Daily Archives: March 29, 2022

CHEYENNE Gov. Mark Gordon signed the Second Amendment Protection Act into law Monday, with the support of law enforcement in attendance. The bill passed during the Wyoming Legislatures recently concluded 2022 budget session.

It is designed to protect Second Amendment rights, as well as prevent federal regulation of firearms, accessories, magazines and ammunition. Sheriffs, officers, gun rights advocates and lawmakers said the legislation was needed as President Joe Bidens administration pushes for such control.

This is a culmination of a lot of effort with law enforcement, gun owners in Wyoming, Shooting Sports Foundation, all those people that have a strong belief in the Second Amendment, bill sponsor Sen. Larry Hicks, R-Baggs, said at the signing.

We hope that the federal government will never do an unconstitutional act that would infringe upon peoples Second Amendment right.

The bill clearly states public officers are prohibited from enforcing, administering or cooperating with an unconstitutional act of any kind, and sets one of the harshest punishments for violation in the nation. An individual who knowingly violates the law is guilty of misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for up to one year, a fine of up to $2,000, or both.

Nothing in the act can limit or restrict an officer from providing assistance to federal authorities or accepting federal funds for law enforcement purposes.

We stand strong together to hold ourselves and our officers accountable to not enforce, administer or cooperate with any unconstitutional acts, said Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police Executive Board President and Rock Springs Police Chief Dwane Pacheco. This is one of the most important legislative actions on a personal and professional level that I have seen in my career.

Pacheco testified throughout the session in support of the bill, which moved forward in the process instead of the Second Amendment Preservation Act filed on both the House and Senate sides. The legislation was similar to the bill signed into law, but would have set harsher punishments for violators and put members of law enforcement at risk of civil action by citizens. In the end, this alternative plan failed introduction because legislators in opposition said they were concerned about possible repercussions for public officers.

The Second Amendment Protection Act instead passed with a large majority. The House passed Senate File 102 on third reading 43-15, and the Senate concurred 22-7.

This is an honor to be able to sign this bill, Gordon said. I thank everyone who worked on this bill to get it to my desk. It joins the Firearms Freedom Act. Its a very strong statement of Wyoming appreciation for Second Amendment rights and the constitutional opportunities to use firearms.

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Gordon signs Second Amendment Protection bill | Regional News | thesheridanpress.com - The Sheridan Press

What To Know Today

Judge Jackson on crime and guns. The Supreme Court nominees judicial record on firearms is scant in her brief time on the D.C. Court of Appeals, she hasnt issued a ruling on gun rights. But during her second day of confirmation hearings, Jackson reaffirmed her view on Second Amendment precedent and fleshed out her perspective on public safety issues:

Hearings resume today.

Wyoming makes it illegal for state officials to enforce unconstitutional federal gun laws. Republican Governor Mark Gordon signed the bill prohibiting state officials from enforcing federal regulations of firearms, accessories, magazines, and ammunition. Any public officer who knowingly fails to comply faces some of the harshest punishments for violation in the nation: guilty of misdemeanor, a fine of $2,000, or both. The law, which goes into effect this summer, is similar to Missouris Second Amendment Sanctuary Law, now the subject of state and federal lawsuits. At least eight additional states with GOP-controlled legislatures passed similar laws last year. But unlike Missouris and Wyomings, most excluded penalty provisions, making them largely symbolic.

A tragic intersection of mental illness, homelessness, and gun violence. A Washington, D.C., man faces murder charges for allegedly shooting Morgan Holmes in early March before traveling to New York City and killing Abdoulaye Coulibaly. Both victims were unhoused. The New York Times offers a searching deep-dive on the tragedy and its effects. The spasms of bloodshed came as the two cities grappled with intertwined crises of homelessness and untreated mental illness that have grown more acute during the pandemic, and have also faced rising gun violence, the report reads. But crises, even citywide ones, are made up of individual tragedies and of families who are quietly enduring years of worry and pain.

Listen: How advocates in one Portland neighborhood are using orange traffic barrels for violence reduction. In the Mount Scott Arleta neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, which was hit particularly hard by the pandemic shooting surge, local advocates experimented with environmental design. To prevent people from committing violence, they used the cones to discourage would-be shooters from quickly driving into and out of neighborhoods. OPB spoke with three advocates behind the program who believe it contributed to a concurrent shooting decrease.

54 percent the average answer of Americans when asked what share of Americans own a gun. Thats according to a recent YouGov poll, which demonstrates that Americans frequently overestimate or underestimate the size of demographic groups. In fact, about 32 percent of Americans own guns. [YouGov]

CORRECTION: Mondays bulletin stated that the city of Baltimore allocated $50 million from its American Rescue Plan Act funds to ReBUILD Metro, a nonprofit. While ReBUILD advocated for the money, it did not directly receive it. The allocation will be used to tackle vacancy across the city, including communities ReBUILD serves.

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Daily Bulletin: Ketanji Brown Jackson's Commitment to Precedent on the Second Amendment - The Trace

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LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Warren County should be second amendment sanctuary - Indianola Independent Advocate

In his State of the Union address earlier this month, President Biden highlighted his comprehensive strategy to reduce gun violence. He emphasized the $350 billion in American Rescue Plan funds that weve made available for cities, counties, and states that enable them to hire more police and invest in proven strategies like community violence intervention. He talked about our efforts to crack down on difficult-to-trace ghost guns, part of an aggressive array of executive actions to reduce gun violence, taking more steps than any other Administration in its first year. And he repeated his call for Congress to take further action tackle the gun violence epidemic that continues to take more than 100 lives each day.

We have made strong progress by rolling out and executing on the Presidents comprehensive gun crime reduction strategy. This strategy contains five key components:

You can read a full summary of the progress weve made here. We are pulling all of the levers of the federal government to address this crisis. For example:

That progress is made possible by the dedicated gun violence prevention team we have at the White House, working to combat gun violenceevery day, from every angle. Under the leadership of Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice, I coordinate the White Houses gun violence work. The solutions to gun violence are interdisciplinary, which is why we have built a multi-faceted, 12-person team of experts here in the heart of the Domestic Policy Council who have teamed up to drive forward our gun violence reduction agenda.

