Cases where concealed handgun permit holders have stopped likely mass public shootings

 The gun control crowd would have you believe that legally armed citizens do not stop mass shootings. Further, they say that these citizens would cause collateral damage that would likely make things worse. The data strongly suggests that both claims are false. John Lott documents this at the Crime Prevention Research Center.

Here is the link to more than 25 instances.

Here are some excerpts.

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This is a revised, updated version of a post originally written on April 21, 2015.

Columnist Eugene Volokh wrote in the Washington Post on April 20, 2015: “Have civilians with permitted concealed handguns stopped such mass shootings before?” We provided Volokh with a list of such cases, which he used.

Below, we have collected news stories on more cases of permit holders stopping mass public shootings with their handguns (we separately collect cases where concealed handguns are used to stop other crimes). There is no reason to believe that this list is comprehensive, given how little media coverage is devoted to these heroic acts. In addition, we make no attempt here to list here the vast number of defensive gun uses in general that are reported daily in the US.

Permit holders stopped some mass public shootings that gained extensive news coverage, but only a few stories mentioned that it was a permit holder who stopped the attack. The stories frequently get other facts wrong.

A note: Gun control advocates raise the concern that concealed handgun permit holders who stop an attack might accidentally shoot a bystander. They are also fearful that the police might accidentally kill the permit holder. While such incidents are a possibility, they have yet to occur. We probably do not have all the cases where a permit holder stopped a mass public shooting, but if a permit holder were to shoot a bystander, it seems clear that such an event would get news coverage.

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Charleston, West Virginia, May 25, 2022

Here a man with “an extensive criminal history” started firing an “AR-15 style firearm” into a crowd. Fortunately, a woman who was legally carrying a gun was there to stop the attack.

Police said a woman who was lawfully carrying a pistol shot and killed a man who began shooting at a crowd of people Wednesday night in Charleston.

Dennis Butler was killed after allegedly shooting at dozens of people attending a graduation party Wednesday near the Vista View Apartment complex. No injuries were reported from those at the party.

Investigators said Butler was warned about speeding in the area with children present before he left. He later returned with an AR-15-style firearm and began firing into the crowd before he was shot and killed.

“Instead of running from the threat, she engaged with the threat and saved several lives last night,” Charleston Police Department Chief of Detectives Tony Hazelett said. . . .

Butler did have an extensive criminal history.

Hazelett said no charges will be filed against the woman.Staff Reports, “Police: Woman with pistol killed man who shot at crowd of people in Charleston,” WCHS Charleston/Huntington, May 26, 7:07 AM.

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Portland, OR, February 19, 2022

A homeowner allegedly confronted participants at a racial justice demonstration Saturday night before pulling out a handgun and shooting multiple people in the crowd, leaving one woman dead and several others injured. The shooting ended when a person with the group of demonstrators, who is licensed to conceal carry a firearm, fired back, striking the homeowner in the hip.

The suspect in a weekend shooting that left one woman dead and four people wounded during a protest in Portland, Oregon, faces several charges, including murder, prosecutors said Tuesday.

The shooting unfolded Saturday night after Benjamin Smith, described by police as an homeowner, allegedly confronted a group of demonstrators who were protesting the killing of Amir Locke by Minneapolis police, authorities said…

“Several participants asked Smith to leave them alone. Moments later, Smith drew a firearm and fired at the crowd, striking five people,” the DA’s office said in the news release…

The shooting ended when a person with the group of demonstrators shot Smith in the “hip area,” critically wounding him. Law enforcement originally detained that person on charges of first degree assault and unlawful use of a weapon, both felonies. The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office ultimately decided to bring “no complaint” against the person “based upon our review of facts and evidence.”

OPB has chosen not to name the person because they have not been charged with a crime, and they did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Court records show the person is licensed to conceal carry a firearm…Conrad Wilson and Ryan Haas, “Multnomah County prosecutor charges suspected park shooter with murder,” Oregon Public Broadcasting, February 22, 2022.
Jennifer Henderson and Michelle Watson, “Suspect in deadly shooting during weekend protest in Portland faces several charges, including murder,” CNN, February 23, 2022.
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Grundy, Virginia, Jan. 16, 2002

Josh White in the Washington Post recounts the testimony of Mikael Gross, one of the two students who had:

. . . Odighizuwa accepted responsibility for the shootings that began after school officials told him that he was failing out of the program. On Jan. 16, 2002, he took a .380-caliber pistol to the offices of Dean L. Anthony Sutin and Prof. Thomas Blackwell and killed them before opening fire on a crowd, killing student Angela Dales, 33, and wounding three others. Odighizuwa was subdued without incident by armed students. . . .

