Maryland, My Maryland

 From the Balmer Sun, Maryland sheriffs gain national attention amid push against 287(g) ban

Maryland law enforcement leaders gained some national attention in their fight against a law banning formal agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement this week. Lt. Col. Allen West, the executive director of the national conservative legal nonprofit American Constitutional Rights Union, met with officials in Harford and Carroll counties Monday to discuss his concerns about the constitutionality of the bans.

The visit coincided with recent progress toward legal action against the state law banning 287(g) agreements, which previously allowed local jails to transfer undocumented immigrants directly to ICE. Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler, a Republican who is running for reelection, said that there are “positive indications” of legal action, and the sheriffs will be discussing options at a meeting this week.

“How can they make a law that says that a law enforcement officer cannot enforce a law?” West asked during his meeting with Gahler and Patty Morin, the mother of Bel Air murder victim Rachel Morin, along with other local leaders, at the Harford County Detention Center. “We will make sure that justice is served, and there will be no more Rachel Morins in the United States of America,” he said.

Patty Morin, the mother of Rachel Morin, who was raped and murdered on the Ma and Pa Heritage Trail in Bel Air in 2023, spoke in favor of 287(g) agreements. Morin said her daughter’s killer, Victor Martinez-Hernandez, of El Salvador, entered the country illegally before he killed Rachel.


Democratic leaders have defended the ban. Sen. Angela Alsobrooks called ICE “a murderous organization” and said Maryland is protecting residents from “brutal and unconstitutional policies.” Sen. Chris Van Hollen said the agency is not focused on “the worst of the worst” and that Maryland is within its rights to refuse cooperation.

He'd rather drink with illegal alien human traffickers and wife-beaters than deport them. 

Oregon, My Oregon, Oregon

PM, Dems vote against notifying ICE when illegal immigrant felons are released from jail

On Tuesday, Oregon state Democratic lawmakers unanimously voted against notifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when or before a criminal illegal immigrant convicted of felony crimes is released from custody. The proposed amendment, supported by Republicans, would have required state and county jails to cooperate with federal immigration authorities in carrying out any action concerning any person convicted of a felony crime under Oregon law.

The proposal was intended to make the state comply with immigration detainers, an official request from federal immigration authorities sent to jails asking to be notified before an illegal immigrant charged and/or convicted of a crime is scheduled to be released from custody. This would allow federal agents to apprehend criminal migrants directly from jails, instead of them being released into the public to potentially reoffend.

Under Oregon's sanctuary state statute, known as the "Sanctuary Promise," local and state law enforcement are forbidden from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, including ICE detainers. The state has repeatedly released illegal immigrants charged with serious felony crimes, including murder, kidnapping, child rape, and illicit drug distribution, into the public after refusing to notify federal authorities. Many of them have reoffended.

Salem Reporter, Nearly all Oregon sheriffs support Marion County’s suit for clarity on ICE cooperation

Almost every Oregon sheriff supports a recent Marion County lawsuit which is asking a federal court to decide if the county can release information about people on parole in response to administrative subpoenas from immigration authorities. Thirty four of Oregon’s 36 county sheriffs signed a letter supporting the lawsuit against federal agencies and Gov. Tina Kotek, which asks a judge to weigh in on what the county described as conflicts between the state’s sanctuary law, public records law and federal law.

The Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association sent the letter to the county Wednesday, according to a statement from Marion County. “We agree that there is a good deal of uncertainty in how these state and federal laws apply to local governments and sheriff’s offices in the state of Oregon, including those situations where a sheriff’s office or local government is served with an administrative subpoena,” the Oregon State Sheriffs Association letter said.

Sheriffs from Multnomah and Washington counties were the only Oregon sheriffs who did not sign the letter.

Both Multnomah and Washington Counties include Portland metropolitan areas.  

That's Quite a Speeding Ticket

Rice's Whale

From Addison Smith at JTN, Biden administration considers $20,000 fine, prison for boaters who exceed 11.5 mph in Florida Gulf

President Joe Biden’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is moving a step closer to imposing a 10-knot speed limit for boats in the Florida waters of the Gulf of Mexico, with violations potentially resulting in a felony charge punishable by a $20,000 fine and up to one year in prison.

The agency closed a public comment period Thursday on a petition seeking to impose the limit.

The petition argues the speed limit will protect the endangered Rice’s whale and was submitted by a coalition of six environmental groups to NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in 2021, invoking the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The petition calls for "mandating that all boats, no matter how small, traveling in the Florida Gulf obey a 10-knot speed limit," the public interest law firm Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF) stated in a public rebuke of the petition.

Ten knots is equivalent to 11.5 miles per hour on land. For comparison, sailboats typically cruise at a speed of 8 knots, according to sailboat lifestyle writer Daniel Wade.

