Category: Crap For Brains

Virginia General Assembly passes bills to require background checks on all gun sales, restore one-handgun-a-month law

When I was transferred to Virginia, one handgun a month was the law at the time. Then it was repealed, now it’s soon to be back. If the legislature and gubbernorship changes parties again, I expect all this to be repealed as par for the course. I call it it legislative ping-pong.

Two unresolved pieces of Gov. Ralph Northam’s gun policy agenda have cleared the Virginia General Assembly as the legislative session nears its end.

Legislation to require criminal background checks on all gun sales and restore the state’s former one-handgun-a-month rule won final approval Saturday in the state Senate.

Democratic legislators had been negotiating the finer points of the proposals. On both bills, the House of Delegates agreed to more moderate approaches favored by the Senate.

The background checks bill — a top priority Democrats and gun-control advocates have championed for years — would close the so-called gun show loophole that allows private gun sales without no criminal history check required for the buyer. The Northam administration and House Democrats preferred a broader version of the bill that would also cover gun transfers, which supporters said would avoid creating another loophole and reduce the number of guns changing hands with no regulatory oversight.

Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, had argued the House approach was too broad and could potentially trip up gun owners who lend or give a gun to someone else with no nefarious intent.

“Basically, they accepted our position,” Petersen said on the Senate floor Saturday.

Once the new law is enacted, private sellers will be required to go through a licensed firearms dealer for a background check, ensuring a would-be buyer can legally own a firearm.

Nasty Nancy Pelosi Says Trump Is ‘Most Dangerous Person’ In American History.

Nothing but the ‘exit quote’ in this matters

I have real problems with this president because he doesn’t tell the truth, he doesn’t honor the Constitution, and he’s harming children,’ she said unironically as a person who doesn’t tell the truth, honor the Constitution, and harms children. ‘My whole message is about children,’ the staunch abortion advocate claimed. ‘Anybody who hurts children — I’m a lioness. Watch out.

Republican Sights Turn to Biden’s Mental Health and There Will Be No Mercy

And there should be no mercy about the medical fitness who will be in the most powerful position in the world, commanding the most powerful military. A mentally compromised person could easily be controlled by who knows who behind the curtain. We have a historical basis for that concern. Wilson was an empty suit after his stroke and his wife basically ran the nation in his name. We have early indications of Reagan’s Alzheimer’s during the latter part of his last term.

With Joe Biden regaining his position as the Democratic front runner, the scrutiny of him by the right has renewed. When Biden looked like the helpless, distant finisher he was a few weeks ago, it wasn’t worth the energy. Things have changed in a hurry, though. Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is still mumbling about billionaires, signaling that he’s not serious about doing what it takes to win the race.

While Biden may represent a larger threat to Trump in a general election, he’s still a ripe target for political ridicule and the sights are starting to turn on one specific thing. Namely, the former Vice President’s mental health.

As I touched on in an article that broadly focused on Biden’s issues (including on policy), he’s a man who certainly appears to be losing his mental faculties. No, not because he’s annoying, talks in word salads, etc. like many politicians do, but because he genuinely seems to be losing his mind.

If you oppose Trump because you feel like he’s not up to the job, there’s absolutely no excuse for getting excited about Biden and feeling like we’ve saved the country because he’s the other choice now.

This is a man who can barely remember where he’s at on any given day, and that’s not an exaggeration.

He slurs his words constantly (no, it’s not a “stutter”) and mixes up issues, not from ignorance, but from an ability to process what he’s trying to say.

And while people will say “but Trump!” in response, anyone with eyes can see the difference. Trump is a fast talking word salad at times, but there’s a difference between not being a good orator (or just being plain unknowledgeable about a subject as Trump sometimes is) and confusing your sister and wife or forgetting what day it is, both things Biden did in the last day.

The physical decline is real and it’s being presented to us in flashing lights.

Now, a new report via Peter Hasson over at the The Daily Caller says Republicans are primed and ready to hit Biden on this issue going forward, and there will be no mercy.

Republicans, meanwhile, are preparing to highlight questions about Biden’s fitness if he becomes the Democratic nominee.

A Trump campaign official told the DCNF that Biden’s “capacity” will be an issue in a potential general election matchup, echoing language used by Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly taken shots at Biden, saying the former vice president is “not playing with a full deck” and “has lost his fastball.” Trump’s campaign has already churned out videos highlighting Biden’s struggles.

Researchers at the Republican National Committee are keeping a running internal list of Biden’s verbal and mental miscues in preparation for the general election, an RNC source told the DCNF.

You can count on the mainstream media and Democrats to cry foul, but let’s be honest, they opened this door so wide you could drive a semi-truck through it.

The same people who will whine about going after Biden’s mental decline are the same people who’ve spent the last three years riffing on the 25th amendment and fluffing “experts” who claim Trump is mentally unfit. They don’t get to change the rules when they cease to be politically beneficial for them.