Chiraag Bains (Deputy Assistant to the President for Racial Justice and Equity), Vanessa Chen (Special Assistant to the President for Criminal Justice and Guns), and Stephonn Alcorn (Associate Director for Racial Justice and Equity) all bring their expertise in criminal justice reform and racial justice to help guide our work to expand community violence interventions. I work side by side with this team, along with Erin Murphy (Senior Policy Advisor for Criminal Justice), on broader issues related to public safety that often intersect with gun violence.

Vanessa leads our interagency policy council on school safety, working closely with Mo-Tracey Mooney, Special Assistant to the President for Education and the Domestic Policy Councils expert on K-12 education.

Were also fortunate to have Terri Tanielian (Special Assistant to the President for Veterans Affairs), who specializes in veteran issues, mental health, and suicide prevention, supporting our work on reducing access to lethal means through methods such as safe storage.

And, Pronita Gupta (Special Assistant to the President for Labor and Workers), ensures that job training and job opportunities for young adults and formerly incarcerated individuals are a core component of our comprehensive approach to reducing gun crime.

Jessica Schubel, Director for the Affordable Care Act and Health Care, contributes her expertise in utilizing Medicaid and private insurance to support violence intervention programs.

Priya Singh, Deputy Chief of Staff and Senior Policy Analyst, and Clarence Wardell, Senior Advisor for Delivery, specialize in bridging the gap between policy and people, including making sure that our investments in community violence intervention are having an impact on the ground.

Last but not least, Erin Pelton, Special Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff for the Domestic Policy Council, helps shape our legislative, public engagement, and intergovernmental affairs strategies.

All of us on the Domestic Policy Council work closely with our colleagues in the White House Counsels Office, the Office of Public Engagement, the Office of Legislative Affairs, and the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. And each of us coordinates with our counterparts in key agencies across government, from the Department of Justice to the Department of Education to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Together, we convene multi-agency meetings to coordinate on a specific goal, hold one-on-one meetings to drive the work of a particular agency, and meet with gun violence survivors and experts, as well as state and local policymakers.

The strength of this integrated approach is that it enables us to see across issue areas, and avoid the silos that too often stymie progress. When the Presidents top advisors were hammering out the details of his Build Back Better Agenda, our team ensured that it included a historic $5 billion across the Department of Justice and Department of Health and Human Services to invest in community violence intervention. When workforce training was on the agenda, we were able to work with the Department of Labor to prioritize employment for formerly incarcerated individuals to reduce recidivism. After Medicaid policy advisors at the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services briefed states on how Medicaid funds could be used to reimburse CVI programs, Connecticut and Illinois became the first two states to adopt this promising approach. Policymakers often talk about taking a whole-of-government approach to an issue. This is what a whole-of-government effort truly looks like in practice.

Driven by President Bidens career-long commitment to combating gun violence, and guided every day by the Presidents top advisor on domestic policy, our team is able to combine a deep focus on this issue with the ability to deliver on it across the White House and the Administration as a whole. Thats how weve been able to carry out a comprehensive gun crime reduction strategy thats done more through executive action than any President in their first year in history, and how weve backed it up with historic amounts of funding for cities and states to make their communities safer. And thats also how weve continued to amplify the voices of survivors and advocates and elevate them with the Presidents bully pulpit from the halls of Congress to the Rose Garden the vital need for Congress to act on common sense gun violence prevention measures.

As the President acknowledged in his State of the Union remarks, there is much more to do, which is why this team wakes up every day eager to advance this essential work. The President will continue to implement his comprehensive gun crime reduction strategy. Just as he did in his State of the Union Address, he will continue to call on Congress to takes steps that cannot be achieved through executive action and do not violate the Second Amendment like universal background checks, a ban on assault weapons with high-capacity magazines, and repeal of the liability shield for gun manufacturers and dealers. He will continue to increase investments in community policing and community violence interventions. And we will help him get the job done in order to save lives.

Stefanie Feldman is Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor to the Domestic Policy Advisor

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Taking on Gun Crime and Violence with a Whole-of-Government Approach - The White House

Nope, says the Tennessee Attorney General in a Mar. 14 opinion (No. 22-04) that was just posted on Westlaw:

The prohibition in Tenn. Code Ann. 39-17-1306 against carrying weapons in buildings in which judicial proceedings are in progress may be reasonably construed to apply only to those buildings in which a judge customarily conducts judicial proceedings, such as courthouses and criminal justice facilities. It does not appear that the General Assembly intended Tenn. Code Ann. 39-17-1306 to apply to buildings from which a judge conducts a judicial proceeding remotely by conference call or videoconference, such as the judge's private residence or another similar building {[or] to other buildings such as private residences, business offices or other similar buildings from which non-judicial participantse.g., attorneys or witnessesmight participate in judicial proceedings by conference call or videoconference.}

First, "[t]he obvious intent of [Tenn. Code Ann. 39-17-1306] is to ensure the safety of judges, lawyers, court personnel, litigants, witnesses, and observers present in the courtroom and to assure the proper decorum and deportment during judicial proceedings." In other words, the intent is to protect people in courthousesi.e., in buildings where their participation in judicial proceedings requires them to come into contact with others who may pose a risk if they are armed. But a lawyer or judge or witness participating in a judicial proceeding remotely from his or her own home or office does not face the risks associated with physical presence in courthouses, so there is no reason to extend the meaning of "building" to include buildings from which people are participating remotely.

Second, the exemptions [to the statute] evince a legislative intent to include only such buildings as courthouses and criminal justice facilities in which judicial proceedings are traditionally and customarily conducted, because those exemptions apply to officials and other persons who would only be in courthousesnamely, law enforcement officers, bailiffs, marshals, and other court officers who have "responsibility for protecting persons or property or providing security."

