Ohio, known as the Buckeye State, is home to bustling cities, charming small towns, and a rich history that reflects the heart of America. However, like any

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Politics Common Sense and Public Order Are Restored to America’s Cities The Ninth Circuit’s utopian jurisprudential experiment of ignoring human agency predictably ended in disaster. (Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) The Supreme Court on Friday corrected the inexplicable mistake it made in 2019, when it declined to grant certiorari (discretionary review) to overturn the atrocious decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Martin v. Boise, a case I wrote about a few years ago in The American Conservative (“Lawyers Cause Homelessness,” May/June 2022). In Martin v. Boise, the Ninth Circuit struck down—in the entire western United States—all laws and ordinances forbidding “camping” in public areas on the grounds that punishing vagrants for sleeping in parks, on sidewalks, under overpasses, etc. amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment” in violation of the Eighth Amendment because homelessness is ostensibly a status, not conduct. Unless cities provide adequate shelter beds for all vagrants seeking free lodging, the Ninth Circuit opined, bums, drunks, addicts, and the mentally ill have “no choice” except to sleep outdoors. Martin v. Boise thus provoked a tsunami of homeless encampments that overwhelmed—and despoiled—many urban areas. By preventing the enforcement of no-camping ordinances, the Ninth Circuit’s ruling contributed enormously to an explosion of the homeless population in cities from Seattle to Phoenix. Martin v. Boise was an absurd decision with sweeping—and disastrous—consequences for the 1,600 municipalities within the Ninth Circuit’s mammoth jurisdiction, which were rendered powerless to curb urban homeless encampments. Not coincidentally, the five states with the highest rates of unsheltered homeless were subject to the abomination of Martin v. Boise. It was, without exaggeration, one of the most destructive decisions issued in the past decade—one that I have ridiculed as “facially ridiculous.” Red city mayors throughout the nation, and even California’s progressive Governor Gavin Newsom, begged the Court to reverse the ruling. Fortunately, in an excellent 6–3 opinion written by Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, in another case from the Ninth Circuit, Grants Pass v. Johnson, the Supreme Court last week reversed Martin. There is no constitutional right to vagrancy, and sleeping outside is not an “involuntary” act immune from criminal prosecution, the Court held. The Eighth Amendment proscribes only the form of punishment, not the types of conduct that are subject to criminal sanction. Cities and states are free to manage homeless encampments and the accompanying crime, drug abuse, and public health consequences, as they see fit. The jurisprudential nightmare unleashed by the Ninth Circuit is over. Grants Pass v. Johnson, although overshadowed by blockbuster decisions issued the same day overruling Chevron and invalidating J6 prosecutions under Sarbanes-Oxley, is a gem. The majority opinion in Grants Pass patiently debunked the Ninth Circuit’s flawed reasoning, concluding that “the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment serves many important functions, but it does not authorize federal judges to wrest those rights and responsibilities from the American people and in their place dictate this Nation’s homelessness policy.” Federal judges do not manage America’s cities; state and local elected officials do. At the heart of Gorsuch’s opinion, and the majority’s disagreement with the three liberal justices (Sotomayor, joined by Kagan and Jackson), was the difference between two Warren Court–era precedents, Robinson v. California (1962) and Powell v. Texas (1968). Robinson, a hoary relic of the Court’s period of extravagant activism, held that a California law making it a crime to be a drug addict violated the Eighth Amendment because drug addiction—as opposed to drug use, or possession—is a status, not a volitional act. The majority pointed out that “in the 62 years since Robinson,…this Court [has not] once invoked it as authority to decline the enforcement of any criminal law, leaving the Eighth Amendment instead to perform its traditional function of addressing the punishments that follow a criminal conviction.” Yet, in Martin v. Boise, the Ninth Circuit risibly relied on (and extended) Robinson to invent its novel “constitutional right to vagrancy.” This was an error, the majority in Grants Pass concluded. Without reconsidering or overruling Robinson, the majority made it clear that the 1962 precedent was an anomaly to be narrowly limited to its unique facts. (Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, who joined the majority in Grants Pass, wrote separately to condemn Robinson on originalist grounds, arguing that it was “wrongly decided.”) The majority contrasted Robinson with another, more sensible artifact of the Warren Court’s criminal law revolution, Powell v. Texas. In Powell, the Court had declined to extend Robinson more broadly, holding that a Texas law prohibiting public drunkenness criminalized conduct, not status. Accordingly, the law did not run afoul of the Eighth Amendment.  