Progressive politicians contend that mandatory-minimum prison sentences are unjust and lead to mass incarceration — until, that is, a judge grants a lenient sentence to someone convicted of a crime that they especially abhor. Then, they suddenly change their narrative.

Last week, the California state legislature passed Assembly Bill 2888. The measure mandates a minimum three-year prison sentence for those convicted of rape. It was inspired by the case of former Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner, who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman after a fraternity party and received a mere six-month sentence behind bars — of which he served only three. Just one state legislator voted against the bill.

That legislator stuck to her guns. “We should not perpetuate practices that put an undue burden on minorities and economically disadvantaged communities like minimum mandatory sentences,” Democratic assembly member Cristina Garcia told National Review in a statement. “The limiting of judicial discretion falls primarily on minorities and the economically disadvantaged which are why the bill is opposed by the ACLU and why I voted no on this legislation.”

The California Democratic Party has in the past agreed with Garcia. They have thrown their support behind Proposition 57, an initiative on the ballot this November that would make it easier to parole more non-violent felons. “Non-violent” felonies, as defined by the law, include rape by intoxication, rape of an unconscious person, human trafficking, and the list goes on.

So where were Garcia’s fellow Democrats when Bill 2888 was making its way through the statehouse? Or are mandatory minimums only a problem when they are applied to crimes that Democrats particularly dislike? From the outside, it certainly seems so. Indeed, many of the same politicians who endorsed Prop 57 — a ballot initiative that would take felons convicted of rape out of jail earlier — put their names to Bill 2888, a bill that aims to put those same felons away for longer.

Turner’s short prison sentence deserved the national attention it got. But for the majority-Democrat legislature to propose as a solution the very measure that it has consistently fought against as the root of over-incarceration is preposterous.

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The University of Chicago’s recent decision to not condone “safe spaces” on campus earned a round of applause from First Amendment advocates. “Free speech is at risk at the very institution where it should be assured: the university,” University of Chicago president Robert Zimmer said. But as the University of Chicago has made substantial strides toward freedom of speech on campus, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs has opted to narrow the scope of what can be discussed in the classroom.

Last week, three professors co-teaching a course titled “Medical Humanities in the Digital Age” released a statement that addressed students who question man-made climate change. “We will not, at any time, debate the science of climate change, nor will the ‘other side’ of the climate change debate be taught or discussed in this course,” the professors said in a statement obtained by The College Fix. And if you disagree? The professors “respectfully ask that you do not take this course.”

One wonders: If the professors are positive that man-made climate change is occurring exactly in the manner they suggest, then why are they worried about a few students questioning their narrative? Universities are supposed to be places where students can improve themselves and others by debating openly. How does suppressing contradictory views aid that?

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The DOJ has its hands in nearly everything these days. Except, that is, for political corruption.

Attorney General Lynch has found the time to sue North Carolina for its transgender bathroom law and, to launch an immediate investigation into Alton Sterling’s fatal encounter with Louisiana police. But she has not batted an eyelash upon receiving investigative requests into Florida’s corrupt state capital.

In fact, when a bipartisan group led by former Democratic senator Bob Graham asked Holder in 2013 to aid the State Attorney’s Northern District Office (an underfunded office with only 22 attorneys) in investigating corruption, the DOJ responded with a simple “thank you.”

If anything, Graham’s letter to Holder wasn’t a request — it was a demand. “The Northern District Office lacks a freestanding public corruption unit and the institutional expertise and resources that are available in larger offices to investigate and prosecute these complicated and highly important cases,” Graham and his colleagues wrote. “It is too much to expect it adequately to investigate the vast operations of Florida’s $70 billion state government.”

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California’s human-trafficking industry is scandalously large. In 2015, approximately 293 cases of trafficking involving minors were reported by the National Human Trafficking Resource Center. This year, the tally has already hit 200 such cases. Rather than accepting the advice of the authorities who work with victims, California lawmakers have chosen a different route: to pass bills that work in theory, not reality.

Last week, the California state legislature sent SB 823 and SB 1322 to Governor Jerry Brown. The bills seek to decriminalize prostitution for minors and, as SB 823 states, allow “a person arrested or convicted of a nonviolent crime while he or she was a human trafficking victim to apply to the court to vacate the conviction and seal and destroy records of arrest.”

In 2016, voters are fed up with career politicians. This year, both Democratic and Republican congressional candidates are striving to cast themselves in opposition to the Washington establishment.

