In other words, since it’s a Bloomberg funded Front group, keeping the money coming in is job 1.

After midterm defeat, Iowa anti-gunners demand waiting periods

Back in November, Iowa voters sent a strong message of support for the right to keep and bear arms by enshrining it into the state constitution in overwhelming numbers. Not only does the amendment explicitly protect gun ownership, it instructs courts in the state to view any gun control laws through a “strict scrutiny” lens; a measure that requires regulations to be narrowly tailored to achieve a governmental interest.

Activists with the Iowa chapter of March For Our Lives say the new amendment has had an impact on their legislative agenda this year, but they’ve settled on a few restrictions that they believe can pass constitutional muster.

“Strict scrutiny will endanger any hopes of introducing common-sense gun policy in the state of Iowa,” [Waverly] Zhao said. “Additionally, the vague and overbroad wording of the legislation leaves the definitions of terms like ‘arms’ and ‘restrictions’ up to broad interpretations, which may serve to undermine the few current gun regulation policies in Iowa.”

But the gun safety advocates said there are still measures state legislators can pass they argue could help stop gun violence in Iowa. In its 2023 legislative agenda, March for Our Lives recommended Iowa legislators pass a mandatory three-day waiting period, universal background checks and mandatory reporting of lost or stolen firearms.

The strict scrutiny amendment language was approved by almost 2/3rds of the state’s voters, so Zhao should consider the possibility that those “common sense” policies she wants to see in place don’t make much sense to most of her neighbors. That’s the real roadblock to the type of anti-gun policies that MFOL wants to put in place; the will of the people. The new constitutional amendment is simply an expression of that will, as is their opposition to any new measures that try to criminalize lawful gun ownership or burden the lawful exercise of that right in any way.

Esha Bolar, an 18-year-old high school senior from Johnston and co-state director for the advocacy group, said March for Our Lives had to take a step back from some of its more “ambitious” policy goals, like police demilitarization, given the new amendment and conservative majorities in both chambers of the Iowa Legislature.

“Now I don’t think that’s possible, amongst a lot of other kinds of gun violence prevention policy that we’ve researched in the past,” Bolar said. “But we know that with these three priorities we can see some kind of change happening.”

Bolar said she believes all three of the recommended policies will be able to hold up to any strict scrutiny challenges. Other states have implemented a three-day waiting period and universal background checks for acquiring firearms, which have survived court challenges finding they did not violate Second Amendment rights from the U.S. Constitution. However, new state constitutional amendment offers protections beyond the Second Amendment, which does not hold laws to the strict scrutiny test.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that the courts would uphold each and every one of MFOL’s legislative goals for the year. That doesn’t make them any more likely to be enacted into law. Forget strict scrutiny for a second; these ideas don’t pass the smell test for most Iowans or their elected representatives.

Any attempt to restrict the rights of law-abiding residents, or to try to make the state a safer place by criminalizing a constitutionally-protected right isn’t likely to make it out of committee in Iowa. These young anti-civil rights activists may be hoping to put some new infringements in place, but they’re in for a long wait… period.

That the children are apparently purposefully deluded by their instructors and not taught that SCOTUS took care of this in 2008 in Heller, simply shows that it’s not teaching, but indoctrination

Also, JIC:

The meaning of the phrase “well-regulated” in the 2nd amendment


Anti-gun op-ed by student hardly the gotcha she thinks it is

Every now and then, we see some person who thinks they’re clever, only to trot out a tired, debunked argument that they’re sure is a “gotcha” moment.

That’s especially true with anti-gun arguments, of course.

I recently came across an op-ed written by a Los Angeles high school student that treads a particularly tired argument.

Titled, “Opinion: The 2nd Amendment requires gun regulation,” you already know it’s going to be good.

How can we decrease gun violence?

According to the 2nd Amendment, since “[a] well regulated Militia [is]…necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Although people have the right to bear arms for their own protection as stated in the Constitution, the Second Amendment also clearly states that this is based on the need for a “well regulated Militia”, not based on random people being able to have guns.

This can be interpreted to mean that no one except for law enforcement should have more than a number of guns or ammunition, because the right to bear arms is for a “well regulated Militia”. People do not need 10 guns to protect themselves from danger, and they certainly won’t need a gun that can shoot 600 bullets per minute either, like the AK-47 as detailed in Britannica.

If we limit a certain amount of guns per person, making sure that gun owners are “well regulated”, then the chance of a mass shooting will be less likely as a gun owner could only own a specific amount of guns and also have “regulated” ways to use them.

I’m sure the author and her teachers are very proud of her for this argument. Too bad it’s an anti-gun argument debunked ages ago by people far better versed in constitutional law than she is.

First, the phrase “well-regulated” means “properly functioning.”

Second, the militia refers to the whole body of free people who can be called upon to defend our nation. While many argue that this means the National Guard today, if you take a look at the Militia Act, you’ll see the unorganized militia is still people within a given age range who aren’t currently serving in the military or eligible for call-up.

Further, the young author here is illustrating just how poor the American educational system actually is, because she clearly didn’t grasp the totality of the Second Amendment.

