RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://thefederalist.com/2018/11/26/john-roberts-wrong-americas-courts-obviously-politicized/
FROM AUSTRALIA—-UPFRONT FROM DOWN UNDER

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ attempt to defend the independence of the judiciary, in light of President Trump’s comments that courts are politicized, did more harm than good.

Last week, after San Francisco-based federal judge Jon Tigar blocked enforcement of the administration’s recently updated asylum regulations, President Donald Trump condemned the decision, calling Tigar an “Obama judge.” “It’s a disgrace what happens in the Ninth Circuit,” Trump complained to reporters, adding that in practically every case plaintiffs file in the Ninth Circuit “we get beaten and have to go to the Supreme Court and we win.”

Chief Justice John Roberts responded to the president’s criticism with his own: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” he said in a statement issued Wednesday by the Supreme Court. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for,” Roberts concluded, in a nod to the then-upcoming national holiday.

As is his wont, Trump took to Twitter, telling the chief justice we “do indeed have ‘Obama judges,’ and they have a much different point of view than the people who are charged with the safety of our country.” The next day Trump hit the theme again in a pair of tweets that began, “Justice Roberts can say what he wants, but the 9th Circuit is a complete & total disaster.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/monica-lewinsky-bill-clinton-told-me-to-lie-about-affair-in-sworn-affidavit/

Then-president Bill Clinton urged Monica Lewinsky to lie to investigators about their affair while under oath, Lewinsky revealed in the final episode of the new A&E docuseries The Clinton Affair.

Lewinsky, 45, described in the episode how Clinton called her at 2:30 a.m. one morning to inform her that she was on the witness list in the Paula Jones case and urged her to submit a sworn affidavit denying their affair in order to avoid being deposed.

“I was petrified. I was frantic about my family and this becoming public,” Lewinsky said through tears. “Thankfully, Bill helped me lock myself back from that and he said I could probably sign an affidavit to get out of it, and he didn’t even know if 100 percent I would be subpoenaed.”

Lewinsky, then a 24-year-old White House intern, was subpoenaed days later and, in response, reached out to Clinton’s friend, attorney Vernon Jordan, who introduced her to another attorney and Clinton associate, Frank Carter.

“Frank Carter explained to me if I’d signed an affidavit denying having had an intimate relationship with the president it might mean I wouldn’t have to be deposed in the Paula Jones case,” she said. “I did feel uncomfortable about it but I felt it was the right thing to do, ironically, right? So, the right thing to do, to break the law.”

Lewinsky then speculated that Clinton still trusted her to lie to investigators at that point because he returned from vacation on Martha’s Vineyard with a number of gifts for her.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/first-step-criminal-justice-reform-bill-whats-in-it/The bad outweighs the good.

It remains to be seen whether the lame-duck 115th Congress will debate a sweeping overhaul of our federal criminal-justice system before we adjourn for the year. You may have heard about the legislation at hand, the FIRST STEP Act. I oppose it. I urge my fellow conservatives to take the time to read and understand the bill before signing on in support of this flawed legislation.

The 103-page bill that was released the Friday before Thanksgiving has some good parts, and I don’t question the intentions of the bill’s proponents. But you may have noticed that they talk more about their intentions than about the consequences of the bill. As conservatives, we know that good intentions say little about actual consequences. And to paraphrase Thomas Sowell, intellectuals who generate ideas with good intentions rarely have to face the consequences of those ideas personally.

When proponents of the bill discuss the substance, they claim that “nothing in the FIRST STEP Act gives inmates early release.” Instead of early release, proponents say, it merely provides incentives for inmates to participate in programs. This is nothing but a euphemism. Let there be no doubt: If the bill is passed, thousands of federal offenders, including violent felons and sex offenders, will be released earlier than they would be under current law. Whatever word games the bill’s proponents use will make no difference to the future victims of these felons.

Proponents also claim that only “low-level, non-violent” offenders will benefit, and that there are adequate safeguards to protect the public. If I believed these assertions, I would support the FIRST STEP Act. But a careful reading of the bill’s text, as opposed to the talking points used to promote it, shows that violent felons are eligible for early release, and that many of the bill’s provisions go against core conservative principles.

For background, according to the Department of Justice, the Senate version of the FIRST STEP Act creates a new “time credit” system that allows federal prisoners to accrue credits by participating in “evidence-based recidivism reduction programming or productive activities.” These new credits are in addition to existing “good time” credits and are worth up to one-third of the offender’s sentence.

The first problem with this new system is that “productive activities” is defined so vaguely that, according to the Bureau of Prisons, playing softball, watching movies, or doing activities that the prisoners are already doing today will result in new time credits. The whole idea behind these incentives is that prisoners will be less likely to recidivate upon release. But if the credits are this easy to get, how will this change the behavior of serious felons?