Category: Goobermint

It’s apparent he’s nothing but a puppet. The question is; who are the real one pulling his strings?

The Flashcard Presidency: Biden’s Aides Scramble to Diffuse Narrative That He’s a Total Mess

Joe Biden collapsed at the US Air Force Academy’s commencement, an event that even his aides privately worked to ensure never happened again. They’ve developed a plan to make the president look vigorous and mentally sound to conduct his duties as president. And yet, the man devolved into a mumbling, soporific mess during his White House meeting/photo-op with Israeli President Isaac Herzog.

NBC News had a lengthy piece about the Biden staff’s protocol to keep the president looking spry in the public’s view. As it was in 2020, the main concern is that Biden is both too old and too senile to be president. That narrative has grown as more public episodes of mental degeneration have presented themselves. Though buried in the piece, Biden’s staff and a former cabinet secretary, Marty Walsh, tried to relay how Joe is still working into the late night hours and how if you hugged him, you’ll see he’s healthy like a rhino. The problem is the piece goes give the impression that Biden’s aides know a mental foul-up is bound to occur again. The man will stumble even with flashcards to remind him to make certain points during meetings and speeches and a shorter staircase to Air Force One to ensure he doesn’t fall.

Even with no major primaries or debates on the Democratic side, the rigorous schedule a national campaign takes once a Republican nominee is selected will take its toll on a man who thinks railroads can be built over oceans (via NBC News):

Biden’s answer to voters who question whether he’s up to the rigors of a second term is simple: “Watch me.” The trouble is, voters are watching, and what they’re seeing is hardening impressions that it’s time for him to step aside, polling shows. Apart from being the most taxing job on the world stage, the presidency is also the most public, and signs of advancing age are tough to miss. 

Faced with life’s unbending reality — no one gets any younger — Biden’s advisers have been trying to blunt concerns about his age since his 2020 campaign. The challenge gets trickier by the day as the oldest president in history embarks on one last race against a Republican Party eager to pounce on every miscue. 

Any misstep is bound to be magnified when voters are already prone to believe Biden should consider retirement. Biden aides aren’t promising that he won’t stumble again. 

“Physically, he’s quite frail and he falls off his bicycle, or whatever,” said a former Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk more freely. “He doesn’t have the stamina levels of an Obama or a younger president. People worry about his physical frailty and running from age 82 to 86” — the age Biden would be at the end of a second term. “That is really old by European standards. Really, really old. We don’t have anyone that age.” […] 

Biden’s use of the shorter staircase, which, of course, reduces the risk of a televised fall that goes viral, has more than doubled since Biden’s tumble at the commencement ceremony, according to an analysis by NBC News. In the weeks prior to tripping onstage, Biden used the shorter set of stairs to get on and off the presidential aircraft 37% of the time. In the past seven weeks he’s used them 84% of the time, or 31 out of the 37 times he’s gotten on and off the plane. […] 

The White House did not directly answer a question about whether Biden was using the shorter staircase to minimize the chance of a fall. An aide said the choice comes down to the weather, the airport and whether the press wants a photo on the tarmac with official greeters. (There was no rain Thursday when Biden took the shorter staircase at Joint Base Andrews.) 

Biden seems to be preserving his energy in other ways. It’s customary on foreign trips for the president to schmooze with other leaders at dinners once the meetings are over. Less formal and structured than the events preceding them, the dinners offer a chance for leaders to bond, talk through differences or amplify a point. On two recent international trips, Biden has chosen to skip the nighttime socializing. […] 

Other age-compensating measures are logistical, and probably familiar to many who’ve reached a certain stage in life: extra-large font on his teleprompter and note cards to remind him of the points he wants to make in meetings. […]

With Biden, displays of frailty are bound to get more scrutiny given the propensity of many voters to believe he shouldn’t run again. 

Advisers recognize this dynamic as well as the political cost of the next awkward moment. 

They gave a collective groan when Biden fell at the Air Force Academy, knowing the episode wouldn’t soon be forgotten. It turns out the sandbag had been camouflaged so that it would blend in, making it easier to miss, a senior White House aide said. 

“It happened in seconds,” another aide said, “but it’s going to be in front of us for months and maybe years.” 

Our society’s ‘top brains’ have gone mad — and dysfunctional politics is the result

“Suppose we got it all wrong and the real crazies are the TV people in nice suits and $300 haircuts?”
That’s an observation by Richard Fernandez on Twitter, and he has a good point.

