We recently discussed the case of University of North Carolina law student Sagar Sharma, a student of color, who faced a recall election as the first-year class co-president. The recall was based on Sharma stating that he did not consider an argument between two fellow students to be racist. Sharma ultimately prevailed in the recall challenge 74-60. Now there has been an equally disturbing development. Sharma decided to run for 2L Class President but yesterday was disqualified on the basis that he “disparaged” another candidate and ran prematurely for the position under the election rules. The charges are connected to the prior controversy and raise serious free speech and retaliatory concerns at the law school.
Sharma was targeted at UNC Law School because he would not agree that a recent exchange between law students involved a racial insult. Two students were arguing over privilege and colonization. One student told the other that “You are an American attending an elite law school in the 21st century. If you are looking for a good cause, you can always travel to Cameroon and fight the colonizers there.” The first student immediately objected and asked “Did you just tell me to go back to Africa?” That led to other student to clarify that he was simply responding to the point that there are still fights going on against colonization: “What? Dude what are you saying? I’m saying that people talk about colonization like it we’re [sic] all culpable for great evil. My point is that if you want to fight colonization, there are actual civil wars occurring now between natives and colonizers (like in Cameroon).”
The first student refused to accept that interpretation and declared ”Your point is racist.” That led to a complaint to the law school in a letter and accompanying petition demanding action from the law school.
Sharma became a target when he stated that he did not view the comment on Cameroon to be racist when read in the context of the conversation. That led to the campaign to recall him.
After successfully fighting the recall. Sharma decided to run in the next election cycle for 2L president. He apparently mentioned his intentions in an interview with the site Daily Wire.
In his election, Sharma was opposed by one of the organizers of the campaign against him. In this campaign statement, Sharma noted that this student made a racially insensitive remark about him that he simply wanted to join the “white boys club.” In his March 19th statement, Sharma made reference to the recent controversy and stated:
My opponent is running on a campaign of “unity and togetherness.” However, this same candidate has made concerning comments about my intention to join the“white boys club.” As an Indian-American, I am proud of my beautiful and vibrant heritage, and I would never give up my ethnicity to feel accepted by another group of people.
Being a lawyer requires a certain level of decorum and professionalism within the institutional setting. There is no room for insults and anger. One must be willing and able to hear diverse viewpoints and assess situations pragmatically. Being a leader of law students requires these same traits. I have done everything in my power to embody these principles this year, and I will continue to do so as your 2L Class President.
Sharma was then informed that he was subject to charges for violating the student government bylaws. The charging notice cited two provisions. First is SBA By-Law 11.2 entitled “Lie about or disparage another candidate.” The second is SBA By-Law 11.3 entitled “Campaign prior to or after the designated campaign period.” The student government then states in a conclusory manner that Sharma was found guilty on both charges and disqualified. The letter however fails to address obvious defenses to the charges.
On By-Law 11.2, Sharma posted the specific attack of the students about his desire to “join the white boy’s club.” It is a racially insensitive and insulting comment in its own right. It is clearly not a “lie” unless Sharma manufactured the screenshot, which is not alleged. So the question is whether it is disparaging. The problem with such a rule is that it is hopelessly subjective and vague. In a real first amendment case, a court would have little patience with such a standard as a limitation on free speech. According to Merriam Webster that transitive verb can mean to “depreciate” or “speak slightingly about” or “to lower in rank or reputation.” Any political campaign will involve statements of comparison that could satisfy such a definition. That allows for selective prosecution and speech regulation.
Moreover, if a candidate has used racial slurs or insults, it is likely to be a matter of concern in the campaign. Presumably, if Sharma had used racist arguments or terms in the earlier controversy, it would have been legitimately raised as relevant to his qualifications. Indeed, to use a litigation term, his opponent could be viewed as “opening the door” to such rebuttal by raising the theme of unity in the aftermath of the controversy when Sharma believes that she helped fuel of a campaign of disunity.
The letter simply states that “We find that the comments were used to “lower in rank and reputation” your opponent. The letter offers no clue on how such lines are drawn — a dangerous ambiguous for free speech.
On SBA By-Law 11.3, there is only a single conclusory line: “The committee further finds you in violation of 11.3 due to your communications with the Daily Wire about your intentions to run for SBA 2L Class President and statement do fall outside the designated campaign period.”
Again, there is no indication of how the student government is defining critical terms. Stating that you are going to run for an office does not constitute a campaign for most people. Sharma was the subject of a national controversy and was speaking with the press. This sanction would discourage students from going to the media to expose abuses from racist commentary to anti-free speech measures. Moreover, if acknowledging an intent to run for another office is “premature campaigning,” it would mean that any oral or written publication of that intent would be a violation. It would mean that his opponents could be disqualified for emails or texts informing others that they will be running.
One obvious interpretation of this rule is it prohibits the posting or distributing of campaign material or holding campaign events. Clearly students will be telling others of their intention to run for office and lining up supporters in anticipation of such campaigns. Indeed, on the first day of the campaigning season, posters do not just magically and spontaneously appear. They are printed and distributed by prior arrangement of the student and any supporters.
