Category: Crap For Brains

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.

Law students storm out of ‘purely legalistic’ DACA discussion

Law students, LAW STUDENTS.  Students, supposedly in university to study LAW. What irony…and idiocy,  from those that have been propagandized until they totally lack self awareness.

Stanford University law students, upset about a “morally affronting” discussion of the arguments for and against the legality of DACA, staged a walkout of the event in protest.

On Feb. 10, Texas Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins spoke at Stanford Law School, sponsored by Stanford’s Federalist Society chapter. After Hawkins began his speech on the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, more than half of those in the room got up and left. The purpose of Hawkins’ speech was to discuss the issues of legalities of repealing DACA.

Hawkins stated that he would be covering and arguing both sides for and against DACA…………

The walk-out from Hawkins’ speech was arranged by the Stanford Latinx Law Students Association (SLLSA) along with various other student groups. SLLSA member Raquel Zepeda wrote in an email to law students that the lecture was an “intellectually cheap and morally affronting topic.” In protest, students held posters that read, “No human being is illegal”, and “Everyone is welcome here.”

While Hawkins spoke about both sides on DACA he mentioned that Trump’s motion to repeal “did not say that DACA was unworkable…it just says that DACA is unlawful.”

“DACA is unlawful for the same reason that DAPA was unlawful, according to the fifth circuit,” Hawkins added.

Hawkins also spoke about the Obama administration not having the authority to put DACA into place as it “confers on someone a status Congress would otherwise deny.”

In a statement, SLLSA  and other groups said that “purely legalistic discussions of DACA ignore the human element, which must be front and center… we can not agree to disregard the presence and importance of DREAMers in all places, including here at SLS,” being that those who walked out did not find legality to be of importance in this aspect.

U.S. Supreme Court rejects challenge to ban on gun ‘bump stocks’

This case was less ‘RKBA’ as it wasn’t based on a 2nd Amendment argument, than about ‘Chevron Deference’ where the courts defer to bureaucraps when they tie themselves into a logic pretzel to come up with a regulation. And as I have just learned, this was a ‘only’ denial of cert for the preliminary injunction on the demand by ATF that bump stocks have to be destroyed or surrendered since they are considered contraband machinegun conversion devices, but whatever.

This provides more confirmation that the conservative side of the court probably considers Roberts the new ‘squish’ as it only takes 4 Justices to grant ‘cert’.
And that means among Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, Alito & Thomas they figured Roberts would side against them. Kavanaugh, Gorsuch have case history against ‘deference’ and Thomas has recently changed his mind and come around against it.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rebuffed a bid by gun rights advocates to overturn President Donald Trump’s ban on “bump stocks” – devices that enable semi-automatic weapons to fire rapidly like a machine gun – implemented after the 2017 Las Vegas mass shooting.

The justices left in place a lower court’s decision that upheld the Trump administration’s action to define bump stocks as prohibited machine guns under U.S. law.

The ban, which went into effect in March 2019, was embraced by Trump following a massacre that killed 58 people at a music festival in Las Vegas in which the gunman used bump stocks. It represented a rare recent instance of gun control at the federal level in a country that has experienced a series of mass shootings.

Numerous gun control proposals have been thwarted in the U.S. Congress, largely because of opposition by Republican lawmakers and the influential National Rifle Association gun rights lobby.

The Firearms Policy Foundation, a gun rights group, and other plaintiffs sued in federal court to try to reverse Trump’s action. The Supreme Court last year refused to block the ban from going into effect while the legal challenges against it were considered in the courts. The justices also refused to temporarily exempt from the plaintiffs in the case from the ban.

An Obama Holdover in an Obscure Government Arm Helped Cause the Country’s Coronavirus Crisis
Who really decided to bring infected people to the United States?

Two months after the outbreak of the coronavirus, #TrumpVirus began trending on Twitter. Why? Because it’s the only chance that the Democrats have of winning back the White House in 2020.

