Agreed, a few states (4-5?) have been able to fully eliminate the biggest issue with civil asset forfeiture (including removing the loophole that allows their state employees from working with the federal govt. to get around those restrictions).

Over half the states have started to do something about it. But as long as that loophole remains and as long as the federal govt. itself can continue to abuse civil asset forfeiture, we’ll continue to see problems.

Interesting, I didn’t realize that Russia was already renting out the base pre-2014. Thank you for that context.

Perhaps an option could be that Ukraine gets their land back, but there’s some agreement that Russia can rent out the land around the port at Sevastopol.

Ukraine gets paid for the use of their land (and ultimately they still own it), and Russia gets exclusive access to that part of the port where they can do whatever they need.