The use of such ill-defined terms to disqualify Sharma after the recent controversy is deeply concerning. These vague provisions defy an intelligible notice for students on what is prohibited and what is allowed in these circumstances. The Supreme Court has long opposed such vague terms as the basis for sanctions not only as a free speech matter but a matter of due process. For example, in reviewing a criminal law (which is admittedly raises a more heightened concern), the Court in Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391 (1926) stated:
[T]he terms of a penal statute […] must be sufficiently explicit to inform those who are subject to it what conduct on their part will render them liable to its penalties… and a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application violates the first essential of due process of law.
While this is clearly not a penal statute, the concern is equally present that the standards do not allow people of common intelligence to clearly discern where the line is drawn between prohibited and permissible conduct. The use of such vague terms in the aftermath of the earlier controversy raises the specter of retaliation and arbitrary or selective enforcement.
A review of the by-laws for the UNC Law School only magnifies these concerns. It turns out that the prohibitions are just stated and not defined. What is also curious is the interplay of the provisions. For example, section 11.1 prohibits the “bring[ing of] false or malicious charges against another candidate or party.” That would suggest that you are only prohibited from false or malicious charges, not any charges. Here Sharma is alleging that his opponent made racially insensitive remarks. He is not charged with lying about such comments and there was no finding on racially insensitive character of his opponent’s remarks. So how do sections 11.1 and 11.2 relate to each other? If you are allowed to make charges in the campaign, then such charges will necessarily be “disparaging” on some level.
This may be case for applying a type of avoidance canon. The avoidance canon in judicial opinions applies “[w]here an otherwise acceptable construction of a statute would raise serious constitutional problems, the Court will construe the statute to avoid such problems unless such a construction is plainly contrary to the intent of Congress.” Edward J. DeBartolo Corp. v. Fla. Gulf Coast Bldg. & Constr. Trades Council, 485 U.S. 568, 575 (1988). There is narrower interpretation possible in this controversy under a type of ejusdem generis construction (“of the same kinds, class, or nature”). Section 11.2’s meaning could be read in light of both operative terms “lie about or disparage” to mean an attack without basis or legitimate cause. You can clearly make a charge against an opponent in a campaign. The school would presumably allow a candidate to point out that an opponent was previously removed for stealing money from the student recreation account. That would to be a “false or malicious charge” under Section 11.1 and thus not prohibited. It is certainly disparaging but it is not false.
Absent such a saving interpretation, the UNC rules are lost to an absurd overreach or vagueness. It would bar any allegations of personal or official wrongdoing in the history of a candidate. A student could be a raving lunatic or racist or proven thief of student funds. Yet, under this expansive reading, an opponent could not reference any of those disqualifying elements. You could be running against (a recently released) Bernie Madoff for class treasurer but not be able to refer to his history of Ponzi schemes and self-dealing. You could only discuss your disagreement over what bars might be chosen for Thirsty Thursday events.
In some ways, this disqualification is more serious than the earlier effort to recall Sharma. This is an official decision of the student body to remove a student from the ballot. As a law school, UNC should be particularly demanding in the protection of free speech and due process in such controversies. This action seems not just casual but virtually conversational in the basis for the sanction.
As future lawyers, the UNC student body should strive for a more credible and fair process, particularly in light of these serious free speech and due process concerns.
For months I have been saying that masks have limited value as protection against Covid. Now we can skip studies and look at what happened in reality:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/03/do-masks-work-3.php
States with a mask mandate: 13.0 deaths per 10,000 population.
States with no mask mandate: 12.6 deaths per 10,000 population.
Similar outcomes with strict lock downs.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9373439/Gov-Ron-DeSantis-says-Florida-got-right-no-lockdown-COVID-approach.html
Does anyone know who Steven Amenhauser is? I didn’t think so.
He was a white male, 53-years-old.
He was set on fire by two black teens (ages 16 and 14)—who doused Steven in a flammable liquid—and murdered in this “brutal and vicious crime.”
Were America REALLY a “white supremacist” country, where white privilege was found around every corner and under every rock (permeating the air we breath), with systemic racism, structural inequality and implicit bias guiding our every decision, the name Steven Amenhauser would be on every tongue, spoken solemnly by every child.
Not George Floyd.
RIP Steven.
SAVAGE HEINOUS BRUTALITY
Murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom
On Saturday, January 6, 2007, Christian and Newsom planned to go out for dinner together and then attend a friend’s party. That afternoon, Christian went to a friend’s apartment to get ready. At around 8:00 pm, Christian’s friend went to the party and Christian stayed behind and waited for Newsom to pick her up. Newsom arrived and he and Christian went to the apartment complex parking lot.
