Marc Mauer: A 20-Year Maximum for Prison Sentences

Democracy Journal 

Clarence Aaron was a 23-year-old college student from Mobile, Alabama, with no criminal record. In 1992, he introduced a classmate whose brother was a drug supplier to a cocaine dealer he knew from high school. He was subsequently present for the sale of nine kilograms of cocaine and was paid $1,500 by the dealer. After police arrested the group, the others testified against Aaron, describing him as a major dealer, which led to his being sentenced to three terms of life imprisonment.

Unfortunately, in the era of harsh mandatory sentencing laws, stories such as Aaron’s are all too familiar. The injustice against Aaron was eventually recognized and, in 2013, after 20 years in prison, he became one of a relative handful of federal prisoners to receive a sentence commutation from President Obama. Cases such as his have fueled momentum for criminal justice reform in recent years, with major presidential candidates in both parties calling for a substantial reduction in our prison population, due to a U.S. rate of incarceration that’s five to ten times that of other industrialized nations. A growing consensus has developed around the idea that the “war on drugs” has relied far too heavily on excessive punishments, and that treatment interventions for substance abusers are both more effective and compassionate than long-term imprisonment.

But if a prison-reduction strategy is focused primarily on drug policy reform, we will be sorely disappointed in the results. Of the 2.2 million people behind bars in America today, nearly half a million are incarcerated for a nonviolent drug offense. So even if we were to release that entire group, we would still have a rate of incarceration far higher than that of any comparable nation.

The heart of the problem, as documented in a major report released by the National Research Council in 2014, is that the tripling of the prison population since 1980 was produced by changes in policy, not crime rates. Half of the prison expansion resulted from sending more people to prison due to the increased adoption of mandatory sentencing policies and prosecutorial charging decisions, while half resulted from longer prison terms. The latter trend is increasingly the major barrier to substantial reductions in incarceration.

Nationally, one of every nine people in prison—160,000 prisoners—is serving a life sentence. About a third are serving life without parole, and of the remainder, political considerations—governors and parole officials believing they need to demonstrate how “tough” they can be on individuals convicted of serious crimes—have made parole release increasingly difficult to secure in many states. In addition, an undetermined number of offenders are serving “virtual life sentences.” For example, a 40-year prison term imposed on a 35-year-old offender essentially equates to life imprisonment.

The excessively lengthy incarceration of offenders—yes, even for violent crimes—is counterproductive, costly, and inhumane. To remedy this problem, Congress and state legislative bodies should establish an upper limit of 20 years in prison as a maximum penalty, except in unusual cases such as a serial rapist who has not been amenable to treatment in prison or a mass murderer. The rationale for such a policy shift is grounded in both humanitarian and public-safety concerns. Life sentences ruin families and tear apart communities; they deprive the person of the chance to turn his or her life around. Moreover, it has long been known that individuals “age out” of crime, and that this occurs at a surprisingly young age. As is true of all adults, offenders mature in prison as they age and develop a longer-term vision for their lives. Research by leading criminologists Alfred Blumstein and Kiminori Nakamura demonstrates that an 18-year-old arrested for robbery is no more likely to be arrested for this crime by the age of 26 than anyone in the general population. Thus, each successive year of incarceration after this decline sets in produces diminishing returns for public safety.

This impact comes at great cost as well. Estimates are that the cost of imprisoning an elderly offender is double that of a young offender, largely due to high health-care costs. Given that public-safety resources are finite, incarcerating aging prisoners inevitably diverts resources from preschool programs, substance abuse treatments, and mental health interventions that all produce demonstrated and substantial crime-reduction benefits.

Lengthy prison terms also exacerbate the dramatic racial and ethnic disparities that have defined the phenomenon of mass incarceration. Nationwide, nearly two-thirds of the people serving life in prison are African-American or Latino. The sight of elderly men of color in prison uniforms and bound in wheelchairs only reinforces the racialized nature of incarceration in the modern era. [MORE]

DAPL's Worst Nightmare: Big Oil EXPOSED By Whistleblower

Alex Halderman: Want to Know if the Election was Hacked? Look at the Ballots

From [HERE] You may have read at NYMag that I’ve been in discussions with the Clinton campaign about whether it might wish to seek recounts in critical states. That article, which includes somebody else’s description of my views, incorrectly describes the reasons manually checking ballots is an essential security safeguard (and includes some incorrect numbers, to boot). Let me set the record straight about what I and other leading election security experts have actually been saying to the campaign and everyone else who’s willing to listen.

