When you’ve even lost Chris Cuomo…..
Chris Cuomo and Matt Taibbi scoff and cast doubt on the charges Trump was reportedly indicted over.
Cuomo says they appear "at or below a level" anyone would deem "impressive."
Taibbi say, "A person who grew up in a third world country, you would recognize this kind of thing… " pic.twitter.com/LpXHp1rGTo— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) June 9, 2023
FPC Files Opening Brief in Lawsuit Challenging ATF Pistol Brace Rule
NEW ORLEANS, LA (June 5, 2023) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of an opening brief with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in Mock v. Garland, FPC and FPC Action Foundation’s challenge to ATF’s pistol brace rule. Today’s brief was filed less than two weeks after the court clarified that its injunction against the rule covers FPC’s members. The brief can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.
“The merits panel should extend the interim relief pending appeal into a preliminary injunction,” argues the brief. “The Final Rule violates the Second Amendment and is not authorized by the NFA. But even if the NFA is ambiguous enough to allow for the Final Rule, then the Final Rule is barred by lenity and reflects an unconstitutional delegation of authority to the Agencies. The Final Rule also violates the First Amendment by considering the speech of manufacturers and third parties, is hopelessly vague, and violates both the substantive and notice provisions of the APA. On each of these points, Appellants are likely to succeed on the merits.”
“Receiving the injunction pending appeal was just the first step to ensuring that the Plaintiffs, including Maxim Defense’s customers and FPC’s members, are properly protected from the federal government while we litigate our full case against ATF’s stabilizing brace rule,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPC Action Foundation’s Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation and attorney for FPC in this case. “All we’re asking is for the Fifth Circuit to preserve the decade-long status quo, as it has already done, through a preliminary injunction to protect millions of peaceable people from this unconstitutional and illegal overreach.”
The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Mike Turner, said the GOP won’t back reauthorizing a provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act without major changes, signaling a bipartisan coalition in support of modifying the act that allows for spying on Americans with the approval of a secret court.
Mr. Turner has aligned himself with Representatives Darin LaHood and Mike Garcia in pushing for changes to FISA, and its Section 702 in particular, citing Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation of the FBI as a reason.
“We have been very clear on a bipartisan basis with the intelligence community and the FBI that there is no support in Congress for a clean reauthorization of 702,” Mr. Turner told the Washington Examiner.
Mr. Turner is aligning himself with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as well as other Democrats who have been critical of the power FISA gives the intelligence community. President Biden, however, has pushed for renewal.
“Reforms are necessary. We will be taking up the issue of reforms, and they will not be limited to 702 itself,” Mr. Turner said. “It will encompass both abuses that we are aware of and abuses that are now in the public domain as a result of disclosure and Durham.”
The provision in question grants broad authority to the FBI to collect data on communications from foreign nationals without a warrant. However, critics say it has been abused and used as a backdoor to spy on Americans.
The coming fight over reauthorization will be the first time critics of the law will have serious leverage since the passage of Section 702 in 2008.
They’re waging war against those they’re most afraid of, their own citizens
HOW DHS WENT FROM FIGHTING JIHADISTS TO TARGETING YOUR TWEETS.
On May 11, I found myself in the unlikely position of testifying before a congressional committee on a topic that most Americans would likely assume was totally irrelevant to that committee, and largely concerning the actions of a sub-agency under that committee’s jurisdiction that most Americans have likely never heard of.
“What,” they might ask, “does censorship have to do with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)?”
“And what in the world is the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and what does it have to do with any of it?”
Indeed, in saner times a hearing of the House Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability on “Censorship Laundering: How the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Enables the Silencing of Dissent,” and specifically on CISA’s role in said laundering, would not only be unnecessary, but unthinkable.
But these are not sane times. Remarkably, and perversely, as the analysis I presented to the subcommittee demonstrates, DHS, led by CISA, has become a linchpin of the mass public-private censorship regime discussed in these digital pages previously.
