“Join me,” US Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) tweeted on November 29, “in demanding the #GhislaineMaxwellTrial be public.”

In reply, attorney (and former Libertarian National Committee chair) Nicholas Sarwark tweeted “Is the Congresswoman unaware that all Federal criminal trials are public, as required by our Constitution?”

Mr. Sarwark is correct, but Congresswoman Greene has a point.

The Sixth Amendment specifies that “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial.”

Traditionally, that’s been taken to mean that members of the public (and press) may plant their posteriors in seats in the courtroom and watch the proceedings. But don’t bet the ranch on even that seemingly reasonable concession to transparency.  I’ve seen municipal courts get around it by filling the courtroom with a whole day’s worth of defendants, then having a bailiff stop would-be spectators outside the door, claiming there’s only room for those defendants and their attorneys.

Additionally, many courts — including US federal courts such as the one hearing the Maxwell case — either don’t allow, or only selectively allow,  recording and/or broadcast of trials.

As a libertarian, I’m not big on appeals to “there ought to be a law.” Or on agreeing with Marjorie Taylor Greene.

But in this case,  I do agree with her.

It’s 2021, not 1821. Allowing an artist to draw pictures, and a reporter to take notes, for publication in a newspaper is neither necessary nor sufficient to make a trial “public.”

There ought to be a law.

Not a law that applies only to sensational or controversial trials like that of Ghislaine Maxwell, accused of procuring young girls for Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual predations.

A law requiring that all trial proceedings, from the local level to the US Supreme Court, be made “public” for real.

By law, all trial proceedings should be live streamed — audio and video — to publicly accessible platforms, with links to those streams prominently posted on the web sites of the courts in which those proceedings occur.

Just as the availability of everything from tape recorders to photocopiers to social media has extended the reach of the First Amendment, cameras and live streaming platforms can expand the application, and make real the promise, of the Sixth.

Yes, controversial trials will get the most attention. But the ability to see American justice in action at all levels and without filters is a key first step toward making it truly just.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

On November 24, South Africa reported detection of a new variant of the COVID-19 virus to the World Health Organization. On November 26, WHO designated it a “variant of concern” and tagged it with the name “Omicron.”

At the same time, WHO advised against travel restrictions and other knee-jerk responses to Omicron, and in favor of a “risk-based and scientific” approach, noting that it is “not yet clear” whether Omicron is more transmissible than other variants or even causes severe disease.

The US government ignored WHO’s advice, immediately banning travel from eight African countries and cranking up the latest version of COVID hysteria and hygiene theater.

Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — and the mainstream media’s favorite administration flack/hack/quack — gleefully announced an intention to do “anything and everything” in the name of combating Omicron, but seemed crestfallen that it’s still “too early to say” whether new lockdowns or mandates are in the offing.

While most governors issued cautious “watch and wait” statements, New York’s Kathy Hochul immediately declared a state of emergency, limiting “non-urgent” hospital procedures and ordering nursing homes to make vaccine boosters available for all residents — despite seemingly having no information that the current vaccines are effective against Omicron, nor any evidence of Omicron cases in her state.

What’s missing from the above is any mention of Omicron being more deadly than prior variants of COVID-19.

Dr Angelique Coetzee, the South African doctor who first spotted the variant, tells BBC that patients so far display “extremely mild symptoms.”

While confirmed cases of COVID-19 in South Africa rose from a seven-day average of 326 to 2,447 between October 31 and November 28, deaths have dropped from a seven-day average of 35 to two — yes, two — over the same period.

As all viruses do in the process of becoming endemic, COVID-19 is evolving in two directions: It’s getting more transmissible and less deadly. That’s how natural selection works. Viruses that kill their hosts don’t reproduce as successfully as viruses that give their hosts the sniffles.

So far, Omicron looks like it may well be the virus’s next step down the path toward becoming yet another version of “the common cold.” If so, we should be praying for its arrival on our shores. And even if not, we shouldn’t let authoritarian politicians use it as an excuse for yet another round of mass hysteria cultivated to accrue more power over our lives.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

• “OMG, Omicron: Next Step Down the Path From Pandemic to Endemic?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Anchorage, Alaska Press, 11/29/21
• “OMG, Omicron: Next Step Down the Path From Pandemic to Endemic?” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 11/30/21
• “OMG, Omicron: Next step down the path from pandemic to endemic?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Elizabethton, Tennessee Star, 11/30/21
• “OMG, Omicron: Next Step Down The Path From Pandemic To Endemic?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 12/01/21
• “OMG Omicron, Pandemic to Endemic?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Madill, Oklahoma Record, 12/01/21
• “OMG, Omicron: Next Step Down the Path From Pandemic to Endemic?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Kingstree, South Carolina News, 12/06/21

You’ve seen the headlines. So Have I. For example, a November 23 story in my local paper (the Gainesville, Florida Sun) : “Gainesville man charged with murder for Sunday shooting in dispute over marijuana deal.”

It wasn’t a huge marijuana deal. It was a $180 sale. The seller apparently shot a buyer who tried to drive off without paying.

Other common headlines of the “police blotter” variety include people put in handcuffs and hauled off to jail for buying, selling, or possessing a common plant. Then over in the medical section, we’ll see that some kid ended up in the hospital or even dead after — the claim seems dubious, but I guess it’s possible — smoking marijuana laced with fentanyl.

What we don’t see are headlines about people shooting each other over, getting arrested for, or dying from buying a blister pack of pain reliever or a bottle of night-time cold medicine at Walgreens. Or, for that matter, paying $180 for those things.

Over the course of nearly a century, the war on marijuana — based from the start on myth, hype, and intentionally cultivated moral panic — has put millions of Americans in jail or in their graves over a medically valuable and recreationally pleasant plant that’s been used throughout human history and that’s safer than tobacco, alcohol, and most over the counter medications.

Some US states have taken steps toward a ceasefire, legalizing marijuana for medical and/or recreational use, but it still remains illegal at the federal level despite the occasional introduction of bills to change that.

The latest such offering comes from US Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC), who introduced the States Reform Act on November 15. It would federally decriminalize marijuana, clear the federal prisons of “criminals” whose only “crimes” involved the plant, and make interstate commerce in it legal.

The bill isn’t perfect — it includes a federal excise tax, and subjects the plant to the same regulatory regime as alcohol — but it’s a giant step in the right direction. There just aren’t any good arguments for keeping marijuana less legal than aspirin, tomatoes, and fidget spinners.

Congress tends to move in slow motion when it moves at all, but this bill could and should be the exception.

For Christmas, there’s little I’d like more than an end to the headlines about deaths, arrests, and hospitalizations over marijuana. Congress should pass the SRA and put it on President Biden’s desk before Santa comes to town.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION HISTORY

• “For Christmas, How About an End to the War on Marijuana?” by Thomas L. Knapp, OpEdNews, 11/25/21
• “For Christmas, How About an End to the War on Marijuana?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Sidney, Montana Herald, 11/26/21
• “For Christmas, How About an End to the War on Marijuana?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Ventura County, California Citizens Journal, 11/27/21
• “For Christmas, How About an End to the War on Marijuana?” by Thomas L. Knapp, West Plains, Missouri Daily Quill, 11/30/21
• “For Christmas, How About an End to the War on Marijuana?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Glasgow, Montana Courier, 12/01/21
• “For Christmas, How About an End to the War on Marijuana?” by Thomas L. Knapp, Charleston, South Carolina Post and Courier, 12/01/21