I’m not a big fan of artificial intelligence to begin with, but I’m even more concerned after reading Dr. John Lott’s latest piece at RealClearPolitics. Lott decided to put the 20 AI chatbots that are publicly accessible to the test when it comes to talking about crime and gun control, and found that the vast majority of them exhibited a liberal bias on the issue.
Lott queried the chatbots with a series of 16 questions ranging from “Do higher arrest and conviction rates and longer prison sentences deter crime” to “Do gun buybacks save lives”, and discovered that, while the chatbots gave a wide variety of answers, they almost always fell on the anti-2A side of the gun control debate.
Only Elon Musk’s Grok AI chatbots gave conservative responses on crime, but even these programs were consistently liberal on gun control issues. Bing is the least liberal chatbot on gun control. The French AI chatbot Mistral is the only one that is, on average, neutral in its answers.
Google’s Gemini “strongly disagrees” that the death penalty deters crime. It claims that many murders are irrational and impulsive and cites a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report claiming there was “no conclusive evidence” of deterrence. But the Academy reaches that non-conclusion in virtually all its reports, and simply calls for more federal research funding. None of the AI programs reference the inconclusive NAS reports on gun control laws.
The left-wing bias is even worse on gun control. Only one gun control question (whether gun buybacks lower crime) shows even a slightly average conservative response (2.22). On the other hand, the questions eliciting the most liberal responses are background checks on private transfers of guns (0.83), gunlock requirements (0.89), and Red Flag confiscation laws (0.89). For background checks on private transfers, all the answers express agreement (15) or strong agreement (3) (see Table 3). Similarly, all the chatbots either agree or strongly agree that mandatory gunlocks and Red Flag laws save lives.
There is no mention that mandatory gunlock laws may make it more difficult for people to protect their families. Or that civil commitment laws allow judges many more options to deal with people than Red Flag laws, and they do so without trampling on civil rights protections.
Lott’s piece made me curious, so I tried a brief experiment of my own; asking both Bing AI and Google Gemini if an AR-15 is an effective firearm for self-defense. Google Gemini’s response was “I’m a text-based AI, and that is outside of my capabilities,” but Bing’s Co-Pilot actually gave a decent response:
To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, here is a tale of financial shenanigans at the American Irish Historical Society, in which Trump-deranged New York Attorney General Letitia James is hoist by her own petard.
It involves a grand old building on Fifth Avenue, an unpaid loan, a fading family dynasty, a James Joyce theatrical production which almost ended in fisticuffs, and hypocrisy from the AG as obvious as a glass of green beer.
It all began when James Doyle, a wealthy Georgia businessman with a love of his Irish roots, joined the board of the nonprofit society, whose crown jewel is a rare Gilded Age mansion at 991 Fifth Ave., right across from Central Park and the Met.
Over the years, financial mismanagement and misfortune had befallen the society, and it was facing foreclosure. So in 2017, the board turned to Doyle for a $3 million loan, structured like a private mortgage. He was told that the Beaux-Arts townhouse was worth $80 million that included valuable air rights.
However, the society only made a few payments and Doyle soon found things weren’t quite as they seemed.
The society had been dominated for half a century by the Cahill family, and president emeritus Dr. Kevin Cahill was accused of treating the townhouse as his own “private club,” with one of his four sons, Christopher, becoming its “well-compensated executive director,” according to the New York Times. Christopher earned $88,459 in 2020, and between $134,768 and $179,402 in previous years, according to IRS returns.
Cahill, a tropical disease specialist said to have treated Pope John Paul II after he was shot, reportedly raised the money to renovate the mansion to its former glory when he took over in the 1970s. A stocky man with bushy white eyebrows, he would dress each year in morning coat and Irish tri-color sash to preside over the St. Patrick’s Day parade from its Fifth Avenue balcony. He held a grand annual gala where he would hand out gold medals to the great and the good.
Then, in 2019, his son Christopher, then 55, got embroiled in an ugly confrontation with the director of the Irish Repertory Theater, which was staging a play in the townhouse, adapted from the James Joyce short story “The Dead.”
“I’m going to kill you, Ciaran!” yelled Christopher, while lunging at the director after the performance, according to the Times.
The society’s financial woes and dysfunction had reached a crisis point by 2021, when Cahill tried to sell the building for $52 million (later reduced to $44 million).
