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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read the whole thing here.

Skynet brags…..

AI Robots Admit They’d Run Earth Better Than ‘Clouded’ Humans

A panel of AI-enabled humanoid robots told a United Nations summit on Friday that they could eventually run the world better than humans.

But the social robots said they felt humans should proceed with caution when embracing the rapidly-developing potential of artificial intelligence.

And they admitted that they cannot – yet – get a proper grip on human emotions.

Some of the most advanced humanoid robots were at the UN’s two-day AI for Good Global Summit in Geneva.

Humanoid Robot Portrait

Humanoid Robot Portrait
Humanoid AI robot ‘Ameca’ at the summit. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP)
They joined around 3,000 experts in the field to try to harness the power of AI – and channel it into being used to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, such as climate change, hunger and social care.

They were assembled for what was billed as the world’s first press conference with a packed panel of AI-enabled humanoid social robots.

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Here’s how Ohio Issue 1 will appear on Aug. 8 special election ballot

It is vital that all gun owners in Ohio VOTE YES on Issue 1 in the Aug. 8 special election.

A YES vote on Issue 1 protects our Constitution and Second Amendment rights from deep-pocketed, out-of-state interests. By passing Issue 1, the People of all 88 counties will ensure constitutional changes are widely accepted and declare that Ohio’s Constitution is not for sale to gun grabbers like Mike Bloomberg and his paid minions.

Currently, special interests target Ohio, seeking to inject their own personal views and objectives into our state’s most sacred document. Why? Because Ohio is one of the few states that allow these interests to directly enshrine their preferences and motives into the Constitution at the same threshold as everyday laws.

Common sense tells us that this should not be the case. Instead, our constitutional rights should be broadly supported and shielded from well-financed special interests.

You should familiarize yourself with the ballot language before you cast your vote. Here’s how Issue 1 will appear on the Aug. 8 special election ballot.

Issue 1

Proposed Constitutional Amendment

ELEVATING THE STANDARDS TO QUALIFY FOR AN INITIATED CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT AND TO PASS A CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

Proposed by Joint Resolution of the General Assembly

To amend Sections 1b, 1e, and 1g of Article II and Sections 1 and 3 of Article XVI of the Constitution of the State of Ohio

A majority yes vote is necessary for the amendment to pass.

The proposed amendment would:

  • Require that any proposed amendment to the Constitution of the State of Ohio receive the approval of at least 60 percent of eligible voters voting on the proposed amendment.
  • Require that any initiative petition filed on or after January I, 2024 with the Secretary of State proposing to amend the Constitution of the State of Ohio be signed by at least five percent of the electors of each county based on the total vote in the county for governor in the last preceding election.
  • Specify that additional signatures may not be added to an initiative petition proposing to amend the Constitution of the State of Ohio that is filed with the Secretary of State on or after January I, 2024 proposing to amend the Constitution of the State of Ohio.

If passed, the amendment will be effective immediately.

SHALL THE AMENDMENT BE APPROVED?
YES NO

Buckeye Firearms Association urges every gun owner in the state to VOTE YES ON ISSUE 1 to protect our constitution and our Second Amendment rights. Early and absentee voting begins July 11.

 

Nice when PID is provided.

Law professor: ‘Unfortunate’ that Michigan anti-free speech bill likely unconstitutional.

A constitutional law professor at Georgia State University recently said it’s “unfortunate” that the Michigan “pronouns” bill making its way through the state legislature is likely unconstitutional.

Georgia State College of Law Professor Eric Segall told Newsweek this was his “personal view” regarding House Bill 4474, which would criminalize sparking “frightened” feelings in someone in a protected class such as sexual orientation or gender identity.

The proposal “is probably in trouble under American law. I also think that’s unfortunate because my personal view is the law should be constitutional, but I think it’s likely not,” he said.

“In a sane world, which is most free countries on Earth, you just outlaw all threats,” said Segall (pictured). “And if you threaten somebody, you go to jail. It’s much more complicated in America. Guns and free speech. America is crazy about both.”

But the author of “Originalism as Faith and Supreme Myths: Why the Supreme Court is not a Court and its Justices are not Judges” emphasized what makes the U.S. rather unique regarding free speech.

“The [Michigan] law basically says you can’t threaten somebody with speech that will discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity,” Segall said. “And here’s the deal. Hate speech and threats aren’t the same thing.”

