Judiciocracy

By Michael P. Tremoglie

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court in February 2018 established new congressional voting districts for the citizens of the Commonwealth. Their ruling abolished the voting districts established by the legislature in 2011.

Why? The justices felt the 2011 districts were political gerrymandering and discriminated against Democrats. Of course the elected Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices are mostly Democrats.

This usurpation of a legislative function should be considered dangerous regardless of your political affiliation. It was a concern of the Founding Fathers.

Ironically, it was Elbridge Gerry, after whom the portmanteau ‘gerrymandering’ was created and who was a Massachusetts delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, who warned about judicial imposition. He voiced his concern about the "sophistry of the judges."

Federalist 78 warned that judges may exercise their will instead of their judgment in their interpretation of laws. Federalist 81 declared that allowing the judiciary to construe the law would enable it to mold its own laws.

This has occurred more and more. Federal judges have attempted to usurp executive branch authority in terrorist detainee cases and most recently in President Trump’s lawful orders to restrict those wishing to enter the United States from nations where terrorists take refuge from the law.

But judges have demonstrated over the years a desire to intercede in elections - just as was predicted in Federalist 78. In 1987, U.S. District Judge Russell Clark actually ordered a tax increase for citizens to fund a desegregation plan for Kansas City Schools. This judge ordered a 150 percent increase in property taxes in Kansas City, a 1.5 percent income tax for Kansas City and decreed that the state of Missouri was to pay the balance.

Since when did the Constitution authorize a judge to order a tax increase? Sounds a little bit like King John and the Sheriff of Nottingham.

In other cities, judges have ordered criminals released from prison for no reason other than jails being, in their opinion, "overcrowded.

Still others have reversed plebiscites. U.S. Judge Thelton Henderson issued an injunction against California Proposition 209- lawfully enacted by Californians in 1996. Henderson thought his beliefs to be superior to that of the electorate.

A panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Henderson’s ruling. Writing for the majority opinion, Judge O’Scannlain wrote, "A system which permits one judge to block with the stroke of a pen what 4,736,180 state residents voted to enact as law tests the integrity of our constitutional democracy."

Would that all judges believed that were true. But they do not. Indeed, it seems that we are moving to a judiciocracy in this country rule by judges.

Judicial activism has caused trepidation among conservatives for a while. Now the usurpation of government by the judiciary is becoming a concern on the left. Ironically liberals complained about the Supreme Court determining the last presidential election, when it was the liberals themselves who instigated the court case. Yet liberals still routinely use the courts to enact laws as California’s new flag-ban demonstrates.

Judges on both sides of the aisle need to remember that America is not a judiciacracy. Our country is a nation of the people, by the people and not just the people with the highest LSAT scores - as one judge once wisely wrote.

When the New York Times Spiked a Scandal About Obama by Michael P. Tremoglie

How ironic it is that an editor of the NY Times is willing to go to jail to illegally publish confidential tax returns of Donald Trump in the October before Election Day. Their attempt to manufacture a scandal is risible. Eight years ago they sang a different tune about a genuine scandal involving the election campaign of Barack Obama.

On March 30, 2009 I was a reporter for the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. I broke the story that day that the New York Times spiked information they had about possible illegal collusion between the Obama campaign and the activist group called ACORN. The reason the Times editors gave was that it was too close to Election Day and the story could be a “game changer.”

The story was picked up by Fox News and carried for days. Eventually the Times publisher was asked about this at a stockholders’ meeting.

Unfortunately, since the Bulletin went bankrupt in 2010 none of the stories are available on the internet. But I did save an online copy of the piece. Here it is as it was written on March 30, 2009:

'New York Times' Spiked Obama Donor Story

The Times pulled a story about Barack Obama’s campaign ties to ACORN. 
Congressional Testimony: ‘Game-Changer’ Article Would Have Connected Campaign With ACORN

By Michael P. Tremoglie, The Bulletin
Monday, March 30, 2009

 

A lawyer involved with legal action against Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) told a House Judiciary subcommittee on March 19 The New York Times had killed a story in October that would have shown a close link between ACORN, Project Vote and the Obama campaign because it would have been a “a game changer.”