This regime, linking federal agencies, top White House officials, and lawmakers to Big Tech companies and supportive “private” but often state-supported or like-minded entities – namely counter-disinformation academic and research organizations, and media outlets, ironically some of the greatest beneficiaries of our free speech principles – has used its collective power to silence speech contrary to the regime’s favored narratives in service of its power and privilege.
The regime has led arguably the most widespread censorship system in the history of mankind.
The Feds Want to Take Your Guns While Stockpiling Weapons, Ammo, and Tactical Gear
It’s no secret that the Democrat Party, also currently known as the Federal Government, is opposed to an armed citizenry. And as someone who has been shot at, I understand that not everyone should own a gun. But it is telling that those in favor of total disarmament always look past the motivations and the mindset of the shooters in question. One could argue that the uptick in violence across the country is the result of a decline in behavior and expectations and the blessing of criminal behavior by state and local authorities. When societal norms break down, violence is a given.
But while the government wants to get its hands on your firearms, it has been loading up on them like it is 4 a.m. at a Black Friday sale. A story that The New York Post broke a month ago is now making its way around talk radio and other outlets and bears repeating here. in fact, it should be a major talking point around water coolers, over back fences, on your social media feeds, and at your favorite eatery or pub.
Since 2020, the IRS has spent $10 million on weapons, ammunition, and the accompanying accessories and accouterments. In theory, I understand why entities such as the FBI, ATF, and the U.S. Marshals Service need such things. And if our federal government were not so dysfunctional, I would sleep a little better. But the IRS? Health and Human Services? Why do these agencies need to arm up? And given the fact that a new debt ceiling deal has been hammered out, you need to know just how much money these agencies are spending and for what.
Open the Books has the numbers. And they are alarming, to say the least.
ATF Says a Quarter Million Guns Registered Under Pistol-Brace Ban
Only a fraction of the guns affected by the ATF’s new rule were registered with the agency during the four-month grace period that ended this week.
The ATF told The Reload on Friday it has received just over a quarter million applications to register pistol-brace-equipped firearms. Registering the affected guns was one path toward avoiding possible criminal punishment for possessing the guns under the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) after the agency implemented a rule reclassifying the firearms as subject to NFA restrictions. The ATF waived the tax requirement for registration to encourage owners to comply before the deadline.
“The final rule provided possessors of such firearms the option to comply with the registration requirements of the National Firearms Act through a tax-free process using either the ATF eForms System or a paper application process with a deadline for such applications of 11:59 PM (ET) on May 31, 2023,” Erik Longnecker, Deputy Chief of the ATF’s Public Affairs Division, told The Reload. “As of June 1, 2023, ATF received 255,162 applications for tax-free registration.”
That number represents just a fraction of the braced guns believed to have been sold in the decade since the ATF first classified a version as outside the scope of the NFA. In the impact assessment for the rule, the ATF estimated that three to seven million devices exist. However, the Congressional Research Service puts the number much higher at somewhere between 10 and 40 million.
That puts the registration rate for pistol-brace-equipped guns at between .6 percent and eight percent.
Longnecker noted that owners of the affected guns could also comply with the rule by either dismantling the firearms and destroying the braces or turning them over to the ATF. He said the agency does not know how many Americans may have taken those routes.
“ATF is unable to estimate the number of possessors of such firearms that used either of these methods to comply with the final rule,” he said. “Likewise, we have no data currently available for the number of firearms abandoned to ATF.”
The rule has been a source of significant controversy since the ATF submitted it at the behest of President Joe Biden. Gun-rights advocates have labeled it unconstitutional, with every major gun group filing suit against it after it went into effect in January, and some owners have said they would refuse to comply with it. The registration numbers indicate many carried through on that promise.
However, Attorney General Merrick Garland (D.) has continually defended the rule change. He has said the reclassification of braced guns will prevent crimes committed with them by subjecting them to far stricter regulations under the NFA.