The amazing feature of this doctrinal tutorial is that the author of the Court’s plurality opinion in Powell was Justice Thurgood Marshall, the liberal champion of civil rights who, as an advocate, argued the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education (1954). Marshall scoffed at the notion that public drunkenness could be regarded as a status: the defendant had not been convicted “for being” an “alcoholic, but for [engaging in the act of] being in public while drunk on a particular occasion,” Marshall insisted. Thus, Robinson did not apply. Accordingly, Marshall concluded, the Eighth Amendment does nothing to curtail a state’s authority to secure a conviction when “the accused has committed some act…society has an interest in preventing.”   The majority in Grants Pass rightly held that “This case is no different from Powell.” Banning sleeping in public is no different than banning public drunkenness. Both crimes entail volitional conduct, not status. Despite this simple and irrefutable logic, the three left-wing dissenters in Grants Pass wrote 30 pages of overheated nonsense defending the Ninth Circuit’s execrable decision in Martin v. Boise.  Justice Sotomayor’s paean to judicial activism begins with this drivel: “Sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime.” This is how divided the Court is in 2024. The three remaining Democrat appointees comprise a bloc of hard-left ideological zealots willing to embrace far-fetched theories that even Thurgood Marshall slapped down as silly during the heyday of “living Constitution” judicial activism during the 1960s. We thought that the Warren Court era was over, and it should be, but it lives on in the fervid rants of unhinged—and, thankfully, meaningless—dissenting opinions (albeit just two votes away from regaining control of the Court). Sotomayor and her colleagues are to the left of Governor Gavin Newsom, who praised the Court’s decision!  The conservative majority in Grants Pass provided a master class in originalist constitutional interpretation, restoring the ability of America’s cities to govern themselves. This is a victory for democracy, federalism, and common sense, and a major defeat for the National Homelessness Law Center, which spearheads litigation seeking to create a right to taxpayer-funded housing. Bravo! The post Common Sense and Public Order Are Restored to America’s Cities appeared first on The American Conservative.

Foreign Affairs Driving Change: Fast Cars and Freedom on the Ballot Biden’s EV policy sows misery at home and abroad. A few weeks ago, as I walked the near deserted streets of Odessa, Ukraine, I was struck by an incongruous scene. Though more than half of residents have fled the war’s missile strikes and nightly air-raids, vestiges of its wealthy elite’s earlier preoccupations with carbon footprints still abounded.   Among the G-Wagons, Range Rovers, and Landcruisers streaking across its cobblestones and belle-époque avenues, and just a short ways from where a Russian cruise missile exploded last week, were a conspicuous number of electric vehicles from China, the U.S., and Europe. Also last month, Ukraine’s largest electricity producer confirmed that this winter Ukrainians may face up to 20 hours a day without power, a frightening consequence of a war where energy has been weaponized. As America heads into election season and Ukraine remains under martial law with elections indefinitely suspended, Americans who love their fast cars and freedom need to reflect. Under Biden, they are also under siege. Since Biden took office, U.S. drivers have felt his contempt for combustion—gasoline prices have skyrocketed over 55 percent, car insurance payments have risen over 51 percent, car and truck leases are 46 percent more expensive, and auto repair costs are up over 40 percent. As if the nation’s 240 million licensed drivers weren’t already feeling sideswiped by inflation, hard-working Americans are now being pressured to shoulder the financial burden for the supposed global impact of our car culture. To these prophets and high priests of climate doom, the internal combustion engine and everything it represents is to be deplored. The Biden administration claims that only through the government-mandated adoption of electric vehicles (EVs)—which are both unaffordable and unwanted by most Americans—can we redeem ourselves. EV mandates are yet another way the Biden administration strips freedom and happiness from Americans and replaces them with control