Saddled with broken primaries whose nominee, after a possible brokered convention, will either be a Socialist who admires Communists, a senile lecher who admires young girls, or a billionaire who admires power, the coronavirus is a much more effective candidate than Sanders, Biden, or Bloomberg.

#TrumpVirus follows in the footsteps of #TrumpHurricane which attempted to blame a natural disaster and local corruption in Puerto Rico on President Trump. And that just dusted off the smears and slanders of Hurricane Katrina and substituted Puerto Ricans for black people and Trump for Bush.

Not to mention the CDC for FEMA.

The truth about disaster relief and pandemic management is that it hasn’t changed much between administrations. The Bush administration dealt with SARS in much the same way that the Obama administration addressed swine flu. And the Trump administration is doing most of the same things.

That’s because the actual decisions are being made by bureaucrats based on existing protocols.

The best example of this was the decision to fly back infected American passengers from the Diamond Princess. This fateful decision helped spread the virus inside the United States.

President Trump had been told that nobody with the coronavirus would be flown to America.

The State Department decided to do it anyway without telling him and only made the announcement shortly after the planes landed in the United States.

According to the Washington Post, as unfriendly an outlet to the administration as there is, “Trump has since had several calls with top White House officials to say he should have been told, that it should have been his decision and that he did not agree with the decision that was made.”

Who in the State Department actually made the decision? That’s a very good question.

According to a State Department briefing, the missions were carried out by the Directorate of Operational Medicine within the Bureau of Medical Services. You might think that sounds like it would be part of HHS or NIH, but the Bureau of Medical Services is actually an arm of the State Department.

The Directorate of Operational Medicine is a part of the Bureau assigned to deal with crisis response with a $250 million portfolio and a lot of employees that almost no one outside D.C. ever heard of. At least unless you remember an event at which Barack Obama honored Dr. William Walters, the head of the Directorate, for evacuating Ebola patients to the United States.

“Now, remember, the decision to move Kent back to the United States was controversial.  Some worried about bringing the disease to our shores.  But what folks like William knew was that we had to make the decisions based not on fear, but on science,” Obama said.

By “some”, Obama meant, among others, Trump, who had been a strong critic of the move.

Despite Obama’s end-zone dance, the State Department had badly botched the Ebola evacuations.

Under Bush, the CDC had prepped an evacuation aircraft for flying out contagious Americans. The Obama administration shelved the gear because of the cost, and then failed to make use of it. The evacuation process led to the same infighting between the State Department and the CDC as now.

Dr. William Walters is still on duty. In 2017, Walters was boasting of prepping more Ebola evacuations even over President Trump’s opposition to the practice. And he was once again at the wheel now.

“The question was simply this: Are these evacuees?” Walters explained the decision to evacuate coronavirus patients to the United States. “And do we follow our protocol? And the answer to that was yes on both accounts.”

Consulting President Trump was not part of the protocol even on a major national security issue.

In a Congressional briefing, Walters boasted that, “the Department executed the largest non-military evacuation of U.S. citizens in its history. The safe and efficient evacuation of 1,174 people from Wuhan, China and people onboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan is a testament to the agility, proficiency, and dedication of our workforce to accomplishing our core mission – advancing the interests of the American people.”

And the triumph of the administrative state and its bureaucratic protocols over the President.

At a State Department briefing, Walters stated that, “The chief of mission, right, through the U.S. embassy, is ultimately the head of all executive branch activities.”

That is the problem. Right there.

Walters got his job in 2011. He’s a relic of the Obama era. That doesn’t mean that his politics are those of his former boss. But this is not about him. It’s about the reality that the White House doesn’t make many of the most vital decisions and doesn’t even know that they’re being made until it’s too late.

And what that means, beyond the politics of the moment, is that the people don’t decide.

You can vote one way or another and the real decisions that matter will still be made by the head of a directorate that is a subsection of a bureau that you never heard of, but that has a budget in the hundreds of millions, a small army as its disposal, and will follow whatever the protocol is.

This is how the country is really run. And that’s the problem.