Now, NMFS will decide "whether to accept the petition and proceed with the suggested rulemaking," according to the Federal Register.

But on Thursday, the same day as the deadline for petition comments, SLF submitted its formal comment objecting to the proposal, saying it’s "fully prepared" to take action against it.

On top of it being "arguably illegal and unconstitutional," SLF also said the petition provides no sufficient evidence that the rule would protect the whales at all.

"The coalition cannot show that a single boat strike on Rice’s whales in the Florida gulf was ever attributable to a boat of a recreational size, and NMFS cannot deduce it based on the evidence presented," the legal group wrote in its opposition statement. "Over the last two decades, the coalition cites only two instances where Rice’s whales had evidence of a strike from a boat of any size, which isn’t the same as saying that it ever happened at all."

Nonetheless, violations of the rule would subject individuals to "up to a year of imprisonment and a fine of $20,000," according to the legal foundation.

I hadn't heard of Rice's Whale before, and what I found was kind of interesting. The whale is a new species, named in 2021, after a dead whale washed up in Florida, and it's skull was sufficiently different from Byrde's Whale, which it had been thought to be, to be named a new species.  (I kind of hope they had some genetics to back that up, but the article doesn't say so). At the time of the discovery, the whales already had a very small population, estimated at under 100, and a range believe to be limited to the Gulf of Mexico.

Now, imagine a rare variant of the Eastern Box Turtle was found somewhere near Washington D.C., and they proposed to cut traffic in and around the city (the beltway) to 10 mph to save turtle.

A Body Blow to Law Enforcement

In one of the rare posts not tearing their hair out about Donald Trump, the Washington Post tears their hair out about the loss of tax revenue as a Federal appeals court says tire-chalking by parking enforcement officers is unconstitutional 

The age-old parking enforcement practice of tire-chalking is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, saying it violated the Fourth Amendment’s bar on unreasonable searches.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in a first-of-its-kind decision, ruled that marking a car’s tires to gather information is a form of trespass requiring a warrant, similar to police attaching a GPS to a vehicle to track a suspected drug dealer.

Parking attendants across the country have been chalking tires with big white lines for decades in zones without meters to enforce of time limits and issue tickets. It’s a substantial source of revenue for many cities.

The decision, while undoubtedly bringing joy to parking scofflaws everywhere, could cost some cities money, either from lost revenue or having to install meters where none exist.

Having to do stuff without damaging some innocent person's property is so burdensome!

Of course, if this ruling stands (and I expect cities to appeal as high as they can get) it will have other financial consequences, as there are actually devices sold to mark tires for this purpose.

On the other hand, as Fourth Amendment expert Orin Kerr of the University of Southern California law school tweeted, it “seems easy enough these days for parking enforcers to just take a photo of the car, or even just a close-up photo of the tire, rather than chalk it. . . . No 4A issues then.”
. . .
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution bars “unreasonable searches.” But a U.S. District Court in Bay City, Mich., had dismissed the lawsuit, concluding that chalking, while a type of search, was not at all unreasonable.

People have a lesser expectation of privacy in their cars than, for example, in their homes, the district court ruled. Plus, the lower court said, the Supreme Court has carved out a “community caretaker” exception to warrant requirements for routine parking and traffic enforcement so police can control the hazards of clogged streets.

Surfers Paradise Meter Maids

Appeals court Judge Bernice Bouie Donald, writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, reversed.


She said traditional law on searches of vehicles had been upended by the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision restricting the powers of police to use GPS devices to track criminal suspects.

In United States v. Jones, Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said that attaching the tracking device was a form of trespass on private property by police that requires a warrant.

Donald said the chalking of Taylor’s car was just like the GPS installation, a trespass for the purpose of gathering incriminating information and therefore a Fourth Amendment violation when done without a warrant.

She dismissed the “caretaker” exception, saying that Taylor’s vehicle posed no safety risk. The city was trying to raise revenue, not “mitigate [a] public hazard,” she wrote.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Monday: #GetWokeGoBroke Edition at the ready.

A Court Case Plumbers are Following with Great Amusement

Bikini baristas appeal city ordinance issuing dress code

How much “anal cleft” is one allow to show while at work? That’s the question one Washington court is trying to answer.

A U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is reviewing an ongoing legal saga between bikini baristas and the city of Everett over the anatomical phrase “anal cleft” and whether dress codes imposed on businesses violate their civil rights.

Both sides appeared in court Monday to further argue the city’s ordinance, which was passed August 2017, that restricts what employees of “quick-service” restaurants wear by requiring that the “bottom one-half of the anal cleft” be covered, Herald Net reported.