and futility. This November, Americans will reject this at the ballot box, choosing fast cars and freedom over fear and loathing. After four years of enforced suffering, juggling multiple part-time jobs and side hustles just to make ends meet, they have had enough. On Day One, President Trump will roll back all of Biden’s policies that are undermining America’s car culture and halting the actions that threaten 117,000 U.S. autoworker jobs. Many still recall when the American road was open, daring, and free—think Vin Diesel in his 1970 Dodge Charger from Fast and Furious. (Notably, his co-star The Rock has refused to endorse Biden this election, distancing himself from the President’s anti-auto policies.) Meanwhile, Biden, in his ’67 Stingray and Ray-Ban aviators, tries hard to cop this cool even as he wages war on the American automotive industry. The new tailpipe emissions regulations issued by Biden’s EPA in March will drastically reshape the U.S. automobile landscape in ways few Americans want. By 2032, the aim is for half to two-thirds of new cars sold to be EVs or so-called zero-emission vehicles, including hydrogen-powered ones. Meanwhile, California plans to ban gas-powered vehicle sales outright by 2035. Since their introduction, only 3 million EVs have been sold in the U.S.—just 1 percent of the country’s entire fleet of automobiles. Out of our nation’s 290 million autos, there are a mere 17,000 hydrogen vehicles on U.S. roads, all in California. Despite the absurdity of this forced transition, the underlying grift is becoming clearer. Biden promised 500,000 electric charging stations by 2030 but has spent over $7.5 billion by March to build just seven in four states. Each station, according to the Times of India, costs as much as constructing a new Taj Mahal today. Americans aren’t buying these false promises—or EVs for that matter. Over 60 percent believe EVs help address climate change “only a little” (35 percent) or not at all (26 percent). After peaking at shockingly low numbers, EV sales are now declining. In Q1 2024, EV sales fell after four years of stunted growth. Last year, Ford aimed to produce 150,000 all-electric F-150 Lightnings but managed to sell just 24,000, leading to massive losses and job cuts for U.S. workers.EVs themselves pose a danger to other drivers, even beyond the risks of automated driving systems, and are twice as likely to kill pedestrians. Most EVs weigh 20–50 percent more than gas-powered vehicles due to heavy batteries that can themselves weigh as much as a small car. You don’t need a physics degree to grasp what this implies for a collision or the added stress on roads. For example, the Hummer EV-1, ironically from a lineage long derided by the left, weighs over 9,000 pounds, including a 2,900-pound battery pack. Research sponsored by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers shows that most guardrails across thousands of miles of U.S. roadways are vastly inadequate to handle the extra force from EV collisions. Ironically, one place where demand for EV’s seems to be growing is back in wartime Ukraine, however, for reasons you might not expect.  Some of these new EV’s are being purchased with donor money, including with U.S. funds directed through the World Bank.  One program handed out 75 new Chinese-made MG4 EV’s in a joint program with Ukraine’s Ministry of Health. Also, while used EV prices in the U.S. plummet and Hertz dumps 20,000 used Teslas onto the market, Ukraine seems to be oddly stepping up as a buyer, importing 6,000 used Teslas in the first four months of 2024 alone, slightly more than its 5,000 new Chinese imports. One reason why: many of these used EV’s have been involved in accidents back home in the U.S. and while deemed unsafe and unrepairable here, are finding new life on Ukrainian roads. There is even a joke in Ukraine that EV’s are a poor man’s car and the rich only drive gasoline powered vehicles. Finally, while mandating a surge in electric vehicle production, which heavily depends on Chinese components, Biden has also imposed new tariffs on Chinese imports. These tariffs, which include substantial increases on semiconductors, lithium-ion EV batteries, and other critical minerals, will drive up costs and disrupt the market.  The Biden administration’s contradictory economic policies—imposing tariffs on Chinese imports while mandating a surge in electric vehicle production that depends on Chinese components—will wreak havoc on the U.S. auto industry. Americans—and Odessans in West Texas and Ukraine alike—want a fast car to get themselves out of this dangerous green new deal. Thankfully, for Americans and auto lovers, help is on the way. President Trump will eliminate the impractical policies and priorities of Joe Biden’s agenda, restoring sanity and freedom on the roads and in everyday life. The post Driving Change: Fast Cars and Freedom on the Ballot appeared first on The American Conservative.

