisively, social media.
Politics was becoming more central to Americans’ identities in the 21st century than it ever was in the 20th. Would you be upset if your child married a supporter of a different party from your own? In 1960, only 5 percent of Americans said yes. In 2010, a third of Democrats and half of Republicans did. Political identity has become so central because it has come to overlap with so many other aspects of identity: race, religion, lifestyle. In 1960, I wouldn’t have learned much about your politics if you told me that you hunted. Today, that hobby strongly suggests Republican loyalty. Unmarried? In 1960, that indicated little. Today, it predicts that you’re a Democrat, especially if you’re also a woman.

Meanwhile, the dividing line that used to be the most crucial of them all—class—has increasingly become a division within the parties, not between them. Since 1984, nearly every Democratic presidential-primary race has ended as a contest between a “wine track” candidate who appealed to professionals (Gary Hart, Michael Dukakis, Paul Tsongas, Bill Bradley, and Barack Obama) and a “beer track” candidate who mobilized the remains of the old industrial working class (Walter Mondale, Dick Gephardt, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton). The Republicans have their equivalent in the battles between “Wall Street” and “Main Street” candidates. Until this decade, however, both parties—and especially the historically more cohesive Republicans—managed to keep sufficient class peace to preserve party unity.

Not anymore, at least not for the Republicans.

Read on if you like - the internal dynamics within each party is in flux, and this seems a reasonable attempt to get to the heart of that.

In the news today ....

- Texas Speaker Joe Straus has two Tea Party affiliated challengers to his seat in the upcoming primary election. Straus represents the 121st district in the Texas House. Tea Party opponents , who think Straus is too liberal, have failed to defeat him in two previous primary challenges. They think he might be more vulnerable if he has to face two challengers since he might not win a majority and could defeated in a run-off with low turnout: See Straus faces two-candidate challenge from the far right in Republican primary.

- I still need to post items detailing the recent spending bill. It contains a variety of items (riders) related to non-spending issues including rules loosening campaign spending rules. Some allowing greater use of what is called dark money - dark because its source can;t be traced. This a road we've been heading down for decades: See: White House surrenders on 'dark money' regulation.

- Dark money is also becoming more influential in state races. States vary in their policies regarding transparency - Texas requires little. Most of the additional money spent on campaigns since the Citizens United decision removed many caps on expenditures has been through channels that do not require disclosure. Much of this spending on state races comes from groups located in other states, but the precise source is difficult to determine, and there are sufficient loopholes in place to continue to make them secret. See: 'Dark money' grows in politics even as states try to stop it.

- Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick is continuing to shape the state panels by appointing people with more conservative bona-fides. This includes the Sunset Commission and the Legislative Budget Board. Among the recent appointees of the latter is area state senator Larry Taylor. See: Dan Patrick shows, through new panel picks, that he wants a more conservative Texas Senate.

- A common theme regarding the early race for the Republican nomination has been what impact Trump will have on the party and whether a division might emerge within it that leads to a third party run. Most previous analyses have looked at the possibility the Trump runs as a third party candidate is he looses the nomination. Here's a look at the possibility that a traditional Republican runs as a third party candidate if Trump wins the nomination. See: Will the GOP Mount a Third-Party Challenge to Trump?

- Is Trump's campaign organization playing with fire? Lot's of Trump's activities are being performed by people that work in many of his businesses, which creates problems since these are to be treated as campaign expenses, meaning that they are to be reported as such. Trump appears to be testing the limits of campaign funding law. See: Trump’s reliance on business questioned.

From Vox: Are Americans losing faith in democracy?

Well this is depressing.

Scholars who study democracy like to point out that democratization happens in waves, Furthermore, waves come ins and waves come out. We've been through recent periods where an increasing number of countries become democracies. This does not appear to be one of them. Even in the United States there are indications that more and more people would prefer a more authoritative governing system - perhaps this explains Trump's appeal?