 

UN Expert: World Religions Should Defer to the Authority of UN Experts

Get the U.S. out of the U.N. and the U.N. out of the U.S.

WASHINGTON, D.C. March 6 (C-Fam) According to the UN’s special expert on freedom of religion, the fringe views of UN human rights bodies must take precedence over the mainstream beliefs of many leading world religions, when it comes to law and policy.

In his newly-launched annual report, Ahmad Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, wrote about the intersection of religion and gender equality.  He concluded that laws based in traditional morality, often religious in nature, should be repealed if they conflict with the opinions of human rights scholars and UN experts.

“States have an obligation to guarantee to everyone, including women, girls and LGBT+ people, an equal right to freedom of religion or belief,” he said, “including by creating an enabling environment where pluralist and progressive self-understandings can manifest.”

In order to enable these “self-understandings,” laws criminalizing abortion or various sexual behaviors would need to be overruled.

Shaheed noted that laws regarding abortion and homosexual behavior often arise from the application of religious teachings regarding the sanctity of life, the family, and sexual morality.  While stopping short of directly calling on major world religions, such as Christianity or Islam, to change their doctrines, he attempted to differentiate between “patriarchal” and “gender equal” interpretations of religious teachings.  The report cites the work of scholars who have worked to promote “progressive” reinterpretations of faith traditions, adding that the source of gender-based violence or discrimination is not necessarily religions, but, rather, certain interpretations of them, “which are not protected per se.”

The notion of “LGBT+ rights,” a concept that has only recently entered the parlance of scholars, and which has no international consensus, much less a formally accepted definition, is treated by the report as a given.  In contrast, religious traditions, some dating back thousands of years, are treated as subordinate.  The special rapporteur cites “many feminists and human rights scholars” in arguing that “rules regulating the status of men and women, including in the appointment of clergy,” are not only religious, but political, and therefore “are a concern for the State and international human rights law.”

Last November, Shaheed Tweeted a quote from a workshop focusing on gender equality and freedom of religion: “When access to safe abortion is denied, the right to life, the right to health, the right to equal human dignity is denied.”

On Monday, the Human Rights Council held an interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur, where a joint statement was presented on behalf of several pro-life and pro-family organizations, including C-Fam, raising objections to the report’s disregard for the rights of unborn children and calls to restrict the rights of conscientious objection to abortion by health care professionals.

The position of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief is part of the subset of the UN Human Rights Council known as Special Procedures.  As such, he serves in an individual, unpaid, capacity, and while his reports are advisory and nonbinding.  Nevertheless, they feed into the UN’s library of human rights documents that frequently cite each other in defending interpretations of human rights that are far from gaining widespread support among UN Member States.

Previous special rapporteurs, including those whose mandates include torture, violence against women, and the right to health, have used their posts to advance pro-abortion positions.

Leftists Fear Trump Will Exploit Coronavirus to the Postpone the Election

Leftists fear that President Trump may exploit the coronavirus outbreak as an excuse to postpone the election and remain in power.

With over 233 cases and 14 deaths now being reported inside the U.S., some are concerned that the panic surrounding the outbreak will be hijacked to allow Trump to stay in the Oval Office beyond January 2021.

Numerous users took to Twitter to assert that Trump is deliberately botching the response to take political advantage of any potential pandemic.

How China’s coronavirus crisis exposes the Achilles’ heel of Communist Party power.

But the demoncraps here yammer for ‘Moar Gubbermint!’ Moar Socialism!’
Idjits.

It may seem preposterous to suggest that the outbreak of the new coronavirus, has imperiled the rule of the Communist Party of China, especially at a time when the government’s aggressive containment efforts seem to be working. But it would be a mistake to underestimate the political implications of China’s biggest public health crisis in recent history.

According to a New York Times analysis, at least 760 million Chinese, or more than half the country’s population, are under varying degrees of residential lockdown. This has had serious individual and aggregate consequences, from a young boy remaining home alone for days after witnessing his grandfather’s death to a significant economic slowdown.

But it seems to have contributed to a dramatic fall in new infections
outside Wuhan, where the outbreak began, to low single digits.

Even as China’s leaders tout their progress in containing the virus, they are showing signs of stress. Like elites in other autocracies, they feel the most politically vulnerable during crises.

They know that, when popular fear and frustration is elevated, even minor missteps could cost them dearly and lead to severe challenges to their power.

With China’s censorship apparatus temporarily weakened – probably because censors had not received clear instructions on how to handle such stories – even official newspapers printed the news of Li’s death on their front pages. And business leaders, a typically apolitical group, have denounced the conduct of the Wuhan authorities and demanded accountability……

In the post-Mao era, the Chinese people and the Communist Party have adhered to an implicit social contract: the people tolerate the party’s political monopoly, as long as the party delivers sufficient economic progress and adequate governance.