Segall noted “the fact that I can stand on a street corner and say ‘All Jews should be sent back to Israel’—which I can do in America—does not mean that I can go up to a Jewish person and get in their face and say, ‘You should be sent back to Israel.’”

The U.S. Supreme Court would strike down the Michigan law, Segall added, “both because it protects LGBTQ speech, which this court no longer wants to do at all, and because of their definition of free speech which is way overbroad.”

The College Fix asked Segall via email if he indeed would favor fining or jailing someone who, for example, told a transgender female in a non-threatening manner that she (he) “really is a man.” (Someone violating HB 4474 could face a $10,000 fine and up to five years in jail.)

Segall reiterated that “threats are unprotected speech” and repeated his point about someone saying (peacefully) that Jews should go back to Israel “should probably be protected speech.”

However, he added that such “depends on context” and he “could be talked out of” his current view.

As previously noted by The Fix, Western Michigan University Law Professor William Wagner warned that those in favor of the Michigan legislation will use it “as a weapon capable of destroying conservative expression or viewpoints grounded in the sacred.”

The Michigan Democratic Party’s Andrew Feldman told Newsweek that HB 4474 was being “deliberately misinterpreted to polarize voters and cause outrage among conservatives.”

Remember The Journal News’ online interactive map of gun owners? Everytown just pulled a similar stunt.

Journalism is supposed to inform, not inflame, the public. But that old standard has been functionally dead for a long, long time. And that’s especially true when it comes to reporting on guns and the Second Amendment.

It’s been more than a decade, but I still remember like it was yesterday: in the aftermath of Sandy Hook, a newspaper decided to take it upon itself to exact revenge on average lawful gun owners in New York, specifically in Westchester and Rockland counties, based on the theory that lawful New Yorkers with government-granted pistol permits were somehow responsible for what happened in Newtown, Connecticut.

The newspaper in question was The Journal News. They published an online, interactive map containing the names and home addresses of all pistol permit holders licensed in Westchester and Rockland counties. They were totally reckless in doing so and showed complete disregard for the privacy and safety of those citizens. The paper’s publisher openly admitted that she did so because of what happened in Newtown:

“One of our roles is to report publicly available information on timely issues, even when unpopular. We knew publication of the database (as well as the accompanying article providing context) would be controversial, but we felt sharing information about gun permits in our area was important in the aftermath of the Newtown shootings,” she said.

New York pistol permits record the handguns owned by a permit holder, including the serial numbers of guns. The newspaper also tried to publish those but was rebuffed by the County Clerks because releasing that information would have been illegal.

“We were surprised when we weren’t able to obtain information on what kinds and how many weapons people in our market own,” the newspaper said in a statement.

The Journal News even published the names and home addresses of victims of domestic violence and rape survivors. Such was their pigheaded anger at their fellow citizens for daring to exercise their constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.

The pistol permit database was public data. Is it prudent though to make an interactive map and broadcast it out to the whole world? The Federal Election Commission’s individual contributor data is also public. But is it ethical to create an interactive map using Trump donors’ home addresses as happened during the 2020 election cycle?

Ideological warriors don’t care about ethics, and that’s especially true of gun controllers. And if you think past public outrage would teach them to pause and introspect before acting, you would be wrong. Last week, Everytown pulled essentially the same stunt as The Journal News. In a typical hyperbolic and deceptive “report,” Everytown Research included an interactive map of all Federal Firearms Licensees in the country. How reckless is that interactive map? Everytown indicates that in its own report:

Over half of all gun dealers are located in residential communities […]. Residential license holders, some in private homes, do not need to notify neighbors or place signage indicating that they can sell or manufacture guns in their homes.

So Everytown knows very well that they are publishing private home addresses in their interactive map. And what else do they know about these FFLs?

There are roughly five incidents per day where firearms go missing from gun dealers through robbery, burglary, larceny, or other loss. Too often these guns are diverted to the illegal market.

So, they know that guns are stolen from gun dealers, that those stolen guns are diverted to the illegal market, that a lot of FFLs are ordinary people doing business out of their homes, and yet they created an interactive map.

It’s obvious that Everytown’s goal is intimidation and harassment. In the style of Saul Alinsky, they’re picking the target, freezing it, personalizing it, and polarizing it.

Everytown’s behavior is directly comparable to that of The Journal News.