Heather Heidelbaugh, who represented the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee in the lawsuit against the group, recounted for the ommittee what she had been told by a former ACORN worker who had worked in the group’s Washington, D.C. office. The former worker, Anita Moncrief, told Ms. Heidelbaugh last October, during the state committee’s litigation against ACORN, she had been a “confidential informant for several months to The New York Times reporter, Stephanie Strom.”

Ms. Moncrief had been providing Ms. Strom with information about ACORN’s election activities. Ms. Strom had written several stories based on information Ms. Moncrief had given her.

During her testimony, Ms. Heidelbaugh said Ms. Moncrief had told her The New York Times articles stopped when she revealed that the Obama presidential campaign had sent its maxed-out donor list to ACORN’s Washington, D.C. office.

Ms. Moncrief told Ms. Heidelbaugh the campaign had asked her and her boss to “reach out to the maxed-out donors and solicit donations from them for Get Out the Vote efforts to be run by ACORN.”

Ms. Heidelbaugh then told the congressional panel:

“Upon learning this information and receiving the list of donors from the Obama campaign, Ms. Strom reported to Ms. Moncrief that her editors at The New York Times wanted her to kill the story because, and I quote, “it was a game changer.”’

Ms. Moncrief made her first overture to Ms. Heidelbaugh after The New York Times allegedly spiked the story — on Oct. 21, 2008. Last fall, she testified under oath about what she had learned about ACORN from her years in its Washington, D.C. office. Although she was present at the congressional hearing, she did not testify.

U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisc., the ranking Republican on the committee, said the interactions between the Obama campaign and ACORN, as described by Ms. Moncrief, and attested to before the committee by Ms. Heidelbaugh, could possibly violate federal election law, and “ACORN has a pattern of getting in trouble for violating federal election laws.”

He also voiced criticism of The New York Times.

“If true, The New York Times is showing once again that it is a not an impartial observer of the political scene,” he said. “If they want to be a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party, they should put Barack Obama approves of this in their newspaper.”

Academicians and journalism experts expressed similar criticism of the Times.

“The New York Times keeps going over the line in every single campaign and last year was the worst, easily,” said Mal Kline of the American Journalism Center. “They would ignore real questions worth examining about Obama, the questions about Bill Ayers or about how he got his house. Then on the other side they would try to manufacture scandals.”

Mr. Kline mentioned Gov. Sarah Palin was cleared by investigators of improperly firing an Alaska State Trooper, but went unnoticed by The Times.

“How many stories about this were in The New York Times,” he asked.

“If this is true, it would not surprise me at all. The New York Times is a liberal newspaper. It is dedicated to furthering the Democratic Party,” said Dr. Paul Kengor, professor of Political Science at Grove City College. “People think The New York Times is an objective news source and it is not. It would not surprise me that if they had a news story that would have swayed the election into McCain’s favor they would not have used it.”

ACORN has issued statements claiming that Ms. Moncrief is merely a disgruntled former worker.

“None of this wild and varied list of charges has any credibility and we’re not going to spend our time on it,” said Kevin Whelan, ACORN deputy political director in a statement issued last week.

Stephanie Strom was contacted for a comment, and The New York Times’ Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications Catherine Mathis replied with an e-mail in her place.

Ms. Mathis wrote, “In response to your questions to our reporter, Stephanie Strom, we do not discuss our newsgathering and won’t comment except to say that political considerations played no role in our decisions about how to cover this story or any other story about President Obama.”