Ironically, the majority of “outsider” candidates on the ballot in November will have a background in the military, which falls within the long list of government institutions that are the very core of the “establishment.”

With most states having completed their congressional primaries, the success of veterans running outsider campaigns against entrenched incumbents is startling. In fact, 37 of the 72 House candidates nationwide who are espousing an anti-establishment campaign heading into the general election have a military or law-enforcement background, no political experience, and an anti-establishment message.

It’s not hard to explain this apparent contradiction: According to a Gallup poll from June, 73 percent of people have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the military, while a mere 6 percent have any confidence in Congress. It seems that not every establishment institution is feeling the public’s wrath.

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When Facebook came under fire last week for banning various pro-Second Amendment pages without explanation, it appears the social-media giant may have sought retribution.

Last week, the owner of a firearms-parts company called “Tactical Sh*t” logged onto Facebook to discover his company’s page had been taken down without explanation. After he spoke with others in the gun industry, T. J. Kirgin discovered that multiple other pro-Second Amendment pages had also been mysteriously banned.

Immediately, Kirgin spoke out against what he alleged to be Facebook’s censorship, and, within 36 hours, his company’s page was restored. Since that time, Kirgin has continued to make media appearances telling his side of the story. But now, he believes that decision has cost him. As soon as he came off the air yesterday, Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, banned Tactical Sh*t, taking away a stream that accounts for 20 percent of Kirgin’s total revenue.

“It all culminated last night after I went on The Blaze with Tomi Lahren,” Kirgin says. “This morning when I woke up, they had not just unpublished our Instagram page with 221,000 fans, but they deleted it.”

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Last Tuesday, all eyes turned to House speaker Paul Ryan’s supposedly dramatic Wisconsin primary. But while the spotlight focused on Ryan’s congressional district, less than 150 miles away in northeastern Wisconsin’s eighth congressional district — the home of the Green Bay Packers — Republican state senator Frank Lasee, the establishment favorite, was losing badly in his bid to take over the seat of retiring Republican congressman Reid Ribble. Marine Corps veteran Mike Gallagher beat Lasee by 54 points.

“This is a year where people are so dissatisfied with the status quo,” Gallagher tells National Review in the aftermath of his primary victory. “Should I get elected, my intent is to treat it like a deployment and not like a career.”

Gallagher announced his insurgent candidacy in February — in the seven weeks that followed, his campaign raised half a million dollars. To date, the campaign has raised almost $1.2 million: “Ninety-eight percent of our donations in the primary came from individuals,” Gallagher explains, many of whom served with him in the military.

A former Marine Corps captain, Gallagher served as an intelligence officer during his seven years on active duty. He also worked with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the National Counterterrorism Center, and was a national-security adviser for Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s presidential campaign.

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In November, 28-year-old congressional candidate Justin Fareed will have the opportunity to end Democrats’ decades-long domination of the constantly changing districts across California’s central coast.

“I’m very optimistic that the electorate is looking for a new generation of leadership,” Fareed tells National Review. “What we are seeing today is Congress circumventing the big issues we face.”

As Democrat Lois Capps’s 18-year career in Congress comes to an end, donors have poured money into the race to replace her. Fareed has raised $1.2 million, and his Democratic competitor Salud Carbajal, Capps’s preferred successor, has raised $2.1 million.

“This seat was very much on the radar of the national parties. . . . This has been about politics for the Democrats,” Fareed says, arguing that they want to retain the seat without articulating a “vision for the central coast.”

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Facebook’s tendency toward political censorship accelerated swiftly this past weekend, when many pro-Second Amendment pages were banned without explanation.

“We found out we weren’t alone. Many other pro-gun pages — or pro-law enforcement pages or military pages — were unpublished over the weekend,” Tactical Sh*t owner TJ Kirgin tells National Review. In some cases, he says, even airsoft pages were included in the cull.

Tactical Sh*t is an online community for Second Amendment supporters that has over 30 million viewers per month. The company follows Facebook’s guidelines by limiting its commercial offerings to firearms accessories and extraneous gear. Yet it was banned from the site anyway.

Kirgin believes that Facebook is using an “algorithm” to ban pro-Second Amendment pages. The last time that a Tactical Sh*t post was flagged — about four months ago — he notes that it was removed and his punishment was decided in under 20 minutes. “No human being could have made that decision” so quickly, he says. “The targeting being done is most certainly algorithmic.”

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