... Still, the Obama camp has been encouraging Patrick to run for years presumably because they think he would be a great candidate—in a general election. Patrick, too, is not the sort to leave his elite private sector job solely to screw over Elizabeth Warren on behalf of his friends from the Obama White House. He seemingly plans to actually run for president with the intention of winning the presidency. But the inescapable fact is that his campaign does not make any logical sense as a conventional primary campaign.

Finally, let us consider Michael Bloomberg, whose bid makes even less sense. While he is able to completely self-fund a presidential campaign, giving him an advantage over Patrick (who is regular-rich, not plutocrat-rich), the former New York City mayor is skipping Iowa and New Hampshire and purchasing generically anti-Trump Facebook ads instead of Facebook ads promoting a Michael Bloomberg candidacy. He has apologized for stop and frisk, yes, but he is broadly doing things to make himself seem acceptable to Democratic voters, not (yet) to convince them to support Michael Bloomberg in enough primaries and caucuses to give him the nomination.

Bloomberg also very much wants to be president, and has only declined to run in the past because he was smart enough to know he couldn’t win as an independent and probably couldn’t win either party’s nomination the traditional way. How could Bloomberg win, then? If he was handed the nomination at a brokered convention. I know that invoking that term is going to touch off a wave of groans from people who, every election cycle, read countless pieces of glorified politics fanfic from pundits predicting brokered conventions that simply do not happen anymore. I said from the start that this was going to be annoying.

But this is the only way these two late entrants make any sense. The Patrick and Bloomberg campaigns are not mere long shots, or attempts to harm Sanders or Warren on behalf of the moderates. They are calculated bets on a brokered convention. These are well-connected people at the highest levels of Democratic Party politics (despite his independent status, Bloomberg has always surrounded himself with Democratic campaign veterans and aides), making it clear that they think there is a real chance that the nomination will be completely up for grabs next July...

U.S. Mayors' gun control group merges with Moms Demand Action


NEW YORK Thu Dec 19, 2013 12:03pm EST

(Reuters) - Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a gun control group founded and financed by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, announced on Thursday it will merge with another gun control group, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.

The mayors' group will unite its grassroots, policy and field forces with the mothers' group "to enact common-sense policies that respect the rights of gun owners while keeping firearms out of dangerous hands," the groups said in a statement.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns was formed in 2006 as the brainchild of Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, both of whom will leave office at the end of the year. They argued that mayors were uniquely sensitive to gun violence as it often falls to them to comfort the families of slain police officers.

The group now includes more than 1,000 mayors.

In a major victory for privacy rights, a federal court in Boston today ruled that the government’s suspicionless searches of international travelers’ smartphones and laptops at airports and other U.S. ports of entry violate the Fourth Amendment. The ruling came in a lawsuit, Alasaad v. McAleenan, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and ACLU of Massachusetts, on behalf of 11 travelers whose smartphones and laptops were searched without individualized suspicion at U.S. ports of entry.

“This ruling significantly advances Fourth Amendment protections for the millions of international travelers who enter the United States every year,” said Esha Bhandari, staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “By putting an end to the government’s ability to conduct suspicionless fishing expeditions, the court reaffirms that the border is not a lawless place and that we don’t lose our privacy rights when we travel.”

“This is a great day for travelers who now can cross the international border without fear that the government will, in the absence of any suspicion, ransack the extraordinarily sensitive information we all carry in our electronic devices," said Sophia Cope, EFF senior staff attorney.

Veilleux said the decision to halt manufacture of the AR-15 for the civilian market came because "high-volume contracts" from the military and law enforcement were "absorbing all of Colt's manufacturing capacity for rifles."

Hours after the statement was released, the Department of Defense announced that it had awarded Colt a $41.9 million contract to manufacture rifles for sales to militaries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Oceania and the Caribbean.

Colt's Manufacturing Co. LLC, West Hartford, Connecticut, was awarded a $41,924,594 firm-fixed-price Foreign Military Sales (Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Federated States of Micronesia, Hungary, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Macedonia, Marshall Islands, Palau, St. Vincent and Grenadines, and Tunisia) contract for production for the M4 and M4A1 carbines. One bid was solicited with one bid received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 18, 2024. U.S. Army Contracting Command, New Jersey, is the contracting activity (W15QKN-19-D-0116).

Judge Rules Terrorism Watchlist Violates Constitutional Rights

By Charlie Savage


WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that a federal government database that compiles people deemed to be “known or suspected terrorists” violates the rights of American citizens who are on the watchlist, calling into question the constitutionality of a major tool the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security use for screening potential terrorism suspects.

Being on the watchlist can restrict people from traveling or entering the country, subject them to greater scrutiny at airports and by the police, and deny them government benefits and contracts. In a 32-page opinion, Judge Anthony J. Trenga of United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia said the standard for inclusion in the database was too vague.

“The court concludes that the risk of erroneous deprivation of plaintiffs’ travel-related and reputational liberty interests is high, and the currently existing procedural safeguards are not sufficient to address that risk,” Judge Trenga wrote.Sept. 4, 2019...

...Among them, a group of 19 Americans, represented by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, filed a lawsuit charging that their inclusion violated their due process rights. Recounting tales of being detained and harassed when trying to enter the country, they argued that they did not receive notice of why they were being put on the list or an opportunity to contest derogatory claims.

The California Supreme Court decided unanimously Monday that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and other law enforcement agencies may alert prosecutors that a deputy who is slated to testify in a criminal case has a history of misconduct.

The decision overturned a Court of Appeal ruling that barred the sheriff from giving prosecutors the names of deputies who had committed misconduct, including lying, taking bribes, tampering with evidence, using unreasonable force or engaging in domestic violence...

...In a ruling written by Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, the state high court said that merely disclosing to prosecutors that a deputy was on a list of problem officers did not violate California law protecting personnel records.

Indeed, the court said, such an alert might be needed for prosecutors to fulfill their constitutional duty to give the defense evidence that might cast doubt on a defendant’s guilt, reduce a potential sentence or diminish the credibility of prosecution witnesses.