The party’s poor handling of the Covid-19 outbreak threatens this tacit pact. In this sense, China’s one-party regime may well be in a more precarious position than it realises.

Below the Radar: The 3D Printed Gun Safety Act

As in most times with a party that doesn’t have a the majority, much less a filibuster proof one in the Senate, this is political grandstanding for electioneering purposes, but that doesn’t mean we can relax out guard.

Some anti-Second Amendment legislation can be very deceptively titled, and thus slip below the radar for Second Amendment supporters. That is the case with this piece of legislation introduced by Representative Ted Deutsch (D-FL) will be discussed in this article – HR 3265, the 3D Printed Gun Safety Act of 2019.

Now, 3D printing of firearms has been a subject of debate since 2013, when the Obama Administration tried to misuse ITAR to halt the spread of the plans for making firearms using 3D printers. Defense Distributed secured a settlement with the State Department in 2018 that saw the federal government make significant concessions not just on First Amendment grounds, but also acknowledging that AR-15s and other modern multi-purpose semi-automatic firearms were not “weapons of war.”

However, state attorneys general with track records of anti-Second Amendment extremism filed a series of suits to halt the implementation of the settlement, relying on the same nonsensical “public nuisance” claims that were wielded against handgun manufacturers by big cities before the passage of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in 2005. That litigation is still pending at the time of this writing.

The title of Deutsch’s legislation makes it seem like it’s about making sure that any 3D printed firearm is safe. The title of the legislation is a lie. The truth is that Congressman Deutsch’s legislation would render the legal cases moot – by imposing a blanket ban on any publication of computer files that would program a 3D printer to make a firearm.

Like the Disarm Hate Act, this legislation attacks both the First Amendment and the Second Amendment at the same time. Each is pernicious in its own way: The Disarm Hate Act uses constitutionally-protected – albeit highly reprehensible – speech as grounds to deny Second Amendment rights and does so in an ex post facto manner.

The 3D Printed Gun Safety Act is more egregious. This law would make putting files on the internet a crime under 18 USC 922. Already, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewel has been trying to bully CodeIsFreeSpeech.com with the Garden State’s version of the law Deutsch has proposed.

The implications go beyond just the ability of law-abiding citizens to have the means to build their own firearms. While many do that as a hobby, as seen by the popularity of 80% lower receivers, there is more modern technology emerging from Defense Distributed that can make the hobby accessible to more people.

The eventual proliferation of this technology would have the effect of making the unjust gun bans like those proposed by Eric Swalwell and Beto O’Rourke impossible to enforce. This is one reason why the fight against Grewel is significant.

The other reason is that if Grewel can win this fight, it could set a precedent for other restrictions on the publication and dissemination of technical data related to firearms and ammunition. Like reloading? The data to safely take part in that hobby could be kept from you. Want to customize your firearm? You won’t be able to do that yourself.

What is particularly infuriating is that existing laws can address whether a criminal is touching any firearm, whether 3D printed or not. Grewel, like New Jersey Governor Pat Murphy, instead prefers to use the power of the state to harass and bully those who wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

Second Amendment supporters should contact their Representative and Senators and urge them to oppose HR 3265, the deceptively mis-named 3D Printed Gun Safety Act. Free speech and the right to keep and bear arms are both at stake.

Schumer’s SCOTUS threat was truly unprecedented, then he made it worse

Just like that St Louis prosecutor, the ‘blow back’ from Schumer’s fat mouth might not be to his liking. While I don’t think he’ll see any criminal prosecution for it, there could be other alternatives if this kind of rabble rousing ever resulted in violence.

“If, then, the courts of justice are to be considered as the bulwarks of a limited Constitution against legislative encroachments, this consideration will ­afford a strong argument for the permanent tenure of judicial offices,” argued Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 78.

If we needed a pristine example of why justices are bestowed lifetime appointments and shielded from the intimidation tactics of unethical politicians, Sen. Chuck Schumer has now provided us with one.

Speaking to pro-abortion protesters in front of the Supreme Court this week, the Senate minority leader threatened — there’s no other way to put it — two sitting justices with repercussions if they uphold a Louisiana law aimed at protecting babies who survive abortions.

He said: “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

It’s possible that Schumer — who doesn’t have the slightest interest in protecting abortion survivors — can’t think of any good reason for hospital-admitting privileges for abortion providers, as the Louisiana law requires. But treating that as an “undue burden” is just an example of the Democrats’ abortion extremism. Threatening justices over the case is hysterical.

Moreover, Schumer’s thuggish ­rhetoric is a transparent attempt to intimidate justices. And wow — a sitting senator threatening an independent judiciary. Surely the champions of norms and decency will be horrified by this development. When President Trump, rather absurdly, demanded that Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg recuse themselves from “Trump-related” cases because of their partisan positions — and yes, Notorious RBG is openly partisan and anti-Trump — it was a major national story. In this case, I suspect we’re going to hear a lot about a general “coarsening” of discourse.