See, she’s doing what many anti-gunners do, which is focus on the militia clause. Yet the rest of the amendment read, “the people’s right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

“[S]hall not be infringed.” That part alone debunks the entire premise on which the author based her work. It doesn’t say the right to keep and bear arms shall only be for militia purposes. It explicitly states that it shall not be interfered with by lawmakers.

I don’t blame her, though. I blame her teachers.

It seems no one adequately educated her about the context surrounding the Second Amendment. She likely was never taught about our Founding Fathers’ innate distrust of standing armies, or how they believed any government had the potential to become tyrannical unless held in check by the citizenry.

They never taught her how the Bill of Rights came to be, how many of the amendments were a direct response to actions carried out by the British, and how the Founding Fathers wanted to make sure their new nation wouldn’t go down that same road.

That includes removing arms from law-abiding citizens.

“But you don’t need 10 guns,” she argues, yet the Second Amendment doesn’t call for such anti-gun regulation as she claims. It explicitly precludes any such regulation by saying our right shall not be infringed.

It seems clear that this young woman hasn’t been taught by her teachers. Not about history and likely not even how to think for herself.

Dangerous Illinois Criminal Justice Law Goes Into Effect New Years Day

Chicago saw nearly 600 homicides in 2022, five times higher that New York City and 2.5 times higher than Los Angeles.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-Ill) have repeatedly pushed back on criticism that highlights their failed crime policies.

However, beginning January 1, they will no longer be able to escape the reality that a new law will bring to the state.

The state’s Safety, Accountability, Fairness, and Equity-Today (Safe-T) Act will pretty much end cashless bail.

It will also limit when defendants can be deemed flight risks and allow defendants under electronic monitoring to leave home for 48 hours before they can be charged with escape.

Meaning criminals can be walking around the state for two days before police officers are called to go looking for them.

The law will also drop trespassing from a Class A misdemeanor to a Class B misdemeanor. So officers will no longer be able to arrest non-violent trespassers and instead only issue them a citation.

Sounds safe for the people of Illinois.

A class-action lawsuit, which dozens of counties across the state signed, argued that the pre-trial release and bail reforms in the SAFE-T act are unconstitutional.

“Today’s ruling affirms that we are still a government of the people and that the Constitutional protections afforded to the citizens of Illinois – most importantly the right to exercise our voice with our vote – are inalienable,” Kankakee County State Attorney Jim Rowe, one of the lead plaintiffs in the suit, said in a statement.

As the state appeals the decision, a higher court in Illinois eliminated cash bail, however, the rest of the bill remains in effect.

In his 33-page opinion, Judge Thomas Cunnington cited the need for a separation of powers, saying “…the appropriateness of bail rests with the authority of the court and may not be determined by legislative fiat.”

The ruling means the pre-trial release and bail reforms spelled out in the law will not take effect in those counties come the first of the year. The portion of the law would have allowed judges to decide if a defendant does not pose a public safety risk, they could be released without posting cash bail.

Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau told Fox News that this is the most dangerous law he has ever seen.

‘disconnect’ implies some sort of prior connection. Short of the goobermint paychecks he’s been getting for most of his adult life, I say he’s had no more ‘connection’ to the citizenry that that.

BIDEN’S ISLAND ESCAPE SHOWS HIS DISCONNECT

Someone should have told Joe Biden that vacationing in St. Croix was not a good idea.

He could have chosen better.

And leaving the country at this time was bad optics.

The president, seeking warmer climes, appeared to have abandoned the country in the wake of a historic blizzard that buried the U.S., killed scores of people, caused massive blackouts, and stranded thousands of holiday travelers at airports across the country.

While he was aboard Air Force One flying above the country, untold thousands of other Americans were stuck at airports across the country as flights were delayed or canceled due to the harsh weather and Southwest Airlines incompetence.

But the bitter cold weather that swept across the nation did not deter hordes of illegal immigrants from crossing the southern border into the country under Biden’s cruel and criminal open border policy.

Immigrant families, turned away at overcrowded shelters in El Paso, were forced to sleep in the streets under freezing conditions.

“Come to America and sleep in the streets,” seems to be Biden’s message to immigrants from around the world.

But you can’t be too harsh on Biden. He is old and feeble, and he needs the sun to warm his bones.

But the optics of him ignoring domestic programs while vacationing in St. Croix, one of the U.S Virgin Islands, sent the wrong message, especially as fellow Americans struggled with frigid weather and skyrocketing home energy bills.

And this does not even include the foreign problems Biden is facing, like Communist China on the verge of invading Taiwan, Japan rearming, North Korea sending missiles and drones over Japan and South Korea, deadly protest in Iran, the Ukrainians bombing Russian airfields, Vladimir Putin warning of nuclear retaliation, and so on.

But the main problem with Biden’s vacation to St. Croix is the island itself.

Being the woke and progressive president that he is, one would think that he would have enough political awareness and moral sensitivity to vacation elsewhere, and not on an island were Christopher Columbus allegedly brought racism to America.