According to the ordinance, employees who work at fast food restaurants, food trucks and coffee stands are required to wear at least a tank top and shorts while at work.


U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman approved the injunction during litigation, ruling the ordinance likely violates the bikini baristas’ First and 14th Amendment rights.

“The term ‘bottom one-half of the anal cleft’ is not well-defined or reasonably understandable, and the ordinances otherwise fail to provide clear guidance and raise risks of arbitrary enforcement. The court finds that the dress code ordinance likely violates plaintiffs’ right to free expression under the First Amendment,” Pechman wrote in the injunction order, Courthouse News reported.

Jovanna Edge, owner of Hillbilly Hotties, one of several bikini barista coffee shops involved in the suit, and attorney Melinda Ebelhar argued that the order was intentionally vague and would be too difficult to enforce.

Ebelhar claimed it would take “advanced math” to figure out whether the bottom half of the anal cleft was exposed.

U.S. Circuit Judge Morgan Christen seemed to agree, asking, “How can law enforcement determine where the bottom half is and measure it?” Courthouse News reported.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Pre-Valentine’s Day Pinups ready for action.

US Huntress Gets UK's Goat

US big game hunter who boasted of gunning down goats and stags on trip to Scottish island and posed with blooded sex toy next to dead sheep faces criminal charges

But not for breaking the game laws, but rather for breaking their rather arcane and backwards gun laws:

An American big-game hunter who boasted of gunning down local animals while visiting a Scottish island is now facing criminal charges.


Larysa Switlyk, 33, 'a world-renowned hunter' from Sarasota, Florida, was accused of 'trophy hunting' wild animals on the island of Islay, Scotland in September after she posed for a series of Instagram photos during the hunt.

Now, Police Scotland have confirmed that the hunter, who regularly posts photos of her hunts alongside her boyfriend Jason, has been reported for firearms offences, along with a 41-year-old man also from the US.

While she was pictured with slain goats, stags and sheep on Islay, hunting animals in season is not illegal in Scotland and she is facing a charge under Section 11a of the Firearms Act, which relates to how you can use borrowed shotguns legally.

See, you can't bring in your own guns, but if you borrow one, there are restrictions that make it likely you'll violate them.

Ms Switlyk drew intense criticism from politicians and celebrities after posting the photos - although many commenters mocked her for posing so proudly with a sheep.

Police Scotland added that they had received several complaints about hunting in September and the Procurator Fiscal is now investigating.

It certainly sounds like the authorities were looking for an excuse to find her guilty of something.

In one Instagram picture, blonde television presenter Ms Switlyk, dressed in camouflage gear, knelt beside the corpse of a goat while another shot saw her posing 'in sniper mode' and lying in the long grass while pointing a gun into the distance.

Other animals she hunted included stags, and in one caption she wrote: 'In awe of my Scottish Stag ~ can't wait to bring it back to the castle for the chefs to cook it up!'.

It seems to me like she has turned her passion for hunting into a decent living, one which has funded a lot of travel to interesting places. Good for her!

I would also note that fishing is among the things she excels at:

Wombat-socho has Rule 5 Monday: Michelle Dockery up at The Other McCain.

Pink's Spouse Goes Full On Vigilante

Pink and Carey Hart

Pink's husband Carey Hart threatens California wildfire looters 'will be shot on site'

Carey Hart is making it clear that he is not afraid to exercise his Second Amendment rights against looters.

While families in Malibu are busy fighting off flames, the former motocross star declared he would defend properties affected by the Woolsey Fire against thieves.

Pink's husband took to Instagram Tuesday to post a picture of a dozen gun-wielding men – dubbed the "P.D.C. Posse" – standing in front of a sign that reads, "Looters will be shot on site." Hart commented under the picture that he is not one of the masked men, adding they are "a group of locals I used to live by."

"There have been sightings of looters breaking in to homes. Well, if you are a looter, think twice if you are heading back into Malibu," Hart captioned the controversial black-and-white picture.

View this post on Instagram

It’s unfortunate that some people take advantage of others in a crisis. While the malibu fires have been burning, some locals have been fighting off and defending their property against the fires. There have been sightings of looters breaking in to homes. Well, if you are a looter, think twice if you are heading back into malibu. #DefendYourLand #2ndamendment

A post shared by Carey Hart (@hartluck) on Nov 13, 2018 at 7:47am PST

I support this, but I wonder if the other sidewalk socialists in entertainment and Hollywood do as well.