“Keeping our communities safe from gun violence is among the Department’s highest priorities,” he said in a statement after the rule was announced. “Almost a century ago, Congress determined that short-barreled rifles must be subject to heightened requirements. Today’s rule makes clear that firearm manufacturers, dealers, and individuals cannot evade these important public safety protections simply by adding accessories to pistols that transform them into short-barreled rifles.”
The NFA regulates certain kinds of short-barreled semi-automatic firearms in the same way it does machineguns and silencers. The law requires Americans to register any “rifles” with a barrel shorter than 16 inches or a “shotgun” with a barrel shorter than 18 inches. The registration is meant to prove the owner paid the $200 tax at the law’s core. The registration process is slow, often taking up to a year to complete. But anyone caught with an unregistered NFA item could be subject to a federal felony charge, which carries up to ten years in prison.
The complicating factor is that the NFA defines “rifles” and “shotguns” as guns that are “designed and intended” to be shouldered. In 2012, the ATF determined the first firearms equipped with pistol braces, which are designed to be strapped to a shooter’s forearm instead of pressed against their shoulder, were not rifles. That meant they were not subject to NFA regulations even if they had barrels shorter than 16 inches long.
Over the next decade, the agency issued a slew of determinations on different versions of pistol braces that further muddied the waters on what was and wasn’t subject to the NFA. A few years after the first determination, during the Obama Administration, the agency issued another claiming that pressing a pistol brace to a shooter’s shoulder constituted a redesign of the device and turned it into an unregistered short-barrel rifle. It later rescinded that declaration under the Trump Administration. The inconsistency led to increasing complaints from owners and the gun industry that the agency was inconsistent and subjective in its determinations.
The new rule, issued under the Biden Administration, purports to be based on more objective criteria but still relies on many subjective measures, including whether the agency believes “indirect marketing” of a brace shows it is meant to be shouldered. In practice, it classifies nearly all pistol-brace-equipped firearms as unregistered short-barrel rifles. With the deadline to register previously-owned braced guns now passed, anyone caught with one could now face charges.
However, millions of gun owners don’t have to worry about that for the time being because of recent injunctions issued by a collection of federal judges. A Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel issued an injunction just days before the end of the grace period that blocks the ATF from enforcing its rule against Firearms Policy Coalition members or Maxim Defense customers. A second judge in the same circuit followed up by issuing one for Second Amendment Foundation members. A third did the same for Gun Owners of America members.
“Nothing in this order is to be construed as a comment on the merits of any issue that this panel may ultimately address,” the Fifth Circuit panel wrote in the order. “The limited purpose of this clarification is to preserve the status quo ante to provide what the agency defendants term ‘complete relief’ to the parties and persons within the reasonable scope of the motion panel’s injunction pending appeal.”
That protects many who may have decided not to register or turn in their guns, but it leaves potentially millions more at risk of prosecution. Other suits against the rule outside the Fifth Circuit, such as the one filed in the Eighth Circuit by the National Rifle Association, have yet to see a ruling.
Longnecker said the ATF could not say how the injunctions would affect its enforcement strategy in the short term.
“We are unable to comment on any future actions due to ongoing litigation.”
The Fifth Circuit panel put the case on an expedited schedule when it released its injunction. Hearings in the case are set to begin on June 29th.
A TX federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction against the ATF's pistol brace rule as applied to current members of Gun Owners of America and Gun Owners Foundation, along with "individuals employed directly by the State of Texas or its agencies." https://t.co/75f1aS6EHV pic.twitter.com/AfiYlG8LEq
— FPC Action Foundation (@FPCAction) June 1, 2023
Could Industry and Political Pushback Kill the EPA’s Electric Truck Plans?
It’s a well-established fact that the Biden administration thinks that electric vehicles are the solution to everything. (Ring around the collar? Buy an EV. Troubles in the bedroom? Buy an EV. Thinning hair? You get the picture.) So it shouldn’t surprise any of us that the administration has decided that what the trucking industry needs most is a great big transition to electric trucks.