Biden has made a cottage industry of calling Donald Trump and the millions of Americans who support him racists and neo-fascists.

While St. Croix is a beautiful and lush tropical island in the Caribbean with amazing beaches, warm waters, lush scenery and friendly people, it is also the island where Christopher Columbus — a hero who progressives have turned into an enemy of mankind — landed in 1493.

If there is still a statue of Columbus that progressives and anarchists have not torn down in the United States it would equal the miracle of Columbus’ voyages across the Atlantic. They were voyages that awakened the world.

Columbus “discovered” St. Croix during his second voyage to the New World. Upon arriving he sent a landing party ashore. The Spanish sailors came across a deserted Carib village where a group of competing Taino natives were held captive.

The sailors freed the Tainos. While returning with them to the ship, the group was attacked by a Carib war party. The sailors fought back, and one was killed by an arrow.

The skirmish was the first recorded conflict between Europeans and native Americans in the New World.

Many more were to follow, especially after the Spanish and Portuguese Conquistadors came in search of gold. What they did to the native population of the Americas makes Columbus look like a saint.

Columbus at least freed the Tainos — if only temporarily.

But the question is: if Christopher Columbus is such a bad guy, why is Biden honoring him by vacationing on his island?

Maybe, weather permitting, Biden should have gone back to Nantucket.

More of Sun-Tzu’s advice to know your enemy

This is what passes for ‘liberal’ these days.
A wanna-be tyrant with a minimal IQ who somehow believes he’s  discovered an as yet never postulated way to achieve his goal.

The Second amendment is not, and never had been, a permission to allow the People to do anything. It ‘gives’ nothing. It is in no way a ‘the people may’. It declares rights and restricts goobermint power over those rights.
The People already have the right not just to keep and bear arms, but to also make them, right along with the accoutrements and ammunition necessary for their use.
Even this latest ‘ghost gun’ regulation by the bureaucraps at BATFE does nothing to stop a person from making their own guns.

The Second amendment is, as clearly stated by the Bill Of Rights own preamble – quoted below – is a restriction on goobermint power, not on the rights of the people

The Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

The author’s mindless idea is that of the ignoramus who was never taught, or slept through their course in, U.S. Civics. That also goes for many of the people commenting there. Either that, or they have an ulterior motive, a disarmament agenda for their political enemies, because unless they disarm them, they can’t deal with them the way all tyrants want to.


Read Second Amendment Literally: Ban Making and Selling Guns

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.

A fully contextual reading of the Second Amendment tells us that the Founding Fathers protected the right to bear arms for the sole purpose of supporting a well-regulated militia to keep America free and secure. But various gun cranks and judges have dismissed that prefatory clause and read all sorts of non-original intent into the right to bear arms—self-defenseshooting government officials we don’t like, yadda yadda.

So let’s ignore the preface and focus strictly and literally on the operative clause, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”. (I’m also going to ignore that erroneous comma—a comma should never separate a subject and a predicate unless there is some intervening descriptive phrase or dependent clause.)

The Second Amendment says we may have guns. It says we may carry guns.

The Second Amendment does not say we may make guns.

It does not say we may sell guns.

It does not say that we may box up a gun and mail it across state lines.

We could shut down every gun factory and store and dealer in America today and not violate the Second Amendment. We already have 393 million firearms, more than enough to allow every living American to carry a gun. If you have a gun, you can keep it. You just can’t buy any more or sell the ones you have.

Ah, but what if your gun breaks and you want another one? Or what if you grow up in a household that chooses not to bear arms but then decide when you grow up, you want to be a hero like Kyle Rittenhouse? You can’t exercise your Second Amendment right if you can’t get your hands on a gun? To keep and bear an arm, don’t you have to be able to buy a gun or build your own from bamboo, charcoal, sulfur, and diamonds?

Well, if governments are instituted among men to secure our rights, then the government can secure our Second Amendment right by producing arms—just contract Sig Sauer to crank out a few million more M17s and M18s—and distributing them at local police stations or Army recruiting offices to every citizen willing and able to carry one.  No right is absolute, of course: the government can and should decline to hand free guns to people who are drunk, crazy, angry, or elsewise identifiably dangerous. But if the government ensures that every able-bodied and responsible American who desires to keep and bear an arm can get an arm, then there is no need for private, extra-constitutional gun-running.

The Second Amendment has been perverted by profit-seekers. The Second Amendment does not protect gun commerce. End gun commerce, and we’ll defuse the fear– and machismo-stoking marketing that drives our destructive gun culture.

Federal Judge Tosses Lawsuit Opposing Concealed-Carry Ban on D.C. Metro, Finding Challengers Did Not Show ‘Any Threat’ of Prosecution

A federal judge threw out a challenge to D.C.’s concealed pistol law after four D.C.-area residents failed to include a basic part of their case. Although the challengers made multiple arguments about the use of guns in 1600s New England, they included nothing to show that they were — or ever would be — personally affected by the statute. Gregory T. AngeloTyler Yzaguirre, and Cameron M. Erickson live in the District of Columbia, and Robert M. Miller lives in Virginia. The four hold licenses to carry firearms, and say that they regularly use public transportation including the D.C. Metro. The plaintiffs waged a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of D.C. Code § 7-2509.07(a)(6), which prohibits the carrying concealed firearms in “sensitive areas,” which include D.C. public transportation, and levies a penalty of fine or imprisonment up to 180 days for violators.