— More details of the attack are available here, including interviews that Lott conducted with the two students who stopped the attack as well as various reporters who covered the case.

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Cases where attacks were stopped with other types of guns

Fort Smith, Arkansas, May 15, 2021

Zachary Arnold, 26, fatally shot Lois Hicks, 87, in her apartment and then began shooting at other people in neighboring apartments. This case involved someone with a rifle, not a concealed handgun, to stop the attack.

Hicks was shot multiple times inside of her apartment by Arnold who was armed with a semi-automatic rifle. Arnold continued to shoot his rifle at neighboring apartments. A resident at the apartments heard the gunshots and got a hunting rifle which he used to shoot and kill Arnold. . . . .Nayely Palafox, “Fort Smith Police investigate shooting that left two people dead,” Channel 5 News (Springdale, AR), May 15, 2021.

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Lenexa, Kansas, November 26, 2017

As the chaotic scene unfolded and the gunman methodically walked through the aisles of the Lenexa Costco on Nov. 26, . . .

When the gunman, later identified as Ronald O. Hunt, announced, “I’m an off-duty U.S. Marshal, I’m here to kill people,” Howell realized that he had only one option.

“I knew that there was a threat that had to be stopped,” Howell said Friday as he recalled the incident. . . .
In announcing that the retired U.S. Army veteran would not face criminal charges, Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe said Howell “acted with extreme courage, and saved an unknown amount of innocent lives.” . . .
“You never know what situation you are going to find yourself in whether it is a restaurant or a shopping mall, or just driving down the road,” he said. “I think it would be ludicrous not to be prepared.” . . .

Bias in a widely used climate sensitivity estimation method

 Ross McKitrick points out that a widely used method for estimating climate sensitivity is biased upward. This is yet another example of why climate forecasts are unreliable and why you cannot trust what you hear from the climate alarmists.

Here is the link.

Here are some excerpts.

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• Optimal fingerprinting is a statistical method that estimates the effect of greenhouse gases (GHGs) on the climate in the form of a regression slope coefficient.
• The larger the coefficient associated with GHGs, the bigger the implied effect on the climate system.
• In 2003 Myles Allen and Simon Tett published an influential paper in Climate Dynamics recommending the use of a method called Total Least Squares in optimal fingerprinting regression to correct a potential downward bias associated with Ordinary Least Squares
• The problem is that in most cases TLS replaces the downward bias in OLS with an upward bias that can be as large or larger
• Under special conditions TLS will yield unbiased estimates, but you can’t test if they hold
• Econometricians never use TLS because another method (Instrumental Variables) is a better solution to the problem

The method of “optimal fingerprinting” works by regressing a vector of climate observations on a set of climate model-generated analogues (called “signals”) which selectively include or exclude GHG forcing. According to the theory behind the methodology, the coefficient associated with the GHG signal indicates the size of the effect of GHGs on the real climate. If the coefficient is greater than zero then the signal is “detected”. The larger the coefficient value, the larger is the implied effect on the real climate.

The seminal method of optimal fingerprinting was presented in a 1999 Climate Dynamics paper by Myles Allen and Simon Tett. With some modifications it has been widely used by climate scientists ever since. Last year I published a paper in Climate Dynamics showing that the basis for believing the method yields unbiased and significant findings was flawed. This website provides links to my paper, as well as to the Allen and Tett (1999) paper I critiqued, a non-technical summary of my argument, Myles Allen’s reply and my response, and a comment by Richard Tol.

One of the arguments Allen made in response was that the issue is now moot because the method he co-authored has been replaced by newer ones (emphasis added):

The original framework of AT99 was superseded by the Total Least Squares approach of Allen and Stott (2003), and that in turn has been largely superseded by the regularised regression or likelihood-maximising approaches, developed entirely independently. To be a little light-hearted, it feels a bit like someone suggesting we should all stop driving because a new issue has been identified with the Model-T Ford.

Ha ha, Model T Ford; we all drive Teslas now, aka Total Least Squares. But in 20 years of usage did any climate scientists check if TLS actually solves the problem? A few statisticians looked at it over the years and have expressed significant doubts about TLS. But once it was adopted by climatologists that was that; with few exceptions no one asked any questions.