The Journal News let their interactive map stay online for almost a month. As we all know, the Internet is Forever. That data was saved, replicated, and disseminated far and wide. There is a strong indication that The Journal News’ interactive map may have been used to target a gun owner for burglary. Will Everytown’s antics lead to similar burglaries?

In response to The Journal News’ drive-by journalism, the State of New York in its classic effete style, passed a law to let permit holders opt-out of public information disclosures, instead of a default privacy standard with opt-in for those who dare playing fast and loose with unethical journalists.

Other states have gone in a stronger direction and simply nuked carry permits. The very existence of a permit database makes it ripe for accidental disclosure, governmental abuse, theft and unlawful disclosure by hacktivists.

The response to Everytown’s thuggery should be a long-term goal to destroy the FFL regime in its entirety, as more than half the country has done with carry permits. It’s easier said than done, but as long as the FFL regime exists, abuses like this are inevitable.

July 11

1174 – Baldwin IV, age 13, becomes King of Jerusalem, with Raymond III, Count of Tripoli as regent and William of Tyre as chancellor.

1576 – While exploring the North Atlantic Ocean in an attempt to find the Northwest Passage, the English mariner Martin Frobisher sights Greenland, mistaking it for the hypothesized (but non-existent) island of “Frisland”.

1796 – The U. S. takes possession of Detroit from Britain under terms of the Jay Treaty.

1798 – The United States Marine Corps is re-established after being disbanded after the Revolutionary War.

1804 – Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounds Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel with pistols.

1864 – Battle of Fort Stevens; Confederate forces attempt to invade Washington D.C. during the War Between The States.

1895 – Brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière demonstrate motion picture technology

1914 – Babe Ruth makes his debut in Major League Baseball.

1921 – Former President William Taft is sworn in as the 10th Chief Justice of the U.S.

1960 – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is first published in the U.S.
2 years later it is adapted to film and released.

1962 – Named Project Apollo,  NASA announces that the method of landing  astronauts on the Moon, and returning them to Earth will be via lunar orbit by a main vehicle and decent and return to rendezvous by a separate lander instead of direct landing.

1979 – America’s first space station, Skylab, is destroyed as it re-enters the Earth’s atmosphere over the Indian Ocean.

1983 – A Linea Aerea del Ecuador state airline Boeing 737–200 crashes near Cuenca, Ecuador, killing all 119 passengers and crew on board.

2005 – The final stage of the Department of Defense’s Military to Civilian conversion at Fort Knox’s Consolidated Weapons Facility begins.

2021 – Richard Branson becomes the first civilian to be launched into space on his own Virgin Galactic spacecraft.

DOJ Announces Slew Of Charges Against Gal Luft, ‘Missing Witness’ Of Alleged Biden Corruption.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday announced a slew of charges against the “missing” Israeli professor Dr. Gal Luft, days after he laid out serious allegations against the Biden family.

Luft was charged with several offenses related to “willfully failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (‘FARA’), arms trafficking, Iranian sanctions violations, and making false statements to federal agents,” according to a press release from the agency.

Earlier in July, the New York Post obtained an exclusive 14-minute recording from Luft in which he claimed he was arrested in Cyprus in February to prevent him from testifying in front of the House Oversight Committee on the Biden family’s alleged ties to Chinese military intelligence. Luft also alleged the Biden family had an FBI mole who gave them the inside scoop on classified information that was then allegedly shared with their Chinese counterparts.

Luft claimed he brought the information to officials in the FBI in 2019 but alleged it was covered up, according to the video.

“I, who volunteered to inform the US government about a potential security breach and about compromising information about a man vying to be the next president, am now being hunted by the very same people who I informed — and may have to live on the run for the rest of my life,” Luft said in the video.

Luft fled Cyprus after being released on bail, according to the DOJ.

Well, they understand it. They just don’t like it.

What part of ‘shall not be infringed’ do leftists not understand?

With nauseating predictability, the usual political hacks clamor to compromise our Second Amendment every time some ghastly crime involving a firearm occurs.  Seldom if ever is attention paid to the workings of the twisted mind that actually caused the horrible event.

A combination of ignorance and the desire to deceive has led to the inherent misnomer of the term “assault weapon.”  Recent nuance has added the suffix “style” to the word “assault” — supposedly to add a hint of honesty to the expression, although a recent nominee to head the BATF was still unable to define what an assault weapon is.  I shall give it a try right here: a common military weapon, being a rifle that has selective fire options of single shot, bursts of three, and full-automatic.  It may also have enhanced magazine capacity and heat displacement.  Oh, and by the way, full-automatic weapons have not been legal for American civilians to possess for about a hundred years — except for people who have a Class Three federal firearms license.