How might a foreign government hack America’s voting machines to change the outcome of a presidential election? Here’s one possible scenario. First, the attackers would probe election offices well in advance in order to find ways to break into their computers. Closer to the election, when it was clear from polling data which states would have close electoral margins, the attackers might spread malware into voting machines in some of these states, rigging the machines to shift a few percent of the vote to favor their desired candidate. This malware would likely be designed to remain inactive during pre-election tests, do its dirty business during the election, then erase itself when the polls close. A skilled attacker’s work might leave no visible signs — though the country might be surprised when results in several close states were off from pre-election polls.

Were this year’s deviations from pre-election polls the results of a cyberattack? Probably not. I believe the most likely explanation is that the polls were systematically wrong, rather than that the election was hacked. But I don’t believe that either one of these seemingly unlikely explanations is overwhelmingly more likely than the other. The only way to know whether a cyberattack changed the result is to closely examine the available physical evidence — paper ballots and voting equipment in critical states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, nobody is ever going to examine that evidence unless candidates in those states act now, in the next several days, to petition for recounts.

What’s to stop an attack like this from succeeding?

America’s voting machines have serious cybersecurity problems. That isn’t news. It’s been documented beyond any doubt over the last decade in numerous peer-reviewed papers and state-sponsored studies by me and by other computer security experts. We’ve been pointing out for years that voting machines are computers, and they have reprogrammable software, so if attackers can modify that software by infecting the machines with malware, they can cause the machines to give any answer whatsoever. I’ve demonstrated this in the laboratory with real voting machines — in just a few seconds, anyone can install vote-stealing malware on those machines that silently alters the electronic records of every vote.

Could anyone be brazen enough to try such an attack? A few years ago, I might have said that sounds like science fiction, but 2016 has seen unprecedented cyberattacks aimed at interfering with the election. This summer, attackers broke into the email system of the Democratic National Committee and, separately, into the email account of John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, and leaked private messages. Attackers infiltrated the voter registration systems of two states, Illinois and Arizona, and stole voter data. And there’s evidence that hackers attempted to breach election offices in several other states.

In all these cases, Federal agencies publicly asserted that senior officials in the Russian government commissioned these attacks. Russia has sophisticated cyber-offensive capabilities, and has shown a willingness to use them to hack elections. In 2014, during the presidential election in Ukraine, attackers linked to Russia sabotaged the country’s vote-counting infrastructure and, according to published reports, Ukrainian officials succeeded only at the last minute in defusing vote-stealing malware that was primed to cause the wrong winner to be announced. Russia is not the only country with the ability to pull off such an attack on American systems — most of the world’s military powers now have sophisticated cyberwarfare capabilities.

It doesn’t matter whether the voting machines are connected to the Internet. Shortly before each election, poll workers copy the ballot design from a regular desktop computer in a government office, and use removable media (like the memory card from a digital camera) to load the ballot onto each machine. That initial computer is almost certainly not well secured, and if an attacker infects it, vote-stealing malware can hitch a ride to every voting machine in the area. There’s no question that this is possible for technically sophisticated attackers. (If my Ph.D. students and I were criminals, I’m sure we could pull it off.) If anyone reasonably skilled is sufficiently motivated and willing to face the risk of getting caught, it’s happened already.

Why hasn’t more been done about this? In the U.S., each state (and often individual counties or municipalities) selects its own election technology, and some states have taken steps to guard against these problems. (For instance, California banned the use of the most dangerous computer voting machines in 2007 as a result of vulnerabilities that I and other computer scientists found.) But many states continue to use machines that are known to be insecure — sometimes with software that is a decade or more out of date — because they simply don’t have the money to replace those machines.

There is one absolutely essential security safeguard that protects most Americans’ votes: paper.