The author points about a variety of indications suggesting that democracy is falling out of favor. If this was a longer semester, I'd ask you to critically evaluate this statement, but you have enough on your plate right now.

- Click here for the article.

Here are his observations.

1) Americans trust their political institutions less2) Young Americans are giving up on politics3) Most millennials don’t think it’s essential to live in a democracy4) A growing number of young Americans think democracy is a bad way to run the country5) More Americans want the Pentagon to take over6) Support for illiberal alternatives to democracy is growing especially fast among wealthy Americans7) Public opinion is shifting away from democracy in many countries around the globe

From Congress.gov: The top ten most viewed bills of the week of December 13th.

Some we will discuss more fully, some we will not.

1. H.R.158 Visa Waiver Program Improvement Act of 20152. H.R.1786 James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Reauthorization Act3. H.R.22 FAST Act4. S.1177 Student Success Act5. H.R.3799 Hearing Protection Act of 20156. H.R.3762 Restoring Americans' Healthcare Freedom Reconciliation Act of 20157. H.R.1735 National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 20168. H.R.2250 Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 20169. H.R.1002 Mortgage Forgiveness Tax Relief Act of 201510. S.1946 Tax Relief Extension Act of 2015

Omnibus budget bill passes Congress, is sent to president for signature

I'll fill in details later.

The Hill: Senate sends $1.8 trillion deal to Obama.
Roll Call: Congress Sends Omnibus to Obama.

What is NGP VAN?

The Vox story I linked to in the previous story describes it a bit.

Here's more on it. It's how campaigns get access to voters and build up models predicting what they are likely to do (vote, contribute, etc...) and who they are likely to support. It's build up from lists of registered and actual voters in each county across the country. Then each candidate's campaign adds its own special sauce.

Click here for the company's website.

And for more:

- Wikipedia: NGP VAN.
- Facebook: NGP VAN.
- What is NGP VAN, the Tech Firm at Center of Democratic Primary Dispute?

Here's a description from the last story: 

So what exactly is NGP VAN? 

The D.C.-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) company specializes in providing campaign software to progressive campaign organizations. In addition to fundraising, social media and compliance tools, the company provides access to vast amounts of voter data across the United States. As the sole distributor of the DNC's voter file, the company's database is a powerful and valuable tool for Democratic campaigns. With the voter file, a campaign can access a registered voter's past voting history, their address and contact information.

As a campaign contacts voters, they will carefully record responses in their own NGP VAN account. Knowing whether a voter is likely to vote and supports your candidate will make your operation run more smoothly and efficiently on election day. And having all of that data carefully compiled in an online database can make or break a voter turnout operation.

Over the course of a campaign, volunteers and staff will personally talk to voters and ask whether or not they are supporting a candidate. Voter preferences are assessed on a 1-5 scale, a 1 being extremely likely to vote for your candidate on election day, and a 5 meaning they are voting for someone else. These responses are recorded by campaigns in the NGP VAN database. In the weeks leading up to, and on election day, a campaign will reconnect with all of their "ones" to make sure they are going to vote, know where their polling place is etc.

NGP VAN has many tools in which a campaign can sort, view and track data. For instance, a campaign can narrow down a list of every "two," or likely voter for their candidate, in Manchester, N.H., print a list with their phone numbers or addresses, and have volunteers call those people or knock on their door to try to convince them to become "ones." This data is extremely valuable to the campaign, and is the heart of their field operation.

From the Hill: Sanders sues Democratic Party

A Sanders staffer was found sneaking around in a data base the Democratic National Committee makes available to candidates- but which can be customized by each candidate. That apparently was the problem. The way each candidates customizes the data gives hints about how candidate strategy.

The DNC is suspending the Sander's camp's access to the database. The Sander campaign thinks the DNC wants to give an advantage to Clinton, so that's why they're suing.  

- Click here for the story.

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) campaign sued the Democratic National Committee in federal court Friday evening following the suspension of his campaign from the DNC’s voter database after a security breach.

