Episode 51: A Pimp Politician, Privacy Protected, and SPLC Eats Crow

Today for the Caffeinated Thoughts Podcast, Shane Vander Hart discusses a pimp running for office in Nevada, an important Supreme Court decision for privacy, and the Southern Poverty Law Center's recent settlement with the Quilliam Foundation.----more----

Would you vote for a pimp?

Reuters reports that Christian conservatives are backing a self-described pimp. Here's an excerpt:

Meet Dennis Hof, whose political rise reflects fundamental changes in electoral norms that have roiled the Republican Party and upended American politics during the era of President Donald Trump.

“This really is the Trump movement,” Hof, 71, told Reuters in an interview at Moonlite BunnyRanch, his brothel near Carson City in northern Nevada that was featured on the HBO reality television series “Cathouse.”

“People will set aside for a moment their moral beliefs, their religious beliefs, to get somebody that is honest in office,” he said. “Trump is the trailblazer, he is the Christopher Columbus of honest politics.”

Shane discusses on the podcast.

A Win for Privacy

The U.S. Supreme Court released their five to four ruling in Carpenter v. United States, a case that had some major 4th Amendment implications, they decided that the police will generally need to obtain a warrant before they can track your cell phone location.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote for the majority, said:

Given the unique nature of cell phone location records, the fact that the information is held by a third party does not by itself overcome the user’s claim to Fourth Amendment protection. Whether the Government employs its own surveillance technology as inJones or leverages the technology of a wireless carrier, we hold that an individual maintains a legitimate expectation of privacy in the record of his physical movements as captured through CSLI. The location information obtained from Carpenter’s wireless carriers was the product of a search…. A person does not surrender all Fourth Amendment protection by venturing into the public sphere.

Shane further describes the ruling and its implications.

The Southern Poverty Law Center Eats Crow

Shane rehashed his report from earlier this week about the Southern Poverty Law Center settlement that included a public apology and $3.375 Million payment to the Quilliam Foundation, a counter-extremism think tank, and its founder Maajid Nawaz for wrongly adding them to their Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists.

Shane noted a joint statement from several organizations and individuals who have found themselves in the left-wing group's crosshairs not for hate, but for advocating for traditional marriage and against Islamic terrorism. They write:

Editors, CEOs, shareholders and consumers alike are on notice: anyone relying upon and repeating its misrepresentations is complicit in the SPLC’s harmful defamation of large numbers of American citizens who, like the undersigned, have been vilified simply for working to protect our country and freedoms.

With this significant piece of evidence in mind, we call on government agencies, journalists, corporations, social media providers and web platforms (i.e., Google, Twitter, YouTube and Amazon) that have relied upon this discredited organization to dissociate themselves from the Southern Poverty Law Center and its ongoing effort to defame and vilify mainstream conservative organizations.

 

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