Third, when Tenn. Code Ann. 39-17-1306 was enacted in 1989, the commercial internet had not been developed, and remote participation in judicial proceedings was by no means commonplace. Thus, it is unlikely that the legislature intended "buildings" to include buildings from which people participate remotely in judicial proceedings. Had that been the intent, the General Assembly could have and would have implemented that intent by amending the statute as technology developed to allow remote participation. To the contrary, while the statute has been amended several times since 1989, none of the amendments evidence an intent to include buildings from which persons are remotely participating in judicial proceedings by conference call or video conference.

Fourth, the constitutional-doubt canon would make a court disinclined to interpret the prohibition in Tenn. Code Ann. 39-17-1306 broadly to encompass private residences, since firearm possession there is protected by the Second Amendment. Construing Tenn. Code Ann. 39-17-1306 as applying only to those buildings in which a judge customarily conducts judicial proceedings, such as courthouses and criminal justice facilities, avoids constitutional conflict and safeguards Second Amendment rights. See D.C. v. Heller (2008) ("[N]othing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings .").

In sum, the prohibition in Tenn. Code Ann. 39-17-1306 against carrying weapons in buildings in which judicial proceedings are in progress may be reasonably construed to apply only to those buildings in which a judge customarily conducts judicial proceedings, such as courthouses and criminal justice facilities. It does not appear that the General Assembly intended Tenn. Code Ann. 39-17-1306 to apply to buildings from which a judge conducts a judicial proceeding remotely by conference call or videoconference, such as the judge's private residence or another similar building.

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Does Ban on Carrying Weapons "Inside Any Building in Which Judicial Proceedings Are in Progress" ... - Reason

Elie Mystal, attorney and author of the New York Times bestseller "Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy's Guide to the Constitution," wanted actor Samuel L. Jackson to record the audio version of his book. Mystal's title, after all, is drawn from one of Jackson's famous lines in "Pulp Fiction." But if you've seen Mystal on cable news, you know he doesn't need Jackson to provide passion and emphatic delivery. Mystal gives you all that and more, as you will see first-hand in our recent "Salon Talks" conversation.

Mystal takes, shall we say, the controversial position that the U.S. Constitution is not only "not good," but that it's "actually trash." He notes that our founding document was drafted by men who owned slaves and enshrined that evil institution with the infamous Fugitive Slave Clause and the "three-fifths compromise." But Mystal's bigger point is that our Constitution is given too much deference: "We act like this thing was kind of etched in stone by the finger of God, when actually it was hotly contested and debated, scrawled out over a couple of weeks in the summer in Philadelphia in 1787, with a bunch of rich, white politicians making deals with each other."

Mystal also lays bare the myth that the motivation behind the Second Amendment was about self-defense or a check on the government. As he notes, George Mason then the governor of Virginia and one of the drafters of the Constitution flat-out said that the Second Amendment was meant to guarantee that Southern states could form a "well-regulated militia" to "fight slave revolts." Mason and other Southerners feared that the federal government wouldn't help them put down slave uprisings, and they needed to have guns close at hand.

Mystal also shared his views on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson and her ongoing confirmation hearings. As Mystal explains, the GOP has "nothing on her record that they can attack" and only has one card to play: racism. "Because they can't find anything wrong, they go to all of these other kind of racist smear campaigns because, frankly, racism always works for them," Mystal said.

This following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

You were recently on "The View" talking about your book and created some controversy. The first line in "Let Me Retort" is "Our constitution is not good," followed up a few paragraphs later with "Our constitution is actually trash." You're obviously trying to challenge people. Tell people what your goal is there.

There are two things going on there. One, the veneration that this country has for the Constitution is simply weird. It's crazy. It's not what other countries do for their written documents. We act like this thing was etched in stone by the finger of God, when actually it was hotly contested and debated, scrawled out over a couple of weeks in the summer in Philadelphia in 1787, with a bunch of rich, white politicians making deals with each other, right? These politicians were white slavers, white colonizers and white abolitionists who were nonetheless willing to make deals with slavers and colonists. No person of color was allowed into the convention. Their thoughts were not included. No women were allowed to have a voice or a vote in the drafting of the Constitution. And quite frankly, not even poor white people were allowed to have a voice or a thought in what the Constitution was.

The thought that this document, made by one class of people, represents the best we can do in America is just ludicrous. Of course it's not very good. You only let one kind of person write it. So that's one aspect of it. The second aspect of this, and how we go from "not good" to "trash," is that structurally there are a lot of stupid things in the document. There are a lot of things that you just wouldn't think we should do if you were starting again from first principles. Like the idea that we don't elect our own president; that's pretty dumb.

Pretty dumb.

You wouldn't do it that way, right? The way that voting rights have been couched as "We will not abridge the right to vote," as opposed to "You have a positive right to vote," that's dumb. The federal system has 50 different election systems instead of one federal system, that makes us have literally 3,000 police systems that's 3,000 sheriff's offices around the country, instead of one national police system. That's pretty stupid. If you just go structurally through the document, you see it's not exactly bad-idea genes, but you see quite a lot of bad ideas throughout the document.

The Judicial Crisis Network has been attacking you for your comments about this, tying it to the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. What are they saying? What did you say that they view as blasphemous in some way?

Again, here's another issue where there are two things going on. One, they have nothing on Ketanji Brown Jackson. There's nothing on her record that they can attack. They don't have a case. They don't have a law review note that she wrote. They don't have anything that she's actually done to attack her with, so they're trying to bank a shot against her off some of these other issues. And apparently, I'm one of the issues these idiot people think they can bank a shot off of, because these are the kinds of people who think that all Black people know each other like we all go to the same barbecue and we talk about our plans for whitey and then we go out into our separate corners.

That's not how it works. I've never met Ketanji Brown Jackson. I've literally never been in the same room with her in my life. I have no idea. She probably hasn't read the book because she's busy. She's about to be a Supreme Court justice, right? I would imagine there are parts of my book that she doesn't agree with, and that's fine too. So that's part of what's going on.