I know I may sound like a Luddite for saying so, but most election security experts are with me on this: paper ballots are the best available technology for casting votes. We use two main kinds of paper systems in different parts of the U.S. Either voters fill out a ballot paper that gets scanned into a computer for counting (optical scan voting), or they vote on a computer that counts the vote and prints a record on a piece of paper (called a voter-verifiable paper audit trail). Either way, the paper creates a record of the vote that can’t be later modified by any bugs, misconfiguration, or malicious software that might have infected the machines.

After the election, human beings can examine the paper to make sure the results from the voting machines accurately determined who won. Just as you want the brakes in your car to keep working even if the car’s computer goes haywire, accurate vote counts must remain available even if the machines are malfunctioning or attacked. In both cases, common sense tells us we need some kind of physical backup system. I and other election security experts have been advocating for paper ballots for years, and today, about 70% of American voters live in jurisdictions that keep a paper record of every vote. [MORE]

Texas Death Case Tests Standards For Defining Intellectual Disability

NPR

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday hears a case that questions intellectual disabilities and the death penalty — specifically, what standards states may use in determining whether a defendant convicted of murder is mentally deficient.

In 2002, the justices barred the execution of the intellectually disabled. But it left the states considerable room to decide who is "mentally retarded." Two years ago, the court put its thumb more firmly on the scale, telling states they were not free to use a rigid IQ number to determine "retardation," but instead "must be informed by the medical community's diagnostic framework."

Now the state of Texas is defending its use of standards that major medical organizations do not endorse. Instead, the state's test is based on what the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals called "a consensus of Texas citizens," that not all those who meet the "social services definition" of "retardation" should be exempt from the death penalty.

The man at the center of the case is Bobby J. Moore, whose gun discharged during a botched robbery, killing a 70-year-old store clerk in Houston in 1980. There is no doubt about his guilt or about the fact that he has limited mental abilities. Even the prosecution's psychologist testified at trial that Moore likely "suffers from borderline intellectual functioning."

Moore's lawyers argue that Texas is using outdated standards to determine "retardation," instead of the current medical standards required by the U.S. Supreme Court. The state of Texas argues that there is no national standard, and that the state should not be limited to current medical diagnostic tools or standards.

Moore's lawyers note that, at age 13, he didn't understand the days of the week, the months of the year, how to tell time, or the principle that subtraction is the reverse of addition. He failed first grade twice, but school officials continued to advance him in order to keep him with children of a similar age. In addition to his other difficulties, his father beat him repeatedly over his failures in school. And when Moore was 14, his father threw him out of the house to live on the streets.

Moore's IQ tests range from a low of 57 to a high of 78 with an average of just over 70 — definitely in the retardation range.

All of that led a Texas trial judge to conclude that under current medical standards, it would violate the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment to execute Moore.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed that decision, declaring that states are not obligated to use current medical standards alone. Instead, the Texas court used the definition in the diagnostic manual put out by the American Association on Mental Retardation in 1992 as opposed to the revised manual put out in 2010.

The state court said that using that earlier standard, Moore was not mentally deficient citing that he was able to adapt to circumstances. As a young teenager, Moore adapted to life on the streets and robbed stores to finance a drug and alcohol habit. Moreover, the appeals court noted he was able to make and execute plans. For example, during the 1980 robbery, he wore a wig to conceal his identity.

Using these factors, the appeals court concluded that Moore was not sufficiently disabled to qualify for exemption from the death penalty.

Now the Supreme Court will decide, and its ruling could well affect the standards in other death penalty states.

Trump Secured The Lowest Non-White Vote In Decades

News for Black America

In research that surprises absolutely no one, President-elect Donald Trump received minimal support from minority voters, according to a new study conducted by Reuters, The Huffington Post reports.

According to the poll, Trump won the presidency with less support from Black and Hispanic voters in at least the last 40 years, shedding light on the divisive and polarizing campaign Trump rode into the presidency on.

Though he has publicly denounced White nationalists, he consistently uses language and tactics that say otherwise. It hasn’t stopped the groups from aligning themselves with him and the platform he runs on to “Make America Great Again.”

He secured 8 percent of the Black vote, 28 percent of the Hispanic vote, and 27 percent of the Asian-American vote, according to the Reuters/Ipsos Election Day poll.