Pink is an animal-rights activist and a prominent campaigner for PETA, contributing her voice toward causes such as the protest against KFC.[148] In conjunction with PETA, she criticized the Australian wool industry over its use of mulesing. In January 2007, she stated that she had been misled by PETA about mulesing and that she had not done enough research before lending her name to the campaign.[149] Her campaigning led to a headlining concert called PAW (Party for Animals Worldwide) in Cardiff, Wales on August 21, 2007. In 2015, she posed nude for PETA's "I'd Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur", campaign.

Pink is also outspoken about LGBT rights and supports same-sex marriage.  In October 2012, Pink stated that she doesn’t define her sexuality saying, “I never felt the need to.”

Wombat-socho is back in the saddle again, with Late Night With Rule 5 Sunday: Pepper Potts.

Maryland Government for Hire

By way of Watts Up With That: Law enforcement climate schemers get exposed by TV ads

Climate Litigation Watch, a project of the public interest law firm Government Accountability & Oversight, P.C., has released new television ads running in five states, informing Marylanders, New Mexicans, Oregonians, Pennsylvanians and Virginians of recently unearthed details of their states’ attorneys general involvement in a national scheme to place privately funded special prosecutors in state AG offices to pursue issues of concern to the donor.

Each ad shows specific records obtained from each state, and cites to troubling aspects of the unprecedented arrangement, from New Mexico’s promise to use the privately funded prosecutors “to identify ‘pressure points’ on which litigation can be used to most effectively influence policy” on matters of concern to the donor — while the parties agreed to not draw media attention to their deal — to the apparent violations of state law in Oregon and Virginia.

By statute, these “Special Assistant Attorneys General” have the same authority as the AG; by agreement, they are expressly to pursue an ideological agenda, using the state’s top law enforcement office in a mercenary fashion, as a tool to investigate individuals, businesses and organizations who oppose that agenda.

The ads are based on a recent report, “Law Enforcement for Hire”, which cites to hundreds of source documents, many revealed for the first time and all obtained after more than two years of investigation, document requests and, in numerous cases, litigation. Citing to key records from each AG’s office, the exposés lay out the tie-ups between a “Center” funded by New York billionaire activist Michael Bloomberg, and various state AGs across the country. Each AG specifically requested the outside group provide attorney salaries and benefits, as well as other “services that may be available to your offices on individual matters”, including still more attorneys, and public relations advocacy, to “advance progressive…legal positions” on specific issues.

These arrangements cry out for legislative oversight of how law enforcement came to be used in this way, and how AGs could claim they had no relevant statutory professional responsibility limitations.

The ads can be seen on YouTube or ClimateLitigationWatch.org
Maryland http://climatelitigationwatch.org/video-law-enforcement-for-rent-in-maryland/
. . .

You know who else has a lot of spare money? The Kochs and Donald Trump.

Intersectional Russiagate

The lawyer for Christine Blasey Ford's "beach friend"-- the one who worked for the FBI in the office of former Schumer staffer Preet Bharara--just so happens to be the FBI official who oversaw the Clinton e-mail and Trump Russia probes. What a coincidence! https://t.co/f0z2tvntMu

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 5, 2018

Coincidence? Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action. With regard to Russiagate, we're approaching triple digits.

This is a little old, but somehow I overlooked it before. Chuck Ross, The Daily Caller: House Judiciary Subpoenas Fusion GPS Co-Founder Glenn Simpson.

The House Judiciary Committee on Friday issued a subpoena to Glenn Simpson, the co-founder of Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm that commissioned the Steele dossier on the Trump campaign.

Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the Judiciary panel’s chairman, announced the subpoena on Twitter.

As part of our joint investigation into decisions made by DOJ in 2016, today I subpoenaed Glenn Simpson to appear for a deposition.

Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, will likely face questions over his involvement in the dossier, which was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign. His hiring of Nellie Ohr, the wife of Justice Department official Nellie Ohr, is also a likely topic of discussion.

Simpson and Bruce Ohr met before and after the 2016 election to discuss dossier author Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS’s investigation into President Donald Trump’s possible ties to Russia. Simpson, who has been interviewed by three congressional committees so far, told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in November that he did not meet with Ohr until after the election.

But Ohr said in a congressional deposition on Aug. 28 that he met with Simpson in August 2016, four months before the election. 

Until Congress actually does something to people who lie to Congress, witnesses will continue to do it with impunity. I suggest stocks.

The High Cost of Law Enforcement

New Report Exposes Global Warming ‘Law Enforcement for Rent’

Deep-pocketed global warming activists have been pouring big bucks into attorneys general’s offices to pay for lawyers to advance their agenda and use the powers of the law to take actions they never could achieve alone, according to a new report.

Released Wednesday by the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), the 56-page document dubbed “Law Enforcement for Rent” paints a damning view of the cozy relationship between environmental activists and Democratic attorneys general in several states that have pulled off an end run around the democratic process — grabbing resources they have not been able to get from lawmakers.