Last month, we reported about how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is looking to follow California’s lead in declaring war on diesel vehicles. At the time, many in the trucking industry expressed their dismay at the EPA allowing California to hold the rest of the country hostage regarding overblown climate concerns.
“By granting California’s waiver for its so-called ‘advanced clean trucks’ rule, the EPA is handing over the keys as a national regulator,” Chris Spear, CEO of the American Trucking Associations, said at the time. “This isn’t the United States of California, and in order to mollify a never satisfied fringe environmental lobby by allowing the state to proceed with these technologically infeasible rules on unworkable and unrealistic timelines, the EPA is sowing the ground for a future supply chain crisis.”
The EPA proposal includes more stringent regulations on trucks beginning with the 2027 model year, even more regulations beginning in 2028, and tightening those regulations even more beginning in 2032. And, of course, the agency wants all new trucks to be zero-emission vehicles (in other words, battery-powered) starting in 2045.
The trucking industry and outlets that cover logistics have been quick to decry the EPA’s proposal. Freightwaves pointed out how detrimental the electric truck mandate could be for the industry.
“Cost has been emphasized as a big impediment. A new all-electric costs over $400,000 today, versus a new diesel truck in the $150,000 range,” notes the FreightWaves report. “In addition, charging times are too long, which eats into federal hours of service rules. The batteries weigh a lot — which puts early adopters at a disadvantage with other carriers in the amount of cargo they can haul and still be in compliance with highway weight limits.”
Naturally, trucking companies and suppliers would pass on those additional costs to consumers, and the weight limits and long charging times could put even more strain on the supply chain. Another one of the most crucial factors is that some states are already having trouble with their electric grids keeping up with the strain of more electric passenger vehicles. What would a switch to electric trucks do to these power grids? What would the switch do to drivers?
“I’m intrigued by a lot of technology, and I’m not opposed to the move toward electric vehicles,” Joe Rajkovacz, director of governmental affairs for the Western States Trucking Association told FreightWaves. “But to make a mandate on a truck buyer that will potentially leave him stranded on the road because there’s not enough juice in the grid to power his vehicle doesn’t make sense.”
GOP lawmakers and conservative activists have made their concerns known, too:
Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Texas and chair of the House Oversight Committee’s subcommittee on energy policy and regulatory affairs, stated during a May 17 hearing that “Republicans are not anti-EV. They are however deeply concerned by the Biden administration’s apparent attempt to hijack the auto industry, strangle consumer choice, and determine what products are best for the American people in setting timelines.”
At the same hearing, Rep. Chuck Edwards, R-N.C., pointed out that last year the U.S. Supreme Court “slapped EPA down” in West Virginia v. EPA for overstepping its authority in regulating power plants. “Isn’t EPA doing the exact same thing with these proposed EV rules?”
Steve Bradbury of the Heritage Foundation replied that the EPA’s plans to regulate trucking are “remarkably similar” to the overreach that led to the Supreme Court ruling, adding that “At issue are matters of life, liberty, and prosperity, and they are fundamentally political in nature. That is exactly why, under our constitutional republic, it is for Congress, and Congress alone, to make the monumental decisions that EPA is purporting to take upon itself in these proposed rules.”
Democrats reply that the administration’s handouts and tax breaks are sufficient to help the trucking industry transfer over to electric trucks — because the Democrats think handouts solve everything. Is this pressure from the GOP and the industry enough to put the brakes on the proposal? We can be sure that they’ll give it their best shot.
Covid vaccines and multiple sclerosis
MS in these cases is ‘very likely’ vaccine caused
Well, I must say I was a little surprised to find this article, indicating a likely causative correlation between Covid vaccinations and Multiple Sclerosis on an official World Health Organisation website.
While this study is only dealing with a small number of cases, it could be considered to be inconsistent with the official narrative, one might even say the official international mantra, which I guess we all know by heart now that the vaccines are ‘safe and effective’. Or as we are now only too well aware, that they are not very effective and multiple adverse reactions including death have been clearly documented.