I have just published a new paper in Climate Dynamics critiquing the use of TLS in fingerprinting applications. TLS was intended to correct a potential downward bias in OLS coefficient estimates which could understate the influence of GHG’s on the climate. While there is a legitimate argument that OLS can be biased downward, the problem is that in typical usage TLS is biased upwards, in other words it overstates the influence of GHGs. There is a special case in which TLS gives unbiased results, but a user cannot know if a data set matches those conditions. Moreover, TLS is specifically unsuitable for testing the null hypothesis in signal detection and its results ought to be confirmed using OLS.

Armed Woman Stops Career Criminal Shooting at a Birthday Party

Here is a link to news story of an armed citizen with no special training, a woman, who stopped a potential mass murder. If she had been a teacher with her gun in Uvalde, the story might have been different.

More bad statistics on guns from the New York Times

From the New York Times.

From John Lott, who has far better data and is unbiased.

Here is a link to a research paper by John Lott, "Correcting Gun Control false claims about “America’s unique gun violence problem” and “How to Reduce Shootings", that contains a lot more information about gun control claims.

Schools that Allow Teachers to Carry Guns are Extremely Safe

 Here is a link to a paper by John Lott - an expert on the subject of the effects of gun laws, etc.

There have been lots of critiques of Lott's research. However, his responses have established that the critiques had fatal flaws. I have read Lott's research, the critiques of his research and Lott's responses. Lott's research is what prevails. What is amazing is how much poor data and lying there is in the critiques of Lott's work.

Here ares some excerpts from Lott's paper "Schools that Allow Teachers to Carry Guns are Extremely Safe: Data on the Rate of Shootings and Accidents in Schools that allow Teachers to Carry"

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Abstract

After the Columbine school shooting 20 years ago, one of the more significant changes in how we protect students has been the advance of legislation that allows teachers to carry guns at schools. There are two obvious questions: Does letting teachers carry create dangers? Might they deter attackers? Twenty states currently allow teachers and staff to carry guns to varying degrees on school property, so we don’t need to guess how the policy would work. There has yet to be a single case of someone being wounded or killed from a shooting, let alone a mass public shooting, between 6 AM and midnight at a school that lets teachers carry guns. Fears of teachers carrying guns in terms of such problems as students obtaining teachers guns have not occurred at all, and there was only one accidental discharge outside of school hours with no one was really harmed. While there have not been any problems at schools with armed teachers, the number of people killed at other schools has increased significantly – doubling between 2001 and 2008 versus 2009 and 2018.

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Introduction

Police are very important in fighting crime, but a single officer in uniform faces an almost impossible task in stopping mass public shootings. 1 Officers become the first targets in these attacks, as attackers know that if they kill the officer, they will have free reign to continue their massacre. Even if officers aren’t in uniform, attackers may be able to guess from their behavior that they are standing guard. Putting a guard in every school is also very costly. Florida is spending over $400 million a year to put one police officer in each public school. 2 Increasing funding for mental health services has its benefits, but it is hard for mental-health professionals to identify patients who pose a serious violent threat. It’s common for mass killers to have already been seeing psychiatrists before their attacks. But mental health professionals are often unable to identify when someone is at risk of becoming violent. Psychiatrists overlooked the dangers posed by Ivan Lopez (the recent Fort Hood shooter), Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook Elementary), James Holmes (“Batman” movie theater) and Seung-Hui Cho (Virginia Tech). 3 Indeed, from January 1998 through May 2018, 42 percent of mass public shooters were seeing mental health care professionals before their attacks. In only one of those cases had the killer previously been identified as a danger to others. 4 We can't foresee every attack, so what's our backup plan when violence does occur? Within hours of mass public shootings, even before we know how the shooter obtained his gun, there are immediate calls for laws such as universal background checks. Ironically, there is not one mass public shooting this century that would have been stopped by universal background checks, even with a perfectly enforced law. 5 Outside of arming teachers and staff, there's only so much that can be done to secure our schools. Schools have multiple entrances to facilitate smooth evacuations in case of fires or other emergencies. Even if school doors are set up so that they can be opened only from the inside, it's easy enough to have someone on the inside to open a door. Even where there is only one attacker, doors can be propped open. Having a single entrance with a metal detector creates its own safety hazards by leading to crowded bottlenecks of people that present easy targets to attackers. Metal detectors won’t stop someone from shooting their way into a school. But if attackers don't know who is carrying a concealed firearm, they won’t know whom they need to attack first. Perhaps because police understand the difficulty of their jobs, they are strongly in favor of abolishing gun-free school zones. Shortly after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in 2012, PoliceOne, a 450,000-member private organization of police (380,000 active, full-time and 70,000 retired officers), surveyed its members and found that 77 percent supported arming teachers and/or school staff. 6 Eighty-six percent of the officers believed that casualties in mass public shootings would have been reduced or altogether prevented if legally-armed citizens had been able to carry guns. 7 Allowing teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns is nothing new in the United States, and hasn't created any problems. Before the early 1990s, there were no state laws specifically restricting concealed carry on K-12 property so that teacher carry may have been common for much of our history. School insurance rates are no higher for schools that allow teachers to carry. “From what I’ve seen in Utah, rates have not gone up because of guns being allowed,” says Curt Oda, former president of the Utah Association of Independent Insurance Agents. 8 An additional survey of schools in Arkansas, Kansas, Ohio, South Dakota, and Texas also did not indicate that teacher carry had caused an increase in insurance premiums. 9 Insurance fees significantly declined in Kansas.