There’s a lot of craziness in the air these days.
But for the most part it seems to be flowing from the top down, not bubbling up from the bottom.

It wasn’t farmers and factory workers who came up with the idiotic COVID responses — nor was it they who originated the more or less criminal idea of conducting “gain of function” research on making dangerous viruses more dangerous.

It wasn’t shopkeepers and bus drivers who thought the way to deal with burgeoning urban crime was to get rid of police and release criminals without bail.

It hasn’t been landscapers and auto mechanics championing the notion that a child in the single-digit age range can make a lifetime choice about his or her genitalia or maintaining that even criticizing that idea is itself a species of “violence.”

Ordinary Americans haven’t been claiming the way to promote free speech is to censor people or the way to end racism is to classify everyone by race and consequently treat them differently.

It’s not the working class that wants to “save the planet” by blocking traffic, starting forest fires or banning pickup trucks or gas stoves (though private jets remain surprisingly free from criticism).

All these crazy ideas and more are the product of our allegedly educated and intelligent overclass, the experts, policymakers and media types who in theory represent the thinking part, the brains, of our society. But there’s something wrong with these people — the “brains” of our society are basically crazy. Crazy is when you believe and do things that obviously don’t make sense or fit with the facts.

It’s important to have an intellectual class.
Exactly how important is open to question — in his recent book “How Innovation Works,” Matt Ridley argues that most 19th- and 20th-century innovations actually came from tradespeople and industry, not academics doing abstract research — but important enough.
The COVID lockdown scolds killed people — but they still have no shame

There are dangers to an intelligentsia, though.
Communism and Nazism started as intellectual movements; so did such fads as eugenics and lobotomies.
The Tuskegee Experiment wasn’t the product of racist Klansmen but of the curiosity of credentialed public-health experts.

In a 1999 essay, Neal Stephenson wrote that “during this century, intellectualism failed, and everyone knows it. In places like Russia and Germany, the common people agreed to loosen their grip on traditional folkways, mores, and religion, and let the intellectuals run with the ball, and they screwed everything up and turned the century into an abattoir. Those wordy intellectuals used to be merely tedious; now they seem kind of dangerous as well.”

It’s gotten worse.

Ideas can be dangerous; playing with them can be like gain-of-function research with viruses — if they escape into the general environment, disaster can ensue.

Guardrails like custom, religion and moral traditions made such disasters less likely, but we have spent basically my entire lifetime weakening those guardrails.
At the same time, our ruling class has become less diverse and more prone to groupthink.

A century ago, the people running our government, our economy, our academy and our media were varied.
Now they’re all members of the same class, educated usually at the same elite institutions, incestuously intermarried and driven by class solidarity.

As J.D. Tuccille recently wrote regarding the press’ supine attitude toward government censorship, today’s journalists “love Big Brother”: “Prominent reporters and powerful officials know each other, share attitudes, and trust each other.”

Agriculturalists know that in a monoculture, diseases spread rapidly because the entire crop is identical.
In a social and intellectual monoculture, groupthink ensures that bad ideas spread the same way.
This is especially so because our ruling class has substituted reputation for achievement.

One can be a successful CEO if the company does badly, so long as it pursues the right political goals.
Journalists, bureaucrats and political operatives routinely fail upward because they play to their peers.
The result is that any crazy idea can flourish if it’s stylish. And it’s gotten more dangerous, probably because social media allow so much self-herding behavior by elites.

Dissent is instantly ostracized before it even has a chance to be considered.

A decade ago, the crazy ideas I listed earlier would have been seen as beyond the pale of civilized political discussion. Now they’re all endorsed by leading American institutions.
That’s the hallmark of dysfunctional politics, and dysfunctional politics is what we have.

Thank God that the Joint Chiefs are not in the Chain of Command and are simply ‘advisers’ to the President.

U.S. Senate Quietly Adds Permanent Gun Control Law Into 2024 NDAA Authorization

Republicans and Democrats are reportedly working together to end the sunset provision on a law gun rights orgs call ‘a backdoor gun ban’

As Congress begins consideration of the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Senate leaders are attempting to quietly slip in gun control legislation.

The discovery was made by the Second Amendment advocacy group Gun Owners of America, who combed through the text and found an amendment inserted into the bill that would indefinitely authorize the Undetectable Firearms Act of 1988.