“This is political. We have a policymaking process. They tried it and failed,” said Christopher Horner, a fellow at the think tank who wrote the report. “So their stance is, ‘It’s not working, so we’re going to use law enforcement.’”

Horner said the tactic has given environmental activists a new avenue to increase restrictions on carbon emissions after Congress rebuffed them, the Supreme Court blocked a regulatory plan then-President Barack Obama offered, and other supportive politicians lost races at the state and national levels.
. . .
The report traces the campaign to a 2012 conference in La Jolla, California, organized by a coalition of groups supported by The Rockefeller Foundation. That conference produced a document that described how to make global warming the new tobacco:

“State attorneys general can also subpoena documents, raising the possibility that a single sympathetic state attorney general might have substantial success in bringing key internal documents.”

Several attorneys general signed on.

Read the whole thing. Not Unrelated:  Judge tosses NYC lawsuit blaming oil companies for climate change

A federal judge on Thursday threw out New York City’s lawsuit against five of the world’s largest oil companies, dealing another setback to liberal jurisdictions seeking to hold the petroleum industry financially responsible for global warming.

U.S. District Court Judge John Keenan in New York dismissed the complaint against ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and ConocoPhillips seeking billions to shore up infrastructure from rising sea tides and other calamities attributed by city officials to climate change.

The judge ruled that the courtroom was not the appropriate venue for the claim.

“Climate change is a fact of life, as is not contested by defendants,” Judge Keenanwrote in a 23-page opinion. “But the serious problems caused thereby are not for the judiciary to ameliorate. Global warming and solutions thereto must be addressed by the two other branches of government.”

His comments echoed those of U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup, who threw out last month similar public-nuisance claims filed by San Francisco and Oakland, concluding that the issue was best addressed by the executive and legislative branches as well as the diplomatic community.

“Those dangers are worldwide. Their causes are worldwide. The benefits of fossil fuels are worldwide,” Judge Alsup said in his ruling. “The problem deserves a solution on a more vast scale than can be supplied by a district judge or jury in a public nuisance case.”

And it's not only climate:  New York Governor Andrew Cuomo halted an investigation into the Manhattan DA’s handling of the Harvey Weinstein case just as the law firm representing the Hollywood producer gave Cuomo’s campaign $25,000. H/T Instapundit.

The best law enforcement money can buy.

Growing Push Back on Energy Lawfare

I was keeping the first of these in the browser, thinking about posting it, when the next two came along:

Energy Transfer Files Federal Lawsuit Against Greenpeace International, Greenpeace Inc., Greenpeace Fund, Inc., BankTrack And Earth First! For Violation Of Federal And State Racketeering Statutes

Energy Transfer Equity, L.P. (NYSE: ETE) and Energy Transfer Partners, L.P. (NYSE: ETP) today filed a federal lawsuit in the United States District Court for the District of North Dakota against Greenpeace International, Greenpeace Inc., Greenpeace Fund, Inc., BankTrack, Earth First!, and other organizations and individuals. The Complaint, which is Index number 1:17-cv-00173, alleges that this group of co-conspirators (the “Enterprise”) manufactured and disseminated materially false and misleading information about Energy Transfer and the Dakota Access Pipeline (“DAPL”) for the purpose of fraudulently inducing donations, interfering with pipeline construction activities and damaging Energy Transfer’s critical business and financial relationships. The Complaint also alleges that the Enterprise incited, funded, and facilitated crimes and acts of terrorism to further these objectives. It further alleges claims that these actions violated federal and state racketeering statutes, defamation, and constituted defamation and tortious interference under North Dakota law.

The alleged Enterprise is comprised of rogue environmental groups and militant individuals who employ a pattern of criminal activity and a campaign of misinformation for purposes of increasing donations and advancing their political or business agendas. The Complaint describes the Enterprise’s misinformation campaign that aggressively targeted Energy Transfer’s critical business relationships, including the financing sources for DAPL and Energy Transfer’s other infrastructure projects, by publicly demanding these financial institutions sever ties with Energy Transfer or face crippling boycotts and other illegal attacks. . . 

Cabot Oil & Gas Goes on Offensive Against Fracking Nuisance Lawsuits

. . . I was pleasantly surprised when I read that Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation didn’t just go into settlement mode when a landowner named Ray Kemble and his lawyers filed a nuisance suit against the company on allegations that had already been dealt with in prior litigation involving Mr. Kemble that was settled in 2012.

The easy thing to have done with such a case would have been to offer the plaintiff a token settlement, even though the company believed the case was clearly frivolous. Instead, Cabot’s management chose to challenge what it saw as a double-dip filing, and the judge rewarded the company by dismissing the suit in a summary judgment. In normal corporate behavior, that would have been the end of things.