Whatever the case, this is an unprecedented attack on Supreme Court justices. And by unprecedented, I mean that you won’t be able to unearth an instance in modern history of a member of Congress threatening a justice — by name, no less — for ruling against his wishes. Which is why, I imagine, Chief Justice John Roberts felt the need to release this statement:

“Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous. All members of the court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.”

Sometimes, in highly charged debates over public policy, the moment gets the better of a person. It’s happened to all of us. Yet, rather than walking back his statement, Schumer compounded the ugly behavior by smearing the chief justice as a partisan ideologue.

A spokesman said: “For Justice Roberts to follow the right wing’s deliberate misinterpretation of what Sen. Schumer said, while remaining silent when President Trump attacked Justices Sotomayor and Ginsburg last week, shows Justice Roberts does not just call balls and strikes.” The senator meant only that there would be a “political price Republicans will pay for putting them on the court,” the statement added.

First of all, is Schumer really ­arguing that being critical of justices is tantamount to threatening them? If that’s the case, why, during President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address in 2010, did Schumer stand and clap for ­Obama’s norm-breaking attack on the Supreme Court justices who had upheld the First Amendment in Citizens United? It seems clear that Obama was attempting to manipulate the court, as well, but at least he had the decency not to sound like some wannabe Mafioso.

By accusing Roberts of misrepresenting his comments for partisan reasons, Schumer (via his spokesman) is obviously trying to influence the chief justice, as well. But he’s lying. Schumer’s initial statement specifically and unequivocally named two justices — one of whom he and his colleagues had already attempted to humiliate and defame. He was not calling out the Republicans who put Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the court.

Schumer doesn’t have the power to follow through on any threats, thankfully. His attack, like many less obvious ones, is just part of the left’s concerted effort to delegitimize the court, denigrate its justices and undermine the legality of its decisions. This isn’t surprising; the Constitution — and the jurists who are inclined to uphold it — are the biggest impediments to the progressive agenda. So expect a lot more of this.

Democratic Fools And Their Money

After being trounced on Super Tuesday, Michael Bloomberg announced that he was “suspending” his campaign. He joins fellow billionaire Tom Steyer in the quitters’ camp.

It makes you wonder how these two succeeded in business when they are so utterly incompetent at selling themselves or their ideas. It also underscores how shrewd billionaire Donald Trump was in 2016.

Bloomberg built his entire strategy on winning big on Super Tuesday. His pitch to voters – in a series of endlessly repeated ads – was his competency. He was a self-made billionaire, he got things done, he was a proven leader, he was best suited to beat Trump.

Yet all Bloomberg had to show for his hundreds of millions was a win in American Samoa.

Even someone as arrogant as Bloomberg could not ignore how disastrous his plan turned out to be. Think about it: Bloomberg spent $464 million of his own money to win a grand total of 64 delegates. That works out to $7.2 million per delegate.

Another way to look at it: Bloomberg spent nearly $300 for each vote he got. That’s enough to buy every one of his supporters a Luger 9 mm pistol, or almost 4,000 rounds of AR-15 ammo.

Bloomberg hasn’t done much better with the money he’s plowed into other candidates.

From 2010 to 2014, he dropped $21.4 million on losing elections. He spent another $16 million over those years to push gun control and climate change solutions – and ended up with nothing to show for it. In fact, Colorado voters recalled two gun-control candidates Bloomberg backed in 2013.

In 2018, Bloomberg spent $20 million on the Senate Majority PAC to help Democrats make gains in the Senate. They lost seats.

But as bad as Bloomberg has been with his money, it doesn’t hold a candle to fellow liberal billionaire Tom Steyer.

Before he dropped out of the presidential race at the end of February, climate change alarmist Steyer had poured $253 million into his campaign.

For that, he won no delegates at all – zip, zero, nada. In fact, Steyer ended up spending almost $1,300 for each vote he managed to secure, enough to buy each of them 21.5 tons of bituminous coal.

Steyer also has a worse record than Bloomberg when it comes to getting his favorite candidates into office.

In 2016, Steyer and his NextGen Climate Action super PAC spent $100 million – Steyer himself spent more than any other individual that year – only to lose eight out his 14 races. That included Hillary Clinton’s White House bid and Senate races in Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Missouri, Florida and Wisconsin.

Steyer did even worse in 2014, when he spent $74 million and lost 70% of his races. As the Washington Free Beacon noted, in all but one of those, the Republican candidates gained ground after his NextGen started running ads.

This, by the way, is in sharp contrast to another billionaire businessman named Donald Trump. Unlike Bloomberg and Steyer, Trump was extraordinarily careful with his campaign money. He also had a solid plan to win, a message that actually resonated with voters, and carried it out with great discipline.