The assailants observed Christian and Newsom standing close to Christian’s vehicle in an embrace.[38] They then decided to attack the couple. Both were forced into the backseat of Christian’s SUV at gunpoint, had their hands tied behind their backs, and were taken to Davidson’s house at 2316 Chipman Street.[3][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47]
Both Christian and Newsom were raped. Newsom is believed to have been raped inside Davidson’s house. According to the testimony of the Knox County Acting Medical Examiner, Newsom was sodomized with an object and raped by a minimum of one of the perpetrators.[48][49][50][51] He was then taken to a set of railroad tracks where he forced to walk barefoot to the location where he was murdered. Prosecutors believe a mangled dog leash found on a hillside leading up to the railroad tracks was used to force Newsom to walk to his death.[48] When Newsom was murdered, his hands were bound behind his back and his feet were bound together. He was blindfolded with a bandana and gagged with a sock. He wore only a shirt, t-shirt, and underwear. Newsom was shot in the back of the head, the neck, and the back. The fatal shot was fired with the muzzle of the gun against his head above his right ear and severed his brain stem. After killing Newsom, the assailants set his body on fire.[50][51][52][53][54][55]
Christian was held prisoner inside Davidson’s house, mostly in the north bedroom.[3][50][56] Prosecutors believe that Coleman held Christian captive while the male offenders were murdering Newsom.[57] After murdering Newsom, the assailants returned to Davidson’s house where they beat and repeatedly raped Christian.[41] The medical examiner testified that Christian died after hours of sexual torture, sustaining severe head injuries and suffering severe injuries to her vagina, anus, and mouth due to sexual assaults.[49][54][55][58] Her injuries were consistent with being raped with an object.[54][59] According to the medical examiner, the sexual attack Christian endured was “extreme” and “much more than a simple sexual assault.”[54] Prosecutors believe that Christian was tied to a chair and orally raped by Davidson and Cobbins.[48][49][50] Christian was also anally and vaginally raped. She was also beaten and kicked in her vagina and beaten on the head. Christian suffered extensive hemorrhaging to her head and vaginal area. Additionally, Christian suffered bruises and carpet burns on much of her body.[48][49][50][51][60][61] According to Davidson’s confession, during Christian’s captivity, she said she “didn’t want to die.”[62]
Before killing her, in an effort to remove DNA evidence, Christian’s attackers poured bleach down her throat and scrubbed her body, including her bleeding and battered genital area with it. Christian was bound in a hog-tied fashion with curtains and strips of bedding. Her face was tightly covered with a small trash bag and her body was stashed in five large trash bags.[46][54][63] Christian, who was naked except for her camisole and sweater, was tied in a fetal position and placed inside a residential waste disposal unit, and covered with sheets. The medical examiner testified at trial that there was evidence that Christian slowly suffocated to death.[46][54][64] Christian died between the afternoon of January 7 and the afternoon of January 8.[43] As Christian was suffocating to death, Davidson left to spend time with his girlfriend and gave her Christian’s personal items. Davidson also used Newsom’s cellphone and was seen wearing Newsom’s shoes.[41]
– Wiki
Arizona State Senate Orders Hand Recount of 2.1 Million Ballots from 2020 Presidential Election
https://www.theepochtimes.com/arizona-state-senate-ordering-hand-recount-of-2-1-million-ballots-for-2020-presidential-election_3742329.html?&utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&email=allan777@bellsouth.net&utm_campaign=breaking-2021-03-20-3
Thanks for the update.
I understand protecting innocents but based on how the media and certain government agencies have handled themselves one can only draw the conclusion that certain people have the power to protect themselves.
—
Judge agrees with Ghislaine Maxwell some details of case too ‘sensational and impure’ for public
The trial for the former close friend of Jeffrey Epstein is set for July 2021.
Some details in the criminal case against Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell will not made public, a federal judge in New York has ruled.
Judge Alison J. Nathan, of the district court in the Southern District of New York
https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/details-ghislaine-maxwell-case-too-sensational-and-impure-public-judge?utm_source=daily-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter
PHANTOM GUILT IS A TERRIBLE THING TO HOST
Freedom of speech, thought, religion, belief, press, publicity, assembly, segregation and every other conceivable, natural and God-given right and freedom per the 9th Amendment are those of Americans.
Please cite the Constitution wherein opinion on ancestry or “racism” is precluded.
Please cite the Constitution wherein citizens are mandated and required to accept, reject, approve, deny, marry, divorce, love or hate any or all other persons or groups.
Violence is maliciously and insidiously conflated with “racism,” or the holding of opinion on race, by communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs).
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
FREEDOM
People must adapt to the outcomes of freedom.
Freedom does not adapt to people, dictatorship does.
“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable, when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away, when far away; we must make him believe we are near.” SUN TZU, The Art of War
Houston was beaten and spent. He halted at the Sabine River. Santana calculated Houston’s fatigue, halted and rested in preparation for the concluding act. The exhausted Houston immediately and preemptively counter-attacked and slaughtered the reposing Mexicans, driving their bloody remnants into the marsh and Peggy Lake. The killing lasted for hours. 650 Mexican soldiers were killed and 300 captured. Eleven Texians died, with 30 others, including Houston, wounded – 650 : 30.
“Remember the Alamo!”
America is invaded and its elections stolen by communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs).
Where is Sam Houston when you need him?
Where is George Washington when you need him?