“Among black voters, his showing was comparable to the 9 percent captured by George W. Bush in 2000 and Ronald Reagan in 1984,” according to HuffPo. They both did better among Hispanic voters with 34 percent and 35 percent, respectively, according to exit polling data. Trump fared badly with Asian American voters, The Huffington Post reports, “his performance was the worst of any winning presidential candidate since tracking of that demographic began in 1992.”

Trump’s anti-Muslim, anti-Mexican, xenophobic, misogynistic rhetoric no doubt awakened a deep-seated divide that exists in America. According to The Huffington Post, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported 701 incidents of “hateful harassment and intimidation” between November 9 and November 16.

Pennsylvania governor vetoes bill preventing identification of police officers who use force

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf on Monday vetoed [veto message, PDF] HB 1538 [text, PDF], a bill that would criminally punish public officials that release information about police officers within 30 days of their causing death or serious harm. Wolf explained his veto:

these situations ... demand utmost transparency, otherwise a harmful mistrust will grow between police officers and the communities they protect and serve. Further, I cannot allow local police department policies to be superseded and transparency to be criminalized, as local departments are best equipped to decide what information is appropriate to release to the public.

Both the Pennsylvania House and Senate voted in favor of the bill with large majorities—151-32[legislative materials] in the House and 39-9 [legislative materials] in the Senate—enough to overcome the veto should the bill come to a vote again. [MORE]

Unlicensed #DAPL Guards Attacked Water Protectors with Dogs & Pepper Spray

Democracy Now

Many across the United States are celebrating this Thanksgiving holiday. But many for Native Americans observe it as a National Day of Mourning, marking the genocide against their communities and the theft of their land. We spend the hour looking at the standoff at Standing Rock in North Dakota—the struggle against the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline that has galvanized the largest resistance movement of Native Americans in decades. The movement has largely been ignored on this year’s presidential campaign trail and by the national corporate media

AMY GOODMAN: Many across the United States are celebrating this Thanksgiving holiday. But many Native Americans observe it as a National Day of Mourning, marking the genocide against their communities and the theft of their land. We’ll spend today looking at the standoff at Standing Rock in North Dakota, the struggle against the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline that’s galvanized the largest resistance movement of Native Americans in decades.

In Cannon Ball, North Dakota, members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and representatives of more than 200 Indigenous nations from across the Americas have been encamped for months to block the construction of the pipeline. It’s slated to carry half a million barrels of crude a day from the Bakken oilfields of North Dakota through South Dakota, Iowa and into Illinois, where it will link up with an existing pipeline to carry the oil down to the refineries in the Gulf. The thousands of water protectors, as they call themselves, have been joined by many non-Native allies, all concerned a leak could contaminate the Missouri River, which provides water for the tribe and millions of people downstream. The tribe also says the pipeline’s construction across unceded Sioux treaty land will lead to the desecration of sacred sites, including tribal burial grounds. In recent months, hundreds have been arrested after using their bodies to block construction of the pipeline and to protect the sacred sites. The movement has also spread across the country and the world, as protesters have held demonstrations at banks funding the Dakota Access pipeline.

Study Finds Economic Contribution of Unauthorized Workers to the U.S. Economy is Substantial - 3% of private-sector GDP annually or $5 trillion over a decade

Nber.org

The Economic Contribution of Unauthorized Workers: An Industry Analysis

This paper provides a quantitative assessment of the economic contribution of unauthorized workers to the U.S. economy, and the potential gains from legalization. We employ a theoretical framework that allows for multiple industries and a heterogeneous workforce in terms of skills and productivity. Capital and labor are the inputs in production and the different types of labor are combined in a multi-nest CES framework that builds on Borjas (2003) and Ottaviano and Peri (2012). The model is calibrated using data on the characteristics of the workforce, including an indicator for imputed unauthorized status (Center for Migration Studies, 2014), and industry output from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Our results show that the economic contribution of unauthorized workers to the U.S. economy is substantial, at approximately 3% of private-sector GDP annually, which amounts to close to $5 trillion over a 10-year period. These effects on production are smaller than the share of unauthorized workers in employment, which is close to 5%. The reason is that unauthorized workers are less skilled and appear to be less productive, on average, than natives and legal immigrants with the same observable skills. We also find that legalization of unauthorized workers would increase their contribution to 3.6% of private-sector GDP. The source of these gains stems from the productivity increase arising from the expanded labor market opportunities for these workers which, in turn, would lead to an increase in capital investment by employers. [MORE] 

Black Congressman Danny Davis' Grandson, 15, Killed in Home Invasion

ABC News

The 15-year-old grandson of U.S. Rep. Danny Davis was fatally shot during a home invasion in Chicago Friday night, according to ABC affiliate WLS-TV.