Michael P. Tremoglie can be reached at mtremoglie@thebulletin.us 

About Trump the Conservative Intelligentsia is as Ingenuous as the Liberal Intelligentsia

By Michael P. Tremoglie

When it comes to Donald Trump there is no shortage of lies printed by the mainstream media. Now one expects Democrats - especially the Democratic Party intelligentsia to believe these lies. After all, Democrats, if anything, are lemmings. But for the conservative intelligentsia to believe them is disconcerting. 

George Orwell wrote in his 1945 essay Notes on Nationalism: “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.” The American intelligentsia is giving credence to what he wrote about the British intelligentsia more than two generations ago.

Here are just two examples of the patently, incredible lying in which the media engages regarding Donald Trump. But the cream of the educated crop believe, uncritically, the reportage. I do not understand this.

Trump Kicks Crying Baby from Rally:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/donald-trump-crying-baby-kicked-out-of-rally-us-election-2016-video-watch-a7169006.html
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/02/politics/donald-trump-ashburn-virginia-crying-baby/
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/trump-kicks-out-baby-rally-226566

Melania Trump is an illegal immigrant

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/many-questions-and-few-answers-about-how-melania-trump-immigrated-to-the-us/2016/08/04/0c13cc1a-5a3f-11e6-831d-0324760ca856_story.html

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/anti-trump-group-files-request-melania-immigration-papers-article-1.2739903

This is last is particularly interesting because many are implying that Trump is a hypocrite ( liberals always love to call people hypocrites and are hypocritical when they do because they ignore their hypocrisy). They also note that Trump promoted the “birther” conspiracy theory. 

But the “birther” conspiracy theory was started by the Hillary Clinton campaign.

The Left, Donald Trump, Law and Order, and Hitler

By Michael P. Tremoglie

Last night, Tamara Holder, a liberal commentator on Fox News, characterized Donald Trump's acceptance speech as "Hitlerian." What was Holder's proof of this? Because, she said, Hitler gave speeches talking about law and order. 

If ever there was a leftist shibboleth, it is declaring someone or something as being related to Fascism or Nazism or Hitler. (Unfortunately, many on the Right have used this as well - which indicates how successful the Left has become in controlling the popular culture). 

Law and order is a bothersome concept - a huge cause of concern - for the Left. They do not like the concept of law and order because it works against their efforts to obtain power. The Left wants fear, chaos, and violence. 

So the Left tries to discredit Donald Trump and those whose feelings he represents as "Nazis." The Huffington Post and Slate.com - two uber leftist journalistic institutions - have repeated the Trump=Nazi theme ad nauseam. The height of absurdity was when Slate published an article claiming talk show host Laura Ingraham ended her RNC speech on Wednesday night with a “Nazi salute.” Another ludicrous comparison was a Huffington Post article stating that NJ Gov. Christie’s RNC speech, in which he mentioned an effort  to make it easier to fire public sector union civil service workers, is the same thing as the Nazi legislation that excluded Jews from government service.

There is no absurdity too great for the Left in their Nazi comparisons. Even purportedly mainstream media will use the Nazi parallel. I read someone tweet the other day that liberty and safety are incompatible. Another claim made in an allegedly mainstream newspaper editorial page was that Trump’s law and order campaign was unAmerican.  When claims like these are made one should know its origins are in the Leftwing propaganda machine.

The fact is the idea of law and order is supremely American. No less than one of the Founding Fathers, John Jay, who later became the first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, wrote in Federalist No. 3:

"Among the many objects to which a wise and free people find it necessary to direct their attention, that of providing for their safety seems to be the first.”

Debunking Obama’s “Persistent Racial Disparities” in Criminal Justice myth

By Michael P. Tremoglie

The left makes the argument - ad nauseum- that blacks are arrested, killed by police, etc in percentages that are higher than their percentages in the general American population. Indeed, even President Barack Obama said through a spokesperson that there are “persistent racial disparities” in the criminal justice system. But, as we shall see, some “persistent racial disparities” are more equal than others according to liberals and their Leftist leaders.