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Justice loses to politics at the FBI

 Jonathan Turley gets it right again.

The FBI cannot be trusted to provide justice if politics is involved.

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The Sussmann trial yesterday had another surprising disclosure when an agent revealed that FBI leadership, including then-Director James Comey, was “fired up” about the alleged secret communications channel between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank. The question is why Comey and others were so reportedly eager given the lack of foundation for the false claim — a record that even the researchers told the Clinton campaign could be mocked as utterly unsupported. Yet, as with the Steele dossier claims (funded and spread by the Clinton campaign) there was a strikingly receptive audience for such claims at the top of the FBI.

The new disclosure came with the testimony of the supervisory agent for the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe (“Crossfire Hurricane”) Joe Pientka. He sent a note to FBI Special Agent Curtis Heide that stated “People on the 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server,” Pientka messaged Heide. “Did you guys open a case? Reach out and put tools on?”

The description of the eagerness of Comey and others only magnified concerns over the alleged bias or the predisposition of the agency on the investigation of Trump and his campaign. It is particularly striking in an allegation that was viewed as unsupported even by the researchers and quickly dismissed by the government as baseless.

According to Durham, the Alfa Bank allegation fell apart even before Sussmann delivered it to the FBI. The indictment details how an unnamed “tech executive” allegedly used his authority at multiple internet companies to help develop the ridiculous claim. (The executive reportedly later claimed that he was promised a top cyber security job in the Clinton administration). Notably, there were many who expressed misgivings not only within the companies working on the secret project but also among unnamed “university researchers” who repeatedly said the argument was bogus.

The researchers were told they should not be looking for proof but just enough to “give the base of a very useful narrative.” The researchers argued, according to the indictment, that anyone familiar with analyzing internet traffic “would poke several holes” in that narrative, noting that what they saw likely “was not a secret communications channel with Russian Bank-1, but ‘a red herring,’” according to the indictment.

“Researcher-1” repeated these doubts, the indictment says, and asked, “How do we plan to defend against the criticism that this is not spoofed traffic we are observing? There is no answer to that. Let’s assume again that they are not smart enough to refute our ‘best case scenario.’ You do realize that we will have to expose every trick we have in our bag to even make a very weak association.”

The alleged response from Comey and the FBI leadership would seem to confirm the view of campaign associates that they only needed a “useful narrative” to achieve their purposes. It only took an unsupported, implausible theory to get Comey and his top aides “fired up.”

Clintonian and judicial ethics exposed

 Jonathan Turley sums it up on Hillary Clinton.

JT is on target.

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Below is an expanded version of my column in The Hill on the implication of Hillary Clinton in false Alfa Bank claims of Russian collusion. While most media ignored the testimony of Clinton’s former campaign manager in the Sussmann trial, it adds to a damning record on how the Clinton campaign was behind arguably the most successful disinformation campaign in American political history with both the Steele dossier and the Alfa bank claims. Ironically, despite Sussmann efforts to conceal his connections to Clinton in the FBI meeting, it was his counsel who effectively outed Clinton in the scandal. Former Clinton Campaign manager Robby Mook then violated the Eleventh Commandment of Democrats: Thou shalt not name a Clinton in a scandal.

Here is the column:

The trial of former Clinton campaign attorney Michael Sussmann crossed a critical threshold Friday when a key witness uttered the name “Hillary Clinton” in conjunction with a plan to spread the false Alfa Bank Russian collusion claim before the 2016 presidential election.