The other thing that's happened is that there are people who take the Constitution as gospel without really examining what the document is people who haven't actually read it, and even people who have read it but don't really understand what it's saying and what it's doing. So for instance, Dean and you'll find this funny there are people telling me the Constitution is not trash and is actually great because it's a living document that evolves with our times, which is an interesting thing for them to say because that's what I say. That's what liberals say the Constitution is.

It is the conservatives who say the Constitution is ossified in the original public meaning and intent of the slavers who wrote it. It is people like me who are like, "No, no, no, the document lives and breathes and evolves." So these idiot white people are literally trying to attack my position by restating my position, because they don't know any better, because they haven't actually read it or thought about it or understand it. And the big reason why I wrote the book is so more people could think about it, understand it. As we've talked about before on your show, I write in plain English so people can really get into what's happening and not be intimidated by the legal jargon. It's so you can understand why you'd want the constitution to live, breathe and evolve, for instance.

RELATED:Republicans know Brett Kavanaugh lied under oath: They just don't care

Your book is written very accessibly. You don't have to be a lawyer, you don't have to know the Constitution, you don't have to be Black. I'm a lawyer and there are things I learned. For example, one thing I think is vitally important for Americans to know is the origin of the Second Amendment. Today they talk about the Second Amendment as something about defending your house, or when the black helicopters coming to chase you, that kind of stuff, or for deer hunting. Share a little bit about the true origins of our Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment was here to stop slave revolts. The "well-regulated militia," which is the first part of the Second Amendment, that was a thing was because in the South, the principal way of putting down revolting slaves was to bring out the well-regulated militia. It turns out it's kind of hard to hold Black people in bondage against their will, so occasionally you have to bring in the guys with the guns to do it. Well, in the original Constitution, without the amendments, it was unclear who had the authority to raise the militia. White Southerners thought that the Northerners would dominate the federal government, wouldn't raise the militia, and when Black people rose up for their freedom and rights, the South would be powerless to stop them militarily.

The Second Amendment is there to make it clear that everybody can be armed so they can raise this militia to go and fight slave revolts. That is not me theorizing or making things up. That is what George Mason, then governor of Virginia, said, when advocating for a Second Amendment. He literally made a speech where he said that, all right? People don't know that history, and part of the reason why people don't know that history is because Republicans have purposefully obscured it.

When you fast-forward 250 years, Antonin Scalia in D.C. v. Heller, invents a right to bear arms for personal self-defense that did not exist at the original founding of the constitution. Scalia quotes George Mason's speech, because at the beginning of the speech, a lot of it is about personal self-defense again, personal self-defense from the slave revolts. Scalia leaves that part out and talks only about this right to personal self-defense, taking out the context. That's how Republicans be!

This is something that goes through all the way through my book. Originalists have this PR campaign that they're going back to the original definitions of the Constitution as understood by the founders, when really they're just making stuff up that's convenient for their current political agenda.

You also talk about how the right to vote gets abridged all the time. Tell people what's in the actual, original Constitution. What did the framers have in mind about for could vote in the early days of this country?

The framers did not think that the right to vote, or even citizenship in the country, flowed down from the federal government. They thought it flowed up from the states. Your right to be a citizen was to be a citizen of Georgia or New York or New Jersey. Your right to vote, therefore, was determined by Georgia or New York or New Jersey or Virginia. There was no federal right to vote because all voting was done at the state level, in the conception of the framers. They weren't worried about minority voting rights because they didn't think minorities were going to vote at all.

They weren't worried about women voting rights because they didn't think women were going to vote at all. They were only concerned with making sure that the states had the power to decide for themselves who could and could not vote. So even when you go forward to things like the 15th Amendment, which says that you can't abridge voting on the context of race, color or creed; when you go to the 19th Amendment, which says that you can't abridge voting because of gender, which of course did not mean Black women at the time the 19th amendment was ratified.

All these amendments did, technically, was to say that the states could not restrict voting based on racial or gender grounds. And let's not forget that the states looked at the 15th Amendment and thought, "That's a very nice try," put it in a drawer and ignored it for 100 years. The states restricted voting on the basis of race all the time after the 15th Amendment because courts wouldn't enforce it. So the Constitution is silent on the right to vote because our election system is dumb. And it's based on, like I said, at this point 50 state electoral systems at the founding, 13 state electoral systems as opposed to one unified, rational, intelligent federal election system, which is what they have in all the other democracies, by the way. Let's not forget that we're the outlier here; other advanced Western democracies have a federal election system, not province by province.

You make a very compelling point that four of the 17 amendments ratified after the Bill of Rights have to do with voting. That was nearly 25 percent of the updates to the Constitution, because the framers didn't give it much thought. Later in life, the Constitution evolved and people were like, "Let's do something about it." What does that say to you?

One, it says that no matter what you try to do with your written document, it can't survive bad-faith conservatives. The reason we've had to have four different voting amendments, and probably are going to need a fifth one at some point in our future, is because at every point conservatives have tried to restrict the rights of everybody to vote. And to be clear, I'm saying "conservatives" because I don't care what conservatives call themselves in the morning. After the Civil War, conservatives called themselves Democrats. Now, they call themselves Republicans. In the future, they might call themselves Whigs. I don't care. Doesn't matter. The conservative party, however they define themselves, has opposed the idea of universal suffrage at every point, and that continues today.

The reason why you have to have so many updates is because every time you try to extend the vote, conservatives come up with some new, crazy reason to restrict the vote. One lreally small way of, I think, pointing this out is that the 26th Amendment says that basically everybody over 18 can vote. Simple, straightforward amendment: If you're over 18, you can vote. The thought being, if you can go to war, you can vote on whether or not we have a war. Makes sense, right?

So what happens if you turn 18 after the election in November, but before the end of the year? The election happens in your 18th year, but you don't actually turn 18. Let's say you have a Christmas birthday, essentially. Now, the constitutional amendment is silent about that. So conservatives step in and say, "Nope, you have to be 18 by the time the..." Why? They just made that up. That's just an arbitrary cut-off. Why wouldn't you make the arbitrary cut off the end of the year, as opposed to the end of the election? It makes no sense.