The suit claims that the campaign is losing $600,000 in donations each day that it does not have access to the data, and adds that the “damage to the campaign’s political viability as a result of being unable to communicate with constituents and voters, is far more severe, and incapable of measurement.”

The DNC barred Sanders from accessing the party’s voter file, which includes much of his campaign’s voter data, after a campaign staffer improperly accessed private data belonging to front-runner Hillary Clinton’s campaign. The vendor hired by the party to maintain the data accidentally created the security vulnerability during an update, the DNC says.

The Sanders campaign fired a supervisory staffer involved in the incident and has gone on the warpath Friday claiming that the DNC overreacted and is trying to aid Clinton’s campaign.

The suit claims that the loss of the voter file could “significantly disadvantage, if not cripple, a Democratic candidate’s campaign for public office.” It also argues that the agreement between the candidate and the DNC mandates that a candidate get 10 days written notice to fix any issue before the party can restrict access.

Vox goes further. They discuss the ongoing tension between Sanders and the DNC. They also discuss the data base in question - NGP VAN.

- Click here for: The feud between Bernie Sanders and the DNC, explained.

NGP VAN is a data technology company that allows campaigns to view a whole host of information about voters across the country who have voted for Democrats in the past.

The DNC owns the basic voter file, which it shares with primary candidates running as Democrats. This includes all three presidential candidates as well as anyone running for lower offices on the national and state levels.

From there, each campaign can take those voters profiles and make all sorts of models with them, usually to predict how persuadable they are or how likely they are to vote, say on a scale from one to 100. Models can also be used to predict voters positions on specific issues, which helps campaigns target them.

During Obama’s 2012 campaign, for example, staffers used this type of modeling to figure out which undecided voters to target for canvassing and which voters seemed less motivated and could use an extra push.

The data and sources the system can pull in are incredibly precise because they rely on detailed information about every voter — rather than something like a poll, conducted with a small sample of respondents. For that reason, these models are very expensive to build.

Campaigns share the basic voter file, so they’re looking at all the same voters. But NGP VAN puts up firewalls between them so each campaign doesn’t have access to the other’s modeling.

What’s key to understand here is that the data hosted on NGP VAN's dictates a campaign’s entire ground game, which both of Obama’s campaigns claimed as their winning advantage. Losing access to the system means that a campaign loses its own predictive models dictating which voters to target – but it also means the campaign doesn’t have access to the names of Democratic voters.

Repost: Texas' 14th and 22nd congressional districts

For an up close look at one aspect of Congress, here's a look at two U.S. House districts. ACC straddles these two. Pete Olson represents the 22nd district, Randt Weber represents the 14th.

Here's the map of the 14th Congressional district:



- Wikipedia: Texas's 14th congressional district.

And here's the 22nd Congressional District




- Wikipedia: Texas's 22nd congressional district.

If you scroll down to ACC - click here for District Viewer -  you'll see that the campus straddles both districts. We'll look at the people who hold each office, and factors about them, in the next week or two.

From Congress.gov: The Legislative Process: Overview (Video)

I can't do better than this, so if you have half an hour to kill with this video.

- click here for it.

Catching up with Congress

I'll spend the bulk of today adding content related to Congress. The current Congress is the 114th Congress - since it's the 114th time it has met since the he first Congress met from 1789 to 1791. Here are a few places you - 2305 M3 students - can go to familiarize yourself with it prior to digging into class material. I'll add content related to recent activity soon.

For a look at past - hopefully helpful - blog posts, click on these>

- Congress.
- 114th Congress.
- bill making.

For other places to go:

- U.S. House of Representatives.
- U.S. Senate.
- Congress.gov.
- GovTrack.
- The Hill.
- Roll Call.

Maybe Trump won't run as an independent after all.

There has been speculation that he might - which could be disastrous for the Republican Party - but the Texas Tribune notes that since Trump filed to be on the Republican Primary ballot in Texas, he likely will not run as an independent because election rules in the state of Texas prohibit it.