According to a version of the proposed NDAA bill dated July 13, the amendment introduced by Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) would end the sunset provision on the 1988 law, which criminalizes firearms unable to be detected by metal detectors and x-ray machines commonly used at airports.

Though the provision was introduced by a Democrat, gun rights organizations say that Republicans are also involved in the effort to permanently codify the gun control law.

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More judges trying their hardest to slow down what SCOTUS did to gun control laws.

Federal Judge Upholds San Jose Gun Ownership Tax, Insurance Mandate

San Jose’s first-of-its-kind gun ownership insurance mandate doesn’t violate the Second Amendment, according to a federal judge.

U.S. District Judge Beth Freeman ruled against the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) last Thursday. She found the California city’s requirement that gun owners pay a fee to a yet-to-be-determined anti-gun-violence charity group and obtain insurance is constitutional. She ruled the regulations stand up against the Supreme Court’s new history-based test for gun laws and did not infringe on residents’ rights.

“The City has demonstrated that the Insurance Requirement is consistent with the Nation’s historical traditions,” Judge Freeman wrote in NAGR v. San Jose. “Although the Insurance Regulation is not a ‘dead ringer’ for 19th century surety laws, the other similarities between the two laws would render the Ordinance ‘analogous enough to pass constitutional muster.’

The ruling is a win for gun-control advocates who are looking for ways to restrict firearms even in the wake of 2022’s New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. It allows the city to continue to attempt to implement its unique requirements, which have been scaled back significantly from when they were first introduced. The decision also boosts the odds that lawmakers in states, such as New Jersey, who’ve sought to copy the restrictions might survive court challenges as well.

Judge Freeman, an Obama appointee, also ruled the gun ownership fee was not a tax for the purpose of California law and did not need voter approval because it goes to a non-profit rather than the government.

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Now That the Whole World Knows We’re Low on Ammunition, Frantic Effort to Re-Arm Commences

The entire world knows that the United States is low on firepower because President Joe Biden acted on his inexplicable desire to blurt out such information on CNN, telling Fareed Zakaria, “This is a war relating to munitions. And [Ukraine]… is running out of that ammunition, and we’re low on it.”

He also maintained that the shortage was one reason behind the controversial decision to send cluster munitions to Ukraine.

Now the U.S. is scrambling to strengthen stockpiles, according to John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council. (By the way, what does that title even mean?)

Appearing with Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday,” Kirby described the effort:

We’re working very closely with the defense industry to try to ramp up production, particularly for artillery shells…

You saw that we gave some cluster munitions to Ukraine as a bridging solution here while we ramp up production. We’re having very, very strong conversations with the defense industry and we believe that we’ll be able to get there.

Watch:

Bream had brought up a think tank report that estimated it could take years to get back to where we were:

Kirby was responding to a segment reporting that a Center for Strategic and International Studies report found replacing inventories for ammunitions such as 155 mm shells could take between four and seven years. Replacing Javelins could take up to eight years and Stingers up to as many as 18 years, according to the report.

Meanwhile, he has to convince the manufacturers that the administration is in it for the long haul, saying:

The defense industry obviously wants to make sure that if they’re going to increase production, that production rate is going to stay elevated for a period of time. Because that means hiring more workers, it means retooling and adding capacity in their factories and manufacturing capabilities.

So we understand that and that’s sort of the central thesis here of the discussions that we’re having with them, is to get them to increase production and let them know that we’re serious about doing that for some period of time.

 

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KAMALA, ON A ROLL
First, Kamala Harris committed an epic “Kinsley Gaffe” (that is, where someone in Washington accidentally tells the truth) with this amazing remark a couple days ago:

Pretty sure she just blurted out what lefty environmentalists really want to do (reduce population). Even the White House saw that this could not be ignored, and tried their best to clean it up:

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SAF FILES AMICUS BRIEF SUPPORTING CHALLENGE OF HAWAII GUN LAW

BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation has filed a 29-page amicus brief supporting a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in a challenge of Hawaii’s restrictive concealed carry law, in a case known as Wolford v. Lopez.

The brief was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii.

As explained in the court document, Hawaii “has followed New York, New Jersey, and Maryland in taking deliberate action to undermine the Supreme Court’s landmark Bruen ruling and the fundamental general right to carry an effective mechanism of self-defense it affirmed. Hawaii’s SB 1230 and similar laws specifically, and unfairly target those who have taken their rights most seriously in attempting to exercise them, even submitting to Defendants’ background check and training requirements.”