Chicago Police said the grandson -- whose name was not released -- was in his home on the South Side neighborhood of Englewood when two men forced their way into the home around 6:45 p.m., WLS-TV reported.

Police said there was a dispute over gym shoes that turned physical, and one of the men then pulled out a gun and shot Davis' grandson in the head. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

No one is in custody yet.

Attorney General Lynch: Treat defendants as citizens, not cash registers

WashPost

The nation’s top law enforcement official on Tuesday called for a recalibration of the nation’s justice system that for many people, she said, is “not a guarantee of equality, but an obstacle to opportunity.”

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch urged leaders in the legal profession to overhaul court fees, fines and a money bail system that can lead to a cycle of debt, incarceration and poverty for those who cannot afford to pay.

“When we begin to treat defendants as cash registers, rather than citizens, we do more damage to the fabric of our institutions,” Lynch told a crowd of judges, lawyers and law clerks gathered for an annual lecture at the U.S. District Court in Washington, a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol.

“We stain the sanctity of our laws. And we only tighten the shackles of those struggling to break the chains of poverty.” [MORE]

Black Lives Matter Issues Statement on Election of Donald Trump

Mic.com

Our mandate has not changed: organize and end all state-sanctioned violence until all Black Lives Matter.

What is true today — and has been true since the seizure of this land — is that when black people and women build power, white people become resentful. Last week, that resentment manifested itself in the election of a white supremacist to the highest office in American government.

In the three years since Black Lives Matter organized, we've called for more safety. Not less. We've demanded an end to anti-black state violence. We've asked white people to organize their communities, to courageously help their loved ones understand the importance of solidarity and to show up for us, for themselves and democracy.

In the months leading up to this election, we have demanded support from white people in dismantling white supremacy — a farce that persuaded some to believe we were living in a post-racial America while simultaneously rolling back the rights of black people and other people of color. White supremacy fortified the decision to disregard racism and sexism as serious variables in the outcome of this election.

Even if everyone didn't agree politically, at the very least, we deserved to have our collective humanity affirmed. We feel more than disappointed or angry — we feel betrayed.

Donald Trump has promised more death, disenfranchisement and deportations. We believe him. The violence he will inflict in office, and the permission he gives for others to commit violence, is just beginning to emerge.

In the face of this, our commitment remains the same: protect ourselves and our communities.

But we ask ourselves — how do we reconcile our vision for future generations' prosperity with the knowledge that more than half of white voting Americans believe a white supremacist can and should decide what's best for this country?

We organize.

Here's what we know: Civic engagement is one way to engage democracy, and our lives don't revolve around election cycles. We are obliged to earn the trust of future generations — to defend economic, social and political power for all people. We are confident that we have the commitment, the people power and the vision to organize our country into a safe place for black people — one that leads with inclusivity and a commitment to justice, not intimidation and fear.

We also need and deserve an elaborate strategy to eradicate both white supremacy and implicit bias towards it. We must reckon with the anti-blackness of America's history that led to this political moment.

We continue to operate from a place of love for our people and a deep yearning for real freedom. In our work, we center the most marginalized, and look to them for leadership. We fight for our collective liberation because we are clear that until black people are free, no one is free. We are committed to practicing empathy for one another in this struggle — but we do not and will not negotiate with racists, fascists or anyone who demands we compromise our existence.

We affirm our existence. We affirm our right to not only live, but to thrive. To exist in a world where our humanity is seen and honored. We are organizing to realize a world in which our faiths are held in esteem, our identities are respected and our families are prioritized. We deserve a world in which our children are protected, where our water is sacred, and where we are given a fair chance to decide our fates.

Because it is our duty to win, we will continue to fight. And today, like every day before it, we demand reparations, economic justice, a commitment to black futures and an end to the war on black people, in the United States and around the world.