For Democrats and many in the media, Hillary Clinton has long held a Voldemort-like status as “She who must not be named” in scandals. Yet, there was her former campaign manager, Robby Mook, telling a jury that Clinton personally approved a plan to spread the false claim of covert communications between the Trump organization and the Russian bank. It was one of the most successful disinformation campaigns in American politics, and Mook implicated Clinton as green-lighting the gas-lighting of the electorate.

The mere mention of Clinton’s name sent shockwaves through Washington. In past scandals, the Clintons have always evaded direct responsibility as aides were investigated or convicted, from the Whitewater land dealings to cattle futures. Even when long-sought documents in Whitewater were discovered outside of the family quarters and bearing Hillary Clinton’s fingerprints, Washington quickly moved on.

Clinton was presumed to be untouchable in the Sussmann trial after Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee, issued a series of orders limiting the scope of the trial and its evidence. The orders were viewed as “spar[ing] the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee … potential embarrassment.”

Ironically, after successfully excluding such areas from the trial, it was the defense that called Mook to the stand — and he proceeded to confirm that Clinton herself approved of the collusion disinformation tactic.

It was Washington’s worst-kept but least-acknowledged secret.

On July 28, 2016, then-CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama on Hillary Clinton’s alleged plan to tie Donald Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.” Obama reportedly was told how Clinton allegedly approved “a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.”

Thus, Mook testified that Clinton did precisely what Brennan warned Obama was being planned.

The date of Brennan’s warning is important: It was three days before the FBI’s collusion investigation began. It also was a couple of months before Sussmann contacted then-FBI general counsel Jim Baker while claiming he was not representing any client. (He was counsel to the Clinton campaign and, according to prosecutors, billed the time to the campaign.)

There is a strikingly familiar pattern in both the Steele dossier — which became the basis for the Russia collusion investigation — and the Alfa Bank tale. Campaign associates developed both claims while actively seeking to conceal their connections from the public and the government, including reportedly denying the funding of the Steele dossier and concealing that funding as legal costs.

The campaign then pushed these unfounded claims to the media and the FBI. Indeed, prosecutors this week contended that Sussmann continued to push the Alfa Bank claims after Trump was elected, in an apparent effort to fuel the Russia collusion claims being breathlessly reported in the media at the time.

When Clinton allegedly approved this disinformation effort, her campaign was aware that the Alfa Bank theory was never viewed as credible by researchers tasked with supporting it. Those researchers warned that it would be easy to “poke several holes” in the claim and that the data could be seen as “a red herring.” Yet, trial witnesses admitted that they hoped the media would make the claims stick.

Despite a record of Clinton associates aggressively pushing these false allegations to the FBI on both the Steele dossier and Alfa Bank, Mook and another witness, Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias, insisted they preferred to use the media for such efforts. The campaign found a conduit in one liberal magazine, for example, whose story was then cited as a “bombshell” report, as if the campaign had had nothing to do with it.

For her part, Clinton not only approved using the false Alpha Bank claim but personally helped to portray it as an established fact, tweeting: “Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.”

That claim was then further amplified by one of her campaign advisers, Jake Sullivan, who now serves as President Biden’s national security adviser. Sullivan declared at the time: “This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow. Computer scientists have uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.” Sullivan added that he could “only assume federal authorities will now explore this direct connection between Trump and Russia as part of their existing probe into Russia’s meddling in our elections.”

As the FBI’s Baker and other witnesses told jurors this week, there was in fact “nothing there.”

The sudden and unexpected inclusion of Hillary Clinton in Sussmann’s trial occurred despite the best efforts of Judge Cooper and the defense. Besides limiting the scope of evidence involving Clinton, the judge allowed three Clinton donors to sit as jurors, along with another juror who is a supporter and donor to liberal firebrand Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.).

For special prosecutor John Durham, it must seem like the only juror missing is Chelsea Clinton. When we discuss a “jury of your peers,” however, it is not meant to suggest that a Clinton lawyer should be tried by Clinton supporters.

Months after approving the Alpha Bank disinformation strategy, Clinton called in December 2016 to censor opponents who she accused of spreading falsehoods to try to influence elections. She declared that “it’s now clear that so-called ‘fake news’ can have real-world consequences.” Indeed, Clinton has pushed for state and corporate censorship while demanding a “global reckoning” with those who spread disinformation. Of course, Sussmann could still face the real consequence of conviction given the strength of the evidence against him. Yet, there will likely not be consequences, let alone a “reckoning,” for Hillary Clinton.