Here's the story:

- Analysis: Let the Political Games (Officially) Begin.

For Republican presidential candidates, Texas is the center of the universe — the biggest of the reliable red states and the source of the most electoral votes. It is to the Republicans what California is to the Democrats: the foundation of victory in national elections. Which is why Monday marks the end of one of Donald Trump’s biggest implied political threats. You know the one, the idea that if he doesn’t do well in the primaries that he might turn around and launch an independent candidacy?

Not in Texas.

Today is the deadline for candidates to file for the 2016 elections — as Democrats, Republicans or independents. Trump already filed as a Republican, barring him from running a Texas race as an independent unless he changes that filing by the close of business today. And candidates who run in the party primaries are barred from becoming official write-in candidates (or at least the registered write-in candidates whose votes the state will count). It’s a win-or-go-home state, politically. Trump and all the others will have to get by with just one bite at this apple.

The Texas Secretary of States' page on independent candidates confirms this.

- Click here for it.

You may have your name placed on the general election ballot as an independent candidate if you are not affiliated with a political party. Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 1.005(9). If you vote in a party’s primary elections or participate in a party’s conventions, you thereby affiliate with the party. Tex. Elec. Code Ann. §§ 142.008, 162.003, 162.007.

So now you can impress your family members over the holidays if they want to talk about Trump and what he might do. Since he has affiliated himself with the Republican Party by filing as a candidate in the party;s primary, he cannot run as an independent in Texas. If he can't do that, there may be little point in running elsewhere. Unless he thinks he can win as an independent without winning Texas.

Some observations about the candidate filings for the Texas Primary

- Analysis: For Many Candidates, Election is No Contest.

The first electoral races of 2016 ended before 2015 did. The candidate filing deadline has passed, and there is a list of candidates — Republicans and Democrats alike — who have all but been elected. It includes 61 members of the Texas House, nine state senators and five of the state’s 36-member congressional delegation.

. . . Given the state of the political maps in Texas, it’s usually more dangerous to face an opponent in the primary than in the general election. The state has only a few districts where either a Democrat or a Republican can win; in most cases, districts were drawn for the benefit of one party or the other. And because the Republicans were in charge the last time those maps were drawn, many more of the districts favor their candidates than favor Democrats.

- Analysis: Familiar Incumbents and Familiar Challengers.

Some names show up on the ballot again and again. And sometimes those perennial candidates win, so you have to pay attention to them. You have to keep an eye on rematches as well. A grudge is a terrible thing to waste, especially during election season. And voters in parts of the state will see the same names on the ballot that they saw two or four years ago.

Who will be on the Democratic and Republican primary ballots? How will this impact the ACC area?

The Texas Tribune has a list.

- Click here for it.

These are the races that will be of interest to us at ACC

Neither U.S. Senator from Texas is up for re-election.

US House of Representatives: District 14
Republicans
- Randy Weber, Incumbent and ACC Grad
- Keith Casey
Democrats
- Michael Cole

US House of Representatives: District 22
Republicans
- Pete Olson, Incumbent
Democrats
- Mark Gibson
- A.R. Hassan

Texas Senate: District 11
Republicans
- Larry Taylor, Incumbent - running unopposed

Texas House: District 29
Republicans
- Ed Thompson, Incumbent - running unopposed

Candidate filing deadline for the March 1st Texas Primary passed Monday

For a full look at the election calendar in Texas, click on either of these links to the Texas Secretary of State's web page.:

- Important 2016 Election Dates.
- Important Dates for the Party Conventions, Primary Elections and General Election.

This impacts candidates for the Democratic and Republican Parties. For information about running for office as a member of the Green or Libertarian Parties, the Secretary of State's office provides the following:

- Nominee of Libertarian or Green Party in 2016.

General information about running for office in 2016 can be found here:

- Candidate’s Guide to Nomination and General Election for 2016.

Obviously its a bit late in the game to run - unless you want to throw your hat in ring as a Green or Libertarian. There's nothing yet about the dates for 2017 or 2018.