The underlying problem with our government is that it’s too big to control. Voting in an election or even sitting in the Oval Office doesn’t mean you’re in charge. The problem goes beyond the current obsession with the Deep State. The real issue has always been the Deep Industry or the administrative state.

If the coronavirus becomes a critical problem in this country, the blame will go back to an obscure arm of the State Department, but it will never be placed there. Whatever happens a year from now, no one outside a small professional class will have ever heard of the Directorate of Operational Medicine.

The media will spend all its time bashing President Trump, Pence, assorted cabinet members, and perhaps the CDC, without ever drilling down to the facts, even though it has them at hand. The media’s rule of thumb is that natural disasters and disease outbreaks are always successfully managed by Democrats and mismanaged by Republicans. Katrina and Maria were disasters, but Sandy was a success story. The coronavirus is a catastrophe, but the Ebola virus was brilliantly handed by smart people who are handling the coronavirus response. But it’s different because the guy in the White House is.

The truth is that all of these were mismanaged by the same agencies, many of the same people, and by a government infrastructure that excels at drawing up big budget proposals, but is inept at solving problems when they actually emerge, and just follow whatever protocols will cover its collective asses…….

Sex robots with ‘coding flaws’ prone to ‘sexually assaulting humans.’

Well, it is the time frame that the original Blade Runner was set in.

The computer science professor, therefore, warns robots that are not programmed correctly risk overstepping the boundaries of human consent.

Speaking at a Raspberry Dream Labs event, he told Daily Star Online: “It makes sense for us to debate what should be the boundaries for consent given by humans to robots.

“We’ll see who’s sleepy,” says Joe Biden, and then he calls Chris Wallace “Chuck.”

With those puffy eyes, SloJoe looks like he just barely made it out of bed. Whadda ya bet that shirt, tie & jacket are a one piece, zip up the back ensemble he’s wearing over his jammies.

BIDEN: “I can hardly wait to debate [Trump] on stage. I want people to see me standing next to him and him standing next to me. Heh heh heh. We’ll see who’s sleepy.”

WALLACE: “Mr. Vice President, thank you. Thanks for your time. Please come back in less than 13 years, sir.”

BIDEN: “All right, Chuck. Thank you very much.”

WALLACE: “Uh. All right. Uh, it’s Chris. But anyway.”

BIDEN: “I just did Chris. No, no, I just did Chuck. I tell you what, man. These were back to back. Anyway.

WALLACE: No, it’s okay.

BIDEN: I don’t know how you do it, early in the morning, too. Thank you, Chris.

So… we saw who’s sleepy. Or just an irreparable gaffe machine.

It worked for Walter Mondale….not.

Carol Moseley Braun? Kamala Harris (well, she’s actually not black, but Arab…but whatever). And “appoint”? I seem to recall StunnedTaters are elected, but if replaced, their states Governor does the appointing.
His Alzheimer’s is getting worse.

Democrats are deranged, demoralized, and at each other’s throats

Good. Maybe they’ll just ruin the brand so much the partei disappears like the Whigs, Federalists and some others.

The Democrats are at their lowest point since the outbreak of the Civil War. Derangement by definition means acting in self-destructive ways, and mass derangement, specifically Trump Derangement Syndrome, is the animating force behind a large share of the thoughts and actions of both leaders and followers of the world’s oldest political party. Put starkly, the crazies have grabbed control and reinforce one another, spinning farther and farther away from the mainstream of American political life. A few vignettes this week illustrate the crisis.

The circular firing squad
As of two weeks ago, there have been 389 violent attacks against Trump supporters. But a hallmark of true frenzy is when those violent impulses turn against ostensible allies who are just not pure enough. The Bernie Bros now are morphing into the Bernie Brownshirts, with a strong undercurrent of fratricidal violence that comes to the surface when Project Veritas films campaign workers threatening to burn down Milwaukee if their leader is not the candidate chosen by the party. That threat is already manifesting its early stages.

Nick Arama writes in Red State:

On Monday a group of Bernie supporters surround the care [sic] of Illinois Democratic congressional candidate Betsy Dirksen Londrigan as she was leaving a campaign event in Champaign, Illinois.
They were demanding that she debate socialist candidate Stefanie Smith.

The people on the video can be heard yelling “where did she go,” “block her in” and “get by her window!” One demanded to know if she that she would “support Medicare for All.” The video says “January 24” but it actually happened on February 24.

According to the CBS Capitol Bureau Chief Mark Maxwell, Smith is a fringe candidate who “only has 2 donors from Illinois.”

Most candidates in such a situation would have disavowed it if their supporters did anything like that.

Not so Smith. Smith praised the group for their actions, thanking them in a Facebook post,. “I can’t tell you how much it meant to me when I watched the video of what happened — when I saw red umbrellas go up.”

The crazies have all the momentum. Nancy Pelosi has outright surrendered to The Squad, approving the disastrous impeachment that strengthened Trump’s approval ratings.

Self-destructive behavior

Having learned nothing from their impeachment disaster, Democrats press ahead with words and deeds that alienate the mainstream. Openly hoping for, even urging on an economic disaster that would harm most people, in the hopes of damaging Trump, for instance. Or sponsoring legislation to halt work on the border wall to purportedly fund coronavirus countermeasures (even as President Trump specified money will be no object) in the face of Chinese nationals being smuggled across the Mexican border.

Suggesting that a virus originating in China be called “Trumpvirus” makes sense to people deranged by hatred, but strikes the other 75% of the populace as mean-spirited at best.

The Democrat presidential candidates have been outright lying about the state of American readiness so blatantly in their efforts to disparage the man leading us through the crisis that even the Associated Press publishes a scathing fact check.

None of this inspires any public confidence in the Democrats as the party to lead us through perilous times.

Demoralization

The Bernie faction is able to command a third to a half of the primary vote, which is a fraction of the fraction of the voting public that identifies as Democrats.  Driven by anger, they make the effort to turnout at caucuses and primary elections. But they are not attracting much new support, and there is evidence that they are demoralizing the rest of the party and repelling the non-Democrat voters, who report unprecedented levels of satisfaction with the way their lives are working out under President Trump……….

It is hard to see sanity returning to the party.  It may well require a thorough drubbing in November before the sane remnant (if any) is able to pick up the pieces and head back toward the mainstream.

Divisive New Mexico Gun Seizure Bill Signed Into Law

Further estranging the state’s sheriffs and pro-gun advocates, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Tuesday signed a new “red flag” bill into law.

The measure, SB 5, was backed by national anti-gun groups such as Giffords and Bloomberg-financed Everytown, who applauded the action by Lujan Grisham, a Democrat who ran for office on support from such groups. The bill squeaked through the Democrat-controlled state Senate earlier this month largely along party lines in a 22-20 vote while the state House greenlighted the proposal 39-31.

The law adopts an Extreme Risk Fiream Protection Order program in the state to allow courts to order temporary gun seizures for up to a year. Arguing the concept ranges from flawed to downright unconstitutional, 30 of the state’s 33 sheriffs opposed the move. To this, Lujan Grisham this week said the lawmen should step down if they persist in vows to refuse to enforce the controversial seizures.

“If they really intend to do that, they should resign as a law enforcement officer and leader in that community,” she said, as reported by ABC.

CA Nannies: Thou Shalt Have No Boys Nor Girls Depts.

The Socialist Nannies in the California legislature have soooo solved all the issues of the state – streets and sidewalks covered with feces and needles, rising property crime, horrible K-12 education, etc. – that they have decided to become Store Managers and dictate to retail stores how they are to display children’s merchandise.

Introduced February 20, 2020, by Assembly critter Evan Low (D-mented), AB2826 would …

A new California bill would require some retailers to have gender-neutral floor space inside their stores. […]

It would do away with “boys aisles” and “girls aisles” and require that children’s products be offered in a single, gender-neutral section.

Low would have you believe there’s been a particularly evil sham perpetuated upon the public by not having sparkly-pink dresses with unicorns hanging with the green dinosaur t-shirts.

Unjustified differences in similar products that are traditionally marketed either for girls or for boys can be more easily identified by the consumer if similar items are displayed closer to one another in one, undivided area of the retail sales floor.

Keeping similar items that are traditionally marketed either for girls or for boys separated makes it more difficult for the consumer to compare the products and incorrectly implies that their use by one gender is inappropriate.

Now, does Evan Low really believe that parents and grandparents are too stupid to be allowed to shop for their own offspring without his benevolent guidance? That they have been paralyzed by signs reading “Girls Clothing 5-8”?

A second case of coronavirus found through spread in California.

California reported its second case of community transmission of the coronavirus in two days — this one, a 65-year-old woman in Santa Clara County who has no known history of travel to countries hit hard by the outbreak, people familiar with the situation said Friday.

That means the virus appears to be spreading among at least two separate communities, about 90 miles apart, according to people who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the details. On Wednesday, health authorities revealed the nation’s first case of community transmission, a woman in Solano County, California.

There is no apparent connection between the new patient and anyone else with the disease, known as covid-19.

“I think there’s a strong possibility that there’s local transmission going in California,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “In other words, the virus is spreading within California, and I think there’s a possibility other states are in the same boat — they just haven’t recognized that yet.”

Two students in Palo Alto, a city of 67,000 in the northwestern corner Santa Clara county, also may have been exposed to the virus, according to a letter to parents from the school’s superintendent Friday.

Republicans Walk Out of Coronavirus Briefing After Democrats Play Politics With the Crisis

Several House Republicans walked out of a closed-door briefing on the coronavirus by Trump administration health officials after a Democratic chairman railed against the White House response to the crisis.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the leading House health appropriator, kicked off the briefing by criticizing the administration for being disorganized and lacking urgency in its response. Several GOP members started to boo before most Republicans got up and walked out.

“If I wanted to hear the politics of it, I’d read Politico or something, let’s be serious,” said Rep. Paul Mitchell of Michigan. Even Democrats were uncomfortable with DeLauro’s tirade.

Politico:

DeLauro’s comments were indicative of the growing political tensions around the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus response. President Donald Trump, who has publicly tried to downplay the virus through a series of misleading claims, just after midnight took to Twitter to complain that Democrats were pinning the crisis on him.

But at least one Democrat also left the briefing irritated. Rep. Donna Shalala (D-Fla.), who led the health department under President Bill Clinton, said DeLauro’s diatribe missed the purpose of the meeting.

“No one wanted to hear that, either the Democrats or Republican. We just wanted to hear the substance,” she said.

DeLauro was unapologetic.

DeLauro, the leading House health appropriator, accused the administration of a lack of urgency and warned that there were several crucial questions that remained unanswered about the coronavirus response. As lawmakers transferred to a bigger room to accommodate all the attendees, a visibly frustrated DeLauro told colleagues she didn’t “give a rat’s ass” and about the reaction and that members needed answers from the administration.

“I feel that the issue on resources and current expenditures has been less than adequate and that these are some of the questions that we have to get answered,” she told reporters afterward, and her office later released a transcript of her remarks. “I quite frankly don’t worry about people who may have a concern. I just know that the questions are right.”

The questions are stupid.

How can the White House possibly have any idea how much will be needed to combat the crisis? Scientists don’t even know how the darn thing spreads. As far as current expenditures are concerned, maybe the people who could figure that out are a touch busy at the moment doing actual, you know, work on the crisis, and not looking for a club to beat Republicans with.

Internal documents, whistleblowers point to alleged underreporting of crime by DC Police
Whistleblowers claim assault, theft cases being downgraded to improve department’s crime stats.

WASHINGTON — Two D.C. police officers have accused their MPD superiors of rigging crime stats to make them look better. Now, WUSA9 has obtained internal documents the whistleblowers say proves their case.

On a hot summer afternoon in August 2019, a woman standing outside a liquor store in Petworth asked a man to buy her some water, according to one of the police reports reviewed by investigative reporter Eric Flack.

What happened next, according to that police report, was unimaginable. The man allegedly slashed the woman’s face and neck with an unknown object, sending her to the hospital.

That might sound like an “assault with a dangerous weapon,” a felony charge that can get you 10 years in prison.

But that’s not the way D.C. Police reported it; instead classifying the alleged crime as a “simple assault” – a misdemeanor that only carries a maximum of 6-months in jail.

In a second case, in the early morning hours on December 25, a night of drinking between a man and his boyfriend ended in an alleged case of domestic violence inside a Columbia Heights apartment.

According to that police report, the suspect grabbed his partner and held a knife to his neck while screaming profanities. But once again the police report says officers did not record the incident as an assault with a dangerous weapon, or even an aggravated assault, which is also a felony.

Instead, the police report shows investigators once again opted to classify the alleged attack as a misdemeanor “simple assault.” In the end, those police reports show neither case ended up being prosecuted.

So why would MPD seemingly downplay crimes in the District by labeling them less serious than they actually were?

Two veteran officers say it is all by design. And they have the documents they say prove it.

“I’m a sergeant for the Metropolitan Police Department, and I’m a whistleblower,” D.C. Police Sgt. Charlotte Djossou said in public testimony January 16 before DC Council’s Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety.

WUSA9 has now obtained the internal police reports and emails Sgt. Djossou and Officer Knight handed over to Councilmember Charles Allen, the committee chairman, as evidence of their claims that some D.C. Police supervisors are ordering investigators to downgrade crime classifications from more serious crimes to less serious ones.

The goal, the officers say, is to make the city’s crime stats look better.

In addition to those two assault cases, the paperwork obtained by WUSA9 includes evidence that non-violent crimes are being downplayed as well.

An email from an MPD captain in the Fourth District dated March 12 instructs officers to stop using the classification of theft in the second degree where the value of the property stolen is under $25.

Instead, the captain writes that officers should use a charge most people have never heard of: “taking property without right.” It’s an obscure crime designation that carries a maximum of three months in jail rather than the six-month sentence that could come with a theft charge.

Subsequent emails show three separate cases where officers followed that captain’s directive reclassifying theft charges to that lesser known “taking property without right” charge. In two of the cases, those emails cited a lack of “solvability factors” as the reason.

That didn’t sit well with Sgt. Djossou and Officer Knight, and apparently it didn’t sit well with the district commander either. Months later, he stepped in to reverse that captain’s order in another email discontinuing use of classification “taking property without right” altogether.

So why does how a crime is classified matter?

“It sends the message that this is insignificant,” said Sandra Jackson, executive director of the House of Ruth, which shelters and advises victims of domestic violence……..

 

Gun-Control Exec Says Attempts to Sell Guns to Minorities, Women ‘Incredibly Dangerous’ .

The leader of a gun-control group decried efforts to sell firearms to minorities and women as “incredibly dangerous” on Monday.

“Gun makers are softening their image to ‘put a better face in front of people’ & ‘ramp up its appeal to women, children and members of minority groups,'” Igor Volsky, executive director of gun-control activist group Guns Down America, said in a tweet. Volsky, who is also a former vice president of the Center for American Progress, was commenting on a New York Times story about firearms marketing.

“That’s right,” Volsky continued. “Gun makers are increasingly advertising to WOMEN, CHILDREN & MINORITY COMMUNITIES. Firearm industry realizes that to survive into the future it must ‘broaden its reach beyond the aging white men who have been its core customers’—and so they’re now trying to sell their products to other demographics. This is incredibly dangerous.”

The comments caused a backlash among female and minority gun-rights advocates who said Volsky’s rhetoric harks back to the racist history of gun control in America. Maj Toure, head of the Black Guns Matter Tour that provides firearms training to African Americans in urban areas, told the Washington Free Beacon Volsky was “uninformed” about past attempts to deny black Americans their Second Amendment rights.

“The overt racism of gun control rears its ugly head again,” Toure said. “Imagine being either so uninformed on the racist roots of gun control or so full of yourself that you would not only think but also believe that melinated Americans owning guns would be incredibly dangerous. I wonder what he thinks of the thousands of melinated law enforcement officers and military personnel that carry firearms to protect life as well?”

Female activists also took issue with Volsky’s patronizing language. Robyn Sandoval, executive director of the shooting league A Girl and A Gun, said increasing gun ownership among women promotes safety.

“Self-defense is a basic human right regardless of gender or ethnicity,” Sandoval told the Free Beacon. “To suggest that minorities and women are less capable of making good decisions or do not have the same need to keep their families safe is condescending and irrational.”

Sandoval also said the growth in female-focused products and marketing is a response to women wanting to own firearms.

“Gun manufacturers aren’t luring more women into gun ownership,” she said. “Rather, the demand by women interested in self defense, hunting, and sport allows opportunities for manufacturers to provide firearms that meet women’s needs and goals.”

Dianna Muller, founder of the all-female gun-rights group DC Project, also called Volsky’s remarks “condescending.” She added that “The 2nd Amendment is for everyone” and that “Perhaps the women are going to the manufacturers and asking for specific features that suit their needs.”

Volsky did not elaborate on why selling guns to women or minorities is dangerous in his initial Twitter thread and did not respond to a request for comment.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the firearms industry’s trade group, said the gun control proposals backed by Volsky would deprive women and minorities of their gun rights……..

Leave It to Wacky Bernie to Create an Entirely New and Totally False Gun Control Talking Point

During a Monday night town hall with CNN, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) was asked what he would do to prevent another mass shooting, like what took place at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston in 2015. Sanders raddled off the typical anti-gun talking points of passing universal background checks, ending the “gun show loophole” and banning so-called “assault weapons.” He did, however, create a new gun control argument that is totally false: the idea that a “strawman provision” takes place.

“It’s very clear to me that there’s a growing consensus in this country. I’m not going to tell you everybody agrees on every nuance, but there is a growing consensus between gun owners, non-gun owners, rural states like mine and urban states, about several things,” Sanders explained.

“Number one: we need universal background checks. People who have a violent past, including domestic violence, should not be owning guns,” he said.

“Number two: we have to end the so-called ‘gun show loophole,’ which allows people to legally purchase guns while avoiding a background check.”

“Number three: we gotta end the so-called ‘strawman provision,’ which allows you to walk in, buy as many guns as you want, and then sell them to gangs and criminal elements,” Sanders explained. “Number four: what we gotta do – and something that I have supported for like 30 years – is ban the sale and distribution of assault weapons in this country.”

We all know universal background checks won’t actually fix the issues we have had over the last several years. Just look at how many shooters passed their background checks because they didn’t have a criminal history (Las Vegas) or law enforcement agencies failed to properly flag or investigate warnings they received (Charleston and Parkland). Then there are the cases where the gunman illegally obtained their firearm (Sandy Hook).

The real solution here is to make the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) as wholesome as possible. The Fix NICS Act requires law enforcement agencies to submit criminal convictions to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which oversees NICS. The first semi-annual report in November showed an additional six million convictions were added to the system, but many are still missing. And again, background checks are only helpful if a prohibited possessor decides to attempt to purchase a firearm through a gun dealer.

There is no such thing as the “gun show loophole.” Most of the sellers at gun showers are Federal Firearms Licensees (FFLs). By law, they’re required to perform background checks on all sales, regardless of where the sale takes place (either at a gun show or at their brick and mortar store). A private transaction can take place in certain states without a background check. And it doesn’t have to happen at a gun show. If the seller believes the buyer is a prohibited possessor or is on any kind of controlled substance, the sale is actually deemed illegal.

“Assault weapon” is a made-up term for guns that are big, black and scary. And what makes a firearm, like an AR-15, legal vs. illegal? Cosmetic features, like a collapsible stock and a detachable magazine. Nothing that actually changes the function of the firearm. In anti-gunners’ minds, how the gun looks changes whether or not it’s a semi-automatic or fully automatic. Hint: it doesn’t.

The thing that Bernie said that was surprising is his “strawman provision” comment. It is definitely illegal for someone to complete a “straw purchase.” These purchases are when someone who has no criminal convictions or have not been deemed mentally incompetent decide to purchase a firearm on behalf of someone else. They fill out a 4473 form, which is used for the background check. They lie, say the firearm is for themselves. They then go to the black market and sell the gun or knowingly give it to a prohibited possessor.

People like Bernie need to quit reciting talking points handed to them from Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action. Instead, they should take an hour and learn the basics of firearm legislation before they propose making things illegal. They can’t make something even more illegal than it already is. And the sad part is people believe 100 percent of the things he says. But because he invoked the typical “I’ll take on the NRA” type of comment, his followers ate up what he said.

‘Intimidated and scared’: State senator wants to ban weapons from Capitol

This Nervous Nellie Nebraskan fails to get this:
“Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.”–John Basil Barnhill, 1914

LINCOLN, Neb. —
State Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh believes the intent of the men who brought assault rifles to the Capitol Friday was to intimidate lawmakers.

“I was scared. I was worried about how someone might react to my bill and what I had to say might trigger a dangerous reaction,” Cavanaugh said.

Cavanaugh spoke from the legislative floor Monday to voice her concerns over the state’s open carry law.

“Allowing weapons in this building, especially into committee rooms suppresses the voices of those who stand in opposition to the gun holders,” she said. “It was clearly the intent to intimidate this body.”

Cavanaugh sponsors a bill that would prohibit someone convicted of a domestic violence crime from owning or possessing a gun. Her bill, LB 958 and John McCollister’s bill, LB 816 heard testimony Friday. McCollister’s bill deals with suicide prevention training, five-day background checks and a two-day waiting period.

Gordon Senator Tom Brewer, a staunch second amendment supporter also spoke about the turnout of hundreds of gun rights supporters Friday.

“I openly said I didn’t think there was a need for anyone to bring a gun into this building,” Brewer said.

That being said, he believes the 90-second committee rule to limit testimony did a disservice to the gun rights advocates who wanted to speak.

“All I’m asking, let’s not write dumb bills to cause people to get stirred up and come into this building and want to speak and then deny them the ability to speak,” he said.

Cavanaugh said she doesn’t want to see another gun brought into the Capitol and she is looking into how to end the open carry law at the state building.

“We clearly have no protocols in place to address this body and the public when 400 citizens converge on the Capitol to express their viewpoint, while likely carrying a deadly weapon,” she said.

The men with guns do have the support of Gov. Pete Ricketts.

“I support our Second Amendment rights and I support our folks who are going to take advantage of that with our right to open carry,” he said. “That’s what we have in the state of Nebraska and this is the people’s house.”

 

State lawmaker proposes statewide database for gun permit holders

Missouri started out in  way similar to this back in 2004, and a few years later it was discovered that the state was selling the personal information of permittees to commercial advertisers. Now each Sheriff issues and manages that county’s CCW system for those people who still desire to have a CCW permit for interstate reciprocity. Alabama should continue as they are because a centralized system has been shown to be ripe for abuse.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) – One state lawmaker wants to create a statewide database of people with concealed carry permits.

Representative Proncey Robertson says a statewide database of concealed carry gun permit holders available to law enforcement is needed in Alabama. He claims the county-by-county application process in sheriffs’ offices isn’t secure.

“When you go in there and give them your personal information, addresses, social security numbers, date of birth… all this sort of stuff to put on that, its setting there in a very non secure location,” Robertson, (R)-District 7 said.

Robertson says the new system will be monitored by state law enforcement. Each sheriff’s office will have a log in to access the database. The system will also be updated to show who is prohibited from carrying weapons.

Guns rights groups like BamaCarry are unloading on this bill.

“They need to back off of trying to regulate people who lawfully carry weapons,” Eddie Fulmer with BamaCarry said.

Fulmer believes people who aren’t supposed to have a gun should be the only ones in the system