________________________________________
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
– Declaration of Independence, 1776
Off topic. Massage shop killer in Atlanta. What were they doing for him in those shops in prior visits? Hand jobs? All the yak on the news ignores the reason for the “shops”. Whorehouse also?
Chapel Hill is one of the most Un-American Anti Constitutional racist schools in the country. Why are we wasting tax payer money on them? Because the present administration is also Un Amerian,Anti-Constitutional and Racist No doubt they are aso bigots and support victimizers of women. How do I know that? They voted Socialist did they not? Case closed. . .
Well we are losing the battle apparently. The question is whether men who support civilization and rule of law are prepared to survive in the world that these little heathens are in the process of inventing. The idea that they are in law school and carry on with no correction from those in charge bodes ill. They have the qualifying characteristics of “an abomination that causes desolation” as the end of the rule of law will be quite desolate. I believe that the professor does not hunt, I wonder if he knows enough to own guns.
The billionaires want it this way. The main laws we should be contemplating now are how to rectify their immense power of us that feeds these petty divisions.
With the fangs kicked out of the mouth of the globalist rattlesnakes, a lot of supposed problems would evaporate
Sal Sar
Sal, I tend to agree with hefty bits of what you’re saying here although choose to disregard the thoughts on globalism because it’s here to stay…, but why the turn this way after your previous support of trump who one hundred percent represented the billionaire class, took their input on how to govern because of his inexperience with governing, etc?
EB
Bug, globalism may not go away, but it has serious demographic challenges and will decline significantly. The billionaire class is wedded to globalism because exploiting cheap foreign labor is what made them billionaires. They are committed to the lie. Both Wall Street and Silicon Valley think Beijing will make them richer.
The irony is that within the next ten to twenty years, China and India will be competing against Silicon Valley directly and probably won’t be making cheap labor available to them. The big proponents of globalism today may be screaming for protectionism tomorrow. These things always go in cycles. The question is, does the current cycle support political stability or does the cycle damage it? Up to 2000, globalism was a net positive for America, but since then, Globalism has not been good for American stability at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIHyuGnlTPE&t=969s
back from 2012. she runs it down. check it out. smart
Never heard of Agenda 21 before. This is chilling.
Why would a law firm or other legal employer ever consider hiring a current UNC law graduate (other than perhaps Sharma)? Imagine the kind of disruption that these snow flakes would cause in a firm environment or in a public law office. I hire law clerks every year but after reading this I would definitely not consider hiring a UNC law graduate.
BIGLAW serves global capital. Which is controlled by billinoaires. Sagar has shown himself ‘politically unreliable” and so no talent of his is equal to the potential trouble he could cause the billionaires. Government employment is much the same.
He will be stuck working in a small law firm or solo now. Sal Sar
Of course Turley would write about this one disqualified student from running for a office, but crickets when it comes to hundreds or millions being disqualified and restricted from voting in their own state.
No legitimate voter has been disqualified from voting in their state. Why do racists lie this way?
Millions? Oh come now, who told you that
There you go again mixing apples and fishwings again….. typical bellicose distractor. Sinc eyou can not refute the point of the article you just parrot out something totally irrelevant as usual. Such a good little apparatchik you are…polly want a cracker ?.
“millions”
I hope no one calls on you to take care of their finances. Your ability with numbers lacks reason.
Fishwings carps just for the halibut, but his logic flounders.
Yesterday I heard a word on Tucker Carlson’s show never heard before, (BAIZHU). The Chinese use this word to describe the American Left. Looking a Wikipedia for meaning it fits the Left/Democrats perfectly, “Baizuo is a Chinese neologism and political epithet used to refer to Western leftist ideologies primarily espoused by white people. Baizuo is literally a sarcastic reference to those whose political opinions are perceived as being guided by emotions or a hypocritical show of selflessness and empathy.” This is descriptive enough and required no further comment.
I watched that too and laughed my arse off !. It fits now…lord darth baizuo biden of china. So baizou biden it is. !.
🙂
ABOUT TIME: https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/03/president-of-u-texas-at-austin-there-is-no-higher-education-without-free-speech
New University of Texas president stands strong for free speech.
The VINDICTIVE RACISM HYSTERIA today is much the same as the red scare of the 50’s and the nursery-school panics of the 80’s. The Atlanta shooting is just one more episode of the media trying to scapegoat white men solely for sex trafficking and crimes against Asians.
Now the trolls will tell you men of color rarely–if ever–assault Asians, and the trolls will tell you that no Asian woman ever wanted to be a sex worker and that men of color never coerced them or partook of their services. The trolls will link you to endless reams of factoids offered by their favorite fake-fact checkers that prove conclusively only white man are responsible for all of this.
ANYBODY WHO CLAIMS WHITE MEN ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL OF THIS IS A D***ED RACIST.
It occurs to me that the real purpose of the media with regard to the Atlanta shooting is to make Asians hate whites and build that Democrat coalition.
How about this for reporting instead: whenever an Asian is mugged or robbed, just ask the victim, “Did it look like a Democrat or a Republican who mugged you?”
