Author: Bill Otis

Shocking News: Attorney General Claims to Be Head of the Justice Department

by · Sep 16, 2020 8:51 pm

Like much of the press, the Washington Post has walked away from its honorable role as a liberal but generally honest reporter of the news, and has become instead a relentless bullhorn for the Biden campaign and anything it thinks will assist that campaign.  Today’s breathless story starts off with, “Attorney General William P. Barr delivered a scathing critique of his own Justice Department on Wednesday night, insisting on his absolute authority to overrule career staff, who he said too often injected themselves into politics and went ‘headhunting’ for high-profile targets.”

What have we come to?  The AG thinks he can overrule a GS 15?  Gads, I need my smelling salts. Continue reading . . .

Lying and More Lying

by · Sep 16, 2020 5:09 pm

A pro-criminal “reform” agenda cannot win public support if presented honestly.  That’s the reason its advocates more or less continuously lie.  Their marquee lie (or perhaps I should be charitable and call it merely an article of voodoo-like faith), is that the problem is the behavior of the system rather than the behavior of the criminal.  Their second most important lie (and this is nobody’s mere article of faith) is that the sober measures we implemented in the Eighties and Nineties  —  more police, more proactive policing, more incarceration and more law-driven sentencing  —  had little or nothing to do with the enormous drop in crime that began after they took hold.  The audacity and belligerence of this lie has been something to behold.

As Mike reminds us, the Left is now engaged in rampant lying about the scope and nature of the riots they pretend not to want.  But Mike is not the only one to notice; Bill Barr has noticed, too.

Continue reading . . .

Sedition Charges Coming from DOJ?

by · Sep 16, 2020 11:23 am

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Attorney General William Barr told the nation’s federal prosecutors to be aggressive when charging violent demonstrators with crimes, including potentially prosecuting protesters for plotting to overthrow the U.S. government, people familiar with the conversation said.

Continue reading . . .

For Judge Amul Thapar, the Rule of Law Counts

by · Sep 14, 2020 5:45 pm

Judge Amul Thapar is one of many excellent appointments President Trump has made to the federal courts of appeals.  He showed it again in his opinion today for a unanimous Sixth Circuit panel that reversed, and removed from the case, a district judge disinclined to follow established law.  The subtitle of Judge Thapar’s work could easily be, “Being A Judge Is A Job Not An Anointment.”

Continue reading . . .

The Moral Foundations for Resistance to BLM

by · Sep 14, 2020 1:44 pm

As more cities become afflicted with the forcible disruptions staged by BLM, the question before us is whether a peaceable society is justified in fighting back and, if so, at what point and by what means.  I’m not talking here about violent assaults on police (like the one over the weekend in Compton, CA) or about riots, arson and looting.  Almost every normal person  —  and certainly any person open to reason  —  agrees that these are intolerable.  I’m talking about raucous demonstrations brought to the target’s home, or disrupting rush hour traffic, or forcing drivers out of their cars, or menacing ordinary people as they shop or dine or just walk down the street.

Most people understand that we need to accommodate free speech and perhaps, to a point, some of its excesses.  They also understand that racial discrimination  —  opposition to which is the asserted reason for BLM protests  —  is morally indefensible and has to an end.  The question is how far tolerance for forcible and quasi-forcible disruptions to the ordinary life of blameless people should go and thus, necessarily, when the correct response becomes, not tolerance, but intolerance, if necessary by force.

Continue reading . . .

What Passes as “Scholarship” About Drug Sentencing

by · Sep 12, 2020 8:40 am

A recent article featured on Sentencing Law and Policy reminded me of why my first career was with the Justice Department and I came to legal academia only later.  The gist of the article  —  written by a law professor and appearing in SSRN  —  is that drug sentencing is a product of an ignorant electorate’s “moral panic,” and that the Supreme Court should rein in us wahoos by deciding for us what drug sentencing should be.

Continue reading . . .

Murders Surge in DC; City Leaders Point to the Answer

by · Sep 2, 2020 2:30 pm

In Washington, DC, and New York, among some other major cities, murder has spiked this year.  Thus, as the Crime Report tells us in this story from mid-August:

A weekend mass shooting that wounded 21 and killed one signaled a 45 percent increase in shootings in Washington, D.C., this year over the same period last year, including 46 shootings in the past week, the Washington Post reports.

But fear not.  Washington’s leadership has an idea. Continue reading . . .