Justice and the Judiciary
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The Citizens Policy Foundation is committed to reforming our criminal justice system and ending mass incarceration. Something is profoundly wrong when almost a quarter of the world’s prison population is in the United States, even though our country has less than five percent of the world’s population. We will reform mandatory minimum sentences and close private prisons and detention centers.
We will rebuild the bonds of trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. Across the country, there are police officers inspiring trust and confidence, honorably doing their duty, deploying creative and effective strategies, and demonstrating that it is possible to prevent crime without relying on unnecessary force.
We will assist states in providing a system of public defense that is adequately resourced and meets American Bar Association standards. Instead of investing in more jails, we need to invest more in jobs and education. We will assist to remove barriers to help formerly incarcerated individuals successfully re-enter society by “banning the box,” expanding reentry programs, and restoring voting rights.
Conservative groups have lined up in federal courts to make nearly identical parental rights arguments in other cases. In one appeal that has been pending at the Supreme Court for months, a group of Wisconsin parents say their school district is violating parental rights by hiding transgender support plans – allowing students to change their pronouns and bathroom use without informing parents. Anti-abortion groups, meanwhile, have for years argued that parents must have a say in a minor’s decision to end a pregnancy.
Justices Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan.
Related article
‘We enjoy this sometimes’: The rhetorical battle between Justices Alito and Kagan at the Supreme Court
Twenty-six GOP-led states – including Tennessee – have enacted bans on at least some form of gender-affirming care. But a few Republicans are bucking their party by focusing on the question of whether parents have a right, grounded in the 14th Amendment, to direct the medical care of their children.
“It’s a bit of a reckoning for the Republican Party,” said Alex Lundry, who worked on Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign and who signed a brief in the Tennessee case, along with dozens of current and former GOP elected officials and aides, opposing the state law. “You certainly have a lot of people on the right calling for more parental rights, particularly in the realm of education.”
Also signing the brief were Republican state lawmakers in Iowa, Kentucky and Missouri; a former spokesperson for the Republican National Committee; and a former chief of staff to the late Sen. John McCain.
Brian Burgess, an appellate lawyer at the firm Goodwin Procter who helped write the brief, said that while transgender care has become “ideologically charged,” there is a traditional conservative view toward medical decisions being a “judgment for families.”
In another brief supporting the Biden administration, a group of law professors focus on the historic practice of families directing medical care for their children, citing the then-controversial decision some made to inoculate their children against smallpox in 18th century colonial America.
That brief, which is intended to appeal to the conservative justices’ focus on history, is signed by Steven Calabresi, a conservative law professor at Northwestern University.
Yale Law professor William Eskridge, who co-authored the brief, described the Tennessee case as a “put up or shut up” moment for the court’s emphasis on history.
“If you want to be a historical-focused court,” Eskridge said, “look at the history.”
Parental rights not absolute
Trump January 6th Indictment
Key revelations, groundbreaking strategies and notable omissions in the new Trump indictment
Here’s what we learned about special counsel Jack Smith’s new case.
The newest indictment against Donald Trump contains one of the gravest charges any citizen, let alone a former president, could face: undermining American democracy through a concerted effort to overturn the results of a presidential election.
https://mailchi.mp/citizenspolicyfoundation.org/donald-trumps-january-6-indictment-six-key-takeaways?fbclid=IwAR3v2qqNSns0cHC6rf-vUnSn_hMBCDyHWpUoifjuCi72vCNflcuOBqfiICA
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a Texas law that bars large social media companies from banning or censoring users based on “viewpoint,” siding with two technology industry groups that have argued that the Republican-backed measure would turn platforms into “havens of the vilest expression imaginable.”
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-supreme-court-blocks-texas-law-restraining-social-media-companies-2022-05-31/
With a crisis rocking Europe, the left is shelving demands for defense cuts and a swift end to fossil fuels, while on the right, Trump-era foreign policy and criticism of Ukraine are fading. plsHelpUkraine03202216
The Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the Biden administration’s rule requiring most workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19 or be regularly tested for the disease. It allowed another, narrower rule requiring health providers that accept Medicare and Medicaid funds to be vaccinated, to stand. https://www.vox.com/2021/12/22/22848155/supreme-court-vaccine-mandate-osha-cms-covid-joe-biden
Merrick Garland enter DOJ with cheering crowds. https://youtu.be/DTvHTZEjIaI
Fun fact: the effect of mass incarceration on the actual crime rate is effectively ZERO. Exposing the use of Private Prisons. Abuse by the Justice Department
https://youtu.be/gX2R0b_mqrQ?list=PLuKg-WhduhkksJoqkj9aJEnN7v0mx8yxC
Civil Rights are not just abstract principles. They represent nothing less than our ability to provide for ourselves and our families and to live free from discrimination or persecution. For decades, Progressive Americans have fought for these values, working to ensure that all Americans have the opportunity to fully participate in our society—to live in a place where there are no second-class citizens, where each of us can go about our lives without fear of discrimination.
Civil Rights are not just abstract principles. They represent nothing less than our ability to provide for ourselves and our families and to live free from discrimination or persecution. For decades, Progressive Americans have fought for these values, working to ensure that all Americans have the opportunity to fully participate in our society—to live in a place where there are no second-class citizens, where each of us can go about our lives without fear of discrimination.