“How about this for reporting instead: whenever an Asian is mugged or robbed, just ask the victim, “Did it look like a Democrat or a Republican who mugged you?””
***
Usually black.
However, the LA times is now saying the Atlanta shooting is an attack on sex workers which, oddly for the LA Times, is probably true.
Somebody will get fired for letting the truth slip out.
This article Is TRUTH. Sal
https://reason.com/2020/02/02/massage-parlor-panic/
Massage Parlor Panic
A potent combination of puritanism, racism, and political opportunism is putting Asian masseuses and the people who support them in needless danger.
ELIZABETH NOLAN BROWN | FROM THE MARCH 2020 ISSUE
featuremassageparlorpanic
(Illustration: Joanna Andreasson. Photo: Rafael Ben-Ari/123rf)
The website Rubmaps describes itself as being devoted to “erotic massage parlor reviews & happy endings.” Users who pay for membership can write and read reviews of massage parlors. Some reviews are predictably racy, and some are, perhaps surprisingly, more PG-rated. The site lets clients know what to expect from massage parlors—and also what not to expect, offering clarity about which services are on offer and guidance about how to behave.
Increasingly, however, it also serves another purpose. Police have begun monitoring the site on the theory that, as a 2016 article in the magazine Prosecutor’s Brief asserted, a good Rubmaps review “indicates that the location is a brothel.” And when police and prosecutors take an interest, so do politicians.
Rubmaps entered the Congressional Record in March 2015, when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D–Calif.) was speaking about the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act. Feinstein cited Rubmaps as one of 19 sites that supposedly “act[ed] as purveyors of child sex trafficking in this country.” Those sites, she said, “ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
It was Feinstein who should have been ashamed. During her extensive remarks, she offered no solid evidence that these sites were in fact facilitating child sex trafficking. Yet her push to shutter them played directly into a social panic that has been building into a legal crusade against sex work and the web platforms that enable it. Within a few years, Rubmaps—then one of the lesser-known sites Feinstein mentioned—would become a key target in this dubious fight, aided by America’s long history of discriminatory opposition to massage businesses operated and staffed primarily by Asian immigrants.
People who coerce or force others into prostitution do exist, and violence against those involved in prostitution happens. Law enforcement should absolutely take these horrors seriously—especially if minors are involved. Yet government estimates of the prevalence of sex trafficking have tended to be wildly inflated and plagued with “methodological weaknesses, gaps in data, and numerical discrepancies,” as the Government Accountability Office put it. Known cases in the United States remain incredibly rare.
In 2015, for instance, U.S. attorneys received information on about 750 people suspected of either “peonage, slavery, forced labor or sex trafficking,” according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Yet they ultimately filed charges in just 395 of these cases.
Perhaps because of the scarcity of bona fide trafficking cases and disproportionate public interest in the topic, law enforcement agencies frequently go on fishing expeditions, searching for needles in a haystack and then arresting anyone in the vicinity of the barn.
The Wall Street Journal reported in September that agencies including the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department are investigating Rubmaps and two similar websites. Opponents argue these sites facilitate the sexual exploitation of girls and women. But authorities rarely turn up the horrific crimes they say they’re rooting out. Instead, the people most harmed by the attention from law enforcement are the ones cops and advocates claim they’re out to save.
Everybody Except Teachers Unions Loves the CDC’s Revised School Distancing Guidelines
Rubmaps’ emergence as a digital boogeyman corresponds with a nationwide legal assault on Asian massage parlors and the women who work at or own them. Recent high-profile examples—including the Palm Beach, Florida, investigation that ensnared New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and the Queens, New York, raid that led to the death of Chinese immigrant Yang Song—highlight a wider phenomenon that plays out around the country on a weekly basis, a carceral charade in which the twisted “help” offered to “exploited” women includes jail, seized assets, and deportation.
These raids, which often overlap with America’s escalating crackdowns on unauthorized immigrants, frequently involve Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and FBI agents. Federal law enforcement officials are being enlisted, in other words, to round up women for giving unapproved hand jobs or offering ordinary back and foot massages without the right paperwork.
In a throwback to shameful earlier episodes in U.S. history, these workers—mostly middle-aged Asian immigrant women—are treated as victims long enough to get authorities in the door and then as criminals once law enforcement officials are done playing hero to the press.
Once Upon a Time in Florida
The sting that nabbed Robert Kraft, the CEO of the Kraft Group and owner of the Patriots, on solicitation charges in February 2019 was a perfect storm of sex trafficking panic, xenophobia, prosecutorial showboating, and prurient interest. The bust was part of a monthslong investigation into massage parlors in and around Palm Beach County, Florida. Local police and prosecutors initially heralded it as part of a “human trafficking investigation” that would rescue victims and send a message to the men who patronized them. But it ultimately yielded no human trafficking charges, and the “rescued” women faced more severe criminal penalties than did their clients.
The inability to identify any trafficking victims is especially striking given that law enforcement used every tool at their disposal to get the answer they wanted. In June, the Associated Press reported that Martin County sheriff’s detectives told one masseuse detained in the raid that she would be given an apartment and allowed to bring her children to the United States from overseas so long as she testified that she had been trafficked.
