August 29, 2023
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
The right to a speedy trial: Another right down the drain
By Rick Manning
The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.”
Yet, somehow not a single January 6 defendant had seen the inside of a courtroom in more than a year after they allegedly committed a crime, and two years later Tucker Carlson showed previously unaired footage from the Capitol Building which told a completely different story than the one painted by the Justice Department – providing exculpatory evidence which resulted in the release of the so-called, Q-anon Shaman, Jacob Chansley.
In fact, the Justice Department withheld 14,000 hours of video evidence from defense attorneys utilizing only snippets which benefitted their case without providing the defense the opportunity to pull video evidence negating the prosecution claims.
Why does this matter today?
The Obama appointed, rabidly anti-Trump federal judge Tonya Chutkin, who is overseeing the D.C. case against President Trump ruled that the President’s defense team should be ready for trial on March 4, 2024, the day before the Super Tuesday primary elections in Alabama, Alaska, American Somoa, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia. Holy election interference, Batman!
The DOJ has provide the Trump team with as many as 12.8 million pages of documents in discovery arguing that since 60 percent of them were things the defense should already have had access to, there was no reason to delay the trial due to the volume of information to scrutinize.
The judge decided that the March 4 date gave the Trump team plenty of time to prepare noting that, “the trial will start three years, one month and 27 days after the events of January 6, 2021.”
Of course, what the judge failed to note is that most of that time has been spent by the prosecution in trying to find a law to charge President Trump with violating, and the defense was unaware of what, if any, charges the defense would be refuting until August 1, 2023.
In what is one of its most egregious acts, the Biden Department of Justice in cahoots with their hand-picked judicial sock-puppet has had the audacity to turn the individual right to a speedy trial guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment on its head by arguing that the state had an interest in a speedy trial.
Biden’s prosecutors argued that Trump’s D.C. trial should happen “as soon as possible” citing the President’s nearly daily comments about the case arguing, “This potentially prejudices the jury pool and so under the Speedy Trial Act, your Honor, we need to find a time for trial as soon as the defense can reasonably be ready.”
And the judge dutifully responded justifying the pre-Super Tuesday trial date saying, “The public has a right to a prompt and efficient resolution of this matter.”
Let’s be clear. The Constitution does not guarantee the government a speedy trial, it is an individual right. And let’s be even more clear, the Biden prosecution team has been leaking non-stop all over the country to build a public case, and even is using the television show that was the Congressional January 6th hearings to bolster their claims.
Fears that President Trump will use public forums to refute and rebut their case are moot based upon the actions already taken by the prosecution over the past two and a half years. What’s more, in a country where the idea that an individual is innocent until proven guilty, the idea that the defendant should be compelled to shut up about the charges and trust the process denies any individual the most basic ability to defend themselves publicly, and in this case, is a bid to prevent Trump from providing a political counter to the allegations to his supporters during the primary.
Compressing the time-frame of the trial and denying the defendant the ability to make a public case against what is clearly a political prosecution cannot be allowed to stand.
In spite of what the Biden administration and the Obama judge ruling in this case think, every American has individual rights protected by the Constitution – even Donald J. Trump.
It’s time for the Trump legal team to begin bringing these basic Constitutional issues to the Supreme Court to prevent the complete disintegration of the public’s belief in the American judicial system and the rights of the accused, and the Constitution it was created under to protect.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2023/08/the-right-to-a-speedy-trial-another-right-down-the-drain/
Cartoon: Democracy Dies In Darkness
By A.F. Branco
Click here for a higher level resolution version.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2023/08/cartoon-democracy-dies-in-darkness/
Video: The hilarious ‘woes’ of the federal worker!
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bIIh6NEcf0
Video: Tucker Carlson’s interview with former President Donald Trump is blowing up the Internet
To view online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgb7C5gMCMo
Latest Space Force Proposal is Government Contracting Gone Bad
By Rick Manning
Government contracting decisions can often unintentionally create unnecessary additional costs to taxpayers. Such is the case with the Request for Proposal (RFP) from the U.S. Space Force that will award launch providers billions of dollars in taxpayer money over the course of four years. Space Force routinely awards these contracts as part of the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Program, the main vehicle for procuring launches so the U.S. government can reach space.
Over the years, the program has become more competitive, drawing the interest of many small, unproven launch companies. As a result, the first draft of the latest RFP for “Phase 3” took a measured approach in supporting emerging, unproven companies (RocketLab, Firefly, BlueOrigin) while ensuring we could still launch difficult missions via the only two proven heavy lift rockets (SpaceX, ULA). One lane was carved out for multiple providers to compete for smaller, less complex missions, and one lane was set aside for the only two providers capable of launching our nation’s most critical payloads. In addition, this first draft of the latest RFP carried over the significant cost cutting measures as lessons learned from the earlier Phase 2 procurement. Unfortunately, the second RFP for Phase 3 flipped the script entirely, creating misaligned incentives for providers that could cost taxpayers significantly in the long run.
Changes in the second draft of the Phase 3 RFP include revisions to this second lane. A third provider was added for Blue Origin, which, if everything works out, could strengthen our industrial base and the number of companies capable of launching our countries most challenging missions (but that was also the vision for the first lane). Unfortunately, the Space Force also reduced funding for what’s called launch services support (LSS), which is awarded to seasoned providers in lane two to maintain specific infrastructure and execute other coordination needed for successful national security missions. And at the same time this funding was cut, Space Force requirements for launch providers under LSS went up significantly.
The funding for LSS currently sits at $150 million a year for two launch providers. The second RFP for Phase 3 cuts this sum down to $100 million for three providers, while asking more of launch companies, and without pro-rating for the number of launches awarded. This means that companies will be submitting bids knowing there are more requirements, with less funding, for an unknown number of launches (the number of launches awarded could be 31, 20 or 7). The result will be perverse incentives for launch providers who will bake the extra costs they’ll incur into bigger bids for the highest number of launches they could win.
The Space Force should be working to make launches more competitive and drive down costs, not incentivizing the opposite as providers bid high to account for the maximum number of launches possible to avoid coming up short.
The second draft RFP for NSSL Phase 3 is the latest example of government contracting gone bad. It’s clear that there was little consideration for the final cost or how it could impact taxpayers. Now more than ever we should be working to cut the federal deficit, not add to it with line-item errors. Space Force should align funding for LSS with the number of launches awarded, or simply return to their first draft RFP for Phase 3, and avoid squandering Americans’ money on billionaire pet projects.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2023/08/latest-space-force-proposal-is-government-contracting-gone-bad/