In their 35-page complaint, the four alleged that if it were not for the statute, they would carry their concealed handguns on the Metro and buses for self-defense. They said that because of the statute, they now refrain from doing so because they fear arrest and prosecution.

Taking cues from the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bruen, the challengers pointed to Justice Clarence Thomas’s recently established test that gun laws must be “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.”

The plaintiffs reached back centuries in support of their argument that there is “no basis to label the Metro as a sensitive area,” providing an extensive history of gun law anecdotes going back to the early 1600s in the U.S. and several hundred years prior in Europe. Plaintiffs allowed that, “Public transportation systems did not exist as they do today at the founding of the nation,” but argued that because, “a March 9, 1636 ordinance provided that every person above 18 years of age (except magistrates and elders of the churches) were ordered to ‘come to public assemblies with their muskets,’” that 2022 concealed-carry restrictions conflict with our nation’s founding principles.

The D.C. law, said the plaintiffs, interferes with their Second Amendment right of self-defense and goes far beyond any limits imposed by Supreme Court precedent.

They asked the court to issue either a preliminary or a permanent injunction, restricting enforcement of the statute.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss, a Barack Obama appointee, rejected their argument, finding that the plaintiffs couldn’t prove harm. They provided no evidence that the law has been used to prosecute anyone, much less the four of them.

Moss wrote in the court’s 25-page ruling that in order to establish Article III standing, all plaintiffs must demonstrate some kind of “injury in fact.” In other words, it is not enough for a plaintiff to simply disagree with a law — that plaintiff must be actually harmed by the law. That’s where the four plaintiffs fell short.

Moss pointed out that, “No plaintiff in this case has been arrested and prosecuted — or threatened with arrest or prosecution or with the imposition of a civil penalty — for violating the provision of D.C. law at issue here.” Moreover, none of the plaintiffs even alleged that they have either been “singled out” or were somehow “uniquely targeted” for prosecution, said Moss. Without such a showing, the plaintiffs could not sufficiently establish their right to bring the lawsuit.

According to the Moss, the case’s shortcomings went farther. Not only did the plaintiffs fail to show that they were especially at risk of prosecution, but they did not show that anyone was at risk of prosecution.

“Plaintiffs have failed to proffer any evidence relating to any threat or risk of enforcement,” wrote Moss. To underscore the omission, Moss recounted exchanges from oral argument in which the court appeared to prompt the plaintiffs’ lawyer to provide the kind of evidence that could have supported the claim:

Indeed, when asked at oral argument, Plaintiffs’ counsel was unable to identify any case in which an individual licensed to carry a handgun has ever been prosecuted simply for carrying a concealed handgun on a Metrorail train or a Metrobus. Instead, Plaintiffs’ counsel merely speculated that those carrying concealed handguns often pat their sides (to confirm that they have their guns with them) and that, by doing so, they might provide a tell for law enforcement officers and thereby invite arrest.

Moss also called out the attorney for a general response to the specific question of threat of enforcement. Moss said that during colloquy with the court, plaintiffs’ counsel answered that the Metropolitan Police Department “invariably arrests those who violate any of ‘the myriad of firearms regulations’ in the District of Columbia,” but noted that, “Neither statement by counsel, however, is evidence, and the evidence that Plaintiffs have offered says nothing about the risk of criminal or civil enforcement of § 7-2509.07(a)(6).”

Moss denied both requested injunctions.

Counsel for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to request for comment.

Petaluma, CA Council Requires Gun Lock-up

The City of Petaluma, California has adopted a requirement that all firearms within the city limits must be disabled with a locking device or placed in a locked container inside the home.

But, is that constitutional under a landmark 2008 Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller? On Page 58 of that ruling, the late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote, “We must also address the District’s requirement (as applied to respondent’s handgun) that firearms in the home be rendered and kept inoperable at all times. This makes it impossible for citizens to use them for the core lawful purpose of self-defense and is hence unconstitutional.”

According to Petaluma360, the ordinance was passed unanimously this week. The story quoted Deputy Police Chief Brian Miller, who asserted, “Ultimately (the ordinance) makes owners of firearms be more responsible and accountable for their weapons.”

However, the story noted skeptics say the ordinance is unenforceable. The quick access for self-defense issue was also raised.

The Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported that Petaluma City Manager Peggy Flynn responded to critics by pointing to a study done by Everytown for Gun Safety. She also asserted that this ordinance will give police “another tool when they respond to domestic violence cases or other situations where PPD enters homes and view a firearm not being properly stored.”

Still, the requirement appears ripe for a court challenge, using language from Heller. There has not been any indication of a challenge.

Petaluma is a city some 38 miles north of San Francisco in Sonoma County.

