Thomas Jefferson on the separation of church and state

Via reader Greg, I read this article by Lathan Watts who’s bio states that he is “director of community relations for First Liberty Institute, a nationwide religious liberty law firm dedicated to protecting religious liberty for all.” That alone set off alarm bells in my mind because the phrase ‘religious liberty’ is now the sword brandished by those who would seek to have Christianity be everywhere in the public square. I have a similar reaction when an organization has ‘family’ or ‘values’ in its name, because that is a pretty good indicator that it is a bigoted right-wing group.
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John Oliver on immigration courts

He takes a close look at the scandalous state of the immigration court system where justice is at the bottom of their priorities. Not providing even two-year old children with legal representation is just one of the many problems.

I had no idea that there are so many daytime TV shows that feature courtroom cases for the purposes of entertainment, as he shows in the introduction.

Prosecutors need to be held accountable for their abuses

Yesterday, I wrote about the case where the Pulse nightclub shooter’s wife Noor Salman was acquitted of all charges, despite the determined efforts of prosecutors to make life as difficult as possible for her and coerce a confession. Fortunately for her, the jury overcame the ‘scary Muslim terrorist’ fear-mongering and cleared her. But as Shaun King reminds us, many people do not escape the heavy hand of prosecutors seeking conviction at all costs and gives the case of Natalie Pollard, where she took a plea deal just to avoid being badgered by the legal system.
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But can’t you see? Your prayers have not worked!

Thanks to a blog post by a skeptic in a nearby city who goes by the pseudonym Rev. El Mundo, I heard about a school district fairly close by where they used to have prayers, this time before school athletic events. Of course, they had to have known that such prayers are unconstitutional but school administrators tend to pander to the needs of the local community and hope no one notices that they are violating the constitution. They only stopped when they received a letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation to stop the prayers or face a legal challenge.
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Score another win for Satan

The Satanic Temple, in the front lines against the intrusion of Christian dogmatic beliefs into public life, has won a skirmish in the fight to defend women’s rights when they challenged the state of Missouri after they passed a law that forced women seeking abortions to listen to an ultrasound. The Temple was suing the state on behalf of a member of the Temple.
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The tilted scales of justice

Two stories in The Intercept illustrate well how skewed the justice system is in the US.

In the first case, Shaun King writes about a man, clearly inflamed and influenced by Donald Trump’s attacks on the media and in particular at CNN, who phoned in multiple deaths threats to that network.

EARLY TUESDAY MORNING, we learned that Brandon Griesemer, a 19-year-old grocery store clerk from Novi, Michigan, made at least 22 calls to CNN’s Atlanta headquarters where he not only threatened to shoot and kill employees, but used racial and ethnic slurs for both African-Americans and Jews. The calls were made two weeks ago, and Griesemer was charged last Friday.

This was not Griesemer’s first rodeo. On September 19, he was reported to have made similarly ugly calls to an Islamic center in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Brandon Griesemer is a bigot.
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This Trump legal maneuver will fail

One of the methods used by wealthy people and businesses to intimidate people and prevent them from taking action against them is to threaten them with legal action. Even if you, as an individual, are completely in the right and they are completely in the wrong, you will encounter a lot of up front costs and hassle in pressing your case, because the high-priced lawyers on the other side will make things as hard as possible for you. People like Donald Trump and Harvey Weinstein use this tactic repeatedly and, sadly, it usually works to silence critics.
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I had no idea that this law existed

A Sri Lankan friend of mine alerted me to the fact that since 1955, there has been a law on the books in that country that women were not allowed to purchase alcohol. I had no idea that such a law existed, probably because it was never enforced. That law has just been repealed.

Sri Lanka is to allow women over the age of 18 to buy alcohol legally for the first time in more than 60 years.

The government said that it was amending a 1955 law that it agreed was discriminatory against women.

The amendment to the law, announced on Wednesday, also means that women will be permitted without prior approval to work in places that sell alcohol.

Critics of the repeal warn that it might lead to more alcoholism among women. Apart from the fact that gender-based legislation is inherently problematic, this concern seems unwarranted. Although alcoholism is a problem in Sri Lanka, no one seemed to be aware of this unenforced law at all before its repeal so practically it is not going to have any effect.

How science is helping eliminate false convictions

In my post on the documentary The Thin Blue Line, I mentioned how in so many jurisdictions in the US the police, the prosecutors, and even the medical examiners offices are so determined to pin the crime on someone that they are willing to manufacture evidence or overlook or even actively suppress evidence that suggests that they might have the wrong person. Fortunately, there has been an increase in private individuals and pro bono lawyers who have taken an interest in such cases and there have been some high-profile releases of wrong incarcerated people.
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