Don Boudreaux on inflation and greed

 Here is Don Boudreaux on inflation and greed.

DB is on target.

This is a test: if you believe that corporations can, at all times, increase their profit by raising prices - you fail. If you believe that price increases always reflect greed - you fail. Going one step further, if you believe that prices should be "set" at their lowest possible level (whatever that means) - you fail. 

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Thanks for sharing with me Josh Bivens’s blog post in which he blames inflation on high corporate profits. Unlike you, however, I’m unimpressed with Bivens’s thesis.

Profits are a residual. They’re that portion of revenue that’s left to firm owners after they pay all expenses to workers and other input suppliers. Therefore, Bivens’s argument that inflation is caused by profits must rest on the implicit assertion that firms reap higher profits simply by raising the prices of their outputs. But Bivens’s argument illegitimately assumes the existence of that which must be explained – namely, some change in economic phenomena that allows firms successfully to raise prices.

Bivens is silent about what this change might be, but the theory currently in vogue among Progressives identifies it as “greed.” Yet for at least three reasons this ‘greed’ theory is laughable.

First, there’s no reason to suppose that firms have recently become more greedy. Second, “greed” is at least as likely to push prices down as up; after all, the most obvious way for firms that are greedy for more customers to satisfy their lust is to cut prices. Third, even if producers have mysteriously and suddenly become more greedy, and even if this greed incites producers to try to raise prices, prices will not actually rise unless higher prices are able to be paid by consumers. More intense producer greed does not generate the increase in consumer spending power required to sustain the price hikes.

If we’re to coherently explain the sustained rises in many prices, we must reject Bivens’s lazy practice of simply assuming the existence of that which must be explained – namely, producers’ ability to charge, and consumers’ ability to pay, higher prices. We must identify some plausible change in underlying economic realities that incites firms today to raise prices and allows consumers to pay these higher prices. The only plausible change that I’m aware of is the injection into the economy over the past few years of gargantuan amounts of additional purchasing power.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
and
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

How Government caused the Baby Formula Crisis – by ignoring tradeoffs

 Here is Holman Jenkins at the Wall Street Journal.

Too often Government's decisions are meant to benefit those making them, not citizens generally. The baby formula crisis is an example. The immediate threat to the bureaucracy was criticism if the cause of sick children turned out to be due to formula and production was not stopped - resulting in the Government being blamed for children's deaths. Subsequent shortages likely could be blamed on the company. Thus, from the bureaucracy's point of view, shutting down production provided a benefit without a corresponding likely cost. The issue of larger adverse consequences to children did not enter the picture because there was little expectation that the bureaucracy would be blamed for its failure to consider their interests properly.

Here is HJ's article.

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Baby formula is a target of shoplifting rings. Its supply has been disrupted by Covid lockdowns. Its pattern of demand has been thrown for a loop by pandemic-spawned changes in retailing and baby-making. Add the fact that half the U.S. supply is consumed by welfare recipients, who are limited by regulation to a choice of three manufacturers. Add federal rules that make it hard to relieve a domestic shortage by importing foreign-made supplies.

And still the shocking baby formula crisis of 2022 is not an occasion for your perfect storm metaphors: The key factor that overwhelms all others is a government decision in February to force a factory shutdown and product recall on an Abbott Labs plant in Michigan.

The four cases of Cronobacter sakazakii infection in infants that the government cited could not be traced to the factory’s products. No contaminated baby formula was found; Cronobacter was identified on the factory grounds but lacked a genetic match to samples from affected infants. A considered response might have been to keep the factory running and carefully check its output for contaminated formula, but that’s not the response the Food and Drug Administration chose and thereby hangs a tale.

As one textbook puts it, Cronobacter is a “one product-population problem”—the product is powdered infant formula; the population is newborns, especially low-birth-weight newborns.

A bacteria common in the environment and resilient to boot, with unusual resistance to arid conditions, Cronobacter typically causes disease only in the elderly and immunocompromised. The big exception is very young infants—2 months or less or with compromised immunity—who can develop deadly complications like sepsis and meningitis.

Cronobacter’s natural reservoir is uncertain but the bacteria are readily found on plants, in soil, on meat, cheese, fruits and cereals, in sewage, in herbal teas, etc. A 2014 U.S. government study found specimens on the premises of 38 of 55 U.S. facilities for making powdered milk, with 4.4% of 5,671 “swabs and sponges” testing positive. Though contamination in factory-sealed products has rarely been found, unlike more expensive liquid versions of baby formula, the powdered variety has proved impractical to sterilize.