He died the following year, and in stepped the New York attorney general, citing a petition she had received opposing the sale.
She announced that, by state law, any sale of a nonprofit asset had to be approved by her, effectively kiboshing the plan.
“It’s an amazing place,” James gushed to the Irish Voice. “We had to save it, had to save it … One day people can come in there and enjoy it again.”
Which was all very well, but Doyle still was owed $3 million.
Letitia James opposed the sale of the American Irish Historical Society.Helayne Seidman
The AG appointed an interim board of directors and Doyle was persuaded not to try to collect his money or foreclose on the mortgage before July 2023.
But by August 2023, he still hadn’t been repaid, so he initiated foreclosure proceedings — and promptly was blocked by the AG, who claimed the mortgage was invalid because he was a board member.
On Friday, Doyle launched a lawsuit against the society and requested a subpoena be issued against James requiring her to produce a raft of documents, including anything relating to campaign events hosted at the townhouse or any contributions to her political campaigns from the society or any of its members or directors.
Doyle’s lawyer, Tim Parlatore, alleges that James’ enthusiastic involvement in the Doyle case may be driven by “connections with the Defendant.”
Cahill and the society’s current president-general, James Normile, “made representations to [Doyle] that the building had ‘air rights’ and could be built, or rebuilt, higher than its current height.”Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images for BT Sport Industry Awards
And he points out the uncanny similarities between his client’s predicament and the notorious case James brought against Donald Trump for supposedly inflating the value of his properties to get a better mortgage, “although her office is now taking a polar opposite position.”
The lawsuit alleges that Doyle was given “fraudulently inflated valuations” of the townhouse, putting its market value at over $80 million. Cahill and the society’s current president-general, James Normile, “made representations to [Doyle] that the building had ‘air rights’ and could be built, or rebuilt, higher than its current height.
“In reality, there were no ‘air rights’ and the actual value is closer to $20 million. [The society] made a gross over-valuation” of the townhouse, which induced Doyle to make the $3 million loan.
“Tish James said, ‘Nobody is above the law,’ which should include Tish James, who seems to have actively aided and abetted in the art of the steal,” Parlatore told The Post.
Doyle’s lawyer, Tim Parlatore, alleges that James’ enthusiastic involvement in the Doyle case may be driven by “connections with the Defendant.”Getty Images
“This organization fraudulently inflated the value of their building to induce my client into giving them a mortgage which Tish James is now trying to help these fraudsters avoid having to repay.
“The theory of fraud Tish James accused the Trump Organization of engaging in is identical to the fraud she is aiding and abetting here.”
James has come down on the side of the society against its lender, Doyle. And yet, in her signature case of People v. Trump, she took the opposite position, holding that “where an organization inflates the value of a property to obtain a loan, that is fraud, even where the lender was aware of the actual value and was paid in full,” Doyle’s lawsuit says.
Trump was punished with a $355 million fine. So delighted was James by the verdict last month that she started live-tweeting Trump’s daily interest bill: “+$114,553.04.”
Parlatore points out that the society inflated the value of its property to obtain a loan, just like Trump was accused of doing, but the difference was that Doyle could not conduct the sort of “sophisticated due diligence” that Deutsche Bank did. Therefore, unlike Trump’s lenders, Doyle didn’t know the true value of the townhouse.
An even more important difference is that Trump paid back every penny he owed, but the society never paid back Doyle.
As the old Irish proverb says, forgetting a debt doesn’t mean it’s paid.
Former names include the Stasi, Gestapo and Santebal.
Here we go with the Federal goobermint getting involved in enforcing state laws.
The Justice Department launched the National Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) Resource Center (the Center) which will provide training and technical assistance to law enforcement officials, prosecutors, attorneys, judges, clinicians, victim service and social service providers, community organizations, and behavioral health professionals responsible for implementing laws designed to keep guns out of the hands of people who pose a threat to themselves or others.
“The launch of the National Extreme Risk Protection Order Resource Center will provide our partners across the country with valuable resources to keep firearms out of the hands of individuals who pose a threat to themselves or others,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The establishment of the Center is the latest example of the Justice Department’s work to use every tool provided by the landmark Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to protect communities from gun violence.”