Following the 2022 Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, Hawaii passed SB 1230, a sweeping law designed to severely limit the places where licensed, law-abiding citizens can legally carry firearms for personal protection. So restrictive in its nature, the new legislation was colloquially dubbed the “Bruen response bill.”

“As we contend in our brief,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb, “Hawaii’s new law is written to make citizens afraid to exercise their constitutional right to bear arms, to the point they’re even afraid to enter a coffee shop without first being invited. We cannot have law-abiding citizens afraid to exercise a right for fear of being prosecuted and made into criminals. That is not how constitution works, and specifically, it is why the Second Amendment includes the phrase ‘shall not be infringed.’ SB 1230 constitutes a serious infringement.”

“There are no historical analogues supporting the extreme nature of Hawaii’s gun law,” added SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “To the contrary, as we explain to the court, history shows lawmakers respected Second Amendment rights as part of everyday life, to the point of encouraging people to bring their guns to public meetings and even church. Hawaii, on the other hand, is trying to make have a gun outside of one’s home or private vehicle a crime.”

Kamala Harris anti-gun comments a warning

Vice President Kamala Harris has never been a fan of the right to keep and bear arms. We’ve long known this and no one will be surprised to hear this.

Yet as vice president, she hasn’t been all that outspoken about guns, all things considered. Why would she need to be? Her boss is making plenty of anti-gun waves as it is.

Harris isn’t going to stay out of the debate, though. She’s ready to push the anti-gun agenda as well.

Kamala Harris Takes Aim at NRA and Guns: The National Rifle Association’s convention in Indianapolis was in Vice President Kamala Harris’ crosshairs during a speech before the non-profit civil-rights group the National Action Network back in April.

The speech, at the time, could be seen as a start to the 2024 campaign season on the Democratic side…

Her speech marked a clear departure from the rambling and incoherent statements she made that landed her in hot water with Democrats and Republicans alike.

It was clear and focused, and filled the vice presidential attack dog role.

Kamala Harris ridiculed the convention slogan about freedom asking “freedom for who?”? She noted that it was not freedom for gun-violence victims or their families.

“This is not for the parents who pray their children will come home from school safe,” Harris said.…

Whether Harris can stay on message remains to be seen, but she appears to have found a message that Democrats think can be effective.

Yes, this isn’t exactly breaking news. I get it.

But the point is that it’s clear that gun control is going to be a big issue in 2024 and both Biden and Harris are doing battlespace prep for that fight.

What’s more, it seems that Harris is ready to make this a racial issue, but only by telling one side of the story.

“Gun violence is now the number one cause of death of children in our nation,” she said. “And while all this violence impacts all communities in devastating ways, we know it does not do so equally. Black people are only 13% of America’s population but more than 60% of homicide victims from gun violence.”

FBI statistics also show that the number of black offenders in homicides is significantly higher. In 2019, the last year for which national statistics are available shows that 55.9% offenders in gun crimes were black compared with 41.1% who were white.

Honestly, this isn’t surprising.

The White House isn’t interested in having a discussion. They’re not interested in a debate. When Harris said this, it made it clear that they want to paint this as a racial issue and that if you’re not for gun control it’s because you want black people to die.

But the problem is that it’s black people doing damn near just as much of the killing.

What’s more, though, they’re disproportionately represented among those convicted of firearm possession crimes. If we’re going to play that game, how is gun control not racist?

This is what we’re in for in 2024, folks, so buckle up.

And it’s what we need the various gun rights organizations combatting as we go forward. We need the spokespeople out in front on this one.

Unfortunately, far too many of them have been silent. That’s not a heartwarming fact if you ask me.

The upside, however, is that while they think this is an issue they can win on, this is also the administration that thinks the economy is doing great and seems to want to tout that as a winning issue, too, so there might not be too much to worry about.

SAF FILES REPLY BRIEF IN CHALLENGE OF MARYLAND CCW LAW

BELLEVUE, WA – Attorneys representing the Second Amendment Foundation and its allies in a federal challenge of Maryland’s restrictive concealed carry statute today filed their reply to the state’s arguments against an earlier motion for a preliminary injunction in the case known as Novotny v. Moore.