Nonetheless, the woman repeatedly insisted she wasn’t forced into sex work. She was doing it to support relatives in China, she said, even as police kept pressuring her to change her story. Eventually she agreed merely to not deny to law enforcement that she was trafficked—but not to say she had been, either—and they let her go.
As part of the investigation, police and Homeland Security agents had staked out several local businesses for months, made multiple undercover visits, tailed workers running errands, and used a “sneak and peek” warrant to secretly install security cameras in massage rooms. Two of the women arrested, more than a dozen of the men (including Kraft), and a host of regular massage patrons who were filmed naked as part of police surveillance are suing over the footage.
The men who were picked up received misdemeanor solicitation charges. That doesn’t mean they got off scot-free: Even a minor run-in with the criminal justice system can be disruptive and costly, not to mention the reputational damage that comes from having your name in the papers as part of an alleged “human trafficking bust.” For his part, Kraft was soon back to having dinner beside President Donald Trump and partying in the Hamptons with Hollywood celebrities. But most of the men arrested were not wealthy public figures.
Massage parlor workers and managers faced much worse, including jail time, seized assets, and sometimes multiple felony charges, despite an utter lack of evidence of any nonconsensual activity.
Eight women were accused of participating in a “prostitution enterprise” as well as engaging in prostitution themselves. Others were indicted on allegations of deriving support from the proceeds of prostitution, procuring for prostitution, unlawful transport for prostitution, or keeping a house of ill fame.
Money laundering, racketeering, and conspiracy charges are common in these prosecutions, since doing anything with proceeds from prostitution can qualify. Applying such charges to sex workers who band together and to sex work–adjacent businesses (such as websites that permit escort ads or massage parlors where some workers engage in sex acts) gives prosecutors two things: leverage in eliciting pleas rather than taking a case to trial, and the legal room to seize financial assets.
As of the end of 2019, eight of the 11 spa staffers and associates booked in the stings in Florida’s Indian River, Martin, and Palm Beach counties had accepted plea deals after initially pleading not guilty. The one male employee who was involved pleaded guilty to unlawful transport (a misdemeanor), while seven women pleaded no contest or guilty to misdemeanor prostitution charges and sometimes no contest to other prostitution-related charges. In exchange, prosecutors dropped many of the felony counts, and most of the defendants will avoid more jail time than they have already served.
No traffickers or victims ever materialized (thankfully). In the end, police shut down some immigrant-owned businesses, put a dozen or more women out of work, prohibited some licensed masseuses who were also sex workers from doing legal massage work in the future, and that’s about it.
This is tragically typical of these operations. A 2017 crackdown in Florida, dubbed “Operation Spa,” saw police, immigration agents, and Homeland Security raiding 13 businesses they claimed were engaging in human trafficking. But according to the Fort Myers News-Press, “what transpired was little more than a massage parlor bust of several family-owned businesses.” Five women accepted racketeering-related charges, two employees pleaded guilty to “residing in a place for the purpose of prostitution,” and one woman pleaded guilty to solicitation. No one was convicted of or pleaded guilty to trafficking. Still, one of the workers was deported to China and more than half of the businesses were shut down.
A July 2019 examination by USA Today of three other Florida busts likewise concluded that “law enforcement’s tough-on-trafficking rhetoric fizzled after initial headlines.” A supposed crackdown on the unique scourge of forced labor ended up looking a lot more like a series of conventional immigration and vice raids.
Media-Driven Drama
Law enforcement operations directed at massage parlors in the name of fighting trafficking have increasingly taken the form of immigration stings that target Asian women.
For years I’ve been following the uptick in federally backed efforts to target “illicit massage parlors.” This included setting up Google Alerts for the term massage parlor, which generates an automated email anytime the search engine registers a new article on the topic. Tracking these alerts over periods of time can offer a snapshot of how such arrests are handled.
Between June 1 and September 15, 2019, a Google Alert on the phrase massage parlor yielded stories about more than 95 cases involving suspected sex trafficking and/or prostitution at massage businesses. This figure almost certainly dramatically undercounts these stings, because not every such operation makes the news, gets indexed by Google Alerts, or uses the phrase massage parlor. Still, the results were striking.
The raids went down in urban, suburban, and rural parts of 31 states across the country. But no matter the location or context, the vast majority of those arrested or charged were Asian women. Of 102 identified suspects, 76 were listed as Asian or had typically Asian names.
Of the 97 cases in which this information was given, the average age of those arrested or indicted was 49.8 years. About 80 percent of suspects were in their 40s or 50s, with just two in their 20s and none in their teens.
No one was accused of abduction, smuggling anyone into the country illegally, or running an operation involving children. Prostitution showed up most frequently—at least 47 times—when specific allegations or charges were mentioned. Nineteen cases cited a charge for some form of practicing massage without a license (a felony in some places). Other arrestees were accused of promoting prostitution (in at least 20 cases), some variation on keeping a prostitution facility (eight cases), or other charges frequently applied to sex work—such as racketeering and money laundering—even when all parties involved are consenting adults and legal residents.