Biden’s Stolen Valor rant is no surprise to gun owners

Joe Biden walked onstage in front of a group of veterans Friday and then stole their valor.

Biden told the veterans his Uncle Frank was wounded during the Battle of the Bulge, but somehow never received the Purple Heart. Biden claimed he first learned of the oversight when he was vice president, from his father.

“So, I got him the Purple Heart. He had won it in the Battle of the Bulge. And I remember he came over to the house and I came out and my father said; ‘Present it to him, okay?’ We had the family there,” Biden said at the veterans’ townhall, according to media accounts.

Of course, there are massive factual errors in Biden’s latest tall tale. Biden’s uncle died in 1999. His father died in 2002, but Biden wasn’t elected vice president until 2008, so there is no way he could have presented his uncle the medal while serving as vice president. Also, there’s no documentation that Biden’s uncle ever received or was recommended for a Purple Heart — either before or after his nephew became vice president.

Biden’s latest lie comes as no surprise to gun owners. We’ve been hooting and hollering about his Second Amendment-related lies for years, but no one listened.

In August, during a rambling and often incoherent campaign speech in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Biden added yet another outlandish fib to his usual list of firearm falsehoods.

“Do you realize the bullet out of an AR-15 travels five times as rapidly as a bullet shot out of any other gun?” Biden asked the crowd.

To be clear, the AR round is quick, but it’s certainly not the fastest, and it’s definitely not five-times faster than all other calibers, which would be ballistically impossible.

In April, Biden created another fanciful tale, and like his Stolen Valor rant, he gave himself the starring role.

Biden was in southern Delaware, he claimed, trudging through the woods during hunting season, when he happened upon a hunter in a creek bed. The hunter asked him if he was going to confiscate his rifle, which Biden said he realized held 20 rounds. “You must be a terrible shot to need that many rounds,” Biden claimed he told the hunter in the creek bed. “Do you think the deer are wearing Kevlar vests?”

This tale was the latest version of one of Biden’s favorite quips, which states that anyone who uses a standard-capacity magazine must be a terrible shot, because deer don’t wear Kevlar vests.

Takeaways

Biden’s stolen valor claims are far worse than his previous false tall tales about Corn Pop, blonde leg hair or fictitious prohibitions regarding civilian cannon ownership.

He is the Commander-in-Chief, after all, the very top of the chain-of-command. By definition, every single member of the military is his subordinate. The CINC receives a lot of salutes, but the job also comes with tremendous responsibility, which Biden seems to ignore.

There’s no doubt that among Friday’s crowd were real Purple Heart recipients — men and women who sacrificed parts of their bodies for our freedom. They deserve an immediate apology, although they’ll likely never receive one.

Be it guns or stolen valor, Joe Biden will never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

I have inadvertently joined a Major Killing Force™

WHO Labels Unvaccinated People a ‘Major Killing Force Globally’

The World Health Organization (WHO) has labeled unvaccinated people a “major killing force globally” in a new campaign being promoted on social media.

The WHO is promoting a new video that targets “anti-vaccine activism” by blasting those who choose not to be vaccinated for supporting “anti-science aggression.”

The video features pediatrician and vaccine advocate Dr. Peter Hotez who laments the “devastating impact of misinformation and disinformation” regarding Big Pharma’s Covid shots.

Hotez goes on to link the so-called “anti-science aggression” of people who refuse the Covid vaccines to “far-right extremism.”

The professor continues by making several unsupported claims that “anti-vaccine activism” now “kills more people” than terrorism, gun violence, and several other crimes.

He then alleges that “anti-science” has become a “political movement.”

The WHO has made this wholesale condemnation of “anti-vaccine activists” despite the emerging risks of the experimental mRNA shots.

As Slay News reported, a Swiss study discovered evidence of heart injury, due to elevated troponin levels, across all vaccinated people, with 2.8 percent showing levels associated with subclinical myocarditis.

Furthermore, a group of scientists recently conducted a risk-benefit analysis which showed that getting a COVID-19 “booster shot” is at least 18 times more dangerous than catching the virus itself for young people under the age of 30, as LifeSite News notes.

However, the WHO’s showcased physician did not acknowledge these facts in his rant.

“We have to recognize that anti-vaccine activism, which I actually call anti-science aggression, has now become a major killing force globally,” Hotez said in the video, using a backdrop of photos of protestors against the Covid shots.

The University Professor of Biology at Baylor College of Medicine claims that “during the Covid pandemic in the United States, 200,000 Americans needlessly lost their lives because they refused a COVID vaccine, even after vaccines became widely available.”

“And now the anti-vaccine activism is expanding across the world […].”

“It’s a killing force,” Hotez proclaimed.

“Anti-science now kills more people than things like gun violence, global terrorism, nuclear proliferation, or cyber-attacks.”

The scientist did not provide evidence for this dramatic claim.

“And now it’s become a political movement,” he continued.

“In the U.S. it’s linked to far [sic] extremism on the far right, same in Germany.”

“So this is a new face of anti-science aggression.

“And so we need political solutions to address this.”

WATCH:

 

Neither Hotez nor the WHO provided any evidence to support the claims in the video that opposition to the vaccines is linked to extremism.