The response brief was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

SAF is joined in the case by Maryland Shall Issue, the Firearms Policy Coalition and three private citizens, all of whom possess “wear and carry permits,” including Susan Burke of Reisterstown, Esther Rossberg of Baltimore, and Katherine Novotny of Aberdeen, for whom the lawsuit is named. They are represented by attorneys David H. Thompson and Peter A. Patterson at Cooper & Kirk in Washington, D.C., Mark W. Pennak at Maryland Shall Issue in Baltimore, and Matthew Larosiere from Lake Worth, Fla.

The lawsuit focuses on SB1, a bill signed by Gov. Wesley Moore, which has added new restrictions on where legally-licensed citizens may carry firearms for personal protection. Maryland is attempting to wildly expand so-called “sensitive places” in an attempt to virtually prohibit lawful, licensed concealed carry in almost every venue in the state outside of someone’s home or business.

“As we maintained in our initial lawsuit, the State of Maryland is desperately trying to justify its extremist policy by offering alleged historical analogues that don’t really exist,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “As we noted earlier, instead of trying to comply with the new guidelines set down in the Supreme Court’s Bruen ruling last year, Maryland lawmakers responded by adopting gun laws more restrictive than they were before. This is tantrum-level stubbornness usually confined to elementary school playgrounds, and it doesn’t belong in state legislatures or governors’ offices.”

“Today’s brief further underscores the fact that Maryland’s recently enacted restrictions on carry are incompatible with this nation’s history and tradition of firearms regulation,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “In defense of its law, Maryland grasps at straws and reasoning well removed from a logical pathway to justify its new existence. Our brief systemically refutes the positions put forth by the government and demonstrates that the challenged restrictions are constitutionally impermissible.”

THE GREAT RELEARNING PLODS ALONG

Thirty-five years ago Tom Wolfe wrote “The Great Relearning” for The American Spectator, in which he predicted we’d lapse into some of the same mistakes of the 20th century, and need to re-learn some fundamental truths again from bitter experience. This imperative comes back to mind watching our big cities and criminal justice system, to name just two items, seem determined to repeat all of the liberal mistakes of the 1970s and 198os, which took a long time to recognize and crystalized into policies that work, such as locking up criminals.

Yesterday the Washington DC city council, which only months ago wanted to reduce criminal penalties for carjacking, passed new crime policy by a 12 – 1 vote that is a clear reversal of the leftist nostrums about crime of the last few years. Small wonder why. Last year saw a 33 percent increase in violent crimes, with 17 percent more homicides. This is the third straight year when DC clocked more than 200 homicides. Carjacking is out of control, up 94 percent from 2022, with 140 carjackings in June alone.

The Washington Post reports today:

The D.C. Council on Tuesday passed emergency public safety legislation as the city weathers a violent summer, establishing a new crime for firing a gun in public and making it easier for judges to detain people charged with violent offenses before trial — a provision that drew extended debate.

Ending pre-trial detention, even for violent felons, has been one of the major objects of the criminal justice reform left, and the fact that DC is reversing course shows that even slow learners can figure it out eventually. This attracted the ire of the one no vote for the policy, as local media reported:

The provisions that drew the most debate centered on the circumstances under which defendants could be detained as they await trial. Pinto’s proposal would have judges presume that adults charged with violent crimes and juveniles charged with certain offenses should be detained. . .

Council member Janeese Lewis George was the lone vote against the bill. “I was raising a concern that on an emergency basis, changing a legal standard, I think, is problematic for any legislature to do, not just our legislature,” she said. “And when we brought in such a statute when it comes to pretrial detention, there are implications we should be thinking about that 95% of people who are incarcerated and on pretrial are Black residents.

There followed the usual blather about fighting crime at the “root causes.” It is progress when this old nonsense attracts only one vote on the DC council.

Biden’s anti-gun executive orders falling one by one

The purpose of an executive order is for the president to tell others in the executive branch precisely how they’re to carry out the laws passed by Congress. It was never intended as a way to create laws without the legislature.

However, President Joe Biden, like so many before him, does just that.

Take gun control, for example. Biden can’t pass it. Not like he wants. Congress just isn’t interested in banning things like so-called ghost guns.

So, Biden uses an executive order, directs the ATF to essentially declare them illegal, and calls it a day.

Only, that didn’t work out.

Numerous federal gun control policies enacted by the Biden administration via executive order have faced extensive scrutiny in federal courts with jurisdiction over matters arising in Texas, the latest being a rule implemented last year seeking to regulate home-build firearms kits.

Texas residents Jennifer VanDerStok and Michael Andren, along with the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC), challenged the new rule expanding the definition of a “firearm receiver” to include kits that contain partially manufactured parts and are marketed to be completed into functioning firearms, which are also referred to as “ghost guns.”