Politics The VA Must Stop Working for Illegals  It is a national embarrassment that lawbreakers from abroad get better service than American veterans. (Bumble Dee via Shutterstock) For far too long, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has fallen short in its mission “To fulfill President Lincoln’s promise to care for those who have served in our nation’s military and for their families, caregivers, and survivors.” As someone who uses the VA system, I know first-hand the run-around often given to our veterans. Many veterans fight with the VA for years to get help. Some never receive it. Hung-up phones, never-ending waitlists, repeated delays of urgent treatments—veterans are familiar with the litany of neglect.  What’s worse: This poor treatment is occurring at the same time the VA has been processing medical claims for illegal immigrants.  Last December, I was shocked to read news reports uncovering the VA’s absurd arrangement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). I led a letter with 23 of my colleagues to VA Secretary McDonough. To my surprise, the secretary confirmed that VA employees do indeed work on medical claims for illegal immigrants in ICE custody. With illegal immigration at all-time highs thanks to the Biden Administration’s reckless border policies, I expect their workload is quite high these days.  VA personnel are tasked with serving claims for government-funded healthcare for an invasion of illegal immigrants, despite the longstanding issues with its claims backlog and customer service. In particular, the VA’s disability claim backlog has been a source of significant frustration in the veteran community. After several years under the Trump administration in which the VA disability claims backlog was consistently under 100,000 claims, the backlog has nearly tripled under the Biden Administration—up to 273,307 as of last week. This is an abject failure, and our veterans deserve better. Even if the VA were a well-oiled machine running ahead of schedule, I wouldn’t support diverting resources to illegals. Yet the fact that the agency already struggles to provide satisfactory care to veterans makes the contractual agreement between the VA and ICE even more troubling. Further, Congress appropriates funds to the VA to provide services to our veterans, not to illegal immigrants. Imagine how much those employees could accomplish if they put all their time and resources towards serving those who sacrificed for our country, instead of working for foreign lawbreakers. The contrast could not be starker. It is a slap in the face to our veterans and hardworking American taxpayers. I firmly believe veterans are owed an apology by our government for this alarming policy, but we must do better than apologies. We must correct course and ensure the VA stops working for illegal immigrants.  I’m glad my colleagues in the House agreed with me and approved of my amendment to the House-passed Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. My amendment ensures that no VA funds may be used to process medical claims for ICE. I am also pleased that the bill prohibited the VA from providing benefits directly to illegal aliens. It once was noncontroversial to say that VA resources are solely intended for veterans and their survivors. Today, it requires Congressional amendments to ensure the VA’s mission stays on track. The Senate must fight to ensure the final version of this bill also puts veterans over illegals. The VA exists to serve American veterans who risked their lives to protect our great country. Many sacrificed immensely and came back from deployments with life-altering physical and mental injuries requiring lifelong care. Our government promised to care for them. Meanwhile, illegal immigrants in ICE custody receive “comprehensive medical and mental health care for noncitizens from the moment they arrive at a facility,” as stated on ICE.gov. Migrants have “access to daily sick calls, 24 hour emergency care,… screening, prevention, health education, diagnosis, and treatment while in ICE custody.” With how slow-moving the VA has become, veterans are right to feel slighted by the immediate, comprehensive care illegals receive, and even question if our government prioritizes illegal immigrant care over our veterans.  It’s far past time to start providing our veterans with world-class care. Yet we keep forcing our veterans to use the same old system. I represent one of the largest veteran populations in the country in Southwest Florida. That’s why it’s an abomination that the VA hospital serving Florida’s 17th Congressional district ranks in the bottom five percent of veteran hospitals nationally.  I firmly believe veterans deserve choice when it comes to their healthcare. My priority legislation, the Veterans True Choice Act, would expand health insurance options for disabled veterans and give service-connected veterans the ability to use Tricare Select and Tricare for Life. Recent reports show that as many as 24 veterans die each day from suicide. My legislation will save lives by giving those in crisis options outside of the slow, failing VA.  Standing up for our nation’s heroes is always at the forefront of my work in Congress. After fulfilling my service obligation in the U.S. Army and deploying in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I know what our veterans experience as they return home. The absolute last thing our veterans need is to compete with illegal immigrants for VA resources, navigate bureaucratic red tape, and suffer with unsatisfactory medical care at the very agency dedicated solely to serving our heroes.  Our veterans served our country honorably, and it is high time that our government starts serving them. The post The VA Must Stop Working for Illegals appeared first on The American Conservative.

