The list is long so I’m doing this in two parts. The second part will follow later today.
by Elizabeth Nolan Brown, RodeAugust 5, 2024.
Extract:
The Ugly Truth website also states that there are “approximately 18,000 victims in the US.” If we take that at face value (and again, it’s questionable), it would mean that approximately 17 to 44 percent of all U.S. victims of human trafficking are located in San Diego County. Well, it’s almost like these numbers are completely made up… [italics in original]
And:
Local, national and even international media have promoted Bonta’s phrasing in their headlines. “14 Arrested at Comic-Con in Fight Against Human Trafficking,” NBC reported. “Fourteen arrests for undercover sex trafficking emerge during San Diego Comic-Con convention,” says Sky News said.
If you read a few paragraphs further in Bonta’s press releaseyou’ll see no arrest for sex trafficking or labor trafficking that are the result of this human trafficking. The fourteen people arrested were arrested for trying to pay another adult for sex. However, the other adult turned out to be an undercover police officer. [italics in original]
by Jacob Sullum, RodeAugust 7, 2024.
Extract:
“The criminal justice system has grown so expansive and encompasses so much previously innocent behavior that almost anyone can be arrested for anything,” said Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. observed in 2019. Gorsuch expands on that theme in a new book, showing how the proliferation of criminal sanctions has given prosecutors enormous power to ruin people’s lives, resulting in the near-complete replacement of jury trials with plea deals.
“Some scholars estimate the number of federal statutory crimes at more than 5,000,” Gorsuch and co-author Janie Nitze note in About ruled: The human cost of too many lawswhile “estimates suggest so at least 300,000 federal agency regulations carry criminal penalties.” The fact that neither figure is accurately known speaks volumes about the expansion of federal law.
And:
Because complying with all those laws is challenging even for experts, the rest of us cannot hope to know exactly what conduct constitutes a crime, even though “fair notice” is a basic requirement for a fair trial. Civil liberties attorney Harvey Silverglate has done just that suggested that “the average busy professional in this country” can unknowingly commit “several federal crimes” every day.
DRH note: I have read the referenced book, Three crimes a dayand I can’t find Silverglate even coming close to making that case. He came up with a catchy title, but I don’t think his book lives up to the title. Furthermore, almost every time I see the book referenced, the person referring to it claims that Silverglate is making that claim. He doesn’t. I suspect that the number of crimes per day is substantially lower than the title of the book suggests.
by Emily Ekins, Cato at FreedomAugust 7, 2024.
A recently released national survey of 2,000 Americans by YouGov from the Cato Institute found that two-thirds (66%) of Americans say global trade is good for the U.S. economy, and 58% say it has helped improve their living standards. increase. This could help explain why 63% of the public supports the United States increasing trade with other countries.
Three-quarters (75%) are concerned about tariffs raising the prices of products they buy in stores. In fact, two-thirds (66%) of Americans would be opposed to paying even $10 more for a pair of jeans because of tariffs, even if they are intended to support U.S. production of jeans.
by David J. Bier, Cato at FreedomAugust 8, 2024.
Many people wrongly believe that immigration is key to the illegal flow of fentanyl into the United States. However, proponents of this view have offered little more than speculation in support of it. New data obtained by the Cato Institute through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request calls this belief into question. The new data set shows that U.S. citizens made up 80 percent of those caught with fentanyl at border crossings at ports of entry between 2019 and 2024.
The FOIA dataset contains individual data on every person encountered by officials at U.S. ports of entry who has had fentanyl seized. Figure 1 shows the citizenship of individuals arrested with fentanyl from fiscal year 2019 to 2024, as of June. Overall, the data set shows that of the 9,473 individuals associated with a fentanyl attack, 7,598 were U.S. citizens (80.2 percent).