In fact, at this point in his campaign for the nomination in 2016, Trump had spent just $33 million – less than any of his Republican opponents. That’s half of what Biden has so far spent, and a third of the cash Sen. Bernie Sanders has burned through.

We can think of no better endorsement of Trump than the fact that Bloomberg and Steyer would be the sort of businessmen giving advice and counsel in a Joe Biden administration.

BLOOMBERG SLAYED THE MYTH THAT MONEY BUYS ELECTIONS:

The dragons of myth were not slain by fearless knights, but by reality. In the real world, there are no dragons, and so there’s no need to send St. George to dispatch them.

Another myth died from reality last night: the myth that big spending buys elections.

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg spent $500 million on his failed presidential campaign. That’s $500,000,000, by the way, with eight zeros.

His ads ran everywhere: No Virginian could load a YouTube video without seeing Hizzoner’s face. He bought time to playact as the president and update the country on the COVID-19 epidemic. He even bought ad time during Democratic presidential debates — padding out his arguments with unchallenged praise for the Bloomberg agenda. He hired a veritable army of staff (at good wages) and sent them out to knock on doors, flood phone lines, and ensure that voters got wall-to-wall coverage: all-Bloomberg, all-the-time.

But as Super Tuesday ended, it became Hangover Wednesday for the Bloomberg brigades. Spending $500 million, or nearly as much as Hillary Clinton’s campaign spent in 2015 and 2016 combined, managed to buy Bloomberg a solitary win — in the territory of American Samoa. There, Bloomberg won 175 votes (that’s not a typo), edging out Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D., Hawaii), a native of the territory, who picked up a whopping 103 votes…………

Sen. Elizabeth Warren to end presidential campaign

Well, after losing the primary in her home state, you’d think she’d get the message.

Elizabeth Warren, the senator from Massachusetts who promised to deliver “big, structural change” and vigorously fight corruption, will end her presidential bid Thursday after a series of devastating primary results crippled her once-promising campaign.

She was due to inform her staff Thursday, a person familiar with her plans said.

 

Coronavirus: there are 2 types, Chinese researchers find, while authorities say faeces and urine can transmit the infection

Well, that mode of transmission means that San Francisco was probably on Gubbernor Newsom’s mind when he declared a state of emergency for California.

San Fransisco Crap Map.

  • Mainland China reports 38 new deaths by Wednesday morning, a rise from the previous day’s count, but new infections fall again to 119
  • Champions League and Europa League matches in Spain to be held behind closed doors

South Korea on Wednesday confirmed 142 new cases of the coronavirus, down from 851 a day earlier, taking the country’s total infections to 5,328 – the world’s largest after China. It reported four new deaths as the country’s toll reached 32.

Mainland China’s new daily cases continued to drop as it reported 119 infections, but the day’s new reported deaths jumped to 38, from 31 a day earlier, bringing its total fatalities to 2,981.

China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said 115 of the new cases on the mainland were reported in Hubei province, the outbreak’s epicentre. The total number of infections in mainland China stood at 80,270, with 49,856 patients having recovered.

‘Two types of coronavirus’

The coronavirus has evolved into two major types, with differing transmission rates and geographical distribution, according to a study published in the National Science Review on Tuesday.

A group of Chinese scientists analysed 103 coronavirus genomes and identified mutations in 149 sites across the strains.

They found that one type, which they called the L type, was more prevalent than the other, the S type, meaning it was more infectious. They also found that the L type had evolved from the S type, and that the L type was far more widespread before January 7 and in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak.

Human actions soon after the outbreak was discovered in December may have changed the abundance of each type, the report said, citing the Chinese central and local governments’ drastic containment measures including lockdowns of cities, which it said may have curbed the spread of the L type.

The researchers said follow-up studies were needed to form a better understanding of the virus’ evolution and spread.

The spread of infection through faeces and urine has been recognised as an additional mode of transmission in China’s latest coronavirus diagnosis and treatment plan.

UPDATE:

aaaaaaand He’s out.
Bloomberg suspends presidential campaign, endorses Biden

Out $600 million and still a loser to a commie and a senile idiot.

Michael Bloomberg, who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to self-fund his 2020 presidential run, announced Wednesday that he is suspending his campaign after a poor performance on Super Tuesday and will endorse Joe Biden.

What he’s saying: “I’ve always believed that defeating Donald Trump starts with uniting behind the candidate with the best shot to do it. After yesterday’s vote, it is clear that candidate is my friend and a great American, Joe Biden,” Bloomberg said in a statement.

Bloomberg 'Corrects' Reporter On The Pronunciation Of Texas: 'Tejas — That's Spanish For Texas'

Michael Bloomberg panders hard on Super Tuesday, "correcting" a reporter to pronounce Texas as "Tejas" because "you're in a Cuban neighborhood."

Posted by MRCTV on Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Michael Bloomberg panders hard on Super Tuesday, “correcting” a reporter to pronounce Texas as “Tejas” because “you’re in a Cuban neighborhood.