And finally, there's this information regarding running as an independent candidate.

- Independent Candidates.

From Slate: ISIS Gives Us No Choice but to Consider Limits on Speech - America faces unprecedented danger from the group’s online radicalization tactics.

Here's something provocative - and its the type of thing I like to use for written assignments. I'll let you chew on this on your own.

Hopefully - if you are a M3 2305 student - you've waded into the section on civil liberties and have become familiar with how the Supreme Court balances the competing demands for individual liberty and the greater interest of society. In this case the liberty in question is the ability of people to access information and the greater interest of society is for the rest of us to be free from the consequences of that information - specifically that people ought to join a religious war and shoot at us.

The author - Eric Posner - is a well regarded federal judge who moonlights as a law professor and author. Here he argues that the nature of the threat is sufficient to punish people who access that information.

- Here is his argument.

Never before in our history have enemies outside the United States been able to propagate genuinely dangerous ideas on American territory in such an effective way—and by this I mean ideas that lead directly to terrorist attacks that kill people. The novelty of this threat calls for new thinking about limits on freedom of speech.Advertisement

What can we do? Proposals that Internet companies “shut down” dangerous communications have been met with howls of laughter from Silicon Valley. It’s easy for determined jihadis to replace shuttered websites with new ones and hard for Internet companies to keep track of billions of communications. Using the law to force Facebook and Twitter to do more to block ISIS propagandawould make sense but also falls short of what is needed. No approach is perfect, but there is a way to deal with these problems.

Consider Ali Amin, the subject of a recent article in the New York Times. Lonely and bored, the 17-year-old Virginia resident discovered ISIS online, was gradually drawn into its messianic world, eventually exchanged messages with other supporters and members, and then provided some modest logistical support to ISIS supporters (instructing them how to transfer funds secretly and driving an ISIS recruit to the airport). He was convicted of the crime of material support of terrorism and sentenced to 11 years in prison. Amin did not start out as a jihadi; he was made into one.

Researchers at George Washington University identified 300 U.S-based ISIS sympathizers who use Twitter and other social media to lure Muslim Americans into the arms of ISIS. These American citizens and residents—themselves the fruit of the recruiting efforts of foreign ISIS members as well as of other Americans—frequently use a graduated approach so as to avoid alarming people who are merely curious about Islam:

In one case the seemingly naïve individual posted general questions about religion, to which ISIS supporters quickly responded in a calm and authoritative manner. After a few weeks, the accounts of hardened ISIS supporters slowly introduced increasingly ardent views into the conversation. The new recruit was then invited to continue [conversing] privately, often via Twitter’s Direct Message feature or on other private messaging platforms such as surespot.

But there is something we can do to protect people like Amin from being infected by the ISIS virus by propagandists, many of whom are anonymous and most of whom live in foreign countries. Consider a law that makes it a crime to access websites that glorify, express support for, or provide encouragement for ISIS or support recruitment by ISIS; to distribute links to those websites or videos, images, or text taken from those websites; or to encourage people to access such websites by supplying them with links or instructions. Such a law would be directed at people like Amin: naïve people, rather than sophisticated terrorists, who are initially driven by curiosity to research ISIS on the Web.

The law would provide graduated penalties. After the first violation, a person would receive a warning letter from the government; subsequent violations would result in fines or prison sentences. The idea would be to get out the word that looking at ISIS-related websites, like looking at websites that display child pornography, is strictly forbidden. As word spread, people like Amin would be discouraged from searching for ISIS-related websites and perhaps be spared radicalization and draconian punishment for more serious terrorism-related crimes.

Posner's position has detractors though - I'll post counter arguments separately.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen speaks on interest rate decision

Why did the Fed raise the Federal Funds Rate?

It appears they believe the economy has recovered to the point where it is warranted. There is political debate about whether this is correct, but the Fed issued a statements explaining their reasoning. There appears to be a concern that the current trajectory of the economy might lead to inflation - over 2% - down the road. The increase is an early adjustment to ensure that does not occur.