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) issued a statement when the rule was published last year, explaining that it was prompted by a proliferation of untraceable guns without serial numbers from being used in crimes. The ATF claimed it would help prevent those prohibited by law from obtaining a gun, such as convicted felons, from easily obtaining one.

The ATF claimed there were 692 instances of ghost guns being used in homicides or attempted homicides.

Of course, from what we’ve seen, those 692 instances were spread out over a significant period of time, meaning that they’re a statistical drop in the bucket when looking at so-called gun deaths.

But this wasn’t the only example of Biden’s executive orders showing signs of trouble.

There’s trouble brewing for Biden’s other big-ticket executive order, the ban on pistol braces. There’s already some judicial skepticism and the membership of the Second Amendment Foundation and the Firearms Policy Coalition are already exempt from it by court order.

In fact, it’s so bad it’s not unreasonable to ask whether any of Biden’s executive orders will stand.

Oh, I’m sure a few will. Parts of this order are just about speeding up the process of collecting data the government already collects, which isn’t likely to be overturned.

But that same executive order also deals with the so-called rogue gun dealers who appear to just be FFL holders who make administrative errors, and that is likely to end up in court sooner or later. Based on what we’ve seen, that’s going to be bad news for the Biden administration.

At the end of the day, most of Biden’s executive orders will probably be overturned, but not without a lot of time and resources spent fighting this power grab.

And none of it should be happening. The truth is that the legislative branch is who should be passing laws, not the executive, but with Congress having basically turned a blind eye to the ATF’s repeated “reinterpretations” of gun control laws, we have the mess we’re currently in.

If only that would fall in court.

Feds Argue First Amendment Causes ‘Irreparable Harm’ in Bid to Save Censorship Regime
In seeking to stay the injunction against their speech policing in Missouri v. Biden, the government betrays its view that your right to speak is conditional, while its power to censor is absolute

U.S. Government Says Inability to Censor You Causes It ‘Irreparable Harm’

The U.S. government betrayed its total and utter contempt for the First Amendment in a recent filing in the landmark Missouri v. Biden free speech case.

The filing—a motion responding to U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s bombshell Independence Day injunction freezing federal government-led speech policing—calls for the judge to permit the federal government to continue its censorship activities while it fights the injunction.

While Judge Doughty has now smacked the federal government down, ruling against its motion for a stay, the feds’ perverse position merits scrutiny, especially given it’s likely to persist in it for as long as this case is litigated, and as high as it will reach, perhaps up to the Supreme Court.

The crux of the government’s argument for staying the injunction was this: Prohibiting federal authorities from abridging speech, directly and by proxy, could lead to “grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes,” thereby causing the government “irreparable harm.”

Another way to read the government’s argument is that if it can’t interfere in elections or engage in rampant viewpoint discrimination, that causes it “irreparable harm.”

Still another way to read the government’s argument is that your right to free speech causes it “irreparable harm.”

I explain why in a new piece at the Epoch Times.
As I conclude in part:

The government’s fight for the right to censor reveals a conception of free speech, and its own authority, that is totally backward.

The government operates as if speech is a privilege over which it holds total power, ceding to us only the ability to talk on heavily circumscribed terms—rather than that we have a natural right to speak freely, and that the government’s ability to regulate our speech is heavily circumscribed.

Government derives its powers from us, and with our consent, not the other way around.

At stake, therefore, in Missouri v. Biden is more than free speech.

At stake—and currently on display—is the very nature of what remains of our republican system of government.

Read the whole thing here.

Two shooting rampages tear a nation apart, both in gun controlled states

We’re consistently told that gun control works. We’re also consistently told that if we pass more of it, we’ll see a lot fewer random acts of violence.

The idea is that if you and I have a harder time getting guns, then bad guys will have a harder time getting them. This presumes that the impact will have some kind of trickle-down effect, which is hilarious considering how they mock “trickle-down economics,” but here we are.

However, gun control states still have plenty of problems with random violence.

Take this situation, for example, out of New York.

One person was killed and three more were injured Saturday when a man riding a scooter randomly fired at pedestrians in Queens and Brooklyn, New York City Police Department authorities said in a press conference.

“At this time, we don’t know the motive. It seems that his acts were random. If you look at the demographics and pedigree of the victims, they’re all different,” NYPD Assistant Chief Joseph Kenny said in a press conference.