Nonetheless, the World Health Organisation are to be complimented on allowing this conversation to enter into the public domain. Let’s just hope it’s not a form of controlled opposition to give the impression of transparency.
Second Amendment Roundup: U.S. Seeking Cert on Prohibited Persons
The Administration is hoping that bad facts will make bad law.
Federal law prohibits nine categories of persons from receipt and possession of a firearm. As the Supreme Court continues to develop its Second Amendment jurisprudence, which ones of those types are most significant in regard to representativeness and numerosity?
Felons in possession of firearms have been the leading type of prosecution under the federal Gun Control Act since its enactment in 1968. There were 7,454 such convictions in 2021.
The ban on felon possession is found in 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), which also includes eight other categories of prohibited persons – all of which pale into insignificance compared to the felon ban. One of the more minor categories is a person subject to a domestic restraining order. While the feds aren’t too good at posting current data, in the years 2013 to 2017, there were 26,717 such convictions based on felon status, and only 121 for restraining order status. The proportions can’t be much different today.
Given that disparity, why is Attorney General Merrick Garland so keen in having the Supreme Court decide whether the restraining order folks, instead of the felons, are protected by the Second Amendment? The felon issue is ubiquitous, and not just because of the sheer numbers. It involves not only the violent felony vs. non-violent felony issue, but also whether any limits exist in this day-and-age in which almost anything can be a felony. Why has Martha Stewart forfeited her right to have a gun for self-defense?
So why would the government try to convince the Supreme Court to take up the atypical issue regarding persons with a restraining order? Here’s my take.
The Biden Administration is salivating at the prospect of United States v. Rahimi, about which I’ve written previously, being the next Second Amendment case to be decided by the Supreme Court. That’s because the defendant in the case appears to be such an odious character. Arrested by police following multiple shooting sprees, Rahimi was prohibited from gun possession because he was subject to a prior agreed-upon civil protective order. The Fifth Circuit found the ban to be facially unconstitutional because no historical analogue allowed disarming a person based on a civil protective order rather than a criminal proceeding.
BLUF:
A report issued last year by the watchdog group Open The Books, “The Militarization of The U.S. Executive Agencies,” found that more than 200,000 federal bureaucrats now have been granted the authority to carry guns and make arrests – more than the 186,000 Americans serving in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Armed and Beltway-ish: More Federal Bureaucrats Than U.S. Marines Authorized to Pack Heat
When Congress authorized $80 billion this year to beef up Internal Revenue Service enforcement and staffing, Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy invoked the language of war to warn that “Democrats’ new army of 87,000 IRS agents will be coming for you.”
A video quickly went viral racking up millions of views, purporting to show a bunch of clumsy bureaucrats receiving firearms training, prompting alarm that the IRS would be engaged in military-style raids of ordinary taxpayers. The GOP claims were widely attacked as exaggerations – since the video, though from the IRS, didn’t show official agent training – but the criticism has shed light on a growing trend: the rapid arming of the federal government.
A report issued last year by the watchdog group Open The Books, “The Militarization of The U.S. Executive Agencies,” found that more than 200,000 federal bureaucrats now have been granted the authority to carry guns and make arrests – more than the 186,000 Americans serving in the U.S. Marine Corps. “One hundred three executive agencies outside of the Department of Defense spent $2.7 billion on guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment between fiscal years 2006 and 2019 (inflation adjusted),” notes the report. “Nearly $1 billion ($944.9 million) was spent between fiscal years 2015 and 2019 alone.”
By the way, I’m a member of FPC. I suggest you join, or at least donate, simply because this organization is very proactive about using the courts to rein in the bureaucraps, which is realistically going to be the decisive way to get the job done and eventually restore our complete RKBA
Fifth Circuit Clarifies that its Injunction Against ATF Pistol Brace Rule Covers FPC’s Members
NEW ORLEANS, LA (May 26, 2023) — Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) released a statement on the Fifth Circuit’s Order clarifying that the Injunction Pending Appeal in Mock v. Garland applies to FPC’s members, Maxim Defense’s customers, and the individual plaintiffs’ resident family members. The order, along with other case documents, can be viewed at FPCLaw.org.