Hotez is a pediatrician who works in the field of vaccine research and development and, in addition to his post at Baylor College of Medicine, is the Chair of Tropical Pediatrics at Texas Children’s Hospital.

Another disingenuous Federal judge.

Federal Judge Denies Injunction Request Against Rhode Island Magazine Confiscation Law

Banning and confiscating commonly-owned ammunition magazines does not run afoul of the Second Amendment.

At least according to U.S. District Judge John McConnell’s reading of the amendment.

On Wednesday, McConnell denied a motion for a preliminary injunction against Rhode Island’s recently passed law banning the sale and possession of ammunition magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds. He said that so-called Large-Capacity Magazines (LCMs) did not count as “arms” protected by the U.S. Constitution.

“The plaintiffs have failed in their burden to demonstrate that LCMs are ‘Arms’ within the meaning of the Second Amendment’s text,” Judge McConnell, an Obama appointee, wrote in his order. “Moreover, even were they ‘arms,’ the plaintiffs have failed to prove that LCMs are weapons relating to self-defense. There is no Second Amendment violation from the LCM Ban because of those two shortfalls of persuasion.”

Continue reading “”

Biden Dumbs Down American Citizenship Test

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced changes to the U.S. naturalization test on Wednesday, reducing the difficulty of the English-speaking section and editing the civics section to make the test easier for citizenship applicants, according to an unpublished notice obtained by the DCNF scheduled for publication Thursday.

The changes will lead to the English-speaking section being curated to more daily conversational subjects, as opposed to more formal subjects formerly discussed, with standardized criteria for assessment that reduce the examiner’s discretion to judge the quality of responses. “Applicants will respond to three color photographs randomly selected from a bank of approximately 70 images that directly correspond to an ordinary usage scenario,”

Additionally, the section on civics will be recrafted to become a multiple-choice format with each question having four options, as opposed to the previous “fill-in-the-blank” test where candidates have to answer a question from memory. The multiple-choice format, used on standardized tests for college admissions like the SAT and ACT, increases the probability of a candidate selecting the right answer by 25%, while allowing the candidates to recall the right answer more easily.

“Primarily, this is about responding to suggestions from the wider community that we’ve received over the past couple of years and making it more fair,” a USCIS official told CNN in advance of the notice’s publication. The proposed test will enter a five-month trial period in 2023 before being adopted later in the year, though current citizenship applicants will use the existing test.

The measure is one of several initiated by the Biden administration to streamline the immigration and naturalization process, as well as reverse Trump-era measures that progressives have claimed were barriers to immigrants’ integration. Twelve days after taking office in 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing government agencies to “identify [and remove] barriers that impede access to immigration benefits” as well as conduct a “comprehensive review…of the civics and English language tests.”

In November 2020, the Trump administration promulgated a new syllabus for the naturalization test, raising the pass threshold to answering 12 out of 20 questions correctly (instead of 10, previously), with a larger question bank of 128 questions. Officials claimed that the test would “provide the applicant with more opportunities to learn about the United States as part of the test preparation process,” per the USCIS website.

The Trump administration’s version of the test contained additional questions about Founding Fathers such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, as well as questions about the Civil War, the spread of communism, the 14th Amendment and the War on Terror, among others. The Biden administration promptly rescinded the new test months later when it took office, reverting back to a 2008 version utilized during the George W. Bush administration.

However, the Biden administration is not changing the English reading and writing sections of the naturalization test. “We welcome input from – and the participation of – stakeholders who are familiar with this important process, as we continue to improve and update our naturalization test,” said USCIS Director Ur M. Jaddou.

The White House, UnidosUS and the Heritage Foundation did not respond to a request for comment.

Appeals Court Stays Another Ruling Against New York Gun-Carry Law

New York will once more be able to enforce another section of its sweeping gun-carry restriction bill.

A three-judge panel of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay against a district court’s decision blocking a ban on carrying a gun on private property that’s open to the public without express permission. The Monday ruling put a hold on the lower court’s injunction as the appeals court waits to hear the case. It is the third stay issued by the panel as lower court judges pick apart New York’s law, passed in response to the Supreme Court striking down the state’s previous strict gun-carry law.

The stay will allow New York to enforce the first-of-its-kind private property provision and arrest anyone who violates it until the appeals court issues its own ruling. Thanks to the intervention of the Second Circuit in two other cases, the same is true for a wide range of other restrictions–from bans on carrying in church or on the subway to a requirement applicants for permits prove they are of “good moral character” by turning over their social media activity to police. The stays represent a reprieve for New York officials and a setback for the gun-rights groups challenging the law.

Judge John Sinatra of the Western District of New York, a Trump appointee, issued a Temporary Restraining Order against New York’s private property provision late last month. He argued the state’s novel policy, which effectively made most of the state off-limits to legal gun-carry by default, violates the Second Amendment.

“Property owners indeed have the right to exclude,” he wrote. “But the state may not unilaterally exercise that right and, thereby, interfere with the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens who seek to carry for self-defense outside of their own homes.”