The work will be harder, but the work is the same.

Race Soldier Minnesota Cop Charged in Fatal Shooting of Philando Castile Appears in Court

NY Times

A Minnesota police officer charged in the shooting death of a black motorist that received national attention after part of the incident was broadcast on the internet made his first court appearance on Friday, but did not enter a plea.

Jeronimo Yanez, 28, a police officer in St. Anthony, Minnesota, did not enter a plea at the brief hearing and waived the reading of charges, the most serious of which is one count of second-degree manslaughter.

Yanez shot and killed Philando Castile, 32, in Falcon Heights, a St. Paul suburb, during a traffic stop in July.

Ramsey County Judge Mark Ireland released Yanez on his own recognizance and ordered him to appear back in court for a Dec. 19 hearing, at which he is expected to enter a plea.

The Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association has said it expects Yanez to plead not guilty.

On Wednesday, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi announced the charges against Yanez, saying his use of deadly force was not justified.

The traffic stop turned chaotic after Castile calmly told Yanez he was legally carrying a firearm and that he was not reaching for it, Choi said. Yanez claimed he thought Castile was reaching for the weapon before he fired seven shots into Castile, Choi said.

Starting about 40 seconds after the shooting, Castile's girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, who was sitting in the vehicle's passenger seat, streamed images of a bloody Castile on Facebook Live, and the recording went viral on social media.

Following the hearing Yanez was whisked from the courtroom, leaving from a back door and avoiding media. Yanez's attorney, Tom Kelly, declined to comment as he left the courthouse.

Philando Castile's cousin, Nakia Wilson, said afterward that she was disappointed with his release.

"They've put trust in him to come back," she said. "I'm saddened ... I'm still feeling a lot of emotions."

"Just looking him in the face - the man who shot my cousin," Wilson said.

Yanez is also charged with two felony counts of dangerous discharge of a firearm that endangered the safety of Reynolds and her four-year-old daughter, who was in the car at the time of the shooting.

Before Yanez, no officer had been charged in more than 150 police-involved deaths in Minnesota since 2000, according to Minnesota House Rep. Raymond Dehn.

If found guilty of the manslaughter charge, Yanez could be sentenced to nearly five years in prison.

West Virginia Mayor Resigns After Cosigning Post That Called Michelle Obama 'An Ape in Heels'

ColorLines

In a now-deleted status update that was posted following the election of Donald Trump, a Clay County, West Virginia, official hopped on Facebook to simultaneously express her excitement and use racist rhetoric to describe First Lady Michelle Obama. “It will be refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified first lady in the White House,” Pamela Ramsey Taylor wrote. “I’m tired of seeing an ape in heels.”

Taylor is the director of the Clay County Development Corporation, a nonprofit organization that receives both state and federal funding. Her Facebook message garnered a response from the city of Clay’s mayor, Beverly Whaling: “Just made my day Pam.”

Local station WSAZ first reported on the exchange yesterday (November 14). Over the weekend, a petition was created to remove both Taylor and Whaling from their posts. This morning, the television station reported that, per workers at the nonprofit, Taylor has been removed from her position. But that doesn’t seem to mean that she is now out of a job. Per WSAZ:

But when asked if she still has a job at Clay County Development Corporation, they said “all we can comment on is that she has been removed from her position.” [MORE]

Trump’s vast web of conflicts: A user’s guide

Politico 

A White Tenn. jail official called the KKK ‘more American’ than Obama Now he’s out of a job.

WashPost

David Barber kept his Facebook profile set to private, but anyone who was friends with him could see the very public nature of his job — right next to the racist posts that made him lose it.

Barber, deputy director of the Shelby County Corrections Center in Memphis for the past 17 years, resigned amid a growing controversy over the posts.

One featured a picture of President Obama next to a man in a Ku Klux Klan mask and said “The KKK is more American than the illegal president.”

Another post, according to the Memphis Flyer, is about the Obama family claiming they had been discriminated against because they’re black. According to the newspaper, Barber commented, “Arrest convict hang and confiscate all assets.”

The posts were shared from the page of a group called “the Free Patriot,” which posts conservative-tinged news stories. [MORE]