Fourteen people did face some form of charge for sex trafficking or human trafficking, with nine coming from a single investigation in Massachusetts. Most of these cases, however, lack any known victims or any allegations that sex acts were coerced or forced….
Thanks, Sal. This was a very illuminating read 🙂
I might add that the most basic security measures that a massage facility could easily take– such as using a buzzer to admit customers one by one– are almost university FORBIDDEN by local zoning codes that are promulgated by powers-that-be who want to make it easier for the cops to conduct raids. See, they DONT WANT these workers to be safe!
Sponsors of such model zoning code restrictions include the “Urban Institute”
Which is another powerful NGO controlled by grants and donations from the powerful private interests aka the billionaires.
Trust me when I say, they could care less about middle aged Asian immigrants. Of course they don’t care about anybody who isn’t in the billionaire apparatchik, but not them either.
Dancing in the blood of the victims is what the newspapers always do. Surely this is being touted as an excuse for gun control too. Even though that would certainly not stop it.
I tell you the story of two Asian massage parlor workers from Flushing, New York.
One was caught in a raid by police. She was scared and went out on a ledge., She fell, she died. That was 2017. Her name was Yang Song. I suppose the police were trying to “Free her” from supposed “human trafficking.” Some help they gave her!
I tell you another. A women got chopped into little pieces by her boyfriend. Maybe it was her husband. Her husband was Asian like her. Why? Who knows why, he was a bad dude, a murderer, and they always have an excuse. I dont know her name nor the year– that one came word of mouth. I suspect the newsapers never even picked that one up. It was a homicide in NYC and sadly those crimes happen in abundance there.
I could go on and on. Here’s my points.
1. the news are liars, they are corporate owned and serve their ownership. if you want real investigative journalism you almost always have to go to a smaller corporate source. Reason has covered this issue well. Sometimes the left wing press comes out with a good investigative story too. Amidst their other dreck, i have seen a few from Mother jones that were good. But almost NEVER do you get a good unbiased investigative journalism work from the usual suspects, who are ever and always serving the billionaires as a group.
2. when anybody in America starts crying racism in the public space which is owned and controlled by billionaires, most of them time, it is all crocodile tears. They tell these stories not to help the supposed victims of racism, they tell these stories to divide and atomize and demoralize the legacy American majority, which could, and should, come together and find a way to take the group of billionaires down a notch or two before they totally destroy America. And maybe ruin the world too while they are at it.
That’s economic analysis. But let’s get even more basic here. These businesses mostly cater to men. women customers come but just like a barbershop, they are a minority.
That’s why a lot of “reporters” and “urban planners” don’t like them. They cater to men. Men bad, simple as that!
And you have to look to a bunch of women who grew up in Asia, to have normal attitudes towards men which are not deeply biased towards men and poisoned by toxic feminism, to conduct a successful business model that actually caters to men. Oh, the shame, that men like to get a massage too and not just soccermoms! It must be stopped!
Sal Sar
Because all caps is definitely the way to go when trying to make a hallucinatory point.
What hallucination? Violent crimes against Asians in America are up. That’s for real
The hallucination is being conjured by the mass media in the interpretation of the events.
Just as they conjured a fantasy that the average Asian massage parlor is a den of “sex trafficking” ie Slavery. That’s a lie. But one that has been repeated by prosecutors and newspapers thousands of times the past decade. With precious few proven instances at all. I could get into this more deeply but I suspect nobody cares. Nobody except those workers who do this work to earn their bread, that is. Who have few if any advocates besides Elizabeth Nolan Brown
Oh they have a couple groups to advocate for themselves. I made another post that has not appeared yet linking to “Red Canary Song’ a group of Asian people, many of whom freely admit they are sex workers, and others who support them. They’re on twitter. You will NEVER hear them interviewed or quoted or mentioned by the mass media.
Because the mass media serves its ownership’s interests. And they are always on an editorial project, of crafting opinion, not just reporting facts of relevance.
So recently they have been much conjuring a lie that “Donald Trump” is responsible for this horrendous murderer committing this terrible crime. Really? That’s preposterous.
The crazy evil kid stated “why” he did it in his free confession. He’s got a bizarre problem with his sex desires that he thinks motivated him to kill.
Not unlike the crazy evil John Wayne Gacy whose homosexual desires for young men caused him to murder 33 men and boys.
These are horrible murderers and nobody made them do it. This is a perennial problem of murder, and it is not an opportunity to score points on Donald
Let alone go out there and “decry racism” which in the mouth of the news media means, everywhere and always, attack white men as a group.
The tragic event is one thing. The mass media “interpretation” of it is quite another.
Sal Sar
Anonymous the stupid would rather insult Sal and me rather than address the facts.
Anonymous the Stupid is unable to address what he doesn’t know or understand. His insults are about as far as his development has taken him.
I seem to remember the knock out game in NYC and elsewhere.