Do we really think that the difference in the intellectual quality of a 17-year-old in November changes radically when he hits his 18th birthday at Christmas? Who thinks that? Liberals are like, "We should just vote if you're..." So this is what I'm saying: Conservatives, at every point, even in really small ways, try to restrict the right to vote.

You have a chapter called "Reverse Racism Doesn't Exist," meaning of course racism against white people. But how do you square that with the Pew poll that found Republicans are likely to believe that white people face more discrimination than Black people and Hispanic people or Asian Americans do? You've got a whole group of Americans out there who think they're suffering discrimination and ask why our legal system doesn't protect white people, even though they are technically the majority.

They're technically the majority. That's exactly why. I explain protected-class status as understood by our constitutional interpretation. I'm just the messenger, don't shoot me. Constitutionally speaking, white people are not, and pretty much cannot be, a protected class, because the way that we define protected class, you have to be a minority or somebody singled out for a special historical kind of torment. So again, I'm a liberal: I think poor people should be a protected class. I think that. It is conservatives who won't let me do that. I think poor white people should be part of the impoverished protected class, but conservative white people won't let me do that.

Instead, they want to say all white people are a protected class, which just doesn't make sense based on our protected-class jurisprudence. So yes, from a legal definition, reverse racism doesn't exist. And I would say that also, from that legal basis, that extends through any kind of understanding of our social power structure.

Here's the problem when you tell white people that they've experienced privilege. There are white people who are the beneficiaries of white privilege who still have crappy lives. And they think that because I say that they have privilege, then that privilege means that they shouldn't have a crappy life. No, that's not what white privilege is. White privilege is that if you take a white person with a crappy starting position and a Black person with a crappy starting position and kind of play out the string, what we'll see is that the Black person will have the same crappy life as the white person, only a little worse. It's the whole thing of whenever white America catches a cold, Black America catches the flu.

It's the defensiveness of white Americans who are struggling who go, "Where's my privilege?" I understand. Maybe the term it's not literal in that way, but they take it literally. "Where's my privilege? Where are my happy days?" I get it. It's actually a minority burden, versus someone white who is just living a normal life, where you're not judged by the worst in your society and the worst in your community, and politicians don't demonize you for that and don't pass laws based on this mythical caricature that they've created about your community. The list goes on and on.

White people will look at me right now and be like, "Well, I'm not doing as well as that Black guy, so how am I having white privilege?" And it's like, because if I was white I would be the attorney goddamned general. That's how you know. That's the difference.

That brings us perfectly to the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. You had sitting senators, including Roger Wicker of Mississippi, call it a "quota hire," literally affirmative action. Ted Cruz called it offensive and said, "I guess if you're a white man or a white woman, you've got no shot at this." You're going to have one Black woman in the history of this nation and that's one too many for them, because they feel this is a zero-sum game.

There have been 115 Supreme Court justices in American history, and 108 of them have been white males. And Ted Cruz fixes his mouth to say, "I guess if you're a white man, you have no shot." It's an idiot statement, designed to play into the grievances of his idiot base, but also to be horribly offensive to everybody else because Ted Cruz doesn't care about being horribly offensive to everybody else. Again, all these attacks come because they have nothing that they can use against her. I have read her cases. They haven't maybe read her cases. She's been on the bench for nine years. That is more than four current Supreme Court justices had combined when they were elevated to the Supreme Court.

She has a deep legal record that these people could pick through and find something wrong. They picked through it, they haven't found anything wrong. Because they can't find anything wrong, they go to all these other racist smear campaigns because, frankly, racism always works for them. Show me, in the last 10 or 15 years, the white politician who got drummed out of office because they were too racist. I mean, Steve King in Iowa, maybe, after just doing some straight-up Nazi rhetoric, but that's about it, right? Ted Cruz knows that he's not going to lose a primary because he is too racist to the Black woman Supreme Court nominee, so he's just going to double down in that field. It's all he's got.

RELATED:Ted Cruz turns Ketanji Brown Jackson's Supreme Court hearing into rehabilitation of Brett Kavanaugh

You make a compelling case for reform. Having Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, if she's confirmed, that's not enough of a reform to make the Supreme Court what it should be. We can pass voting rights legislation right now, and this Supreme Court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, might just strike it down after all the work. What do you think fundamentally has to be done to change that institution?

It's court expansion or bust. You expand the court or you cede the next 30 years of American law to six conservative justices. And as I try to explain throughout the book, nothing survives 30 years of six conservative justices. There's nothing. Anything you want, doesn't happen. John Roberts eviscerated the Voting Rights Act in 2013, as you mentioned, in Shelby County v. Holder. Roberts and Alito ganged up on Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in 2021 in Brnovich v. Arizona. What makes anybody think the John Lewis Voting Rights Act is going to be upheld by this Supreme Court? Has John Roberts gone somewhere? Is he on vacation? No, he's still right there, and he'll knock it down just like he's knocked down everything else.

As long as you have six conservative justices, you get nothing on voting rights, you get nothing on gun rights, you get nothing on climate change, you get nothing on police brutality, you get nothing on health care, you get nothing. So you expand the court and take your chances there, or you resign yourself to getting nothing. And people will say, "Oh, well, if we expand the court, Republicans will just expand it right back." So what? How is that worse than where we are now? I would argue that if we expand the court, it makes it harder for Republicans to expand it back because it makes it harder for Republicans to control all of government, because when everybody votes, Republicans lose.

So I say, let's go. I'm on record, I think, in the book for plus-20 judges. I think there are other reform ideas. A greatly expanded court does a lot of nonpartisan reforms. It leaves the Supreme Court as powerful as it is, but it makes each individual Supreme Court justice less powerful. That makes confirmation hearings less go-to-the-mattresses kind of situations. So there are lots of reasons why I get all the way to 20, but more, at this point, is the only way to stop the next 30 years of conservative takeover.

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Elie Mystal: Our Constitution is "actually trash" but the Supreme Court can be fixed - Salon

Just over 12 months ago, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety (Royal Commission) delivered its Final Report entitled 'Care, Dignity and Respect' to the Governor General (Final Report). The Final Report was tabled in the House of Representatives on 1 March 2021. But just over a year later, how have the recommendations and the sector progressed?