The Left - including liberal Democrats - make many fallacious statements. They are famous for their sophistries. But their sophistry of racial-disparity-proving-racism-in-the-criminal-justice-system is the most menacing.

Why? Because it is used as an excuse to be lenient for criminal behavior or it is used to claim all police are racist for acts that have no racism at all. This then leads to more crime and the people affected most by crime are the very same black communities they deceitfully claim to want to help.

Let us take the most recent controversy that begins with the killings by white police officers in Lousiana and Minnesota  on July 5 and July 6.Immediately, the media template is “white” police officers kill unarmed “black” men. But these headlines were wrong on two counts:1- One of the police officers was Hispanic and 2-Both men were armed.

The media replayed these incidents repeatedly on the news. But two weeks earlier the video of an unarmed white male shot and killed by police made barely a ripple in the news. So we know a large part of the racial disparity fallacy is propagated by newsroom editors who see nothing significant about unarmed whites being killed by police. Because of this the reportage of police shootings is racially skewed.

So Fact One that Debunks the Criminal Justice Racial Disparity Proves Racism Myth is the skewing of police shootings by the media.

Fact Two - The Washington Post, Fox News, and other media reported that blacks are more likely to be killed by police than whites. But they omit the statistics that blacks are more likely to kill police officers than whites. Why does the media, “civil libertarians,” and some academicians ignore some “persistent racial disparities” and not others?

Fact Three - According to my own research (not only am I a former police officer, I have a Master of Science degree in Criminal Justice) but according to one of the most preeminent criminology statisticians in the world, and according to a former director of the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and according to a former acting director of BJS, as well as other criminologists, the comparison of the percentage of blacks killed by police to blacks in the general population is specious. The more appropriate comparison is to compare with the percentage of blacks involved in crimes. Because otherwise it is like saying boys hit more home runs than girls.

Fact Four - Leftists/liberals will say blacks are arrested in disparately higher percentages because of racism. This is the case President Obama makes. But the fact is - which also omittted by the media and the Left - blacks comprise a disparately higher percentage of crime victims!!!

Fact Five -There are - to use President Obama’s words - “persistent racial disparities” in professional sports and in the entertainment industry. Is this a function of racism? Of course it is not.

So there you have it, five facts that debunk the Leftist/liberal argument that racial disparities are proof of racism - to reiterate:

There are “persistent racial disparities” - to use Pres. Obama’s term - of blacks:

Who kill police officers
Who are victims or crime,
Who are included in the media reportage of police shootings,
Who are included in the erroneous statistical conclusions made by untrained ignorant journalists
Who are in professional sports and the entertainment industry because it disproves the racism = racial disparity argument.

Please share with me your thoughts.

Mike

What I asked the Washington Post Reporters about their Police Shooting report

By Michael P. Tremoglie

The following is an email I sent to the Washington Post reporters who compiled the paper’s police shootings survey. It was sent to them on July 8, 2016. I did so because their report is specious.

Regarding your reportage of police shootings (http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/12/26/a-year-of-reckoning-police-fatally-shoot-nearly-1000/), I noticed that you broke it down into unarmed blacks shot by police. I have several questions:

1- You wrote, “Although black men make up only 6 percent of the U.S. population, they account for 40 percent of the unarmed men shot to death by police this year” How did you determine they were unarmed and who audited your conclusions? 

2- How did you arrive at the figure of six percent of the U.S. population? What age cohort did you use and why? 

3- What in your opinion does this prove - if indeed it is true - that blacks are 40 percent of unarmed suspects killed by police but only six percent of the population?

4- Do you also break out the percentage of Asians killed by police? If not, why not? If so, what was that percentage in relation to the general population?

5- You wrote, “ But a hugely disproportionate number — 3 in 5 — of those killed after exhibiting less threatening behavior were black or Hispanic…” What did you mean by “less threatening" and how did you define this?