Stupid people like Anonymous the Stupid will provide excuses for sex operations on 14 year olds but will be anxious to raid places where adult men and women have consensual sex absent of violence. They found nothing in those massage parlors that were raided in Florida. Perhaps the purpose was to embarrass Kraft for political reasons. They did however tape lawful massages of innocent people including I think a double massage with a mother and daughter.
The cavalry has arrived 😉
Because idiocy loves company.
Don’t you have a massage parlor to run somewhere?
“Because idiocy loves company.”
Exactly, and that, Anonymous the Stupid, is why you have your pretend friends
Did I ever mention that one of the first big human trafficking indictments to actually score a conviction in America was an initiative of Hillary Clinton’s state department?
Yes, she was big on human trafficking’s. No not the kind her friend Epstein did. The kind that supposedly is in issue with the average Asian massage parlor. which supposedly was an issue for Hillary’s State Department at the time. She was flogging it up at the UN– supposedly it was a consequence of the PRC and Russia, of course. Russia! Well you can look up whatever she had to say to confirm it.
Big indictment against Koreans. RICO, tax evasion, money laundering, prostitution of course, and the cherry on top, a use of the freshly minted federal human trafficking law. They had “rescued some victims” ie bullied some workers into being informants so they got the convictions.
But how do I know this American domestic federal law enforcement sting was “lead” by the State Department instead of the usual– FBI?
Simple– I pulled the indictment. it was signed by a state department official.
You didnt know the State Department was active in looking for crooks inside the USA? Why, neither did I. Not until then.
Think I’m lying, look it up. see if you can find it. It will take a while, I put many hours into figuring it out. I’m a sucker for puzzles like that. Investigative journalists? Nah. They’re not interested and if they’re on the story, they would not even notice. See, what is a journalist anyhow, except an English major that was not smart enough to go to law school? But like most lawyers, in the end, they all work for the top. So they wouldn’t tell us how it really works even if they understood.
The feds were so interested in encouraging informants who have worked in these circles that they even have a special VISA for them. It’s called a T-Visa. Not very many people actually receive them, because, the key thing is? They have to squeal on their bosses and parrot whatever script the cops give them to get it.
Not surprisingly, many apply, to stall deportation, but few receive it in the end.
Oddly, a majority of recipients have been Latino women., Now if you consider that there are thousands– perhaps tens of thousands of Asian massage parlors in America– who generally only hire Asian workers– that kind of tells you something right there.
https://www.policeforum.org/assets/TVisas.pdf
I’m not saying it never happens. When it does it’s awful and should be prosecuted. And I bet a lot of the migrants who walked across the Southern border really were exploited in a bad way. But is it really an “epidemic?” No evidence of that.
Oh, then there’s plain old fashioned pimping. If you scour the police blotters and convictions for that, you’re going to find out the profile of who’s really in the “Game.”
Reminds me of a book I read once by “iceberg slim.” He was a big inspiration for some hip hop artists you may have heard of. But we can’t go there, right?
sal sar
Anonymous the Stupid, owner and operator of Dr. Masseuse Massage Parlors, wishes the whole discussion would go away.
As one might imagine, I have had plenty of massages. From native born American women– and Asian migrants too. But a couple of years ago had my first foot massage from a man– right there in the “hotbed of human trafficking!” Flushing New York. It was fine, I kicked back and had a “boba naicha” to drink, I got to work on my conversational Mandarin, my sore ankles felt better, and I came back the next day for a massage from his aunt! Just imagine– me, many times called sexist, homophobe and racist, and what’s worse, cheap! Yet i had a Chinese guy give me a foot rub and I gave him a good tip, too! Too bad my summer trip to NYC got cancelled due to “COVID” or I’d have been back again.
Thank God my Chinese friends never got the memo that I am white male native born American bigot, a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, and a nativist! Or rather thank God that I met them in the first place, since, regardless, they apparently don’t care, unlike a lot of the snooty white folks I grew up and went to school with so many years ago! Since that day I quit “the country club” my life has been oh so much simpler and happier! They even knew I voted for Trump! Finally, I get to be myself without the ever repeated punishment of being “cancelled.” What a bizarre irony it is.
Sal Sar
I may have missed it, but I don’t see any oversight from the UNC Law School administrators or even the UNC administrators.
UNC!
KGB!
Bee eye bicki eye…
Bye obee…
Bicki eye bicki oh boo boo!
Yesterday I listened to VP Harris use the term Scapegoat for a shooting in Georgia. I thought how accurate to describe what is happening to White Americans. From Webster: b : one that is the object of irrational hostility.
Thank you, Margot, for telling the truth some don’t want to hear. I read the USA TODAY opinion on Atlanta and was so outraged by the reverse racism that I commented above.
Scary to think that the next generation of lawyers won’t know much about the law, the Constitution, or legal process. CRT is decaying this society from within.
The local Stalinists have taken his dictum about counters of votes being more important than voters to heart.
They are probably proud of themselves, but consider the damage that they have done to themselves and their institution.
And the faculty/administration did nothing.
Dante pointed out that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those in a position of power who do nothing in the face of injustice.
But read the Stalinists on this blog.
They have the same moral vacuity, the same hatred, and the same intellectual dishonesty.
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” John Adams