A Liberal Lives In Wisconsin

       Around the world, we are seeing increasingly positive signs in the fight to abolish the death penalty. Last year, two nations ( Kazakhstan and Sierra Leone ) abolished the death penalty. This year, that number was four. First came Papua New Guinea ; this leaves Tonga as the only nation in Oceania that has not abolished the death penalty, and they have not executed anyone in more than 40 years. Antarctica obviously does not execute people, and Guyana, the only retentionist country in South America, has not executed anyone since 1997. In the Americas, only the United States has executed people since 2008, while Belarus is the only retentionist country in Europe. That leaves Africa and Asia as the only two continents where executions are relatively widespread. In Africa, at least, that is starting to change.      This year, the other three of the four nations globally that abolished the death penalty were all in Africa: Zambia, the Central African Republic, and Equatorial Guinea.

     December 2022 was a good month for accountability in the domestic terrorist plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, hold her captive, possibly execute her for "treason," and blow up bridges and kill police officers to make their getaway, among other ideas. Up until this point, the only accountability we had seen was Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks being sentenced to 2.5 and four years in prison, respectively, after pleading guilty to kidnapping conspiracy and testifying at trial; Garbin has since been released.      Then came December 15th, when Paul Bellar, expelled from a military academy in South Carolina; Joseph Morrison, the president and founder of the Wolverine Watchmen militia; and Pete Musico, Morrison's father-in-law and roommate and the other co-founder of the Wolverine Watchmen; were sentenced to seven to 20, 10 to 20, and 12 to 20 years in prison, respectively. They were convicted at trial in October of supporting terrorism, gang membership, and felony fire

     A lot of people forget how far we have come as a nation in less than two years. When President Biden took office on January 20th, 2021, the United States was seeing thousands of its citizens die every day from a virus for which no widespread vaccine was available, with crippling results on our economy being one key result. Unfortunately, another result was an uptick in hate crimes against Asian-Americans. Hate crimes in general have been on the rise since Trump's campaign began, but they rose particularly quickly in 2020 and 2021 against Asian-Americans, much like other hate crimes as a result of Trump's rhetoric. He blamed "Kung Flu" and the "China Virus," and his ignorant and bigoted followers acted out against innocent Asian-American citizens, from elderly women to decorated war heroes and even NBA players.      President Biden, on the other hand, took immediate action to not only condemn, but prevent and prosecute such hate crimes. On day one, he si

       On December 26th, 1934, the Montevideo Convention went into effect. Negotiated by Dr. Sophonisba Breckinridge on the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (the former was the first woman to represent the United States at an international conference), this conference established the latter's "Good Neighbor Policy," which renounced American interventionism in Latin America.      The convention also codified contemporary notion of sovereignty under international law and reflected the Stimson Doctrine, a policy of refusing to recognize states created as a result of aggression. As a result, the United States withdrew troops from Panama and Haiti, and trade between the United States and Latin America tripled over the course of a decade.

     On December 21st, 2000, Bill Clinton, in one of his last acts as president, signed the Shark Finning Prohibition Act. Introduced in the House with wide bipartisan support and passed in the Senate with unanimous consent, the bill banned the finning of sharks in American waters, the possession of shark fins by U.S.-flagged vessels, and the landing in port of shark fins that exceeded a certain weight threshold when compared to carcasses.      Unfortunately, the law left a loophole regarding transshipment of fins in American waters by foreign vessels that was exposed in a court case challenging the seizure of 32 tons of shark fins by the United States. The loophole would later be closed when President Barack Obama signed the Shark Conservation Act of 2010.