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Arne's avatar

A House committee covered the problem in this hearing on the 7th. "Criminalizing America: The Growth of Federal Offenses and Regulatory Overreach": https://judiciary.house.gov/committee-activity/hearings/criminalizing-america-growth-federal-offenses-and-regulatory-0

A Cato Institute person checked in with some testimony. Jonathan Turley as well.

Chris might take special note of this from the Tolman testimony:

"Take, for example, the recent case against Charles and Heather Maude. Under the Biden DOJ,

criminal charges were brought against the Maudes, a South Dakota family who has a small cattle

and hog operation. This family endured a senseless politically motivated prosecution waged by the

Biden Administration over 25 acres of federal land.

"The Maudes were not criminals. They fenced in land that had been part of their ranch for over 100

years. But, empowered by pointless laws and unfettered discretion, the minor land dispute

devolved into an overzealous criminal prosecution. No criminal penalty should have even existed

for a land dispute. And the Maudes should never have been charged."

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Chris Bray's avatar

Good information, and good timing.

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K2's avatar

^^Like!!^^

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May 13
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John Anthony's avatar

This is a fake Chris Bray. I’ve heard of similar crap on other stacks. Once again, be wary.

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Nancy Benedict's avatar

How does Chris get rid of this? It was really pervasive on his stack yesterday.

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Chris Bray's avatar

I didn't see it at all -- totally missed it. Substack may have zapped them before I noticed.

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John Anthony's avatar

I don’t know. I reported it to Substack and their canned message is they prefer to let the publisher handle it, so they pass my report on. Obviously, there thinking it’s an obnoxious comment not 30 spam replies!

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Nancy Benedict's avatar

I too reported it.

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Chris Bray's avatar

Missed it -- what was it?

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John Anthony's avatar

Your photo and “Chris bray on substack.” Then, with poor spelling and punctuation, said you were recommending a “investment busines [sic]” and gave a What’s App number. Probably replied to 30 comments. It was a poor attempt but you know they’ll get better, unfortunately.

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Chris Bray's avatar

Shit!

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Kristin's avatar

They did this to Trish Wood Too in her comments.

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PhDBiologistMom's avatar

And Monica Harris of FAIR.

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Sara the Editor's avatar

Now, we need it ensconced in a way that the next admin can't just repeal with another EO.

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Chris Bray's avatar

That would require Congress to do something, the poor things.

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Belling the Cat's avatar

We need some serious mobilization for 2026 midterms.

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Nancy Benedict's avatar

I didn’t realise it but according to my firefighter son, Congress actually gave the Forest Service workers a raise in March. He said the effort started 15 years ago. I was shocked that Congress actually did something.

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Nathan's avatar

That's my concern too. One imperial presidency begets the next.

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Mitch's avatar

very true, Obama really got it going, Biden doubled down and now we've got Trump.

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Kent Clizbe's avatar

Actually....Lincoln got it going. FDR gave it an injection of steroids...then Obama took up his pencil....

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libgurl's avatar

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." Tacitus

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The Great Santini's avatar

“Formerly we were oppressed by crimes. Now we are oppressed by laws.” - Tacitus — Sign on the Oklahoma Turnpike

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libgurl's avatar

Love to see that in CA!

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A Whip of Cords's avatar

Is the Regime media not commenting on this EO b/c they don’t care, or b/c it doesn’t help them? I suspect the latter. If the Regime has in their hands the levers of power (and I’m sure they think they’ll return to power), everything in this EO makes it more difficult to rule with the philosophy of, “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” When they’re in power they get to run a two-tiered justice system. 175,000 pages of crimes (that they don’t have to worry about b/c they’re back in power) helps them crush the soccer moms and the Catholics that resist their tyranny.

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AlabamaSlamma's avatar

All of the above, plus the fact that a lot of them probably don't understand it. "Mens rea? What's that?"

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Bill Bradford's avatar

And just today, somebody is surely talking about "Trans-mens rea"!....lol....but I don't think she's guilty!

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Michael L's avatar

Just for that, I'm going to inflict this bit of corn on you:

Q: Why did the transsexual only order a salad for dinner?

A: Because he was her-before!

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Bill Bradford's avatar

I'm only sorry that I can only click 1 like on your comment, Michael....

(She looks MEATY, I've never seen her before....)....

Does that make me gay?

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Hugh Wayne Black's avatar

The Orange Man Bad aspect of this is exactly why Trump haters will hate it. Brace for it, they’ll claim that Trump is simply using his executive power to exonerate himself of whatever their accusation de jour is for him today.

Unless Congress codifies this in to law, it means nothing to the next administration. We’ll go right back to weaponising the government just like in the good old days of Obama and Biden.

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Francis Turner's avatar

OrangeManBad is such a fascist. Making his secret police actually require people to know they were committing a crime before punishing them. This is just the thin end of the wedge. Mark my words.

Next he'll insist that anti-discrimination laws apply to discrimination against white males....

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Mitch's avatar

For a dictator Trump has always done a terrible job of centralizing power. I remember when orange Hitler had the audacity in the Covid scamdemic to assert that most management had to be at the State and local level per the Constitution. What kind of monster does that!

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Bill Bradford's avatar

Cookie Monster, probly. lol

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Frontera Lupita's avatar

🤣🤣

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Will Tuttle's avatar

Thanks so much Chris for bringing this to our attention!

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Brettbaker's avatar

"Arbitrary enforcement of laws is good, actually"- coming to an editorial page near you.

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Willy's avatar

"worst hitler ever"

great subtitle. it's the small stuff that counts.

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The Great Santini's avatar

Did I vote for this? You bet I did. And, it’s better than I expected! Way to Go Big D!

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Tanto Minchiata's avatar

When you persecute a person or a people, if you don't succeed in eliminating the problem, you tend to end up on the business end of the stick you were swinging. Karma is a you know....

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Vee's avatar

This "potential criminal had to know it was illegal or you can't prosecute" EO can easily be revoked the same way it was created if it's not helpful. I think this EO will limit the federal government's ability to do political persecutions ala locking up peaceful prolife protesters. However, unless it's codified into law, it's only as permanent as the president who wants to keep it.

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libgurl's avatar

We only need 10.

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William Hunter Duncan's avatar

Very Good News! Quite epic really, a kind of potential phase change. Federal Laws would be used in the future by Dems for seizing land for "equity".

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K Tucker Andersen's avatar

👏👏👏👏Hurrah! That this really big deal has not been widely publicized and applauded says a lot about the MSM. Chris , thanks for highlighting this.Hard to keep up with Trump without neglecting the rest if your life. The stuff that impacts the financial markets and the economy and war and peace have been my primary focus, but then legal stuff is really important.

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Mongo's avatar

..i'm hoping some 'activist' judge, somewhere, doesn't interfere w/ this EO..(like they've been doing).

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