The Government responded to the Final Report on 11 May 2021, accepting the vast majority of the Royal Commission's 148 recommendations, either in whole or in part. In addition, record funding of $17.7 billion was allocated in the Federal Budget in May 2021 to support 'once in a generation reform to aged care to deliver respect, care and dignity to our senior Australians'. The government's response recognised the need for wide-ranging reforms, including a new, right-based Aged Care Act centred around the support and care needs of older Australians, their right to access high quality and safe aged care and the need for a new aged care program.

A further $632.6 million was allocated to 'improve aged care for senior Australians' in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, which included a range of funding targeted at improving aged care governance and sustainability. Although the detail around many of these reforms continues to take shape, the direction of the reforms is clear.

Reflections: one year on since the Final Report

In the year that has passed since the Final Report was delivered, significant legislative change has occurred. Reform efforts continue in the aged care sector, notwithstanding the significant impact of COVID-19.

The Serious Incident Response Scheme (SIRS) commenced on 1 April 2021, putting in place new arrangements and obligations on approved providers to identify, report, manage and resolve serious incidents which alleged to have occurred, in residential aged care. The SIRS is set to be expanded to home care settings from 1 July 2022.

The Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response No. 1) Act 2021 (First Amendment Act) passed Parliament on 24 June 2021. It significantly reformed the obligations on approved providers in relation to the use of restrictive practices. The First Amendment Act implemented protective measures through the need for restrictive practices to only be used as a last resort. The First Amendment Act also implemented a new home care assurance scheme, designed to increase oversight of the delivery of home care services and made minor amendments concerning the Aged Care Financing Authority.

The Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response No. 2) Act 2021 (Second Amendment Bill) introduced to the Senate on 22 November 2021 however, is yet to be debated, or passed by the Senate. The Second Amendment Bill was designed to implement significant reforms including:

The first part of the Second Amendment Bill was intended to commence on 1 March 2022, which would have coincided with the one year anniversary of the Final Report. However, due to delays in the Senate, it is now unclear when the Second Amendment Bill will pass into law, or when it will commence.

New Aged Care Act

On 1 March 2021, the Government announced that work had commenced on a new Act. This was a key recommendation in the Final Report.

Little is known about the new Act at this stage other than that it will be 'consumer-focused' and is planned to come into effect on 1 July 2023 'subject to parliamentary processes'. The Government has noted that key to the development of the new Act will be 'consultation with senior Australians and other stakeholders'. To facilitate consultation, the Government has launched an Aged Care Engagement Hub.

Throughout 2021 and into the first months of 2022, approved providers have had to rise to the challenge of adapting to changing legislation and policy settings and grapple with the complexities of increased regulatory oversight. This challenge has been complicated by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and the specific challenges that the aged care sector has faced in keeping residents safe whilst also meeting the expectations of the broader community. Although the challenges of COVID-19 will start to shift, it seems likely that the regulatory landscape will continue to evolve, with the implementation of sector reforms.

The aged care sector going forward

Short term legislative reform

The future of the Second Amendment Bill is uncertain as it remains before the Senate, but will require further amendment as the anticipated commencement dates have already passed. It is notable that an amendment proposed by the Greens proposing a range of amendments to the Second Amendment Bill was recently made in the Senate. However, beyond this activity, there has been limited legislative progress with respect to the Second Amendment Bill.

New Aged Care Act

Recently, former Royal Commissioner Lynelle Briggs AO publicly stated that an exposure draft of the new Act would need to be published by the second half of 2022, in order to be passed by the July 2023. It is unclear if the government is working towards this timeframe. However it would seem likely that for the government to meet its planned implementation date for the new Act, that we will see an exposure draft in coming months.

The new Act is the centrepiece of the Government's reform agenda. It will embed a human rights approach and is focused on ensuring timely access to safe, high quality care, that is based on assessed need. It seeks to integrate care services enabling consumers to seamlessly transition across the care continuum to access the care and services that meet their needs, regardless of the care setting.

While the scope of the duty is yet to be defined, the characteristics of 'high quality care' have been articulated in the recommendations of the Royal Commission and include care that is:

'High quality care' must adopt a human rights, person-centred approach and be designed to respond to the needs and aspirations of those receiving care.

High quality care shall:

This proposed statutory duty contains elements that are both subjective the wishes and aspirations of the person receiving care and objective care that is safe and based on clinical assessment.

Whilst the detail is yet to be articulated, the scope of this new duty is a shift from the existing common law duty owed by providers.

The government has also flagged that a number of other significant measures, including:

2022-2023 Budget

With the 2022-2023 Budget approaching later this month, it is possible that further funding may be announced for aged care. In an election year, it is possible that the government may take the step to provide more funding in key areas such as workforce and even further funding for home care, particularly given the recent media attention on aged care.

Election season

With the upcoming federal election, significant uncertainty remains concerning the legislative reform. The stated position of the Morrison Government on planned reform to the aged care sector is clear from the government's response to the Final Report.

The position of the Opposition is less clear. At the time of writing, the Opposition's 'policies and commitments' section of its webpage is silent as to policies relating to the aged care sector. The Opposition does however state in the ALP National Platform, as adopted at the 2021 Special Platform Conference (National Platform) that the view of the Australian Labor Party is that the Royal Commission found that older Australians' 'care has been neglected in a system in crisis' and that 'the Royal Commission's recommendations threaten to leave older Australians without the quality care they desperately need'. There are two alternative conclusions that can be drawn from this. First, it could be said that reform in the aged care sector has bipartisan support, and accordingly, if there were a change in government, the planned legislative reform would be implemented without change. Alternatively, it could be argued that the Opposition has indicated in its National Platform a view that the Royal Commission recommendations do not go far enough to 'fix' aged care sector, and should there be a change in government, the upcoming legislative and regulatory reform could deviate from the roadmap set forward by the Royal Commission. However, we note that the Australian Labor Party has not yet released its aged care policy but has committed to doing so closer to the federal election.

