Well, duh! Of course flipping the bird is free speech

A federal appeals court has upheld the complaint of Debra Cruise-Gulyas, who sued a police officer Matthew Minard who had issued her a citation after she gave him the middle finger.

In a ruling filed this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit said: “Any reasonable officer would know that a citizen who raises her middle finger engages in speech protected by the First Amendment.”
…

A three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit said her gesture did not violate any identified law. Minard, it said, “clearly lacked authority to stop Cruise-Gulyas a second time.”

“Minard should have known better,” the opinion says.

It pointed to a 2013 ruling by another appeals court that said the “ancient gesture of insult” does not give police “a reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation or impending criminal activity.”

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Why did no bankers go to jail?

This was the big question after the financial crash of 2008 that ruined the lives of so many people. The public radio program Marketplace had a detailed examination of this question. While banks were named in indictments and plea deals reached with them for fines, no top bankers were named or prosecuted. Indeed the government bailouts enabled them to reward themselves with big bonuses. The analysis lasted about 45 minutes but was spread over three days as follows: Part 1 lasts from 0-19 minutes, Part 2 was from 4:50 to 15:30, and Part 3 lasted from 0 to 15:30 minutes.
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Tennessee – a state where hopeless causes never die

You would think that following the US Supreme Court decision in 2015 outlawing bans on same-sex marriage, opponents would admit defeat and wait for their god to deliver the retribution to these sinners that these religious zealots long for. Not the Tennessee legislature. They are considering a law that would ban such marriages in their state.
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The problem of mandatory sentencing laws

Here is the part of an 4-1 majority opinion by a New York State appellate court that describes the offense committed in the case that was brought before them.

Defendant, a homeless 53 year-old, entered a pharmacy and attempted to pay for a tube of toothpaste using a counterfeit $20 bill. The bill was rejected by the cashier, and defendant left the store without completing the transaction. Shortly thereafter, defendant was observed by the police, where he was attempting to purchase food with a counterfeit $20 bill. The restaurant cashier refused to accept the bill. Defendant was stopped by the police in front of yet another fast-food restaurant. Five counterfeit $20 bills were recovered from him upon arrest.

So here’s a question. What would have been a reasonable punishment in this case?
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The danger posed by extreme minority rule

The November 2018 issue of Harper’s Magazine magazine has an article by Jonathan Taplin with the rather alarming title of REBIRTH OF A NATION: Can states’ rights save us from a second civil war? (possibly behind a paywall). The fundamental problem that he points out is that the US constitution has insufficient elasticity to accommodate the changes that have taken place since it was first written. Many of its features were included as part of compromises to gain acceptance from each of the 13 original states and one that he points out is the provision that gives each state two senators irrespective of its size. As a result, small states have disproportionately greater representation and power in the senate. Currently twenty-six states with 18 percent of the population elect a majority of the senate’s 100 seats, while nine states with an absolute majority of the population elect just eighteen senators.
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Challenge to ranked-choice voting in Maine thrown out

The only congressional races to use ranked choice voting are those in Maine and the first time it was used was in last month’s elections and it produced a result in the second Congressional district that illustrated how it works. When the first choice votes were counted, the Republican candidate Bruce Poliquin came in first and the Democrat Jared Golden came second but none of the four candidates got the required 50%+1 votes. So the second choices of those voted for the candidates who came in third and fourth were then tabulated and Golden emerged the winner.
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Jeffrey Epstein case takes a surprising turn

Today was the day when the civil trial brought by the lawyer of some of the accusers against sleazy convicted sex offender multi-millionaire Jeffrey Epstein was to go to trial. Last week, the Miami Herald released a bombshell investigation into the allegations and cover up of the abuse of young girls by Epstein who had plenty of friends in high places. But at the last minute a settlement was announced that included an apology by Epstein to Bradley Edwards, the lawyer who brought the case.
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The Jeffrey Epstein case is a perfect example of how plea deals favor the rich

I have written before about how plea bargains are used against poor people to get them, even if innocent of the crime were originally arrested for, to plead guilty to some other charge and accept a lower penalty, even if it includes jail time. Poor people do not have the resources to mount a vigorous defense and do not have access to the top prosecutors who make the decisions about who to prosecute and how vigorously. With rich people, it is the other way around, as I have described before with the way that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. treated leniently the wealthy and influential and well-connected and those who contributed to his campaigns (like Harvey Weinstein and members of the Trump family) but went after the poor and Chinese immigrants.
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Why Trump is going after the judiciary

Donald Trump’s attack on a federal judge who ruled against him as being an ‘Obama judge’ and thus acting in a biased way resulted in an unusual rebuke from US Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts who decried adding labels to federal judges once they are on the bench, declaring that they should be presumed to be above partisan interests. To no one’s surprise, Trump did not take Robert’s comments lying down and has issued a new series of tweets against the judiciary.
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Christine Blasey Ford senate hearings

I watched the hearings this morning. As the hearings began, Ford looked nervous, vulnerable, and scared and began speaking with a quavering voice. She got a little better with time but throughout she looked credible and, for want of a better word, natural. She was almost in tears when Blumenthal praised her courage in coming forward despite the trauma. I cringed to hear, when asked about what was her most indelible memory of the event, how Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge laughed during the assault, that they were having fun assaulting her. She said that she had met Kavanaugh many times before the assault so there was no question of her confusing him with someone else. Although I believed her even before the hearings, I can only say that she showed the entire nation what an honest person she is.
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