But Cabot’s management had, in the words of company spokesman George Stark, “grown weary of this ‘sue and settle’ racket” that it believes this case represents. So, rather than just let the matter drop, Cabot’s management chose instead to file a counter-suit against Mr. Kemble and his lawyers. “We aren’t suing a landowner,” says Stark, “We’re suing a big law firm.”

What is cheapest in the first case may not be the cheapest policy in the long run. Something about the Danes and Dane-geld.

Judicial Watch Sues for Records on Obama Administration / Environmentalists Shut Down of Dakota Access Pipeline

Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense for all records from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regarding environmentalist groups’ attempts to stop the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch vs. U.S. Department of Defense (No. 1:17-cv-01282)).

The suit was filed after the Department of Defense failed to respond to a May 8, 2017, FOIA request seeking:

All records of communication between the Army Corps of Engineers and Greenpeace, Sierra Club, EarthJustice, or Friends of the Earth regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline or the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation.
All internal Army Corps of Engineers emails or communications discussing the efforts of Greenpeace, Sierra Club, EarthJustice, Friends of the Earth, or other environmentalist groups to halt or delay construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

. . .
“Barack Obama and radical—and often violent—environmentalists worked in hand-in-glove to shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline. We’re not sure why the Trump Defense Department would hide the facts about this scandal and force us to go to federal court to enforce FOIA,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

I would like to believe this the start of trend of greater stoutheartedness on the part of energy providers and conservative NGOs against the governmental/environmental anti-energy alliance.

Reason #5614 That Trump Was Elected

The damage from Obama is even more than we thought: It's Much Worse Than We Feared

(1) Boy oh boy. Remember we said that after Obama left office, we'd find out the damage he did?

It's much worse than I imagined. pic.twitter.com/SohcTj9HcC

— Thomas Wictor (@ThomasWictor) June 30, 2017

Below the fold, I lifted the text out of the follow-up tweets to save load time. Prepare to be really depressed:

Whatever You Say, Officer!

Former dominatrix fights to keep her job as a police officer

A newly sworn-in sheriff's officer is fighting to keep her job after her department learned that she previously appeared in bondage films as a dominatrix.

Hudson County sheriff's officer Kristen Hyman is accused of conduct unbecoming a public employee and faces a disciplinary hearing June 27, The Jersey Journal reported on Thursday. The department says the videos, produced from 2010 to 2012, have sparked ridicule for it.

In the right light she could pass for Huma Abedin

The department suspended Hyman on May 26, six days before her academy graduation, saying she failed to disclose that she appeared in the films and sometimes saw clients privately for money.

Court documents show that Hyman told investigators she never appeared naked and didn't perform any sex acts in the videos.

Hyman called the videos "stupid stuff I did when I was a kid." She said that violent acts seen in some recordings, including whipping and kicking, were staged and that she was merely an actress. She also noted that she didn't use her real name.

Her stage name was "Domina Nyx" and at least she'll have some interesting stories to retell in the squad car.

In general, I'm in favor of forgiving people their stupid actions of the past, particularly younger people, who don't seem to develop mature brains before about 26. But that doesn't mean that you don't get to remind them now and then:

 Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Guns In The Desert" up and running at The Other McCain.

Boarded!

I was getting ready to take a solo run out to "Location X" for some late afternoon fishing when I ran into Dan and Jerry and Gracie (Dan's little dog) getting ready to go on Dan's 28 ft Albin diesel. I wangled an invitation, and avoided spending my own gas money. We fished a while with only a couple fish before the DNR fish cops came along side to check licenses and safety equipment.

A three person team, of two men and a woman checked the stuff, and politely asked about the fishing. Dan had all his stuff where he could get to it easily, so it didn't take much longer than 5 minutes.

A strange boat passing up the Bay. Checking Marinetraffic.com when I got home reveals it to be the Pacific Guardian, a cable ship:

Ship Type: Special Craft
Length × Breadth: 115.6 X 18.04
Speed recorded (Max / Average)15.20 / 12.10 knots
Flag: United Kingdom (GB)

Reason #5487 That Trump Was Elected

Executive branch agencies who don't want to do their jobs in a Republican administration, and their superiors who allow them to: Secret Service removes agent who didn't want to take 'a bullet' for Trump

The Secret Service will permanently remove a top special agent from her position after an investigation into her Facebook comments that she would rather not defend President Trump or take "a bullet" for him, but some agents are concerned she will simply be transferred to another government job.

About two weeks ago, the Secret Service placed the agent's prior post — the special agent in charge of the Denver District, the top job in that office — on a list of agency openings, according to two Secret Service sources.