Bloomtard again opens his mouth and confirms his elite, clueless snobbery. In south Florida “Tejas” means the the clay roofing tile used since the Spanish colonized the area. I can almost guarantee that before Bloomie set foot to campaign in Florida he had never heard the word ‘tejas’ and one of his underlings added this to the list of things for him memorize to roll out if he was presented the opportunity so he could appear ‘woke’…and all he managed to do was sound exactly like the supercilious ignoramus he is.

Supreme Court Narrowly Decides That Identity Theft by Illegal Aliens Is Actually a Crime

“This victory is a key one, but it also shows just how close we are to having our immigration laws being made illegal to enforce.”

Small wonder that we are a magnet for illegal immigration. Our courts, with the best of intentions, have created a Rube Goldberg device whereby the black letter of immigration law is thwarted by loopholes and roadblocks to enforcement.

In 1986, Congress enacted the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). IRCA made it illegal to employ illegal aliens, established an employment eligibility verification system, and created various civil and criminal penalties against employers who violate the law. As part of this law came the Form I-9, known to anyone who has applied for a job in the past 30 years. This is a largely toothless provision that does nothing to deter anyone from employing an illegal nor does it pose any noticeable bar to the ability of illegals to work, but it has created a booming black market in I-9 friendly documents.

What could have been a fairly formidable tool to deter longterm illegals has been effectively gutted by the courts.

In Flores-Figuroa vs. United States, the Supreme Court ruled that illegals using counterfeit social security cards could not be prosecuted for identity theft unless they knew that the bogus social security number belonged to a real person. The decision was 9-0, but three justices made it clear that their concurrence was based on the fact that the law provided for a greater penalty for users of social security numbers belonging to real people than it did for those belonging to no one or to a deceased person.

When the US Supreme Court in thetravesty known as Arizona vs. United States ruled that states have no authority to enforce US immigration law…thank you, John Roberts, for again selling the nation down the river in order to try to bond with the liberals on the court….it opened a can of worms for any judge or court which is sufficiently woke and ambitious enough to use it. One of those instances happened in Kansas.

The case in question is called Kansas vs. Garcia. This is the background.

On August 26, 2012, Officer Mike Gibson pulled Garcia over for speeding. Gibson asked Garcia where he was going in such a hurry. Garcia replied that he was on his way to work at Bonefish Grill. Based on the results of a routine records check on Garcia, Gibson contacted Detective Justin Russell, who worked in the financial crimes department of the Overland Park Police Department. Russell was in the neighborhood and came to the scene to speak with Garcia.

The day after speaking with Garcia, Russell contacted Bonefish Grill and obtained Garcia’s “[e]mployment application documents, possibly the W-2, the I-9 documents.” Russell then spoke with Special Agent Joseph Espinosa of the Social Security Office of the Inspector General. Espinosa told Russell that the Social Security number Garcia had used on the forms belonged to Felisha Munguia of Edinburg, Texas.

As a result of the investigation, Garcia was charged with one count of identity theft.

Garcia was convicted and the conviction was upheld on appeal. But the Kansas Supreme Court reversed. That court reasoned that because state officials were barred from using information on the I-9 for reasons other than verifying eligibility for employment that Kansas could not use the fact the fake social security number was used on state and federal tax returns and on an apartment lease as evidence of a crime.

The federal Immigration Reform and Control Act bars employers from knowingly employing undocumented immigrants. The act also requires employees to verify that they are eligible to work in the United States by submitting a Form I-9, and it strictly limits the use of information on or attached to a Form I-9. Because the Social Security numbers that the defendants were using appeared on their I-9s, the state court reasoned, the prosecution was trumped by the IRCA, even if the Social Security numbers also appeared on the defendants’ tax-withholding forms.

In short, what the Kansas Supreme Court did was legalize identity theft so long as you were an illegal. (READ: Will the Supreme Court Choose to Preserve Immigration Law or Will It Make Identity Theft Legally Protected?) The US Supreme Court heard the case back in March and the decision was handed down today.

The court, in a 5-4 opinion by Justice Samuel Alito, reinstated convictions obtained by Kansas prosecutors against three restaurant workers for using other people’s social security numbers on forms given to their employers.

The central question in the case, Kansas v. Garcia, was whether such state prosecutions were barred by a provision of federal immigration law that says any information submitted with federal work-authorization forms can’t be used for state law-enforcement purposes.

Justice Alito, writing for a conservative majority, said the answer was no. The mere fact that Kansas law on identity theft overlapped with federal law “does not even begin to make a case” that the state’s prosecutorial efforts should be pre-empted, he wrote.

“In the present cases, there is certainly no suggestion that the Kansas prosecutions frustrated any federal interests,” Justice Alito said.  Joining him in the majority were Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

The Trump administration had sided with Kansas in the case, arguing that Congress never meant to carve out an immigration-related exception that would prevent states from enforcing their own identity-theft laws.

In dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer, writing for the court’s liberal wing, said U.S. immigration law gave federal authorities the sole responsibility to police fraud committed to obtain eligibility to work.

The law “reserves to the federal government—and thus takes from the states—the power to prosecute people for misrepresenting material information in an effort to convince their employer that they are authorized to work in this country,” Justice Breyer wrote.

If this representation of Breyer’s views are correct, and I’ve not read the opinion, it is sheer lunacy. He is literally declaring that using a fake ID on an employment I-9 immunizes you from being prosecuted.

This victory is a key one, but it also shows just how close we are to having our immigration laws being made illegal to enforce.

AOC Invokes Jesus, Compares Religious Freedom to White Supremacy, Slavery, Segregation

She’s a radical marxist whose relationship with God, I’ll just mention as:
“…by their fruits ye shall know them” As in, ‘what they do will tell you’.

On Thursday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Grow Yucca in NYC) compared religious freedom advocates to Americans who twisted scripture to defend white supremacy, race-based slavery, and segregation. She suggested that Republicans would dismiss Jesus Christ as a radical and condemned the Trump administration for giving religion a bad name.

“It’s very difficult to sit here and listen to arguments in the long history of this country of using scripture and weaponizing and abusing scripture to justify bigotry. White supremacists have done it, those who justified slavery did it, those who fought against integration did it, and we’re seeing it today,” Ocasio-Cortez declared at a hearing entitled, “The Administration’s Religious Liberty Assault on LGBTQ Rights.”

She went on to suggest Republicans would condemn Jesus Christ Himself.

“And sometimes, especially in this body, I feel as though if Christ Himself walked through these doors, and said what He said thousands of years ago, that we should love our neighbor and our enemy, that we should welcome the stranger, fight for the least of us, that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into a kingdom of heaven, He would be maligned as a radical and rejected from these doors,” AOC declared.

She contrasted her faith with that of traditional Christians.

“And I know, and it is part of my faith, that all people are holy and all people are sacred, unconditionally. We love all people,” AOC insisted. “There is nothing holy about rejecting medical care of people, no matter who they are on the grounds of what their identity is. There is nothing holy about turning someone away from a hospital. There’s nothing holy about rejecting a child from a family. There’s nothing holy about writing discrimination into the law. And I am tired of communities of faith being weaponized and being mischaracterized because the only time religious freedom is invoked is in the name of bigotry and discrimination.”

She turned to Evan Minton — a female who identifies as a man and who is suing a Catholic hospital in California for not performing a hysterectomy. During the hearing, Minton accused the Trump administration of having “singled me out” by issuing a Health and Human Services (HHS) ruling protecting the consciences of medical professionals who refuse to perform abortions, hysterectomies on healthy women, or other controversial services.

“I’m tired of it. My faith commands me to treat Mr. Minton as holy because he is sacred, because his life is sacred,” AOC declared. Turning to Minton, she added, “Because you are not to be denied anything that I am entitled to. That we are equal in the eyes of the law and we are equal in my faith in the eyes of the world.”

“But what this administration is advancing is the idea that religion and faith is about exclusion,” she argued. “It is not up to us to deny medical care, it is up to us to feed the hungry, to clothe the poor, to protect children, and to love all people as ourselves.”

Ocasio-Cortez would have more credibility on these issues if she actually followed the tenets of the church to which she claims to belong, the Roman Catholic Church. If “there is nothing holy about rejecting medical care of people … turning someone away from a hospital [or] rejecting a child from a family,” then why does AOC staunchly support abortion, which denies unborn children medical care, hospital visits, and a family? If she believes that “all people are holy and all people are sacred,” why does she support the killing of any person in the womb?

Gun-Rights Activists Look to Supreme Court to Take Up AR-15 Bans, Confiscation Bills
High Court has yet to rule on ‘assault weapon’ bans

The latest denial of cert, even if it was simply for the preliminary injunction requiring the bump stocks be surrendered or destroyed, as I have just learned, still leaves me uneasy about the odds that the court will grant it for any of these cases, even though there’s disagreements across the appeals circuits.

Second Amendment advocates are pursuing multiple lawsuits against gun-control measures in an effort to trigger a Supreme Court challenge that could upend decades of legislation.

The Second Amendment Foundation has filed multiple gun-rights challenges in federal courts across the country. Founder Alan Gottlieb said the muddled nature of state laws, on issues ranging from open carry to the possession of certain weapons, calls out for judicial review from the nation’s highest court.

“Politicians making claims that the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to so-called assault weapons is exactly why the Supreme Court needs to take all of these cases and put this issue to rest,” Gottlieb told the Washington Free Beacon

The Supreme Court has never heard a legal challenge on either federal or state bans on “assault weapons” and has been largely silent on Second Amendment issues since its landmark rulings in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. Chicago (2010)……..