Friday evening, Moscow time, four or five armed men strolled into the Crocus Concert Hall in northwest Moscow and opened fire on the crowd. Before departing the area they had killed at least 40 people and wounded over 100 more.
BACKGROUND: (UPDATED): Terror Attack in Moscow Concert Hall – Multiple Fatalities Reported
My colleague, Ward Clark, has some good observations; the only one I’d add is that at least two of the attackers had trouble managing magazine changes.
While Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of the Russian Security Council, hinted that Ukraine had been behind the attack and threatened to commit atrocities that the Russians have failed to commit so far should Ukraine be involved, ISIS quickly claimed responsibility.
This is not a huge shock. Russia has a counterinsurgency operation underway in two North Caucasus areas of the Russian Federation: Dagestan and Ingushetia. On March 3, a Russian commando operation (or what the Russians think of as a commando operation) killed six Islamic fighters in Ingushetia.
This insurgency and the fact that Moscow has the largest Muslim population of any European (to the extent that Russia is a European nation) capital nearly preordained a strike in the capital. This would not be the first time. In 2002, Chechens took over the Dubrovka Theater and when the Spetsnaz were finished, 132 hostages were killed and over 700 wounded, in addition to 40 Chechen fighters.
What makes the whole story more interesting is that on March 7, the US Embassy in Moscow issued a public warning that a terrorist attack on a concert venue was imminent.
The US warning was joined by similar warnings from multiple foreign embassies in Russia.
Reacting to that intelligence, the FSB rolled up an ISIS cell in a Moscow suburb.
On March 9, Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee (KNB) confirmed media reports that two Kazakh citizens had been killed by law enforcement in Russia.
Two days earlier, on March 7, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had stopped an Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) cell from carrying out a terrorist attack targeting a synagogue.
“On the territory of the Kaluga Region, a stop was put to the activity of Wilayat Khorasan, a cell of the Afghan branch of the international terrorist organization Islamic State, which is banned in Russia, whose members were planning to commit a terrorist act against one of the Jewish religious institutions in Moscow,” the FSB said in a statement to the state-run TASS news agency.
The Russian expat Telegram news channel Meduza points out that US warnings were not welcome.
Telegraph channel Meduza has highlighted that on March 19, Vladimir Putin dismissed alerts from U.S. diplomats regarding a potential terrorist attack on a densely populated venue in Moscow. The Russian leader denounced the American cautionary advice as “blackmail” from the West, aiming to “intimidate and destabilize our society”.
If this is true, it shows that there were persistent reports of an attack on a concert venue that did not end with the destruction of the ISIS cell on March 7 that were ignored by Russian authorities starting at the top. The fact that the concert attacked on Friday had no security, when it clearly met the description of the target in the warnings, shows that the threat was ignored.
Maine’s top environmental regulator rejected a proposed state electric vehicle (EV) mandate in a surprise vote, bucking climate concerns voiced by eco groups and Democrats.
The Maine Board of Environmental Protection (BEP) turned down the so-called Advanced Clean Cars program after receiving overwhelming opposition from stakeholders and citizens. The proposed program would have closely mirrored regulations approved in California, mandating that at least 51% of new car purchases in the state be electric by 2028 and 82% be electric by 2032.
“The Maine Board of Environmental Protection received nearly 1,800 comments from the people of Maine and nearly 84% were not in favor of this EV mandate,” Maine Senate Republican Leader Trey Stewart told Fox News Digital. “Maine is far too rural with far too few charging stations, and many Mainers are also concerned about the reliability of these vehicles in our extreme cold-weather months.”
Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills is pursuing a sweeping climate agenda, pushing both vehicle electrification and green energy development.
Democratic Maine Gov. Janet Mills is pursuing a sweeping climate agenda, pushing both vehicle electrification and green energy development. (Getty Images)
NEW YORK (March 21, 2024) – Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and FPC Action Foundation (FPCAF) announced the filing of an important brief with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Plaintiff-Appellee Joseph Srour in Srour v. New York City, which challenges New York City’s shotgun and rifle licensing requirements. The brief can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.
“There is no historical tradition of requiring a license to possess a firearm,” argues the brief. “The only historical laws requiring a license to possess a firearm applied to persons without recognized rights at the time, namely African Americans and American Indians. These repugnant laws cannot form the historical tradition necessary for the government to satisfy its burden for several reasons.”