6- Do you also break out the percentage of women killed by police? If not, why not? If so, what was that percentage in relation to the general population?

7- Do you also break out the race of the officers doing the killings? If not, why not? If so, what are those percentages?

8- What percentage of killings were intraracial? If you do not know why do you not know?

I look forward to receiving your replies.  

Regards,

Michael P. Tremoglie

The Washington Post’s Role in Perpetuating the Racial Hatred of Police

By Michael P. Tremoglie

A friend asked me if I had any ideas how to curb the problem between some of the black community and the police. Yes, I do have some ideas about how to curb this problem. As an introduction to my thoughts I would ask you to watch these two C-SPAN video clips of my opening remarks and a segment of the subsequent panel discussion at the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers convention last November. 

(http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4569628/opening-remarks)

(http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4593528/refute-police-vilification)

The first thing I feel is needed is to shine the light on the role of the politicians, media, academia, civil libertarians, and “activist” groups in this. They are perverting the statistics to perpetuate a racism narrative that does not exist.

For example, I had some questions about what the Washington Post’s much ballyhooed 

‘study’ of police shootings. I questioned its accuracy, methodology and conclusions. A cursory review confirmed my doubts. But I am not an expert even though I have more education, training, and experience in this matter than the Post’s reporters.

So I consulted with two expert criminal justice statisticians about the Post’s reportage of their police shooting findings. It was important to do so since the Post’s conclusions were uncritically reported by every major news outlet - conservative and liberal ( CNN, Fox News, Fox Business, MSNBC, CNBC etc).

One of my sources is Prof. Richard Berk. He is a world renown criminologist and statistician at the University of Pennsylvania. Another is Prof. Larry Greenfeld, who was the Director of the Dept of Justice Bureau Criminal Justice statistics - and famous for being fired by the Bush administration. 

Both of these highly regarded criminologist statisticians said - without qualification - that the conclusion the Post published that blacks are six times more likely to be shot by police officers than whites is totally inaccurate. The Post, they all said independently of one another, omitted a very important variable. Blacks have more interaction with police than whites because of the amount of crime that occurs in the black community (e.g.  Blacks constitute disparately higher percentages of crime victims than white. Blacks also kill police officers at a higher rate than whites ( but this is never mentioned).

As Prof. Greenfeld told me, "I would have looked at the numbers very differently from the Post.  As the per capita rates show (I calculated on "young" black males) these are very rare phenomena and we know that crime commission rates, for those offenses involving violence, vary by race. So it is reasonable to expect that the probability of violent confrontations with police will also vary by race.  It is not so much that what they did was wrong or right; it is, to me,  it is simply not at all persuasive.  Again, if about 40% of those arrested for violence are black is it so unexpected that 40% of those killed during violent confrontations with police are black?  That to me is the more relevant and compelling comparison.”

As Prof. Berk said, "Suppose police are as likely to mistakenly shoot an unarmed blackmale as an unarmed white male. So the shootings are race-neutral. But suppose black males commit 3 times more crimes than white males and therefore have about 3 times more police apprehensions. You expect even in this race-neutral scenario about 3 times more black males shot than white males. The proper comparison is not the proportion of black males in the population but the proportion of black males apprehended by the police. This is just the kind of error I go over when I teach elementary statistics. "

Unfortunately, my research will never be published because even in conservative circles - like the Heritage Foundation - it is considered verboten to mention high crime rates among blacks. I have been on several national and local radio talk shows. But the newspapers and even conservative think-tank blogs have prohibited publication of my work.

BTW these high crime rates are historic according to Randall Roth a crime historian professor at Ohio State University whom - like Messrs. Berk, Greenfeld, Bessette and others - I have come to know over my years of research and writing about this issue.

So this is the first thing that needs to be done to stop the hate. Ensure the media is reporting the facts. But as Prof. Berk says “the facts do not seem to matter anymore.”

Mike