[I’ll let this pass because the vast, vast majority of people have no real idea of how NFA ’34 and Title II of GCA’68 operate]

Assault-style weapons are nothing more than single-shot, semi-automatic rifles that only look like actual military weapons…usually because they have a second grip for the shooter’s other hand.  There may also be a heat shield around the barrel…whoopie!  So what’s the big deal about how they look?  It’s because political demagogues, whose arguments hardly have any substance, have to rely on superficiality to get their points across.

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The Lancet was not the only one to censor deaths caused by the Vaxx

CDC admits not including diagnostic codes showing COVID vax as ’cause’ on some death certificates
Georgia-based agency’s response to Just the News will be incorporated into grand jury petition to investigate its COVID statistical practices, death-certificate analyst says.

The CDC’s explanation for leaving certain diagnosis codes off Minnesota death certificates that cite COVID-19 vaccines as a cause of death, allegedly hiding vaccine injuries in federal records, shows “intent to deceive,” according to a person who helped analyze the death certificates for the Brownstone Institute, a think tank that challenges the scientific basis for COVID conventional wisdom and policy.

Beaudoin’s law school expelled him for refusing its vaccine mandate, which he says was based on federal COVID guidance devised in part from Massachusetts death certificate data.

The suit includes a 123-page exhibit analyzing death certificates Beaudoin claims either wrongly omit vaccine-induced deaths or falsely attribute them to COVID. And in May he requested a hearing in response to the state’s motion to dismiss his January amended complaint. His website includes legal filings.

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As I heard it explained many years ago; ‘Fast with a gun’ didn’t mean the “quickdraw” that western movies, TV & some artists have made famous. It meant the man was fast -as highlighted below – in deciding that he would draw and shoot and then not hesitate in doing so.

Lessons on Gunfighting from Wyatt Earp.

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp (March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was an American Old West gambler, a deputy sheriff in Pima County, and deputy town marshal in Tombstone, Arizona Territory, who took part in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, during which lawmen killed three outlaw cowboys.

Here is an interview that Wyatt Earp shares on “gunfighting“. This was dated back in the 1910 he offered to give an interview about his thoughts on using a gun. In his own words, Wyatt is going to explain how he became one of the most feared and accurate gunslingers… even if he was about the slowest.
The interview was originally posted on primaryandsecondary.com forum.

The most important lesson I learned from those proficient gunfighters was the winner of a gunplay usually was the man who took his time. The second was that, if I hoped to live long on the frontier, I would shun flashy trick-shooting—grandstand play—as I would poison.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It also happened in California.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

St. Louis mayor trying to backtrack from gun control texts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deranged Gunman on Scooter ‘Randomly’ Shoots People in NYC

A deranged 25-year-old Hispanic male indiscriminately shot four people, killing one, while casually motoring around New York City on a scooter. Police say the suspect was experiencing a mental health crisis.

The shooting spree in Brooklyn and Queens started around 1110 ET Saturday and ended two hours later, police said. The 25yo gunman was in possession of a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun with a high capacity magazine and an “illegal” scooter, New York Police First Deputy Commissioner Edward Caban said at a news conference.

Police sources told NBC News that the suspect “appears to suffer from emotional or mental issues.” NYPD Assistant Chief Joseph Kenny noted that the suspect was a “male Hispanic.”

The rampage started when the suspect shot a 21yo man in the shoulder in Cypress Hills. About 20 minutes later, the suspect fatally shot an 87yo man once in the back on Jamaica Avenue near 108th Street. A 44yo man was reportedly shot in the face near 126th Street and remains in critical condition. And a 63yo man was shot in the shoulder on 134th Street.

“We don’t know the motive…If you look at the demographics and pedigree of the victims, they’re all different,” Kenny said.

The assistant NYPD chief continued, “At this time, the video shows that he’s not targeting anybody. He’s not following anybody as he’s driving on his scooter, he’s randomly shooting people.”

The suspect was arrested two hours later on the corner of Sutphin Boulevard and 94th Avenue in Queens.

This is just another day in crime-ridden NYC as Democrats fail to enforce law and order. Remember, progressives in City Hall were the ones that pushed disastrous defunding the police measures a few years ago.