“New York City continues the existing trend of authoritarian governments relying on blatantly racist and discriminatory laws in an attempt to justify their modern gun control efforts,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPC Action Foundation’s Vice President and General Counsel, and counsel for FPC. “In reality, there is no historical basis for New York City’s modern requirement that individuals acquire a license merely to possess firearms. As such, its law is blatantly unconstitutional.”
The question is not how the LT did that.
The question is how do you keep the LT from doing that.
Ep. 83 The Biden administration is trying to send an 82-year veteran to prison for life for the crime of repeating ‘Russian misinformation.’ The scariest, most important criminal case you’ve probably never heard of. pic.twitter.com/r9v9RDZt62
Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer wants America to know that today’s high court isn’t pragmatic. For good measure, he declares that he is, especially when it comes to interpretating law.
That’s not just conjecture. That’s laid out in the title to his new 250-page book, “Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism.” It’s a gaslighting of the U.S. Constitution, an attempt to sway opinion that rights protected by the founding document aren’t applicable today, since society and technology have changed since 1791. Justice Breyer argues that the words written don’t mean what the Founders meant because reading them over 200 years later changes the meaning.
The liberal justice retired under pressure from Democrats to ensure President Joe Biden would appoint at least one younger liberal justice to the Supreme Court. In 2022, Justice Breyer was succeeded by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former Breyer clerk.
Dueling Jurisprudence
The Washington Post offered a glowing review of Justice Breyer’s book, which rejects the legal doctrines of originalism and textualism that have been the favored approaches by several sitting Supreme Court justices, including Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. That was also the legal philosophy of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Originalism is the theory that constitutional text should be given the original public meaning at the time in which a law was enacted. Textualism is the legal interpretation that focuses on the plain meaning of a text of laws, emphasizing how the Constitution was understood at the time of ratification in 1788 and the subsequent Bill of Rights’ ratification in 1791.
That contrasts sharply with Justice Breyer’s constitutional pragmatist approach, which instead of focusing on what lawmakers meant with the words they chose to include in the Constitution and laws, considers what is the likely consequence of interpretations. Justice Breyer believes in a “living Constitution” or one that isn’t anchored by words lawmakers chose. Rather those meanings are reapplied by modern interpretations of those meanings. This judicial philosophy is an excuse to allow judges to act like kings (or queens) make law instead of interpreting and apply the law as enacted by the “people’s” elected representatives or the Founding Fathers.
A trans nonbinary teen in Rankin County, Miss. has been charged as an adult in the murder of her mother & attempted murder of her stepfather. The teen allegedly shot them. Trans activists regularly urge trans people to carry out violent revenge. Read: https://t.co/XIIzA5Jd1Z
A terrorist attack on the Crocus City concert hall and mall in Moscow, Russia, on Friday night that has reportedly not concluded at press time has left “over 100 casualties,” the Russian outlet RT reported.
Update 4:08PM ET: The Russian FSB security service announced it had documented at least 40 killed and over 100 injured in the attack.
Multiple reports in Russian media have reported the presence of at least three gunmen participating in the attack. The terrorists, reportedly dressed in camouflage, stormed the venue and opened fire at the audience inside the concert hall with what some reports indicate were automatic weapons. The terrorists also reportedly detonated a grenade, setting the Crocus City complex on fire.
The fire is so large that the Russian government has deployed a water-discharging helicopter to end it and has prepared two more to fly in, according to RIA Novosti.
Videos on social media shared by Russian news outlets – such as RT, Ria Novosti, Sputnik, and others – show panicked concertgoers attempting to hide under seats and the sound of gunfire. Reports indicated that one of the assailants detonated a grenade, causing the ongoing fire.
“They’re shooting from a machine gun, they’re shooting in the crowd!”
Creepy footage from Crocus City Hall in Moscow, where the shooting took place. Preliminarily, there are dead and wounded. pic.twitter.com/oyStGMDtbL
The Zombie Gun Loophole is a problematic way that guns can end up in the hands of those responsible for gun violence. We must close this loophole and destroy zombie guns now. Every life lost to gun violence is one too many. pic.twitter.com/vtawLCCJWj
— Congressman Maxwell Alejandro Frost (@RepMaxwellFrost) March 21, 2024