Kerry O'Grady, the agent in question, is on administrative leave amid an internal Secret Service investigation into her Facebook comments about Trump.

Current and former Secret Service agents and officers are worried that top officials at the agency are working to shield O'Grady from being fired.

Which would be typical in the federal bureaucracy. If it can happen to a friend, it might happen to you.

They are worried that she will be transferred to another division of the Homeland Security Department and allowed to serve out her time until she can retire with a pension as the agency has done with other officials in the public crosshairs.

Like Lois Lerner, who not only retired but received bonuses after the IRS targeting of Tea Party, and the destruction of evidence.

In addition to other anti-Trump posts, on Inauguration Day, she updated her profile picture to an artist's rendering of Princess Leia with the words, "A woman's place is in the resistance."

Without a job, she won't be forced to choose whether or not to take a bullet for Trump.

Bonus: Federal judge green-lights lawsuit against San Jose for failing to protect Trump supporters outside rally

KCBS reported this week that federal judge Lucy Koh gave the green light to a lawsuit against the city by Trump supporters who allege police did nothing to protect them outside of a rally where an anti-Trump mob had gathered.
. . .
The police department also issued a statement explaining that they didn’t want to risk making the violence any worse by, you know, doing their jobs.

OH.

MY.

GOD.

Basically: "Arresting them would just make them angrier so we didn't." pic.twitter.com/FcgE8YaZen

— A.J. Delgado (@AJDelgado13) June 5, 2016

Maryland Deputy Attorney General Succumbs to Honey Trap

Maryland's married Deputy Attorney General tells all to female videographer on hidden video. He reveals Maryland state secrets to a reporter he tries to impress, including a major multi-state EPA case. He provides key information on upcoming governor’s race from a hotel bed and displays his extreme (and secret) position on the Second Amendment from a bar.

It will be interesting to see if this had legs.

Linked in Wombat-socho's "In The Mailbox: 12.07.15" over at The Other McCain.

Interpol Chief Commits Heresy

Interpol Chief: Armed Citizenry Might Be Answer To Terrorism

The secretary general of Interpol, the Europe-based international policing agency, has some near-revolutionary thoughts on what people can do to protect themselves against terrorists like the group that killed dozens of people at a Kenyan mall last month. Addressing the topic of “soft targets,” meaning gathering places that aren’t secured like government or military buildings, the official, Ronald Noble, said, “Societies have to think about how they’re going to approach the problem. One is to say we want an armed citizenry; you can see the reason for that. Another is to say the enclaves are so secure that in order to get into the soft target you’re going to have to pass through extraordinary security.”

Speaking to ABC News, the American law-enforcement veteran went further: “Ask yourself: If that was Denver, Colorado, if that was Texas, would those guys have been able to spend hours, days, shooting people randomly?” Noble said, referring to states with pro-gun traditions. “What I’m saying is it makes police around the world question their views on gun control. It makes citizens question their views on gun control. You have to ask yourself, ‘Is an armed citizenry more necessary now than it was in the past with an evolving threat of terrorism?’ This is something that has to be discussed.”

My bold. Good point. In a crowd in red areas of the United States (and some part of the blue one) a crowd the size of the Paris concert would contain scores of armed individuals. Not all would be willing or able to engage the terrorists, but certainly some would if the alternative was death, and the

In his remarks at a conference in Colombia, Noble explained that the Kenya attack indicated “an evolution in terrorism,” which will mean more attacks on soft targets and fewer attacks on secure targets (such as, in the past, the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, U.S. embassies, etc.) He also noted that Interpol would try to prevent such attacks by preventing terrorists’ movement across international borders.

Maybe we need to mandate that government agencies stay soft targets, so they have more incentive to keep the remainder of society free of terrorists.

Linked at Wombat-socho's special post-Thanksgiving food coma double-stuffed Rule 5 compendium "Rule 5 Sunday: Them Ain’t Turkeys, Them Are Ducks."

Supreme Group Gropes Its Way to a Grouper Decision

Split Supreme Court sides with fisherman in grouper-tossing case

A divided Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that prosecutors should not have used a far-reaching federal law passed in the wake of the Enron scandal to go after a Florida fisherman convicted of tossing undersized grouper off his boat.

 From a previous blog post on the subject:

"The issue is that the crew of the Miss Katie was caught with undersized fish. A marine fisheries officer wrote them a ticket and put the fish in a box that the captain was ordered to turn in when he got ashore. Rather than do this, they threw out the undersized fish and replaced them with bigger ones."

The court ruled 5 to 4 that Congress did not mean for the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which prohibits the destruction of “any document, record or tangible object” meant to impede a federal investigation, to include “all objects in the physical world.”