FPC challenged ATF’s administrative rule that seeks to reclassify “braced pistols” as “short-barreled rifles.” In so doing, the rule would transform millions of peaceable people into felons overnight simply for owning a firearm that has been lawful to own for a decade, unless they either destroy their constitutionally protected property or comply with the NFA’s onerous and unconstitutional requirements.
FPC has argued that the rule is a violation of both the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act because it infringes upon the fundamental and natural rights of the People. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief to secure their constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
Per the Fifth Circuit’s Order: “This clarification is granted essentially for the reasons concisely set forth in the May 25, 2023, Plaintiffs-Appellants’ Reply to Their Opposed Motion for Clarification of Injunction Pending Appeal. . . Plaintiffs merely request clarification on whether their reading of the term ʻPlaintiffs’ to include the customers and members whose interests Plaintiffs Maxim Defense and Firearms Policy Coalition (ʻFPC’) have represented since day one of this litigation is correct.’ That reading is correct. Also as requested, the term “Plaintiffs in this case” includes the individual plaintiffs’ resident family members.”
“We’re incredibly excited to report that the Fifth Circuit has clarified that our injunction covers FPC’s members and Maxim Defense’s customers, as we have always argued for,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation. “This relief will offer protection while we continue to fight against ATF’s overreach.”
Individuals who would like to Join the FPC Grassroots Army and support important pro-rights lawsuits and programs can sign up at JoinFPC.org.
Comer Says Biden Linked to $5 Million Bribe While VP, But FBI Is Obstructing Investigation.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), has claimed that an informant file he is seeking from the FBI connects President Biden to a $5 million bribery scheme during his time as vice president.
In a letter addressed to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Comer disclosed the amount of the alleged bribe for the first time on Wednesday. He warned that if the FBI fails to share the file in response to a subpoena issued on May 3, he will initiate contempt proceedings.
According to Comer’s letter, the informant tip is dated June 30, 2020, providing an additional clue to the story. The allegation has generated speculation due to the extensive consulting work undertaken by the Biden family in countries where Joe Biden held significant influence as the vice president.
Coincidentally, 17 days prior to the tip-off, Ukrainian officials held a press conference in Kyiv where they presented $5 million in cash purportedly offered as a bribe to halt an investigation into the founder of the natural gas company Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky.
Hunter Biden had a cushy board position at Burisma from 2014 to 2019 despite having no experience in the energy sector, earning more than $1 million a year. During this time, an executive from Burisma had a meeting with then-Vice President Biden at a dinner in Washington on April 16, 2015. In 2020, Ukrainian officials seized a large amount of cash in American $100 bills, which reportedly matches the amount Joe Biden allegedly received years earlier. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine arrested three Kyiv bureaucrats, including a former and current tax official, and an additional $1 million was allegedly offered as a bribe via a middleman.
A Ukrainian anti-corruption prosecutor, Nazar Kholodnytsky, claimed that neither Hunter Biden nor Joe Biden were implicated in that specific case, but, according to Comer, two and a half weeks later, an FBI document accusing Joe Biden of bribery was either “created or modified.”
The Oversight Committee has not confirmed the country where Biden allegedly accepted the bribe as vice president, but a source told The New York Post that it is not believed to be a deal with China—likely meaning it involves either Russia or Ukraine.
The FBI has so far refused to provide the informant file linking Joe Biden to the $5 million bribe, despite the document being subpoenaed by Comer.
“As previously stated, the whistleblower disclosures indicated that the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) are in possession of an FD-1023 form describing an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions,” Comer wrote to FBI Director Wray. “The FBI’s refusal to produce this single document is obstructionist. Nevertheless, to narrow the breadth of the subpoena, we are providing additional terms based on unclassified and legally protected whistleblower disclosures that may be referenced in the FD-1023 form: ‘June 30, 2020’ and ‘five million,’” he added.
The FBI has until May 30, 2023, to respond; otherwise, contempt proceedings will be initiated.
Second Federal Judge Expands Block on Biden Pistol-Brace Ban as Registration Deadline Approaches
Another federal court has cast doubt on the legality of one of President Biden’s unilateral attempts at implementing new gun restrictions.
United States District Judge Jane L. Boyle of the Northern District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction against the ATF’s ban on pistols equipped with stabilizing braces on Thursday in the case Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) v. ATF. Drawing on the injunction issued against the ban on Tuesday by a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Boyle said similar concerns over administrative procedure and Second Amendment rights were at issue in the case before her court. She limited her injunction to just the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
“Although the Fifth Circuit’s order limited relief to the plaintiffs in that case, the Court finds the same relief is appropriate here,” Boyle wrote in her order. “And while Plaintiffs raise some arguments that were not raised in Mock, the resolution of that appeal will almost certainly affect, if not control, the Court’s decision on Plaintiffs’ Motion. For these reasons, the Court GRANTS IN PART the Motion and issues a preliminary injunction as to Plaintiffs in this case only, pending resolution of the expedited appeal in Mock v. Garland.”
The Biden administration’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2024 increases funding for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) 7.4 percent, to $1.9 billion, in order to “expand multijurisdictional gun trafficking strike forces with additional personnel, increase regulation of the firearms industry, and implement the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.”
Reading that, I’m reminded of James Madison’s musings in The Federalist No. 46, regarding his disbelief that Americans would ever allow tyranny to take hold here, much less continue to fund it once it developed. Madison wrote:
The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterrupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism.
Today, we do indeed behold the gathering storm — the arming of the bureaucracy and the disarming of the people — yet we continue to supply the materials of this tyranny, and as Madison’s study of history revealed to him, if we continue along this trajectory, there will come a deluge of despotism that will destroy our liberty.
Much of the tyrannical torrent today comes from the ATF itself, an organization whose very existence is anathema to the principles of freedom upon which the U.S. Constitution was founded. There should be no agency devoted to infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. However, just because such an agency has been allowed to be established, it does not mean that we must permit its perpetuation.
Enter the Second Amendment Foundation’s Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA).
U.S. Supreme Court rules against EPA in wetlands regulation challenge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday put another dent in the regulatory reach of the Environmental Protection Agency, ruling in favor of an Idaho couple in their long-running bid to build a home on property that the EPA had deemed a protected wetland under a landmark federal anti-pollution law.
The justices in a 9-0 decision overturned a lower court’s ruling against the couple, Chantell and Mike Sackett, that had upheld the EPA’s determination that their property near a lake contained wetlands protected by the Clean Water Act of 1972. Though the justices unanimously agreed to reverse the lower court’s decision, they differed in their reasoning for doing so.
The ruling marked the latest instance of the court backing a challenge to the scope of the EPA’s ability to regulate in the environmental arena under existing law. In a 6-3 ruling last June powered by its conservative justices, the court imposed limits on the EPA’s authority to issue sweeping regulations involving greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal- and gas-fired power plants under a different environmental law, the Clean Air Act.
Burgeoning burger battle: Agriculture really bugs Lurch and the Left
The globalist cabal desperate to remake the world to their specifications is throwing a hissy fit at the moment, worthy of any 2 year old in the aisle at WalMart.
As citizens around the world start to rouse themselves from near economic ruin and the erosion of every standard of living norm accepted for the past decades imposed on them as a result of climate change induced hysteria, the WEF members and cult adherents are starting to panic. If “the end is nigh” rhetoric was bad before, now that their chances of pulling the whole scam off are starting to recede like the floodwaters that never inundated the coastlines, they are blasting away at full trumpet.
Witness that sonorous toned, equine faced poseur of our own, who jets about the world self importantly in pursuit of achieving global accord for ever stricter climate related restraints on every aspect of the peasantry’s lives. John Kerry, our so-called U.S. climate envoy, outdid himself this week in attacks on the everyday life of the little people he flies over on his way to Gstaad or Paris.