“Video shows that he’s not targeting anybody – he’s not following anybody as he’s driving on his scooter, he’s randomly shooting people.”

Now, New York’s gun control battles have been well documented here at Bearing Arms. We’ve covered it aplenty.

Yet, as we can see, it didn’t really accomplish all that much in preventing this attack. Luckily, it could have been much worse, but it was bad enough.

The thing is, this wasn’t the only rampage we saw over the weekend in a gun control state.

It also happened in California.

Police in Los Angeles arrested a suspect following what appeared to be a series of random shootings that wounded one victim Saturday morning, a news report said.

The suspect allegedly fired randomly at people in East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights, with shootings reported between 6:20 a.m. and 7:20 a.m., KTLA-TV reported.

The suspect, who was not immediately identified, was taken into custody after the Los Angeles Police Department located an unoccupied vehicle believed to have been used in the attacks. Officers later arrested a man who matched the suspect’s description when he exited a nearby home, KTLA reported.

Police found a rifle believed to have been used in the shootings during a search of the vehicle, the station reported.

Now, again, this could have been much worse, but that has nothing to do with gun control. It has to do with the shooters themselves. Thankfully.

Gun control failed in both of these instances. Either of these could have been headline-grabbing horror stories we’d be talking about for the next three months. I’m sincerely glad they weren’t, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore them, either.

California and New York go out of their way to restrict the rights of the people who live there. Following Bruen, they both tripped over themselves to pass new laws that would restrict where people could carry a firearm. they’ve shown time and time again that they see no alternative to gun control.

And yet, we have these incidents as a stark reminder that gun control doesn’t work as advertised.

Clearly, no one was safer because of these states’ laws. If anything, it made it less likely anyone in the vicinity of these shootings would be armed and able to shoot back, thus ending the rampages quickly.

That’s about par for the course with gun control, though, isn’t it?

St. Louis mayor trying to backtrack from gun control texts

St. Louis is, like a lot of larger cities, pretty anti-gun.

They can’t do as much about it as they’d like there, but that’s because Missouri has preemption, and that handcuffs city leaders a fair bit. Officials there are still willing to pass what gun control they can.

But, as we’ve pointed out more than once, gun control isn’t really the answer.

It seems the mayor of St. Louis agreed, though she’s backtracking now.

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office is in damage control mode after someone at City Hall released thousands of text messages from her personal cell phone, some of which raise questions about her views on gun laws.

The messages were released earlier this week under an open records request.

“Chicago has strict gun laws as well but that doesn’t deter gun violence,” Jones texted in a group chat to her father Virvus Jones and advisor Richard Callow on March 21. “It’s about investing in the people.”

On the surface, the mayor’s private remarks appear to contradict some of her public statements calling for stricter gun control laws in Missouri.…

The mayor’s office issued a statement through one of her spokesmen on Friday afternoon seeking to clarify her position.

“Gun laws are just one part of the solution,” Jones spokesman Nick Desideri said. “There’s a difference between deterring behavior and making it harder to get firearms and weaponry; for example, there’s no doubt that gun laws in the blue region around Newark help reduce violence as opposed to here.”

In her private text messages, the mayor also made a reference to prolonged community investment delivering a significant reduction in violence in Newark, New Jersey.

“Newark, NJ has the same size population, same size police force, and similar racial demographics, yet had 50 murders in 2022,” the mayor wrote. “I visited these programs first hand and I know that they work. We just need the will….”

First, there is doubt that the gun laws around Newark had any impact on the violent crime rate versus other interventions attempted there.

We can say this because, frankly, the rest of New Jersey has tons of gun control and still has plenty of high-crime areas. If gun control were even part of the solution, we wouldn’t be seeing that.

It seems that Jones really wants these community intervention programs but because of her party affiliation, she has to spout the gun control line. That’s a shame, too, because I happen to think these community interventions could do wonders for St. Louis.

Guns are not the problem and gun control is not the answer.

The problem has always been people, which is why even our non-gun homicide rate is higher than many other nations’ total murder rates.

The interventions would probably work and Jones really should stick with her instincts here and stop pushing for gun control.

Republicans are pointing out the hypocrisy here, and they’re right to do so. Jones knows gun control doesn’t work, but she’s pushing for it anyway.

A lot of pro-gun people have long figured Democrats knew this anyway and still wanted gun control despite this fact. This is just another data point showing those folks may have a point.