In the U.S., contamination in the home is clearly the big risk, “after you open the container,” as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts it. Cronobacter has been found on lids, scoops and bottles and in stored water. For parents of infants in the vulnerable categories, the CDC urges mixing powdered formula with water heated to 158 degrees Fahrenheit before serving the cooled solution to an infant.

To make matters more complicated, incubation of Cronobacter is estimated to take at least four days and sometimes as long as 21, so a parent’s anecdotal intuition that a specific formula may be involved is not much to go on. Only one state, Minnesota, tracks Crononbacter infections. The CDC says it receives reports of two to four infant cases a year but has no idea of the true incidence and points to recent evidence suggesting mild infection may not be uncommon among all age groups.

With this context in hand, especially a lack of evidence that the factory was the culprit, a conclusion is hard to resist: In shutting down the Abbott plant, the FDA was acting from a zero-risk mentality in its own bailiwick—protecting infant formula from factory contamination—with zero regard for costs and risks that would be somebody else’s problem. These include a nightmare for parents and a risk of malnutrition for thousands of newborns, particularly those in need of doctor-prescribed formulas that only the Michigan factory produced.

When have we heard this story before? Almost daily during the Covid crisis, from government agencies and politicians who made blinkered decisions more in their own narrow interests rather than in the interests of the public broadly considered. Recall the FDA’s self-protecting perfectionism that delayed lab and later at-home testing for Covid long after other countries had them.

The media are often unhelpful in this regard. “Follow the science” can serve as a smokescreen for avoiding the science, often complex and uncertain, in favor of partisan stereotyping and narratives of villains and heroes. In recent days, the FDA has continued rationalizing its behavior with a labored and showy “settlement” that will allow the Michigan factory to reopen; because the Defense Production Act became a “thing” to the media during the Covid crisis, the Biden administration on Tuesday invoked the DPA and dispatched military-affiliated air carriers to deliver foreign-sourced baby-formula supplies.

Congress held hearings on Thursday. We may be witnessing only the beginning of the political circus to flow from a single act of questionable judgment by the FDA.

Tale of Two Trials: How Sussmann is Receiving Every Consideration Denied to Flynn

 Jonathan Turley gets it right at The Hill.

The Justice System is no better than those who administer it and, in this case, an illustration of how not to give the impression of justice.

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Below is my column in The Hill on the Sussmann trial and the striking comparisons with prior prosecutions of Trump officials like Michael Flynn. The court has limited the evidence available to the prosecution, the scope of questioning, and cleared a jury that includes three Clinton campaign donors. A jury of your peers is not supposed to literal with an array of fellow Clinton supporters. Those negative rulings continued during the trial, including a refusal to dismiss a juror whose daughter is playing on the same team with Sussmann’s daughter. For John Durham, it may seem that the only person missing from the jury at this point is Chelsea Clinton.

Here is the column:

The criminal trial of Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann began this week with a telling warning from prosecutors to the D.C. jury: “Whatever your political views might be, they cannot be brought to your decisions.” The opening statement by Deborah Brittain Shaw reflected the curious profile of the Sussmann case. Prosecutors ordinarily have a massive advantage with juries despite the presumption of innocence. When pleas are counted, federal prosecutors can report as high as 95 percent conviction rates. However, with Sussmann, prosecutors clearly have concerns over whether they, rather than the defendant, will get a fair trial.

Sussmann’s trial for allegedly lying to the FBI is being heard in the same District of Columbia federal courthouse where former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and others faced the very same charge brought by another special counsel.

The cases, however, could not be more different.

Whereas Flynn’s prosecution was a no-holds-barred affair, Sussmann’s prosecution has been undermined by a series of unfavorable rulings by the court. Special prosecutor John Durham still may be able to eke out a conviction, but the difference in the treatment of Trump and Clinton associates is striking.

Sussmann is charged under 18 U.S.C. 1001 with lying to the FBI during a meeting with then-FBI general counsel James Baker when he came forward with what he claimed was evidence of possible covert communications between the Trump organization and Alfa, a Russian bank. Sussmann allegedly concealed that he was representing the Clinton campaign, which he billed for his efforts.

Shaw told the jury that the FBI “should not be used as a political tool for anyone – not Republicans. Not Democrats. Not anyone.” She then added that the jurors themselves should not use this trial for their own political judgments.

Looking at the jury box, one can understand Shaw’s unease. During jury selection, one juror admitted he was a Clinton donor and could only promise to “strive for impartiality as best I can.” Prosecutors objected to his being seated, but Judge Christopher Cooper overruled them.