Cutting greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural production is essential to the global fight against climate change, U.S. climate envoy John Kerry said on Wednesday.
Agriculture generates 10% to 12% of greenhouse gas emissions globally, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The food system as a whole – including packaging, transportation, and waste management – generates a third of global emissions, according to a 2021 study published in the academic journal Nature Food.
“We can’t get to net zero, we don’t get this job done, unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution,” Kerry, the special presidential envoy for climate, said at the AIM for Climate summit in Washington.
And he let rip with the de rigeur EMERGENCY trope.
“This sector needs innovation now more than ever,” Kerry continued Wednesday. “We’re facing record malnutrition at a time when agriculture, more than any other sector, is suffering from the impacts of the climate crisis. I refuse to call it climate change anymore. It’s not change. It’s a crisis.”
A whistleblower scandal is brewing inside the Hunter Biden investigation.
A WHISTLEBLOWER SCANDAL IS BREWING INSIDE THE HUNTER BIDEN INVESTIGATION. Just last month, this newsletter covered the emergence of a whistleblower in the joint Justice Department-IRS investigation of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter. The whistleblower was a career IRS criminal supervisory special agent who, according to his lawyer, could reveal “clear conflicts of interest” in the Biden investigation as well as “examples of preferential treatment and politics improperly infecting decisions and protocols that would normally be followed by career law enforcement professionals in similar circumstances if the subject were not politically connected.”
At this point, there is no public hint of exactly what that means — that is, what the Justice Department actually did, or what the IRS actually did, to put a thumb on the scale in the Hunter investigation. As a preliminary step, the whistleblower was seeking protection from reprisals by the Biden administration before going public with his story. The law protects whistleblowers from retaliation by higher-ups. But after the whistleblower came forward, he was removed from the Hunter Biden case — and then the whole team he supervised was removed, too.
Now, there is a second whistleblower. This one apparently has had hands-on, close involvement, running the Hunter investigation for more than five years. On May 18, the whistleblower wrote a letter to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and other top IRS officials to describe what has happened to him since he raised objections to the way the Hunter case was being handled.
FPC Secures Injunction Against ATF Pistol Brace Rule, Will Seek Clarification on Scope of Ruling
NEW ORLEANS, LA (May 23, 2023) — Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) released a statement on the Fifth Circuit’s Order granting an Injunction Pending Appeal in Mock v. Garland, FPC and FPC Action Foundation’s federal lawsuit challenging the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF’s) recent rule reclassifying braced pistols as National Firearms Act (NFA)-regulated short-barreled rifles. The injunction, along with other case documents, can be viewed at FPCLaw.org.
FPC challenged ATF’s administrative rule that seeks to reclassify “braced pistols” as “short-barreled rifles.” In so doing, the rule would transform millions of peaceable people into felons overnight simply for owning a firearm that has been lawful to own for a decade, unless they either destroy their constitutionally protected property or comply with the NFA’s onerous and unconstitutional requirements.
FPC has argued that the rule is a violation of both the U.S. Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act because it infringes upon the fundamental and natural rights of the People. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief to secure their constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
Per the the Fifth Circuit’s Order, “IT IS ORDERED that the appeal is EXPEDITED to the next available Oral Argument Calendar. IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Appellants’ Opposed Motion For a Preliminary Injunction Pending Appeal is GRANTED as to the Plaintiffs in this case.”
FPC intends to seek clarification as to who is covered under the scope of the injunction.
“We are very excited and encouraged by the Fifth Circuit’s decision this morning,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, Senior Attorney for Constitutional Litigation at FPC Action Foundation. “We intend to ask the Court for additional information about who is covered under the injunction, but cannot stress enough just how important this decision is. The fight is far from over, but this is a huge victory in the battle against the ATF’s unconstitutional and unlawful brace rule!”