Bill Blake @billblake2018@liberdon.com

ICE lost. This time.

https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pith-in-the-wind/article/21079153/neighbors-stop-ice-from-arresting-a-man-at-his-hermitage-home

"Mandatory labor"? The word is "slavery". Quit with the mealy-mouth, CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/29/venezuela-calls-for-mandatory-labor-in-farm-sector.html

Horror is not waiting for some monster to consume one's brain. It is abandoning one's humanity, bit by bit, so that one may keep one's job long enough to retire. https://www.propublica.org/article/a-border-patrol-agent-reveals-what-its-really-like-to-guard-migrant-children

"If one does not even know about the legacies underpinning democracy, individual freedom, and open discussion, one is not likely to miss them when they are eroded." https://quillette.com/2019/07/15/age-of-amnesia/

Buzz off, doomsayers!
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RT @reason@twitter.com
A new study shows how markets averted the "bee apocalypse." https://reason.com/2019/07/15/no-bee-apocalypse-thanks-to-free-markets/
https://twitter.com/reason/status/1150866909098852357

Your hatred of someone, or of a deed they perpetrated, does not entitle you to kill them.

Twitter appears to be almost totally overloaded, but some tweets are getting through. (Started at about 14:44 Eastern.)

The Fourth Amendment is dying a slow, lingering death.
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RT @Timberati@twitter.com
🤦‍♂️Court: It's Cool If The (Federal) Government Searches A Phone The (Local) Government Seized Illegally

Legal Issues
from the Fifth-Circuit's-bizarre-vendetta-against-the-Constitution-continues dept

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190629/20124342497/court-cool-if-federal-government-searches-phone-local-government-seized-illegally.shtml?utm_medium…
https://twitter.com/Timberati/status/1148968134570737665

This is American "justice". Not a fluke, it is how the system *works*.
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RT @amyep9@twitter.com
@BruinNinja I did once see a child entering a plea, when asked if he’d been threatened, state truthfully that a prosecutor had threatened to take him away from his mom. Totally without malice or guile. He was just telling the truth. Court made him disavow the claim before entering the plea.
https://twitter.com/amyep9/status/1148835133807583232

FB doesn't allow organizations involved in:
* Terrorist activity
* Organized hate
* Mass or serial murder
* Human trafficking
* Organized violence or criminal activity
on their site. I don't suppose they realize that that excludes most, if not all, govts. https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/dangerous_individuals_organizations

This is beyond foul: Facebook bans threats of violence UNLESS the target is...does it matter who they except???? I do not see how anyone with a moral sense can continue to use Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/communitystandards/credible_violence/

So people are finally beginning to realize that psychiatry is about as meaningful as astrology. https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2019/07/08/study-finds-psychiatric-diagnosis-to-be-scientifically-meaningless/

RT @ODonnell4NH@twitter.com
"Social Security" is the politically correct phrase for "you're not responsible enough with your own money so the organization that's $22 trillion in debt and has devalued the dollar consistently for over a century is going to manage it for you."

I've been out of it for the last few days due to some nasty and prolonged headaches, hence no tweets. Looks like a medicine side effect which seems to be lessening.

Our government now routinely commits crimes to secure convictions. It routinely commits crimes to control immigration. It routinely commits crimes in virtually every aspect of its functioning. Brandeis warned us of where that leads, and we see its beginning today. 5/5

"it invites anarchy. To declare that, in the administration of the criminal law, the end justifies the means--to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal--would bring terrible retribution." 4/5

"Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; 3/5

"Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. 2/5

I am reminded of Justice Brandeis' dissent in Olmstead v. US, which I really recommend reading--it's as if he knew where America was going. Here are his concluding words: 1/5

RT @seran72@twitter.com
@ENBrown@twitter.com "For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake."