America’s Censorship Regime Goes on Trial
Missouri v. Biden will test the government’s ability to suppress speech in the name of fighting ‘misinformation’

Ernest Ramirez, a car-wash technician in a small, south Texas town, led a simple but fulfilling life with his son, Ernesto Junior. Junior was a “wonderful child, full of smiles.” Ramirez had raised his son alone; he’d never known his own father and sought to provide Junior with the paternal love he had missed. A talented baseball player, Junior dreamed of playing professionally. The two lived paycheck to paycheck but were happy because, as Ramirez put it, they had each other.

Then, on April 19, 2021, 16-year-old Junior—who had no previous health problems—received the first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. Five days later, the young athlete collapsed while running. By the time the elder Ramirez arrived at the hospital, having been told he could not ride in the ambulance with his son, Junior was dead.

According to the autopsy report, the cause of Junior’s death was an “enlarged heart.” Upon receiving the news, Ramirez lost all desire to go on living. But after the initial shock subsided, Ramirez decided to travel and speak about Junior’s fate, in hopes that he could help other families avoid similar tragedies.

That plan proved more difficult than Ramirez anticipated. In September 2021, GoFundMe removed an account he had opened to raise money for a trip to the nation’s capital to share his son’s story. “The content of your fundraiser falls under our ‘Prohibited Conduct’ section,” the company’s email explained. Ramirez lost the donations he had thus far received. Two months later, Twitter took down a photograph Ramirez had posted depicting him standing beside Junior’s open casket, along with the caption “My good byes to my Baby Boy” followed by three brokenheart emojis. Even a father’s simple expression of grief was apparently forbidden by the social media platform’s government-supported censorship regime.

Around that time, Ramirez met Brianne Dressen, a 40-year-old woman who had volunteered for the AstraZeneca vaccine trials and suffered a severe adverse reaction diagnosed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as “post-vaccine neuropathy.” Her varied and acute symptoms at times required use of a wheelchair and drastically curtailed her ability to participate in her young children’s lives.

For a time after her diagnosis, Dressen fell into a severe depression. However, during the spring of 2021, she discovered online support groups for vaccine-injured individuals and their family members. Connecting to others who understood her plight greatly improved her outlook on life, and she began serving as an administrator of several of the groups.

But in July 2021, less than 24 hours after Dressen participated in a press conference with U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Facebook shut down one support group’s account. Though participants had merely discussed their often-harrowing personal experiences and shared medical treatments that they found helpful, Facebook claimed they were spreading harmful “misinformation” that warranted the group’s removal.

The cascade of shutdowns of support groups and accounts belonging to the vaccine injured on Facebook and other social media platforms continues to this day. Ramirez, Dressen, and others learned that when their accounts weren’t suspended or removed, they were shadow-banned—meaning that the platforms’ algorithms buried their posts so that they were rarely, if ever, viewable, even to like-minded individuals facing similar health problems. In Dressen’s words: “The constant threat of having our groups shut down and our connections pulled apart left me and many other members and leaders frozen, unable to communicate and connect with those who needed our help the most. We spent more time managing the chaos of the censorship algorithms that continued to evolve, than we did actually helping people through the trauma of their injuries.”

The obstacles encountered by Ramirez, Dressen, and thousands of other individuals with similar experiences and opinions were in no way coincidental or accidental. Nor were they the result of a series of errors in judgment made by low-level employees of social media platforms. Rather, they were the products of concerted efforts at the highest levels of the American government to ensure that individuals with opposing viewpoints could not be heard, contrary to the guarantees made to every American citizen in the Bill of Rights. One purpose of these unconstitutional actions to violate the rights of American citizens was political gain.

As COVID-19 inoculations became widely available to the American public, the Biden White House came to view vaccine hesitancy as a significant political problem. Beginning in spring 2021, the administration explicitly and publicly blamed social media platforms for vaccine refusal: By failing to censor “misinformation” about the vaccines, the president infamously alleged, tech companies were effectively “killing people.” The president’s incendiary accusation was accompanied by threats of regulatory or other legal action (should the companies refuse to comply) from various high-ranking members of the administration, including former White House Press Secretary Jennifer PsakiSurgeon General Vivek Murthy, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Psaki boasted that government officials were in regular touch with social media platforms, telling them what and in some cases even whom to censor.

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BLUF
How the Fifth Circuit and eventually the Supreme Court will rule remains to be seen, but what is clear now is the abortion-loving left is desperate to keep the truth about abortion from the public and is furious that Kacsmaryk dared to expose the reality: Abortion kills unborn humans.

Judge’s Abortion Pill Opinion Tells The Truth About ‘Unborn Humans,’ And The Left Can’t Stand It

In his 67-page straight-talking opinion, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk stuck to the facts — something Americans desperately need to hear after decades of euphemistic discussions about abortion.

“Unborn humans.” “Eugenics.” “Head, hands, and legs, with defined fingers and toes.” “Shame, regret, anxiety, depression, drug abuse, and suicidal thoughts.”

Federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s Friday decision freezing the FDA’s approval of the abortion-pill combination, mifepristone and misoprostol, included these phrases and more. And while the left is already attacking Kacsmaryk’s 67-page straight-talking opinion in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA by framing it as filled with anti-abortion rhetoric, the Trump appointee stuck to the facts — something Americans desperately need to hear after decades of euphemistic discussions about abortion.

After a brief introduction in which Kacsmaryk highlighted the FDA’s two decades of stonewalling that delayed a legal challenge to the 2000 approval of the abortion drugs, the court opened with the basic facts. The plaintiffs — doctors and medical associations that provide health care to pregnant and post-abortive women and girls — sued the FDA, challenging several administrative actions related to the approval of the chemical abortion drugs.

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At the Threshold or Turning Point.

Reflecting on the breathtaking and unprecedented enormity of Alvin Bragg’s indictment of former President Donald Trump, a friend wrote me to say it reminded her of Martin Niemöller’s famous poem “First they came.”

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

“Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

“Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.”

“Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

How apposite those lines seem to our situation, all the more now that the Eastern District of New York has convicted Douglass Mackey of a felony for posting a satirical meme making fun of Hillary Clinton.

That episode, as I have said elsewhere, is yet more evidence that the United States has become a banana republic, a corrupt and despotic polity wherein the ruling party criminalizes dissent, and cows and intimidates anyone insufficiently obeisant to the dominant ideology.

Take note of that word “felony.”

Mackey now faces up to 10 years in prison for posting an image on social media suggesting that Hillary Clinton supporters avoid the long lines at the polls and vote by texting “Hillary” to a certain number.

It was a funny idea and one that no one, not even Democratic voters, could have taken seriously.

But the heavy hand of the Democratic machine came down hard on Mackey, accusing him of fomenting a “plot to disenfranchise black and women voters.”

The fact that Mackey was charged with, let alone convicted of, a felony is an outrage.

Tucker Carlson called it “the most shocking attack on freedom of speech in this country in our lifetime.”

Just as shocking is the “disparate impact” in the Democratic application of this coercive power of the state.

A performance artist called Kristina Wong posted a similar tweet, only hers supported Hillary: “Hey Trump supporters,” she tweeted, “skip poll lines and text in your vote.”

What happened to her? Nothing.

At times like this, a good memory is imperative.

It’s seldom, the philosopher David Hume wrote, that freedom is lost all at once.

Usually, it’s a gradual process, a little bit chipped away here, some taken-for-granted liberties forgotten about there.

Eventually, the world we used to inhabit becomes unrecognizable.

Looking back, we can identify some signposts.

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The 2nd Amendment’s Misconstrued ‘Militia’
What so many people get so wrong

America’s latest episode of mass homicide has sparked renewed advocacy for restrictions on gun ownership. Once again, the accompanying debate has many gun control advocates claiming the Second Amendment’s reference to a “well regulated militia” narrows the amendment’s scope if not rendering it altogether moot.

Before we examine those claims, it’s important to ensure readers have a proper general understanding of the Bill of Rights. Contrary to common misperception, these amendments do not bestow privileges upon American citizens. Rather, they are primarily a set of prohibitions against the government infringing on pre-existing human rights all people have.

That’s evident in the language. For example, the First Amendment begins “Congress shall make no law…” This amendment isn’t awarding citizens the rights of religion, speech and assembly — it’s outlawing the government’s thwarting of those innate and universal human rights.

Similarly, the Fourth Amendment asserts that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” Again, the authors are not granting those rights, they are protecting them.

When the Bill of Rights was proposed, some feared the enumeration of a handful of rights could be misinterpreted as providing a comprehensive catalogue — and thus empowering the government to infringe on human rights not specified. That’s why they included the Ninth Amendment, asserting that “the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

“Amendment II. A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

With that understanding of the Bill of Rights in mind, we see that, via the Second Amendment, the founders explicitly asserted that there is a “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

What about that reference to “a well regulated militia”? As we set out to scrutinize the phrase, let’s first observe that the Second Amendment contains two distinct components serving two different purposes:

  • An operative clause that sets out a specific prohibition against the government’s infringement on a right: …the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
  • prefatory clause that announces a purpose: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…

Positioned in the prefatory clause, the “well regulated Militia” reference merely serves to provide a rationale — and not necessarily the only rationale — for the operative clause that follows.

While the Second Amendment stands apart from the others in the Bill of Rights by having a prefatory clause, such clauses were common in state constitutions of the era.

Prefatory clauses were used to help “sell” amendments to those being asked to approve them. In this case, the authors were pointing to the necessity of an armed populace as the well from which militias are drawn — militias seen as a vital safeguard against the federal government they were creating.

In particular, America’s founders were wary of the federal government’s potential to create a standing army that could be used to destroy state sovereignty and individual liberties. Seeking to “sell” the amendment to drafting committees and state ratifying conventions, it made sense for the authors to highlight the link between militias and the people’s right to bear arms.

Given their purpose — that is, to cite one or more of many possible rationales — prefatory clauses don’t rightly constrain operative clauses, particularly one as explicit as the Second Amendment’s, which pointedly recognizes a “right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

Even if the prefatory clause did have any teeth, those seeking to interpret it as tightly restricting the gun-eligible population run into yet another wall, in that militias are assembled from the citizenry at large.

Indeed, an earlier draft of the Second Amendment drove home this point. It began, “A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people…”

Listen to Pennsylvanian Tench Coxe, as he championed the Constitution’s ratification: “The powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from sixteen to sixty.” Summarizing the Second Amendment, Coxe said, “The people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”

Multiple state constitutional provisions of the era, some of which predate the Bill of Rights, offer additional confirmation that the armed right of self-defense belongs to individuals. As one representative example, consider the language of Vermont’s 1777 Constitution: “The right of the citizens to bear arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned.”

Further disregarding the Second Amendment’s explicit enumeration of “the right of the people to bear arms,” some claim the existence of the National Guard renders the Second Amendment entirely moot, since, via the Guard, each state has a “militia” with its own arsenal of arms.

Recall, however, that the founders viewed militias as a check on the federal government’s power, with fear that the federal government might create a standing army with the potential to tyrannize the states and the people.

Thanks to the National Defense Act of 1916 and amendments in 1933, today’s National Guard is legally a part of the United States Army, with state governments exercising only limited government control. Enlistment oaths have evolved to reflect that, with National Guard soldiers promising to obey the orders of both the president of the United States and the governor.

The Guard’s military training and the selection of its officers are controlled by the federal government. Troops are subject to activation pursuant to any number of federal missions, including — as we’ve seen too often — overseas combat deployments that render them useless to the states where their citizen-soldiers live.

Clearly, under such federal control, the National Guard cannot be seen as a counterbalance against federal power, and thus does not fulfill the Second Amendment’s aspiration to enable “well-regulated militias…necessary to the security of a free state.”

Finally, no tour of the Second Amendment’s language would be complete without addressing “well regulated” as it’s applied to “militia.” Today, people often and understandably assume that descriptor refers to regulation in the modern sense of external government control. However, in the late 1700s, “well regulated” simply meant orderly, trained and disciplined — qualities that militias should aspire to.

To summarize:

  • The Second Amendment explicitly recognizes the existence of “a right of the people” — not just those currently in militias — “to keep and bear arms.”
  • Placed in a prefatory clause, the “militia” reference merely announces one rationale for the Second Amendment. Regardless of how “militia” is interpreted, its presence does not constrain the operative-clause prohibition of government infringement against the right of the people to keep and bears arms.
  • Today’s National Guard is part of the U.S. Army and under heavy federal control. It cannot be used by the peoples of the separate states as a counterbalance to the federal government’s standing army — and thus is not a “militia” in the sense the term is used in the Second Amendment.

Yeah, there’s this thing called ‘due process’…….


BLUF
It nevertheless seems clear that the current policy sweeps too broadly by disarming people, potentially including victims of domestic abuse, even when they have no history of violence or threats. That reality certainly seems relevant in assessing the government’s claim that people subject to restraining orders are ipso facto in the same category as “dangerous” individuals who historically have been deemed unfit to own guns.

The Ruling Upholding the Gun Rights of People Subject to Restraining Orders Is Not As Crazy As You Might Think
The 5th Circuit noted that such orders can be issued without any credible evidence of a threat to others.

The Biden administration is asking the Supreme Court to reverse a recent decision in which an appeals court concluded that the federal ban on gun possession by people subject to domestic-violence restraining orders violates the Second Amendment. In a petition filed this month, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar portrays that law as a commonsensical precaution that is “consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation”—the constitutional test that the Court established last year in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen. But there are reasons to doubt that the “historical analogues” cited by the government are close enough and ample cause to worry about the threat that the policy it is defending poses to civil liberties.

Under 18 USC 922(g)(8), which Congress enacted in 1994, it is a felony, currently punishable by up to 15 years in prison, for someone to possess firearms when he is “subject to a court order” that restrains him from “harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner” or “engaging in other conduct that would place an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury.” The provision requires that the order be issued after a hearing of which the respondent received notice. It also says the order must either include a finding that the respondent “represents a credible threat” to the intimate partner’s “physical safety” or explicitly prohibit “the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force” that “would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury.”

The man at the center of this case, a Texas drug dealer named Zackey Rahimi, was convicted of violating Section 922(g)(8) in circumstances that suggest he is exactly the sort of person who should not be trusted with firearms. But his conduct allegedly included a string of violent crimes that would themselves disqualify him from owning guns. The question raised by this case is not whether someone like Rahimi should be allowed to own guns. It is whether the government violates the Second Amendment when it deprives people of the right to armed self-defense based on nothing more than a restraining order that may have been issued without any credible evidence that the respondent poses a danger to others.

When it overturned Rahimi’s conviction in February, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit noted that he is “hardly a model citizen,” which is putting it mildly. In December 2019, Prelogar notes, “Rahimi and his girlfriend C.M. had an argument in a parking lot in Arlington, Texas. C.M. tried to leave, but Rahimi grabbed her wrist, knocking her to the ground. He then dragged her back to his car, picked her up, and pushed her inside, causing her to hit her head on the dashboard. Realizing that a bystander had seen him, he retrieved a gun and fired a shot. In the meantime, C.M. escaped the car and fled the scene. Rahimi later called her and threatened to shoot her if she told anyone about the assault.”

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Poor NY Times Karen. It’s going to be much farther than she can imagine.
I’m not going to fisk the inaccuracies and outright lies in the article, as they’ll stand out by simple reading.

We’re About to Find Out How Far the Supreme Court Will Go to Arm America

How much further will the Supreme Court go to assist in the arming of America? That has been the question since last June, when the court ruled that New York’s century-old gun licensing law violated the Second Amendment. Sooner than expected, we are likely to find out the answer.

On March 17, the Biden administration asked the justices to overturn an appeals court decision that can charitably be described as nuts, and accurately as pernicious. The decision by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit invalidated a federal law that for almost 30 years has prohibited gun ownership by people who are subject to restraining orders for domestic violence.

The Fifth Circuit upheld the identical law less than three years ago. But that was before President Donald Trump put a Mississippi state court judge named Cory Wilson on the appeals court. (As a candidate for political office in 2015, Wilson said in a National Rifle Association questionnaire that he opposed both background checks on private gun sales and state licensing requirements for potential gun owners.)

Judge Wilson wrote in a decision handed down in March that the appeals court was forced to repudiate its own precedent by the logic of the Supreme Court’s decision in the New York licensing case. He was joined by another Trump judge, James Ho, and by Edith Jones, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan; Judge Jones has long been one of the most aggressive conservatives on the country’s most conservative appeals court.

Now it is up to the justices to say whether that analysis is correct.

Fifteen years after the Supreme Court’s Heller decision interpreted the Second Amendment to convey an individual right to own a gun, there is no overstating the significance of the choice the court has been asked to make. Heller was limited in scope: It gave Americans a constitutional right to keep handguns at home for self-defense. The court’s decision last June in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen was on the surface also quite limited, striking down a law that required a showing of special need in order to obtain an unrestricted license to carry a concealed gun outside the home. New York was one of only a half-dozen states with such a requirement, as the court put it in the Bruen decision.

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Missouri bill to ban federal “red flag” laws, funding killed by Republican senator

JEFFERSON CITY — A Missouri bill that would ban federal funds and programs from being used in the state to enforce “red flag” gunmeasures was killed by a committee Wednesday.

Republican Sen. Bill Eigel of Weldon Spring filed the legislation, Senate Bill 10, in response to a recent plan from the U.S. Department of Justice to distribute dollars to states to administer “red flag” laws and other crisis intervention programs related to gun violence.

But the legislation failed to pass out of committee after a Republican joined Democrats in voting it down, citing a school shooting in Nashville this week that killed three students and three adults.

Sen. Lincoln Hough, a Springfield Republican, joined the two Democrats on the committee to vote against the legislation. Three other Republicans — Sens. Rick Brattin, Rusty Black and Mike Bernskoetter — voted in favor of the bill, but did not reach the majority of votes required. The fourth Republican on the committee, Sen. Mike Cierpiot, did not vote.

“I think it’s a little disheartening, quite frankly, to even be having this sort of conversation given what happened two days in Nashville,” Hough said prior to the vote. “But I’m more than happy to go ahead and have a vote right now.”

Bernskoetter, the chairman of the committee, responded that “I told (Eigle) I would have a vote on it and I’m having a vote on it.”

Eigel has said the legislation “builds on” a 2021 law that nullified federal gun statutes in Missouri, which is currently facing litigation and has been decried by members of law enforcement.

“The federal government, the Biden administration, is trying very hard to try to use federal dollars to be sent into the state of Missouri to incentivize the creation of these red flag databases,” he said at a hearing in February.

In a Twitter post Wednesday after the vote, Eigel alleged that Hough and Cierpiot had “coordinated and vote to derail” the bill, calling it a “dark day for supporters of (the Second Amendment).”

Wednesday’s vote marks the second consecutive session Hough has joined with Democrats in committee to vote down legislation relating to guns. He and another Republican voted with Democrats last year to kill legislation that would have expanded legal immunity for those who shoot and kill someone in self-defense. That bill was dubbed the “Make Murder Legal Act” by an association of county prosecutors.

The Problems With Just Getting Guns Out of People’s Hands as a Solution to Gun Violence
New study sees Chicago harassing and arresting people for paperwork violations, damaging their ability to live and work, without demonstrable effect on gun violence

When hideous murders committed with guns make national news, as in today’s Nashville school shooting, it is a natural reaction on many people’s parts to call passionately for just getting more guns out of more people’s hands, by any means necessary.

Those concerned with civil liberties and police abuse of the innocent have long worried about the effects of privileging mere gun possession arrests. A new study from the Marshall Project highlights some of these problems, via examining data and interviewing arrestees from Chicago’s attempts to manage its violence problem with more gun possession arrests.

Chicago police seem to have adopted a pattern of pretextual stops—looking for any excuse to pull someone over and interact with them—in order, they hope, to find a gun without a proper permit to own or license to carry. (Getting both those things can be quite expensive in terms of both time and money, disproportionately affecting the poor living in violent neighborhoods who most strongly feel the pull toward having a gun for self-defense.) Gun law enforcement in Chicago, the Marshall Project finds, “overwhelmingly focuses on possession crimes — not use.”

The heart of the study’s findings:

From 2010 to 2022, the police made more than 38,000 arrests for illegal gun possession. These arrests — almost always a felony — doubled during this timeframe. While illegal possession is the most serious offense in most of the cases we analyzed, the charges often bear misleading names that imply violence, like “aggravated unlawful use of a weapon.”

Police continue to insist that every gun out of someone’s hands, even if it involves arresting that person and increasing mass incarceration of the nonviolent and highly harming that person’s ability to work and rent in the future, is all for the good; after all, that gun won’t be used by that person to harm anyone. (It is almost always the case that those guns would not have unjustly harmed anyone even minus the arrest and confiscation.)

But there is no particular evidence that harassing or arresting those who have harmed no one has “substantially reduced shootings in Chicago. In fact, as possession arrests skyrocketed, shootings increased, but the percentage of shooting victims where someone was arrested in their case declined,” that latter point a strong indication that mere possession arrests are not a sensible high priority for police for whom gun violence should be their only concern when it comes to guns, not paperwork violations. But the Project found that “nearly 60% of the 31,000 new felony cases pursued by [the state’s attorney of Cook County, Illinois] in the past three years were for illegal gun possession; roughly 4% were for homicides.”

Among the gun arrests the Marshall Project were able to analyze from raw data, “Most people [arrested] had no arrest warrants out, nor were they on supervised release, probation or suspected of being in a gang. In most of the incidents we analyzed, police were not responding to 911 calls about a person with a gun.”

The fight against mere possession becomes a generalized excuse for harassment of citizens: “In arrests where possession was the most severe charge…we found that more than 7 in 10 began with a simple traffic violation. After this initial stop, police often used some other justification for a search. Officers often did this by citing the smell of marijuana. Although Illinois legalized cannabis in 2020, smoking while driving is still prohibited.” And, “in a third of the stops, we found the person arrested had their gun owner’s permit, but not the license that allowed carrying the loaded gun in public.”

The enforcement is hugely disproportionate racially. “Although Black people comprise less than a third of the city’s population, they were more than 8 in 10 of those arrested for unlawful possession in the timeframe we reviewed.” Convictions lead to a year or more in prison, and merely the arrest can mess up the life of someone who has harmed no one via “damning criminal records, time on probation, job loss, legal fees and car impoundments.”

As Reason‘s C.J. Ciaramella has previously reported, the overzealous search for guns owned without proper paperwork has led not just to pretextual traffic stops that ruin innocent people’s lives but to violent raids on homes, often not even the homes where the alleged illegal guns were supposed to be.

As the Marshall Project (who although close-focused on Chicago in this study “identified several other cities with similar trends,” including Houston, New York, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Memphis) quotes one of the victims of gun possession arrests they interviewed, “I’m scared for my life — and I gotta go to prison because I fear for my life, for my family’s safety? Because we’re not fortunate enough to live someplace else?”

32 states and counting: Why parents bills of rights are sweeping US.

When it comes to parental bills of rights, not all legislation is created equal.

The House on Friday narrowly passed House Resolution 5, known as the Parents Bill of Rights Act, which would amend existing federal education laws. A Parental Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution also has been proposed.

Multiple pieces of proposed legislation at the state level seek broad protections for parents, using language such as to “direct the upbringing” of their children. A bill in Arkansas, meanwhile, revolves around medical records when a child is removed from parental or guardian custody. And legislation in Connecticut would create a bill of rights for parents of students learning English as a second language.

WHY WE WROTE THIS

A desire for parents to have greater say in the education of their children has resulted in a tangle of partisan wars and policy changes.

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A Re-Declaration of Independence.
Tyranny is already upon us. To defeat it, we must first learn to reject its premises. And to say so aloud.

Be it so understood:

I refuse to “unpack white violence.” I reject the idea that my existence “perpetuates white power structures.” I will not — and in fact cannot — “examine my implicit biases.” I’m an individual. I refuse to grant determined interpretive communities authority over my being. My meaning is mine. It is what makes me me.

Thanks for reading protein wisdom reborn!! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

I’m not taking any “journey” to “discover” the impact of my “privilege” on “black and brown peoples.” I will not become “anti-racist” or “anti-fascist” to satisfy your demands. I reject Cultural Marxism. I am an individual. I’m not defined by my color, my religion, my sex. I’m Jeff.

I will not “respect your pronouns” or “celebrate” your “queerness.” I am hostile to your sexualizing of children. I reject your neologisms, your “triggers,” and your desire to control my speech. I know who and what you are: you are my presumptive master, or else the Useful Idiot who empowers him. But I will grant you and your ideology no power over me.

I reject “equity” because it is collectivism disguised as virtue. I reject “inclusivity” because it is inorganic, superficial, and contrived. I reject mandated “diversity”: I will not surrender to the Crayon Box Mafia, nor to the gender changelings who pretend I am a construct answerable to their whims.

“Cultural appropriation” is merely culture: it expands to include, and it makes up the very fabric of a pluralist society. There’s no such thing as “digital blackface.” My whiteness is not “violent”; my sex is not “oppressive”; my religion doesn’t concern you; and my children are not yours to mold. Your beliefs will not be imposed on me. The State will not parent my sons.

“Queer theory” is “critical race theory” is “critical consciousness” is the Marxist rejection of the individual as individual. Cultural Marxism is determined to raze norms, sow chaos, tear families asunder, and reduce being to collective conformity. I reject its premises as fully as I reject its adherents. I will not comply.

I will not mouth your slogans. I will not denounce on command. I am not your tool, and you are not my minder. I reject your social hectoring. I find abhorrent your authoritarian urges. I laugh at your disingenuous outrage. From me you will receive no apologies. I reject your premises entirely, and I hereby reclaim my time.

My speech is my own. I reject each of your excuses to silence me. I don’t ask for your protections. I can filter information without your interference, and I despise your presumption to protect me from myself.

I am your sworn enemy, as you are mine. I will not perform for you. I will not read from your script or dance in your follies. I utterly reject your revisionism, your ahistorical impertinence, your presentism, your self-appointed expertise. I will not bow before your theorists, nor admire your social prophets.

I am not a disease. My existence doesn’t “warm the planet.” I’m not interested in your “sustainability” concerns. I am not yours to manage.

I won’t eat your bugs, live in your pods, surrender my cars, or without consent be packed into your cities. I reject your charity. I unmask your intentions. I know what a woman is; I know that any member of any racial group can practice racism; I know that 2+2=4, regardless of how contingent you wish to make reality. I despise your ideology. I refuse your relativism. You are not the Elect, and I am not answerable to the various neuroses you wear as badges of honor.

I know you better than you know yourselves. You are conditioned. Programmed. Automotons who believe themselves sentient beings. Your intolerance of “hate” is not a virtue. It’s a ruse. An excuse to practice your own intolerance and luxuriate in your own hatreds. You are a self-fulfilling prophecy. You are that which you claim to despise, and I am that which you claim to be.

I see you. Clearly. And I aim to misbehave.

I strive to be self-sufficient. I honor the founding ideals of my country, and I work to live up to their measure. I recognize the great fortune of my birth. History does not frighten me. I reject your blood libels: I am not responsible for that which I didn’t do, nor are you victims of what was never done to you. I will not proclaim your goodness while knowing your evil.

I am a free man. You wish to take me from me. You will fail. I will win. And God willing, I will live to spit on your graves.

Outlaw.

 

The post-Bruen “Sugar High” is a serious threat to our Second Amendment

The NYSRPA v. Bruen verdict passed by the Supreme Court last June was a watershed moment in American history. What began as a fight against the arbitrary power of government apparatchiks to grant concealed carry permits, often with a dollop of corruption, ended with a judicial standard that limits the power of government to infringe upon our right to keep and arms. The new guidance from the Supreme Court places the burden of proof on the government to show that a law that implicates the Second Amendment rights of citizens is in line with the nation’s history and tradition of firearms regulation.

The implications have been massive. From coast to coast, laws that were previously rubber-stamped by a jaundiced judiciary are being struck down.

  • Laws that created a malleable category of “assault weapons” and banned them? Gone!
  • Laws that mandated non-existent James Bond technology? Gone!
  • Magazine capacity restrictions? Poof!
  • Laws that banned out-of-state ammunition purchases? In the process of getting shot down.
  • Laws that restrict young adults from owning guns? On their way out.
  • Ammo background purchase requirements? About to get overturned…

California has seen a lot of the above action but New York, my state of residence, has also seen its fair share of lawsuits after the Empire State struck back.

There is a lot to celebrate. Gun owners in anti-Second Amendment states are giddy at being able to own pistol grips instead of obscene workarounds, threaded barrels, detachable magazines, and folding/adjustable stocks. They’re no longer limited to Gen3 Glocks, and are no longer discouraged to apply for a carry permit because they aren’t rich, politically connected, or refuse to participate in Third World bribery.

Yet, amid all this, I see reason for alarm. Granted, things were far worse and on a bad trajectory but seem to have turned around. Those gains, in my opinion, are tenuous and can be rolled back within our lifetimes. The scoreboard as it stands now is the result of a razor-thin Electoral College victory in 2016. Regardless of one’s sentiments and policy positions on abortion, the overturning of Roe v. Wade should serve as a warning.

In an ideal world, lawmakers would refrain from passing laws that violate the Constitution, the Executive Branch would stop usurping the authority of lawmakers, and the judiciary would make use of its lifetime tenure to judge cases on their merits and not be cowed down by public opinion or political pressure. But the world we live in is far from that. The weakened separation of powers will be dangerous in the long run, not just for the Second Amendment, but for the overall health of the Republic.

Secondly, the enemies of our freedoms are organized, well-funded, and waging an all-out war. They’re working secretly with the CDC, pushing propaganda in Hollywood, applying pressure campaigns on private industry, conspiring with academia, and using public money to push their agenda. I hesitate to say this, but they’re behaving like modern-day Benedict Arnolds, colluding with foreign nations to subvert the American Bill of Rights because of their deep-seated hatred and basic denial of our right to keep and bear arms.

I’ve heard people say that “we’ve got ’em on the ropes” but I’m doubtful. What I see is a danger arising from a post-Bruen “Sugar High” and complacency on the part of gun owners.

Will you stop your activism now that you can buy pistol grips and folding stocks? Will you stop calling your elected representatives now that you have your carry permit? Will you show up to vote or relax at home? Will your rifles gather dust in your safe as you go about your life assuming that the law and political circumstances will stay as they are now, and your freedoms will remain safe?

It’s a good idea to live like an optimist but prepare for the worst. I implore the reader to still act like your freedom is on the verge of obliteration: continue dutifully calling your elected representatives, speak up when needed, and most importantly, continue taking inexperienced people to the range and bring them into the fold of gun ownership, so our freedoms can be enjoyed by our grandchildren and their descendants a hundred years from now.

The demoncraps don’t like the idea that their houses of indoctrination may have some oversight by parents.

‘Parents Bill of Rights’ wins zero votes from Dems who attack it as ‘fascism,’ ‘extreme’ attack on schools
The bill is the GOP’s response to growing anger about lack of access to school information across the nation

The House voted to pass the Parents Bill of Rights Act on Friday over objections from Democrats who argued the bill is aimed at promoting “fascism” and “extreme” views of Republicans by making it easier for parents to ban books and out LBGTQ+ students.

The GOP bill is a response to growing anger across the country about access to information on everything from school curricula to safety and mask policies to the prevalence of gender ideology and critical race theory in the classroom. Parents’ anger over these issues at school board meetings led to an effort by the Biden administration’s Justice Department to examine the “disturbing trend” of violent threats against school officials.

House Republicans reacted by approving the Parents Bill of Rights Act, which would require school districts to give parents access to curriculum and reading lists and would require schools to inform parents if school staff begin encouraging or promoting their child’s gender transition.

The bill passed narrowly in a 213-208 vote that saw just a handful of Republicans vote against it, along with every Democrat.

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Yes. It took 14 years, Justice Kennedy dying and Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett being seated to get the job nearly done.


Report: Far More Gun Laws Struck Down in Wake of Bruen Than Heller

The Supreme Court’s latest Second Amendment ruling has delivered more immediate effects than its previous landmark decision.

revised analysis from Jake Charles, an associate professor at Pepperdine University’s Caruso School of Law, shows dozens of gun-rights claims have already succeeded in federal court since New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen was decided in June 2022. The new count, posted on Tuesday, puts post-Breun decisions far ahead of the pace of 2008’s District of Columbia v. Heller, which saw gun-rights advocates achieve relatively little in its immediate aftermath.

“There wasn’t a single successful Second Amendment challenge in the 6 months after Heller,” Charles said in a social media post. “In my research, I found *31* successful claims in the 8 months since Bruen.”

The disparity demonstrates that lower courts may be taking a different message from Bruen than Heller. While Heller established the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms, it didn’t produce an explicit test for deciding future Second Amendment cases and struck down a total handgun ban that was already an outlier. Bruen struck down a concealed-carry permitting regime that was still used by eight states before the case, set down a specific test for deciding gun cases, and chastised lower courts for the test they had been using to decide cases after Heller.

One complicating factor in comparing the results of either ruling is that Heller wasn’t incorporated and applied to the states until 2010’s McDonald v. Chicago. Still, comparing the Charles count to one in a 2018 paper by Duke Law Professor Joseph Blocher and Southern Methodist University associate professor Eric Ruben, it took until 2012 for gun-rights advocates to top 30 wins after Heller. The success rate for Second Amendment claims has also been significantly higher post-Bruen than it was in the first several years after Heller, with Charles finding 14.6 percent of post-Bruen claims succeeding while Blocher and Ruben found fewer than ten percent succeeded in the four years after Heller.

There has been a significant difference in success rates for civil claims compared to criminal claims, which won far less often. Charles also broke out challenges by topic and saw a stark difference in how lower courts have handled different issues. Claims involving carry licensing or defaulting private property to be off limits for gun carry have won every time thus far. Claims over age restrictions, “ghost gun” regulations, and sensitive place bans have succeeded about half the time. In contrast, challenges to commercial regulations, the National Firearms Act, unlawful gun use, sentence enhancements, and bail conditions have failed every time.

Charles, who ran the Duke University Center for Firearms Law before joining Pepperdine, has been critical of the Court’s decision in Bruen. Most of his newly-published analysis focuses on claims the standard it adopted is unworkable and asserts “the Supreme Court may desire to sit as a super-legislature over nationwide gun policy” while imploring ” lower courts, legislators, and citizens” to resist that possibility. He critiques the use of a history-based standard for deciding cases about current firearms regulations and notes areas where lower courts have been at odds on how to implement it in practice.

He cites the increase in victories for plaintiffs making Second Amendment claims as evidence the Bruen standard is degrading gun restrictions across the country.

“The Court’s historical test has the potential to significantly expand the Second Amendment’s scope,” Charles wrote in the analysis. “No matter how compelling the state’s interest, no matter how narrowly tailored its regulation, Bruen’s new method appears to dictate that a modern gun law cannot stand without adequate grounding in the distant past.”

Naturally, gun-rights activists took an opposing viewpoint. The Truth About Guns, a pro-gun publication, echoed language from the Bruen majority to explain the difference in how lower courts have reacted to each ruling.

“It’s no longer a second-class right,” the publication tweeted.

Kostas Moros, a lawyer for the California Rifle and Pistol Association, said the deluge of pro-gun decisions was akin to the release of pent-up demand. He argued Bruen itself was the result of how little effect Heller had on the way lower courts viewed the Second Amendment.

“We are just making up for lost time,” he posted. “If courts had applied Heller in good faith and we had a sort of ‘win some, lose some’ scenario, Bruen probably never would have happened (or would have been limited to just being about carry).”

Flip-Flopping Bureaucraps, of all the departments, will be the death of the U.S.

Republicans blast gun brace rule, claim Second Amendment violation

WASHINGTON (Nexstar) – Republicans on Capitol Hill say the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms is violating the Second Amendment with a new rule that took effect in 2023.

“Ever since Mr. Biden took office, his administration has actively sought to infringe on this right,” Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) said.

Republicans specifically object to a new rule applying regulations on pistol stabilizing braces.

The inventor of the brace said he designed it to help disabled veterans use firearms, but Democrats say regardless of the intent, the device is used to exploit and create loopholes to gun laws.

Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD) said this would “allow owners to turn their weapons into short barrel rifles, efficient weapons of war without triggering traditional ATF oversight.”

Rep. Raskin says gun owners and sellers know and advertise the use of stabilizing braces to make pistols more accurate, and more dangerous while remaining easy to conceal.

Republicans say the rule could turn Americans who already own the device into criminals overnight — but that would only happen if the owner fails to register it before May 31.

Legislators considering Constitution before passing laws? THE HORROR

When laws are challenged, they’re challenged on constitutional grounds. Is this law in keeping with the Constitution or is this a case of legislative overreach?

In fact, lawmakers are supposed to at least consider such things before passing laws. After all, they swear to support and defend the Constitution, which one would imagine requires them to consider it at a minimum before passing some bill.

But it seems that the folks at the Huffington Post are upset that lawmakers are considering court rulings before passing gun control. They made this pretty clear recently.

In fact, they’re so upset, they said it all over again.

Left In The Legislative Lurch

Eight more states have laws similar to California’s assault weapons ban that could be affected if the Supreme Court ultimately weighs in.

The expectation that these laws may be doomed is already complicating the politics of passing new ones like them.

In New Mexico, Democratic Gov. Michelle Luján Grisham has repeatedly urged the legislature to send her an assault weapons ban to sign this session, but lawmakers tabled the effort — partly over concerns that it wouldn’t withstand scrutiny in federal court.

“There’s absolutely no point to passing new laws which federal courts will strike down and which are clearly going to be deemed unconstitutional,” state Sen. Joseph Cervantes, a Democrat, tweeted last month.

With those lawsuits still playing out, the future of gun policy remains in flux. But that legal panorama makes it hard to imagine clear lanes for reform in the near future.

“We’re in a very difficult spot with that Bruen ruling,” said Miranda Viscoli, co-president of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence. “Even though it was only about concealed carry, it’s just made everybody afraid who wants to pass common sense gun violence prevention legislation.”

Now, in fairness, this is only one part of a much longer piece lamenting the rulings and the impact they’re having on gun control.

Still, it’s interesting that they’re still complaining about states not passing gun control because they figure it’ll be tossed by the courts.

I’m sorry, that’s not a bug. It’s a feature.

Huffington Post can be big mad all they want, but the truth of the matter is that gun control isn’t constitutional. The author tries to get hung up on the militia clause at one point–a matter that has been thoroughly and completely debunked–and then laments the text and history test laid down in Bruen, but at no point can they actually make a legitimate case that gun control is within keeping behind the text or spirit of the Second Amendment.

That’s unsurprising, of course.

I’m glad to see legislatures hold up a bit before infringing on people’s rights. I’m upset that they’re only starting to do it just now, but this is a case of better late than never.

If they’re holding up, that’s great, but as the piece also notes, a lot of places aren’t. In truth, that is the real problem, not those exercising a bit of caution and, dare I say, common sense.

Then again, it’s Huffington Post. What can you really expect?

New Report Shows Extensive Biden Admin Collusion to Classify Parents as Terrorists.

new report published by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government and House Judiciary Committee shows extensive collusion between the Biden administration and the National School Board Association.

“Internal Executive Branch documents indicate that the Biden Administration’s use of federal law-enforcement and counterterrorism resources is an example of government weaponization against American parents. If the Justice Department performed any due diligence prior to the issuance of the Attorney General’s memorandum, it would have understood clearly and forcefully that federal intervention was unwarranted. Because that due diligence did not occur—and the Administration acted out of political motivations rather than for law-enforcement reasons—parents around the country had FBI “assessments” opened into them,” the report states.

The report, which is interim as the Committee continues to investigate, gives a detailed timeline of the how the NSBA worked with DOJ, the Department of Education and the White House to push for federal law enforcement investigations into parents.

“The NSBA collaborated with the Biden White House to develop the language of the NSBA’s September 29, 2021 letter to President Biden urging the use of federal law enforcement and counterterrorism tools, including the Patriot Act, against parents. The NSBA shared the draft language of its letter with the White House, which apparently raised no concerns with the reference to counterterrorism tools or the inclusion of the Patriot Act in the letter,” the report states. “Five days after the NSBA letter to President Biden, on October 4, Attorney General Garland issued a memorandum that inserted federal law enforcement into local school board meetings. Attorney General Garland established a task force—including the Department’s National Security Division, with responsibility for enforcing federal counterterrorism statutes—to examine school board-related threats and highlighted the FBI’s National Threat Operations Center to serve as a snitch-line for tips about parents at school board meetings.”

After the letter became public, the NSBA apologized and a number of school districts ditched the organization. During testimony on Capitol Hill, Garland has denied any wrongdoing by DOJ.

Wyoming Governor Gordon restores gun rights to non-violent felons

WYOMING — On March 17, Governor Gordon signed a bill giving back gun rights to non-violent felons five years after they complete their sentencing.

SF0120 allows “any person who has previously pleaded guilty to or been convicted of committing or attempting to commit a felony that is not a violent felony and has not been pardoned or has not had the person’s rights restored” to possess a firearm five years after completing their sentence, probation or parole.

According to the bill, violent felony includes murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, sexual assault, robbery, strangulation of a household member, aircraft hijacking, aggravated burglary, aggravated assault and arson.

The bill also restores voting rights to those convicted of non-violent felonies. The law will go into effect on July 1.

Wyoming is one of the top two states dependent on the gun industry, along with Idaho, and has no laws preventing the open-carrying of firearms .

In NCLA Win, Federal Judge Rejects Motion to Dismiss in Government-Induced Censorship Lawsuit.

Washington, DC (March 20, 2023) – In a thorough and well-reasoned decision, Judge Terry A. Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana has denied government defendants’ motion to dismiss in State of Missouri, et al. v. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., et al. The New Civil Liberties Alliance, a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights group, represents renowned epidemiologists Drs. Jay Bhattacharya and Martin Kulldorff, as well as Dr. Aaron Kheriaty and Ms. Jill Hines, in a lawsuit that has exposed an elaborate, multi-agency federal government censorship regime. Judge Doughty wrote, “The Court finds that the Complaint alleges significant encouragement and coercion that converts the otherwise private conduct of censorship on social media platforms into state action, and is unpersuaded by Defendants’ arguments to the contrary.”

Discovery in the lawsuit unequivocally establishes that at least eleven federal agencies and sub-agencies, including CDC and DHS, directed social media companies to censor viewpoints that conflict with the federal government’s messaging on topics ranging from Covid-19 to elections. Federal officials engaged in a lawless, expansive censorship campaign that employed illicit tactics—including coercion, collusion and coordination—on social media companies to suppress the airing of disfavored perspectives on Covid-19 and other topics. As a direct result of state action, NCLA’s clients were blacklisted, shadow-banned, de-boosted, throttled, and censored, merely for articulating views opposed to government-approved views on Covid-19 restrictions and regulations. Judge Doughty held that “Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged state action under the theories of joint participation, entwinement, and the combining of factors such as subsidization, authorization, and encouragement.”

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Cert. Petition on the First Amendment and Coercive Government Threats in NRA v. Vullo.

William Brewer, Sarah Rogers & Noah Peters of Brewer Attorneys & Counselors and I filed a petition earlier this month asking the Supreme Court to review the Second Circuit decision in NRA v. Vullo; I think many of our readers will find it interesting (my apologies for the delay in passing it along).

I generally tend to agree with the NRA’s ideological views, to a considerable extent, but I would have been glad to be engaged to argue a similar case on behalf of groups I disagreed with as well; it’s a pretty important First Amendment question that can affect groups with all sorts of views. (Note that the ACLU filed an amicus brief on NRA’s side in the District Court.) Here’s our Introduction:

The Second Circuit’s opinion below gives state officials free rein to financially blacklist their political opponents—from gun-rights groups, to abortion-rights groups, to environmentalist groups, and beyond. It lets state officials “threaten[ ] regulated institutions with costly investigations, increased regulatory scrutiny and penalties should they fail to discontinue their arrangements with” a controversial speaker, on the ground that disfavored political speech poses a regulable “reputational risk.”

It also permits selective investigations and penalties targeting business arrangements with disfavored speakers, even where the regulator premises its hostility explicitly on an entity’s political speech and treats leniently, or exempts, identical transactions with customers who lack controversial views. In sum, it lets government officials, acting with undisguised political animus, transmute “general backlash” against controversial advocacy into a justification for crackdowns on advocates (and firms who serve them), eviscerating free speech rights.

Reaching this result, the Second Circuit disregards basic pleading standards and undermines fundamental First Amendment freedoms. It also departs from this Court’s precedent in Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan and from the Seventh Circuit’s precedent in Backpage.com, LLC v. Dart.

This case arises from a series of actions—including press releases, official regulatory guidance, and contemporaneous investigations and penalties—issued by or on behalf of New York’s powerful Department of Financial Services (“DFS”) against financial institutions doing business with the NRA. Among other things, the Complaint states that Superintendent Maria Vullo: (1) warned regulated institutions that doing business with Second Amendment advocacy groups posed “reputational risk” of concern to DFS; (2) secretly offered leniency to insurers for unrelated infractions if they dropped the NRA; and (3) extracted highly-publicized and over-reaching consent orders, and multi-million dollar penalties, from firms that formerly served the NRA. Citing private telephone calls, internal insurer documents, and statements by an anonymous banking executive to industry press, the Complaint alleges that numerous financial institutions perceived Vullo’s actions as threatening and, therefore, ceased business arrangements with the NRA or refused new ones.

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