The following article, Paul: The Debate Should Be a Wake-Up Call For Americans, was first published on Conservative Firing Line. There were plenty of surprises in last week’s presidential debate. For one, Americans who rely on the mainstream media for their news learned that they had been lied to for the past three years about President Biden’s capability to do the job he was elected to do. The realization that the media has been lying … Continue reading Paul: The Debate Should Be a Wake-Up Call For Americans ...

"They're trying to be a good friend of mine." The post Who did Joni Mitchell write the song ‘Free Man in Paris’ about? first appeared on Far Out Magazine.

Most Americans like to think of the Revolutionary War in terms of taxes — after all, the refrain everyone is taught in school is “no taxation without representation.” However, like many things in history, that’s a bit of an oversimplification. At the root of the colonists’ disagreement over taxes was the problem of empire. Let’s give ourselves some context. In 1763, Britain acquired control of a large portion of southeastern Canada, including a massive strip of southern Quebec (in addition to establishing control over the Northwest Territories, Mississippi, and Alabama). That was fine — although the colonists were uncomfortable being so close to a colony swarming with Catholics — except that the war changed how Parliament and the king wanted to rule these far-off lands. (READ MORE: Biden Voters Get the Red Pill) Until the 1750s, the colonies had a lot of autonomy. Now, Britain was interested in treating them like outposts of an extended empire with very little say in how they were run. That didn’t make the colonists very happy. After all, they still thought of themselves as Englishmen. So, England sent troops in. Before a shot was fired or the Declaration of Independence was conceived, the colonists proposed a different form of empire. They wanted their own Parliament answering to King George III. Given that the British Parliament had just managed to take power away from the king, it wasn’t excited about that prospect. (READ MORE: We Must End the Democrats’ Failed Foreign Policy) But what would have happened if things hadn’t escalated and the 13 colonies had stuck it out a little longer? Would they have been able to convince Britain to adopt their vision of the Empire? Hypotheticals are a difficult thing to impose on history. But perhaps the colonies’ path to independence would have looked something like Canada’s. Britain’s French colony remained a colony for another century before finally being recognized as a distinct “dominion” with a right to self-governance on July 1, 1867, with the passage of the British North American Act. That didn’t make Canada a sovereign nation (it didn’t have control of its constitution until 1987), but it did give it the ability to muster forces to construct a national railway system. (READ MORE: How Can People Be Shocked by Biden’s Performance?) Canada’s 200-year process towards independence was likely too ponderous for the Founding Fathers — and arguably the British Parliament learned from the American experience and applied those lessons to Canada — so it’s difficult to say that the same thing would have happened in the U.S. without the Revolutionary War. There’s more than one way to end an Empire. This article originally appeared on Aubrey’s Substack, Pilgrim’s Way on July 1, 2024. The post Two Ways of Ending Empire appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.