Sinatra ruled the state defaulting private property that is open to the public, such as retail businesses or restaurants, as off-limits to licensed gun-carriers does not pass the historical test set down by the Supreme Court in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. The state’s rule is the opposite of how every other state regulates gun-carry on private property. Sinatra said he could not identify any historical analogue for the regulation as required by the Bruen standard.

“The Nation’s historical traditions have not countenanced such an incursion into the right to keep and bear arms across all varieties of private property spread across the land,” he wrote.

He declined to issue a stay requested by New York Attorney General Letitia James (D.). He said a stay would only exacerbate the deprivation of New Yorkers’ rights.

“[L]egislative enactments may not eviscerate the Bill of Rights,” he wrote. “Every day they do is one too many.”

The Second Circuit disagreed. The court did not set a date for when arguments in the appeal would begin. However, it did order an expedited briefing schedule for the case.

People who skipped their COVID vaccine are at higher risk of traffic accidents, according to a new study

If you passed on getting the COVID vaccine, you might be a lot more likely to get into a car crash.

People who skipped their COVID vaccine are at higher risk of traffic accidents, according to a new study© Getty Images

Or at least those are the findings of a new study published this month in The American Journal of Medicine. During the summer of 2021, Canadian researchers examined the encrypted government-held records of more than 11 million adults, 16% of whom hadn’t received the COVID vaccine.

They found that the unvaccinated people were 72% more likely to be involved in a severe traffic crash—in which at least one person was transported to the hospital—than those who were vaccinated. That’s similar to the increased risk of car crashes for people with sleep apnea, though only about half that of people who abuse alcohol, researchers found.

The excess risk of car crash posed by unvaccinated drivers “exceeds the safety gains from modern automobile engineering advances and also imposes risks on other road users,” the authors wrote.

Of course, skipping a COVID vaccine does not mean that someone will get into a car crash. Instead, the authors theorize that people who resist public health recommendations might also “neglect basic road safety guidelines.”

Why would they ignore the rules of the road? Distrust of the government, a belief in freedom, misconceptions of daily risks, “faith in natural protection,” “antipathy toward regulation,” poverty, misinformation, a lack of resources, and personal beliefs are potential reasons proposed by the authors.

The findings are significant enough that primary care doctors should consider counseling unvaccinated patients on traffic safety—and insurance companies might base changes to insurance policies on vaccination data, the authors suggest.

First responders may also consider taking precautions to protect themselves from COVID when responding to traffic crashes, the authors added, as it’s more likely that a driver is unvaccinated than vaccinated.

“The findings suggest that unvaccinated adults need to be careful indoors with other people and outside with surrounding traffic,” the authors concluded.

This isn’t the first time that researchers have examined the link between behavior and vaccination status. Among young adults, a 2021 study published in the Journal of Bioeconomics found a correlation between self-reported risky driving and having skipped their flu vaccine. It examined the survey responses of more than 100,000 Canadians.

As Oregon’s Gun Litigation Diverges, a Collision is Inevitable

The legal fight over Oregon’s gun-control ballot initiative is headed in two different directions, but the paths will eventually have to crash back into each other.

In the wake of Measure 114’s adoption last month, gun-rights advocates filed multiple lawsuits against the permit-to-purchase and magazine ban provisions at the state and federal levels. They argued both provisions are unconstitutional under the right to keep and bear arms protections in the United States Constitution and the Oregon Constitution, especially under the standard articulated by the Supreme Court in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. But they got different results at each level.

Harney County Judge Robert Raschio issued a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) against the entirety of the law. U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut delayed implementation of the permit-to-purchase requirement for a month at the request of Oregon officials, who admitted they couldn’t create the system before the deadline but declined to issue a TRO

The judges’ reasoning were in stark contrast to one another. While they both agreed that requiring a permit to buy a gun that was effectively unobtainable violates the right to keep and bear arms, and the requirement would have to be blocked, at least in the short term, they differed on everything else. It’s possible either judge could change their mind, but they both seem pretty convinced of their initial conclusions. It’s more likely higher courts, likely the United States Supreme Court itself, will have to settle the contradictions in their approach–if not in this specific case, at least more generally.

Judge Immergut found Measure 114’s ban on the sale and use of magazines capable of holding more than ten rounds, with limited exceptions, is not unconstitutional. She argued the Second Amendment does not protect the magazines because they are not “necessary to the use of firearms for lawful purposes such as self-defense” since magazines that hold fewer than ten rounds can be used in their place.

“While magazines in general are necessary to the use of firearms for self-defense, Plaintiffs have not shown, at this stage, that magazines specifically capable of accepting more than ten rounds of ammunition are necessary to the use of firearms for self-defense,” Immergut 

“As noted above, the ‘corollary… right to possess the magazines necessary to render… firearms operable’ is ‘not unfettered.’ Instead, the right is limited to magazines that are necessary to render firearms operable for self-defense and other lawful purposes.”