The decision was a blow to the government — not because of the case of fishing captain John Yates — but because prosecutors have used the “tangible object” language to go after other activities meant to cover up crimes, such as moving a corpse and painting over blood splatter.

But Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said within the confines of Sarbanes-Oxley, which was passed after Enron’s outside auditor Arthur Andersen had systematically destroyed potentially incriminating documents, tangible objects cover “only objects one can use to record or preserve information.”

In explaining the court’s decision, Ginsburg noted from the bench that the law covers “falsifying” any tangible object.

A fish was tangible the last time I touched one.

Ginsburg’s opinion was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. agreed with the outcome but filed a separate opinion.

Alito did not say exactly what he found objectionable in Ginsburg’s opinion, but agreed that three things — the “statute’s list of nouns, its list of verbs and its title” — led to the conclusion that the term tangible objects should not be stretched to include fish.

As I said when I blogged this case on it's way to the Supremes, I'm a little torn. While I think poachers should be busted, I am not in favor of overly elastic law being stretched to cover everything. The arresting authorities should have busted them on the spot, seized the fish, issued a summons and maybe escorted them to the dock. To leave them in possession of the disputed fish without making sure the charges would stick is insane.

Eric Holder Does Something Right

As they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day, unless it's a military timepiece and right only once.

Holder limits seized-asset sharing process that split billions with local, state police

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without proving that a crime occurred.

Holder’s action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs.
Since 2008, thousands of local and state police agencies have made more than 55,000 seizures of cash and property worth $3 billion under a civil asset forfeiture program at the Justice Department called Equitable Sharing.

The program has enabled local and state police to make seizures and then have them “adopted” by federal agencies, which share in the proceeds. The program allowed police departments and drug task forces to keep up to 80 percent of the proceeds of the adopted seizures, with the rest going to federal agencies.

“With this new policy, effective immediately, the Justice Department is taking an important step to prohibit federal agency adoptions of state and local seizures, except for public safety reasons,” Holder said in a statement.

So called "civil forfeitures" have become a giant business with some police agencies, who actually write the forfeit targets into the their annual budgets, and have become dependent on this money. I expect massive push back from the the states and local governments over this.

This may represent a form of overreach by the Justice Department, as this program is written into law passed by Congress. But if they're going to overreach, this is a good place to start.

I'm shocked that the Supreme Court let stand law that allows confiscation of property without proof that the property owner is guilty of a crime.

Groupers Go to the Supreme Court

Undersized Grouper Case Lands In Supreme Court

The Supremes have decided to hear a case regarding whether groupers are 'tangible articles' under the Sarbanes-Oxley law. The issue is that the crew of the Miss Katie was caught with undersized fish. A marine fisheries officer wrote them a ticket and put the fish in a box that the captain was ordered to turn in when he got ashore. Rather than do this, they threw out the undersized fish and replaced them with bigger ones.

This one, however, might need to go back

Depending on the type of grouper (and I don't know my groupers very well), the size limit for groupers is 20-22 inches. I may be going out on a limb here, but I'm going to guess the one above is long enough. (If it's Goliath Grouper, formerly a Jewfish, none can be kept, regardless of size).

Prosecutors, rather than charging them with offenses of catching undersized fish (which would have resulted in a fine and a small jail sentence), went after them under the Sarbanes-Oxley law which forbids the destruction of "any record, document, or tangible object" and which could result in a 20 year prison sentence, though the prosecutor only asked for two years on this one. Lawyers are arguing over whether "tangible object" here is something that could contain records, or whether it's any object whatsoever that might be evidence.

I'm pretty sure that groupers are "tangible objects", seeing how the girl on the right is actually touching one.

So far in comments, many of the conservative justices, including Roberts, Alito and Scalia, have expressed skepticism as to whether this would lead to overcriminalization for petty crimes and would give prosecutors undue leverage given all the things Sarbanes-Oxley can apply to. They also question whether this was intended in the law, given that "tangible object" was listed in a context including documents and records and appears to have been only contemplated in terms of servers, DVDs, or other tangible objects that might contain documents or records. Meanwhile, Kagan and Kennedy appear amenable to a more literal reading of the statute, given that groupers are in fact touchable and that makes them "tangible objects" under the ordinary meaning of those words.

I'm a little torn here. Substituting legal fish after they had been busted for keeping undersized fish seems pretty arrogant. A threat of a couple of years seems like it might make the point.

On the other hand, I'm generally opposed to the way prosecutors overcharge and then settle for lesser charges in plea bargain rather than actually take cases to trial and prove the crime. The process becomes the punishment.

Wombat-socho has the grand "Rule 5 Sunday: Wax Ecstatic" up and running at The Other McCain.