- Click here for the statement.

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in October suggests that economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace. Household spending and business fixed investment have been increasing at solid rates in recent months, and the housing sector has improved further; however, net exports have been soft. A range of recent labor market indicators, including ongoing job gains and declining unemployment, shows further improvement and confirms that underutilization of labor resources has diminished appreciably since early this year. Inflation has continued to run below the Committee's 2 percent longer-run objective, partly reflecting declines in energy prices and in prices of non-energy imports. Market-based measures of inflation compensation remain low; some survey-based measures of longer-term inflation expectations have edged down.

Consistent with its statutory mandate, the Committee seeks to foster maximum employment and price stability. The Committee currently expects that, with gradual adjustments in the stance of monetary policy, economic activity will continue to expand at a moderate pace and labor market indicators will continue to strengthen. Overall, taking into account domestic and international developments, the Committee sees the risks to the outlook for both economic activity and the labor market as balanced. Inflation is expected to rise to 2 percent over the medium term as the transitory effects of declines in energy and import prices dissipate and the labor market strengthens further. The Committee continues to monitor inflation developments closely.

The Committee judges that there has been considerable improvement in labor market conditions this year, and it is reasonably confident that inflation will rise, over the medium term, to its 2 percent objective. Given the economic outlook, and recognizing the time it takes for policy actions to affect future economic outcomes, the Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 1/4 to 1/2 percent. The stance of monetary policy remains accommodative after this increase, thereby supporting further improvement in labor market conditions and a return to 2 percent inflation.

For commentary:

- CNBC: FED RAISES RATES BY 25 BASIS POINTS, FIRST SINCE 2006.
- Market Watch: OK, the Fed’s raised interest rates — now what?
- Nerd Wallet: Federal Funds Rate: What Rising Interest Rates Mean for You.
- Wall Street Journal: Fed Plans to Signal Gradual, Cautious Path on Rate Hikes.

The Federal Reserve increases the Federal Funds Rate

2305 students will be looking at the executive branch and at economic policy making - especially monetary policy - over the course of the semester. This story regarding the Fed touches on both. Let's look at some basic facts before digging into why the Fed did what it did. In a sense, this marks the end of the policies related to addressing the problems stemming from the Great Recession.




Three background questions

So, what is the Federal Funds Rate?

The interest rate at which a depository institution lends funds maintained at the Federal Reserve to another depository institution overnight. The federal funds rate is generally only applicable to the most creditworthy institutions when they borrow and lend overnight funds to each other. The federal funds rate is one of the most influential interest rates in the U.S. economy, since it affects monetary and financial conditions, which in turn have a bearing on key aspects of the broad economy including employment, growth and inflation. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), which is the Federal Reserve’s primary monetary policymaking body, telegraphs its desired target for the federal funds rate through open market operations. Also known as the “fed funds rate".

While we are at it, what is the Federal Reserve?

The central bank of the United States. The Fed, as it is commonly called, regulates the U.S. monetary and financial system. The Federal Reserve System is composed of a central governmental agency in Washington, D.C. (the Board of Governors) and twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks in major cities throughout the United States.

So what does the Federal Reserve Do?

Current functions of the Federal Reserve System include:

- To address the problem of banking panics

- To serve as the central bank for the United States

- To strike a balance between private interests of banks and the centralized responsibility of government

- To supervise and regulate banking institutions

- To protect the credit rights of consumers

- To manage the nation's money supply through monetary policy to achieve the sometimes-conflicting goals of

- - maximum employment

- - stable prices, including prevention of either inflation or deflation

- - moderate long-term interest rates

- To maintain the stability of the financial system and contain systemic risk in financial markets

- To provide financial services to depository institutions, the U.S. government, and foreign official institutions, including playing a major role in operating the nation's payments system

- To facilitate the exchange of payments among regions

- To respond to local liquidity needs

- To strengthen U.S. standing in the world economy