Continue reading “”

White House Reveals Twisted View of Constitution

We wrote earlier about Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch nailed the Colorado Solicitor General for Jack Phillips, the Masterpiece Cakemaker, being forced to undergo “re-education” after refusing to create a custom cake celebrating same-sex marriage because it violated his religious convictions.

Gorsuch made those comments in another case involving a Christian website designer Lorie Smith. Colorado claims that her website design business qualifies as a “public accommodation” so therefore she cannot turn down a request to make a personalized website design advertising a same-sex wedding because it violates her religious beliefs, that she can be compelled to make the website. That amounts to the government’s compelling speech since that’s an expressive message that the designer is creating.

“Mr. Phillips had to go through a reeducation program, did he not?” Gorsuch asked Colorado solicitor general Eric Olson. He retorted that it was actually training to educate him about Colorado law.

“Some would call that a reeducation program,” Gorsuch said.

“I strongly disagree,” the defense attorney replied.

“Isn’t religious belief a protected characteristic?” Gorsuch asked, to which Olson conceded, “yes.”

Phillip’s punishment from the Colorado commission also included a requirement that he submit quarterly reports on his company’s compliance progress.

On Monday, Kristin Waggoner, the Alliance Defending Freedom attorney representing Christian website designer Lorie Smith, noted that because of Colorado’s “aggressive enforcement,” her client’s “speech has been chilled for six years.”

The White House doesn’t have a problem with the government’s compelling speech, as White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre explained, they think it’s just fine to do it.

“Courts have recognized that we can recog–that we can require businesses…to service people, regardless of their backgrounds, even when that means businesses must, incidentally, engage in speech which they disagree upon.”

Now, she’s being cagey, a bit, here with the language and the speech in the pending case would not be “incidental” — it’s the very heart of the request. What she’s talking about is the public accommodation law. But no, the government can’t compel speech, that’s why SCOTUS is considering this case now.

How dare the White House talk about the Constitution and then pretend they can compel speech? Or violate religious beliefs? Who are the fascists again? It’s always the Biden team who has no problem violating the Constitution to achieve the purposes they want.

We saw the White House’s duplicitous approach when it came to Twitter as well. When liberals controlled Twitter, as Elon Musk revealed, the Biden team or the DNC could contact them and get things they didn’t like suppressed. When people complained about getting banned, we were told by the liberals that Twitter was a “private business” and it could do what it wanted to users (despite the fact there was this apparent government collusion behind the scenes). But now that Elon Musk is in charge and Twitter has slipped out of their control, they must monitor and investigate it, to make sure that he complies with what they want.

They think they can dictate to us and that’s what this is about — control. Karine Jean-Pierre doesn’t even have any shame about admitting it.


Observation O’ The Day

One of two scenarios is possible:

1) Katherine Clark is lying about her child’s experiences to stoke hysteria around climate change for political gain.

2) She aggressively instilled unjust fear into her child, causing them to lose sleep over a political talking point.

We hope it’s the former for the sake of the child. Sincerely.

Indeed, but door number two is a distinct possibility:
Progressives Against Progress. [from the summer of 2010!]

The rise of environmentalism poisoned liberals’ historical optimism. “Crankery, in short, became respectable. In 1972, Sir John Maddox, editor of the British journal Nature, noted that though it had once been usual to see maniacs wearing sandwich boards that proclaimed the imminent end of the Earth, they had been replaced by a growing number of frenzied activists and politicized scientists making precisely the same claim.

In the years since then, liberalism has seen recurring waves of such end-of-days hysteria. These waves have shared not only a common pattern but often the same cast of characters. Strangely, the promised despoliations are most likely to be presented as imminent when Republicans are in the White House. In each case, liberals have argued that the threat of catastrophe can be averted only through drastic actions in which the ordinary political mechanisms of democracy are suspended and power is turned over to a body of experts and supermen.”

My thoughts exactly. It’s another version of “Baffle them with BS

BLUF
If the end goal is to chill the lawful commerce of arms, then the more purchases flagged as “suspicious” the better, and despite Gillibrand’s claims that law-abiding citizens have nothing to worry about when it comes to these reporting standards, the skepticism and doubt on the part of many gun owners is well-founded.

Gillibrand demands more action from Biden administration on merchant credit codes for gun stores

The establishment of a new merchant category code for firearm retailers poses all kinds of challenges for both retailers and credit card companies (not to mention privacy concerns for gun buyers). One of the biggest issues; the requirement that credit card companies and financial institutions report all “suspicious” transactions that could involve money laundering, human trafficking, terrorist financing, and other criminal activity to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

With the new merchant category code for firearm retailers, gun control activists and anti-gun politicians want to now expand that reporting requirement to the millions of transactions that take place at FFLs across the country every month. How exactly does a financial institution determine whether a particular transaction is suspicious, particularly when the new merchant credit code for gun stores doesn’t detail what exactly is purchased, only the dollar amount and the location? Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and the head of the anti-gun bank that helped to spearhead the effort to establish the new MCCs were awfully short on specifics when they held a news conference on the matter on Sunday, but the bottom line is that they believe the Biden administration could be doing much more to scrutinize retail sales at gun shops.

Continue reading “”