Abolishing Civil Asset Forfeiture and Eminent Domain

According to the ACLU, “Every year, federal and state law enforcement agents seize millions of dollars from civilians during traffic stops, simply by asserting that they believe the money is connected to some illegal activity and without ever pursuing criminal charges.” Unsurprisingly, these procedures are legal and facilitated through federal and state laws, leaving police agencies to routinely abuse civil asset forfeiture schemes and greedily seize property and money for their own use. Thus, to prevent this shameless violation of individual liberties, civil asset forfeiture must be abolished; and eventually the extensive power it is derived from: eminent domain.

Although asset forfeiture regulations are mostly created at the state level, the federal government has expanded civil asset forfeiture through “The Department of Justice's Equitable Sharing Program, established in 1984, [which] pushes for local agencies to participate in joint investigations with them in exchange for receiving a share of the assets seized”. These assets are then delivered into the participating law enforcement agencies. “More than 7,000 law enforcement agencies participate in this program, and more than $2.7 billion has been shared with law enforcement agencies since 2009.”

However, the Institute for Justice, a civil liberties oriented legal group, states “80 percent of the people who have been targeted by federal civil asset forfeiture programs were never even charged with a crime.” Since the process is governed under civil, but not criminal rules, the government releases itself from the liability of the court system. Consequently, individuals who seek to obtain their property from the State are left in a tangling web of confusing civil regulations that require the assistance of a lawyer. Then, they must go through an expensive legal process that encourages the requester to quickly abandon the process. Today, the process is frequently abused and not employed against criminals as originally intended, but on innocent small business owners and individuals.

Nevertheless, Senator Rand Paul has introduced a bill called the Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration (FAIR) Act that doesn’t abolish forfeiture entirely and leaves the burden of proof to the same “beyond a reasonable doubt”. Despite these negative characteristics, the legislation would prevent law enforcement from profiting off of these practices.

Nonetheless, this solution is not enough. The ability of government to seize property for “public use” must be abolished as it allows these liberty violating schemes to progress and encourage hostility and aggressiveness among police agencies against the people.

2014: Earth’s warmest year on record

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently released its yearly State of the Climate report and its findings continue to support a global change in climate. Temperature across the globe was 1.24°F higher than the 20^th century average. Record warmth was reported all across the world, from Russia to California and South America to the Indian Ocean. But why does a one degree change in temperature matter? According to NASA, “A one-degree global change is significant because it takes a vast amount of heat to warm all the oceans, atmosphere, and land by that much…”

•     A two degree drop was enough to put Earth into an ice age,
•     A five degree drop buried North America in ice 20,000 years ago.

I cannot begin to imagine the possible scenarios surrounding an increase in temperature if a drop of two degrees affected the earth so drastically.

Of course it’s perfectly possible that the consensus is wrong and the scientific data is over (or under) estimating the climate’s sensitivity and a one degree change might be not have any effect on the earth at all and I’m writing this blog for absolutely no reason at all. But it’s a massive gamble to hope that scientists all over the world are wrong and that we won’t have our houses flipped over by a hurricane or getting our cities buried in a never ending flood. We can hope and pray for the best, but we all know best that the world NEVER gives us everything we want. (Unless you’re a freak endowed with unlimited wishes and powers beyond a puny mammal like I could ever imagine. Or you just have some INSANE luck.)

In any case, if the theory is correct, we better get our monies invested into energy efficient fuel. My proposal is to get some millionaires investing more heavily into areas where we can reduce CO2 emissions.  If the theory is right, they could be making some big profits. And if the theory is wrong, well they can just ease off their investments and lose a few hundred thousand dollars for the good of the planet.

Skepticism toward Obama's Free Tuition Community College Plan

One week ago, President Obama unveiled plans to make two years of community college free for responsible students; students who attend at least half-time, maintain a 2.5 GPA, and make comfortable progress toward completing their program. The plan also requires community colleges to “adopt promising and evidence-based institutional reforms to improve student outcomes”, Federal funding will cover three-quarters of the average cost of community college, with states contributing the rest. Overall, the program will cost nearly $60 billion over a ten year period; revenue of which President Obama has not mentioned a source. Despite this public investment, free community college tuition will exacerbate currently bloated administration levels and enrollment, low success rates, and tuition at community colleges.

             

Firstly, the program will be subsidizing an already substandard community college system. Federal data demonstrates that 31% of first-time, full-time students graduate within three years at two-year colleges. However, a large percentage of community college students are nontraditional students who may be taking remedial classes, working part-time or full-time, or who are older, which may explain this low rate. Nevertheless, what happens when these students, who will receive free-tuition if they follow the program’s conditions, drop out suddenly? Certainly, the taxpayers and government would lose billions of dollars if they subsidize poor and negligible students. 

In addition, these actions will likely increase the cost of community college tuition drastically, which is what occurred to higher education in the last 3 decades after the federal government created various grant  and loan programs to assist collegebound students. The money may exist for the programs today, but will it exist as a stable and affordable source at the prospects of higher tuition in the future?

When viewing the effects of government assistance of college students, there has been greater access to college for nearly everyone, but there have also been proven negative effects. Colleges respond to yearly increases in governmental education aid through expanding facilities, the number of administrators and staff, and other investments; all derived from increased tuition. Who pays for this tuition; students, who must borrow burdening loans to cover the enormous cost of college, and the government that created and perpetuates this problem through its subsidization of higher education. We need an end to these nearsighted subsidies or else face the devaluation of most degrees and restrictions on college access to those who will be able to pay the eventual 100k yearly tuitions.

Who is Sheldon Whitehouse?

A name we have never heard of in our life before, but a name that many environmentalists should know and support. Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island is a leading, vocal climate hawk in Congress. He has spoken on the Senate floor 82 times on climate issues and has expressed intentions to continue doing this until "serious action" is taken to confront the climate issue. He is up against the incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell though, who has stated his top priority is "to try to do whatever I can to get the EPA reined in." Whitehouse is not flinching from this challenge, he believes that because the Republicans control Congress now, they will have to take responsibility or else it will be a liability in the 2016 presidential election.

Climate hawks are making advances toward getting elected officials into office though. In 2014, a group called Climate Hawks Vote endorsed in 17 elections (mostly in Arizona and Hawaii), winning 11 of them. This group rallies voters, reaches out to environmental groups, appears at candidate events, makes calls to support climate hawks, and buys expensive TV and print ads to support climate hawks. Founder Miller,52, has defines climate hawks as "those who prioritize and speak on the climate crisis." Miller found the group in 2008 when his house in SoCal was hit by a wildfire and he decided to act on an issue that was affecting his community and his family, his children and wife. 

I was surprised when I first heard of Whitehouse because I didn't know that there was someone in the Senate speaking to all the senators, EVERY MEETING, that the climate crisis is real and should be dealt with. He has given DOZENS of speeches in his terms of office and has continuously supported his speeches with scientific DATA. Knowing that there is somebody in Congress that keeps the climate issue a live is extremely reassuring. As long as he is in office, he will continue to give his speeches and eventually (hopefully) progress will be made to help his cause, OUR cause.