It is difficult to know which of these alternatives will eventuate, creating a degree of uncertainty for the aged care sector until after the upcoming election.

What's next for the aged care sector?

Much like the last year, the next year promises to be as significant, with a number of initiatives in the pipeline.

'User pays' and co-contributions

While not specifically addressed by the Royal Commission, it is noteworthy that a number of large providers have meaningfully contributed to the debate on co-contributions and introduction of a 'user pays' model. There have been calls for a greater balance between the capacity of individual's to contribute towards their accommodation and other living expenses in residential aged care and those care recipients who are genuinely in need and unable to fund their care. However, neither the Royal Commission nor the government has indicated a willingness to consider a 'user pays' model. A continuation of the current funding structures is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

Star rating system

The Department of Health recently announced the commencement of interviews for the consumer experience component of the new star rating system for residential aged care. This star rating system which is due to commence in April 2022 will include quality indicators, including service compliance, staff care minutes and consumer experience components. The findings from these interviews will be detailed in consumer experience reports to be published on My Aged Care. These reports will also feed into the facilitys consumer experience and overall star rating. This initiative implements recommendation 24 of the Royal Commission's final report and is anticipated to be live late 2022.

Regulatory integration with adjacent sectors

Late last year, the government announced that work to align 'regulation across the aged care, disability and veterans care sectors' had commenced and '[would] significantly improve quality and safety for participants and consumers'. We have seen this come through in a number of recommendations in the Final Report. This effort to achieve regulatory alignment was subject to a consultation period and is aiming to, amongst other things, 'cut red tape and make it easier for service providers and workers to deliver the highest levels of care and support'. While this initiative appears to be an example of the implementation of recommendation 25 of the Royal Commission, to deliver an integrated approach to care, the exact implications remain to be seen.

Workforce Strategy

Over the last year, many providers have struggled to attract and retain workers. The workforce challenge has been exacerbated throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly given the closure of our borders and furloughing of staff. While the Royal Commission called for the government to 'urgently establish a scheme to improve the quality of the current aged care workforce', a comprehensive aged care workforce strategy has not yet been articulated. Last month, the government announced an 'aged care workforce bonus' of up to $800 for eligible aged care staff in home care and residential aged care (Bonus). Whether this Bonus will be sufficient to effect tangible change in the aged care workforce is yet to be seen. However, some in the sector have criticised this Bonus initiative as 'inadequate'.

Fair Work Commission work value case

In a joint submission to the Fair Work Commission, the Health Services Union and the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation continue to seek a 25% increase in wages for more than 200,000 aged care workers (Joint Submission). While the government has not made a submission, the Australian Labor Party has confirmed that, in the event that they are elected, that a Labor government would support the Joint Submission. The Fair Work Commission is due to hold a hearing with respect to this matter later this year, with a decision due shortly thereafter.

Reform in the aged care sector is ongoing, and at this stage, much of the way forward is uncertain. We'll continue to provide updates as the situation evolves. Please contact us for advice on preparing for the upcoming changes.

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Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety - one year on - Lexology

On the first day of October 2021, two Dodge Chargers circled the 1200 block of North Mason Avenue in Chicago around 10:30 a.m. Three individuals then leaped from the vehicles and opened fire at a brick house in which members of a rival gang were sheltering. The gang members inside the building soon started shooting back.

In the end, 70 shell casings were recovered from the crime scene; one man was killed, two more were wounded and five were arrested for murder and aggravated battery.

Despite allegedly possessing guns that were illegally modified into machine guns, according to reporting by the Chicago Sun-Times, all five of the men arrested were released back onto the Chicago streets without charges.

Kim Foxx, the states attorney for Cook County, Ill., dismissed the battle as mutual combat, a broad legal term used to describe a fight that two parties willingly engage in; the county also cited a lack of evidence despite the shootout having been caught on video.

Yes, you heard that right: these dangerous gang members who blatantly opened fire and murdered in broad daylight were back on the streets three days later without having to face any charges.

In December, Amy Swearer, a fellow at The Heritage Foundation, attempted to draw attention to this claim of mutual combat to avoid prosecuting these gang members. But, as she testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) interrupted her.

Ms. Swearer, I read your testimony, Durbin said. And I believe in all fairness, since we did not invite Cook County States Attorneys office that you shouldnt really zero in on any particular individual.

Swearer tried to again talk about this case, but Sen. Durbin again interrupted her. He clearly didnt want this horrifying example of criminals not being prosecuted, even when someone is killed, to get more public attention. Hed rather people werent informed that Foxx was backed by anti-Second Amendment billionaire George Soros or that Foxxs progressive agenda has let violent criminals right back onto the streets where they can put even young children in danger.

Instead, Sen. Durbin preferred once again to blame guns for the actions of violent criminalsbad guys whom people like Foxx would rather not prosecute.

It seems that Durbin was more interested in using Chicago residents as political pawns than in understanding why Chicagos criminals feel free to shoot whomever they want without fearing consequences, Swearer later wrote in an article for The Daily Signal. One important factor driving this violence is the failed leadership of Chicagos mayor and city council, particularly their general lack of support for the Chicago Police Department. Chicagos progressive prosecutors have exacerbated this problem by routinely allowing violent offenders to run amok without any meaningful consequences.

Thus, rather than acknowledging the abysmal failures of Chicagos anti-policing and anti-gun efforts, Durbin repeated the stale misinformation that gun sales and even the Second Amendment are to blame; he says this even though Chicago is among the cities with the strictest gun laws.

Durbin, of course, has long been pushing an anti-Second Amendment agenda.

In the United States, mass shootings are almost a daily occurrence, said Durbin in a press release in April 2021. Americans worry that they and their loved ones may be targets when they are going to school, sitting in movie theaters, attending concerts, shopping in grocery stores or just walking in their neighborhoods. It is long past time to take common-sense steps to reduce the toll of gun violence in America, including limiting the civilian use of high-capacity magazines that can inflict mass violence in a short time.

Isnt locking up violent criminals common sense? Apparently not to Sen. Durbin, who seems to regard only lawful conduct as dangerous. He doesnt seem to care that in 2021 more than 57 defendants committed violent crimes while they were out on felony bail in Chicago, according to CWB Chicago.

Chicago, of course, is hardly alone when it comes to violent crime and rising violence. FBI statistics show that homicides jumped by 30% in 2020, with Pew Research Center noting that it was the largest spike since 1905; however, instead of investigating defund-the-police efforts, prisoner releases and other policies that are most likely behind these spikes in violent crime, Pew reported that it could offer no comprehensive explanation for the increase; however, Pew did go out of its way to point out that guns were involved in 77 percent of the murders.

Pew, meanwhile, didnt note that, in each case, an individual actually pulled a trigger.

A National ProblemAt the end of 2021, the national murder rate was at about 6.5 homicides per 100,000 people, which is the highest it has been since 1997, though still below historic highs of the early 1990s; however, the rate in cities is often much higher.

Actually, in 2021, several cities set new records for the number of murders. Philadelphia, Pa., Portland, Ore., Louisville, Ky., and Albuquerque, N.M., all had their deadliest years on record last year. Philadelphia, for example, had 562 homicides, which surpassed its previous high of 500 set in 1990. Philadelphia is one of the jurisdictions that put a moratorium on arrests amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, which massively reduced proactive policing.

New Yorkers also lament the escalating crime figures. According to Robert Boyce, retired chief of detectives for the New York Police Department, Nobody is getting arrested anymore. People are getting picked up for gun possession, but they are just let out over and over again.

Blaming American freedom is convenient for the far Left. Rather than take responsibility for their bad policies, they find it easy to blame freer areas of the country for crimes.

Meanwhile, as this was being written, it remained nearly impossible for average, law-abiding citizens of New York City to acquire a concealed-carry permit.

Also, it should be noted that violent criminals havent just been emboldened in a few big cities. Consider, for instance, Kern County, located north of Los Angeles. The homicide rate in 2020 increased to 12.7 per 100,000 residents in Kern County. This caused an outcry from residents that Californias soft-on-crime ethos, which includes recent laws changing certain felonies to misdemeanors, is impacting the entire state. More than one-third of the homicides in Bakersfield, Calif., the most-prominent city in Kern County, were caused by shootouts between gang members.

Freedom is Not to BlameWhile this is going on, politicians, such as Sen. Durbin, continue to invoke the absurd argument that law-abiding gun owners and legal gun sales are somehow responsible for the violence plaguing the nation.

For example, anti-gun activists in Austin, Texas, falsely attribute the fact that the city is at the end of its deadliest year on record on what both authorities and community leaders say is easy access to guns, says CNN.

This blame-American-freedom tactic is politically convenient for the far Left. Its far easier for them to point to freer regions and blame legally armed citizens than it is to acknowledge that their policies are making things worse.

Chris Harris, a member of the community-led Austin Justice Coalition, for example, has said that the accessibility of guns across America is a leading factor for the rise in violence. Similarly, in Philadelphia, Daniel Semenza, a Rutgers-Camden University criminal justice professor, says the swelling ranks of gun owners over the last two years has likely made the stolen-gun problem worse.

Clearly, it is simply more politically convenient for those who despise the Second Amendment to accuse lawful gun owners of contributing to rising crime, in spite of there being no evidence to support such a claim.

It isnt difficult to figure out what is happening. If it is less risky for criminals to commit crimes, they will commit more crimes. All across the country, because of COVID, we have seen a large number of criminals released early from jail, said John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, when interviewed for this article. Over half the inmates have been released from jails and prisons in many places. Many of these criminals are violent criminals.

Additionally, Lott points out that some police departments have seen their budgets cut while increasing regulations and other restrictions on law enforcement are making their jobs more difficult.

If someone is already facing many years in jail and you release them with low or no bail, there is little incentive for them to stop, Lott said. And the arrest rate for murder in Chicago is only about 20%.

Before the start of the pandemic in 2020, the onset of civil unrest and the implementation of justice reform, violent crime had decreased by more than half between 1991 and 2019; this happened while some estimate that the number of privately owned firearms doubled during the same time period. Clearly, guns owned by law-abiding citizens are not the issue.

Many from the far Left seem to believe that the only real victims in the system are the defendants themselves, said Rania Mankarious, CEO of Crime Stoppers Houston, a non-profit focused on public safety, when interviewed for this article. They have been working on these changes to the system for the last few years. We are seeing the results of these changes now. Crime now pays in cities across America. Families are experiencing the impact. Local neighborhoods, businesses and more are all experiencing the effects. The same political figures who are anti-gun still push to decriminalize criminal activity where guns are at the heart of the crime.

Amy Swearer

This issue shouldnt be political, says Lott. People have seen that crime is rising, and police too often arent allowed to do their jobs. People have realized that they are ultimately responsible for their own protection. Gun-control advocates see the increase in crime and gun sales, but they refuse to acknowledge the role that progressive policies on law enforcement play in this increase in crime and why people have bought guns after the rise in crime, Lott said. The solution is simple: make it risky for criminals to commit crimes. Increase the arrest and conviction rates. It shouldnt even be a political question.

At that U.S. Senate hearing, Amy Swearer did get a moment to reply to Sen. Durbins attempt to shut her up. Senator, I do in fact respect that this is something that were looking at from a federal level, said Swearer. However, when were talking about what is actually happening in Chicago we need to look at how do things like not charging five individuals who shot up a residential neighborhood on a Friday, none of which were charged and were released on Monday. How does that impact the feeling of confidence?

A tweet from Heritage with a video of this testimony soon went viral and Swearer went on Fox News Fox & Friends to discuss the attempt to control the gun-control narrative by Sen. Durbin.

Its infuriating, Swearer told Fox News. If this is not the time, place and manner to talk about some of these underlying problems in Chicago, when is?

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Busting the Gun-Control Narrative | An Official Journal Of The NRA - America's 1st Freedom