If the Supreme Court is moved to rule on new gun-rights cases….it could change the landscape of gun laws in the United States. Any ruling expanding protections for what categories of guns Americans have a right to own, or where they have a right to take their guns, could strike down laws in heavily Democratic states such as California, New York, and Illinois.

In 2016, the Supreme Court used Heller to toss out a Massachusetts woman’s conviction for possessing a stun gun banned in the state—the ban was later struck down by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. That was the only major gun-rights case that the justices ruled on in the last decade. Gun-rights advocates say the reluctance of the High Court to act has led to a confusing web of lower court decisions that leave the extent of Second Amendment protections an open question……….

Second Amendment activists are confident that they would prevail if state or local gun bans reach the Supreme Court. The Court ruled in Heller that weapons “in common use” for lawful purposes are protected by the Second Amendment. The AR-15 and other semiautomatic rifles are some of the most popular guns in the country with more than 17.7 million owned by civilians in the United States, according to a recent industry estimate……..

Appellate courts have disagreed, but there has been no uniform legal reasoning between circuits affirming the constitutionality of gun bans.

The Seventh Circuit ruled AR-15s and similar firearms banned in Cook County, Illinois, do not have a “reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia.” The Fourth Circuit ruled the AR-15s banned by Maryland are “‘weapons that are most useful in military service’ — which the Heller Court singled out as being beyond the Second Amendment’s reach.” The D.C. Circuit ruled there was a “substantial relationship” between the city’s AR-15 ban “and the objectives of protecting police officers and controlling crime.” The First Circuit ruled Massachusetts “(at most) minimally burdens” Second Amendment rights with its AR-15 ban.

Mark Oliva, a spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said the varied opinions make the issue ripe for the Supreme Court to take up.

“There are no grounds to say it’s settled law. You have circuit courts of appeal that are at disagreement as to why those bans are constitutional,” he told the Free Beacon. “When you have disagreement among the circuit courts that is a reason why the Supreme Court could be weighing in to come to an agreement on what that standard is.”………

There are at least six separate gun-rights challenges from Maryland, Illinois, Massachusetts, California, and New Jersey—as well as one challenging a federal ban on interstate handgun sales—waiting for review by the High Court. Not every gun-control advocate shares Levine’s optimism. Ladd Everitt, former director of the gun-control group One Pulse for America, said pro-gun control policymakers should not give the Supreme Court leeway to set new precedents overturning gun-control laws.

“The majority’s decision in Heller led to a torrent of litigation against gun-control laws nationwide,” Everitt said in a 2019 op-ed. “Thankfully, federal courts have rejected most of those challenges. It will become harder to do so in the future, however, if our increasingly pro-gun Supreme Court is allowed additional, unnecessary bites at the Second Amendment apple.”

The District of Columbia declined to appeal a 2017 decision striking down its restrictive gun-carry permit law because city officials feared a Supreme Court decision would strike down similar laws in other states. In 2019, New York City officials attempted to withdraw a bid to defend a law limiting the transportation of legally owned firearms after the Supreme Court agreed to review the case. Local gun-control groups even lobbied for a state law loosening the travel restrictions out of fear of what the Court might rule.

Several Supreme Court justices have publicly spoken out in favor of the Court taking more gun-rights cases. When the Court declined to hear a challenge to a California gun-carry law in 2017, Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch wrote a dissent, telling their colleagues not to “stand by idly while a State denies its citizens that right.”

“The Court’s decision to deny certiorari in this case reflects a distressing trend: the treatment of the Second Amendment as a disfavored right,” Thomas said. “The Court has not heard [an] argument in a Second Amendment case in over seven years—since March 2, 2010, in McDonald…. Since that time, we have heard argument[s] in, for example, roughly 35 cases where the question presented turned on the meaning of the First Amendment and 25 cases that turned on the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.”

The make-up of the Court has changed drastically since McDonald, following the additions of President Trump’s appointees, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. Kavanaugh has previously weighed in on the constitutionality of gun bans, notably dissenting when the D.C. Circuit upheld the city’s assault-weapons ban in 2011.

“In my judgment, both D.C.’s ban on semiautomatic rifles and its gun registration requirement are unconstitutional under Heller,” he wrote. “There is no meaningful or persuasive constitutional distinction between semiautomatic handguns and semiautomatic rifles. Semiautomatic rifles, like semiautomatic handguns, have not traditionally been banned and are in common use by law-abiding citizens for self-defense in the home, hunting, and other lawful uses.”

Americans may soon get a preview of which direction the current Court will move on guns when it issues its decision in the New York City gun-transportation case. In December, justices heard oral arguments in the New York City case and will decide whether to allow authorities to drop the case or rule on the merits. No matter the outcome in that case, both sides of the gun-control debate say the Supreme Court has the potential to shake up the entire course of legislative debates moving forward.