In another exchange, a former bartender and donor to far-left Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was told by a Sussmann defense lawyer that neither Clinton nor Trump were on trial and then asked if she could be impartial. She responded, “Yes, knowing that” — which might suggest she would not be impartial if the campaigns were part of the trial.

Other jurors include a woman who said she thought she was a Clinton donor but could not remember; a juror whose husband worked for the Clinton 2008 campaign; and a juror who believes the legal system is racist and police departments should be defunded.

To be sure, D.C. voters chose Clinton over Trump in 2016 by a breathtaking margin: 90.9 percent to 4.1 percent. While liberal and Democratic jurors still can be fair and impartial, Judge Cooper has seated a couple jurors who seemed to struggle with the concept of impartiality.

The most notable aspect of the trial is what will be missing: context. Durham contends that Sussmann was no rogue lawyer. After the Mueller investigation, Durham’s team revealed information about how people affiliated with the Clinton campaign allegedly funded, developed and spread the false collusion claim.

On July 28, 2016, then-CIA Director John Brennan briefed President Obama on Hillary Clinton’s alleged plan to tie Donald Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.” Obama reportedly was told how Clinton allegedly approved “a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.” That was three days before the FBI’s collusion investigation was initiated.

This appears to have been an all-Washington effort assisted by key figures associated with a liberal think tank, Democratic members of Congress, and allies in the media. However, it was the role of lawyers like Sussmann that attracted Durham’s interest.

Durham contends that, in addition to allegedly lying to Baker during their meeting, Sussmann sent a text message to Baker the night before the meeting, reading: “Jim — it’s Michael Sussmann. I have something time-sensitive (and sensitive) I need to discuss. Do you have availability for a short meeting tomorrow? I’m coming on my own — not on behalf of a client or company — want to help the Bureau. Thanks.”

Notably, the campaign’s law firm was accused by some journalists of hiding the campaign’s role in financing the infamous Steele dossier, which provided the basis for the collusion story. (The Federal Election Commission recently fined the campaign for using the firm to hide those payments.) The Durham team argued that Sussmann’s alleged lying to the FBI was not just some passing omission but a knowing pattern of deceit. That is why one of the first witnesses expected to be called by the prosecution was Marc Elias, Sussmann’s former law partner and the Clinton campaign’s general counsel. Elias is not charged with any crime, but at least one reporter has claimed Elias denied the campaign’s connection to the Steele dossier.

Judge Cooper has stressed that this trial cannot be about the Clinton campaign per se, but the specific lie that was told. He specifically barred Durham from arguing that there was a “joint venture” in deception with the Clinton campaign. The judge sharply limited the evidence that Durham can present which, in the words of Politico, “spares the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee … potential embarrassment.”

Without the broader context, the prosecution could sound like a play without a plot — just characters and insular acts. The first witnesses included FBI agents who told the jury that the claims passed along by Sussmann “didn’t make sense” and that the collusion theory was rejected within days of looking at the underlying data. However, Cooper warned that he will keep a tight rein on prosecutors delving into how the underlying data was produced or managed through the campaign.

That is not the only blow delivered to the prosecution by the court. The judge refused prosecution access to some evidence and, while allowing access to some emails between the campaign and an opposition-research firm, he barred their introduction at trial due to the late request from the prosecutors.

The treatment given to Sussmann is in stark contrast to how Trump associates were treated in this same court. In the Flynn trial, Judge Cooper’s colleague, Judge Emmet Sullivan, conducted a series of bizarre hearings, including one in which he used the courtroom flag as a prop to accuse Flynn of being an “unregistered agent of a foreign country while serving as the national security adviser” and to suggest that Flynn could be charged with treason — crimes not brought against him. Sullivan then declared: “I cannot assure you that if you proceed today, you will not receive a sentence of incarceration. I am not hiding my disgust and my disdain.”

Likewise, another judicial colleague, Judge Amy Berman Jackson, refused to grant Trump associate Roger Stone a new trial despite disturbing reports of juror bias.

While the judge in Flynn’s case was eager to remove obstacles from the prosecution’s path, the judge in Sussmann’s case seems to have created a virtual obstacle course for Durham. Durham may be able to jump the legal hurdles, but he will do so without much of his evidence. To paraphrase Charles Dickens in “A Tale of Two Cities,” for a prosecutor D.C. can be the best of venues or it can be the worst of venues.