Have nothing to do with the [evil] things that people do, things that belong to the darkness. Instead, bring them out to the light... [For] when all things are brought out into the light, then their true nature is clearly revealed...

-Ephesians 5:11-13

Far-left Philadelphia Mayor Bans Guns From Public Places, Despite State Preemption Law

Wednesday, 28 September 2022 16:18
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, September 28, 2022:  

Knowing full well that his executive order released Tuesday and declared to be effective immediately would be challenged in court, Jim Kenney, the thug mayor of Philadelphia, in concert with his Soros-backed district attorney, Larry Krasner, challenged the state anyway, declaring: “Bring it on!”

He and his far-left progressive DA have been working successfully to emasculate the city’s law-enforcement culture, resulting in record-setting gun violence by criminals released thanks to lenient/nonexistent prosecution of their crimes. Tuesday’s executive order prohibiting firearms at city parks and recreational centers is just an extension of Kenney’s agenda to limit and ultimately eliminate the private ownership and possession of firearms.

This is, of course, is a necessary step in turning a free republic into a communist dictatorship.

Said Kenney: “There’s no place for guns anywhere, but especially in pools, playgrounds, or rec centers.” This is consistent with his oft-stated belief that only police should have guns: “I would get every gun off the street and every gun shop should be closed.”

That would result in only criminals, the elite, and the state having firearms, thus eliminating any chance for law-abiding citizens to challenge the politicians instituting their tyranny.

Said Krasner, twice elected DA thanks to millions supplied to his campaigns directly by George Soros and indirectly by his many political action committees: “Even if you have a permit to carry, and you go on these premises, you’ve got a problem with me.”

Krasner already has a problem with the Republican-dominated state Legislature, which is considering whether he should be impeached for dereliction of duty. The committee looking into the matter has — not surprisingly — been stymied by Krasner’s unwillingness to comply with their subpoenas.

Lars Dalseide, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association (NRA), sarcastically noted:

Every law-abiding Philadelphian hopes and prays that the violent criminals Mayor Kenney and his woke district attorney carelessly [deliberately] release onto the streets abide by his directive.

 

A more prudent and effective approach would be to arrest, prosecute, and punish these savage criminals for their violent crimes.

He then noted that the Kenney/Krasner directive will go nowhere thanks to Pennsylvania’s preemption law holding that local municipalities may not enact laws stricter than those allowed at the state level:

The simple fact is that Pennsylvania state law prevents local jurisdictions from passing laws that are inconsistent with or more restrictive than state law.

 

This ban is more restrictive and therefore illegitimate.

Under the Kenney/Krasner administration, gun violence in Philadelphia has soared. According to Kathryn Ott Lovell, the city’s commissioner of Parks & Recreation, there have been nearly 300 incidents of gun violence in the city’s recreation facilities alone since 2019.

The Washington Times reports that:

Violent crime has surged during Mr. Krasner’s term, with Black residents overwhelmingly the victims.

 

The homicide rate in 2020 was the highest in three decades. The number of homicides was 499, up 40% from 2019, according to police department figures.

In response to the Kenney/Krasner regime’s attack on law enforcement, citizens have been arming themselves at record rates. According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, concealed carry permit applications are “up 600% from recent years.”

Krasner’s “progressive” policies, aided and abetted by a supportive far-left mayor, include ending criminal charges against those caught possessing marijuana, ending cash bail for criminals charged with “minor” crimes, and demanding lenient sentences for certain crimes. In addition, the progressive reordering of justice in Philadelphia includes reviewing past cases and sentences in order to seek re-sentencing to lesser punishment, or even release from prison.

In his first month as district attorney, Krasner fired 31 pro-law-enforcement assistant attorneys and replaced them with his own brand of progressives.

While the Kenney/Krasner cabal has issued an order that on its face is illegal and contravenes state law, it is indicative of what the world would look like if thugs and criminal politicians like these two were allowed to operate freely: crime would soar, justifying still more government restrictions on the freedom of private citizens to defend themselves, leading ultimately to total government control. That’s the agenda of thugs like Kenney and Krasner and their funders.

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RINO Liz Cheney to Support Democrats

Monday, 26 September 2022 14:07
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, September 26, 2022:  

Liz Cheney, whom Wyoming Republicans obliterated in the party’s primary in August, claimed a year ago that she would do “whatever it takes” to keep Donald Trump out of the White House for a second term.

She repeated her promise on Saturday while speaking at the Texas Tribune Festival. She told the news outlet’s CEO Evan Smith, “I will certainly do whatever it takes to make sure Donald Trump isn’t anywhere close to the Oval Office.”

She included Republican Kari Lake in that promise: “I am going to do everything I can to make sure that Kari Lake is not elected.” Lake, a Republican who is supported by Trump and believes the 2020 election was stolen from him, is presently tied in the polls with her Democrat opponent, Katie Hobbs, in the race for governor of Arizona.

She added that, in her deranged hatred of anything Trump, she would even campaign for Democrats if they were running against a pro-Trump Republican.

She continues to use her position on the faux January 6 “insurrection” investigating committee to keep her name in the spotlight. She said that the committee has just received 800,000 pages of correspondence from the Secret Service in response to a subpoena and that they contain “a lot” of new information.

As for making a criminal referral to the Justice Department, she continues to bide her time, likely waiting to spring her “revelations” as part of the expected “October surprise” designed to sully and damage Trump and his endorsed candidates just before the November midterm elections.

Lake expressed delight when she learned that Cheney was coming after her:

That might be the biggest, best gift I have ever received! The Republican Party — the new Republican Party — is the party of We, the People. It is no longer the party of warmongers.

Christian Ziegler, vice chairman of the Florida GOP, said Cheney’s promise to campaign against her own party “should mobilize a lot of our voters to the polls,” while Steve Bannon, a former Trump advisor, wrote, “This almost certainly guarantees a Kari Lake blowout.” He then added, tongue in cheek, that “Katie Hobbs [her Democrat opponent] should file an immediate protest!”

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Pushback Growing Against Credit-card Companies “Red-flagging” Gun Purchases

Friday, 23 September 2022 16:29
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, September 23, 2022:  

Florida’s chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis, issued a warning on Wednesday to credit-card companies threatening to track gun purchases with a special code:

It is clear that the actions by these credit card companies are part of a larger effort to curtail God-given constitutional rights of Americans….

 

The second amendment is foundational to our American way of life. The idea that law-abiding Americans would be put on some kind of corporate watchlist is disturbing. Our rights come from our Creator, not the government, and especially not big corporations.

Unless Visa, MasterCard, and American Express persuade Patronis that they aren’t implementing the code recommended by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), he will sue them, and work with the Florida legislature to prevent them for operating in his state:

If we come to the legislative session and companies like Visa, Mastercard and American Express are generating these reports to create a chilling effect against the purchase of firearms, then I’ll work with the Legislature to pass a law penalizing businesses who are targeting the right to bear arms….

 

We can also take it a step further by barring these companies from doing any business with the State of Florida. We will send a message out to these large corporations that if you are interested in doing business with Florida, you need to make sure that you’re protecting Floridians right to arm and defend themselves.

Patronis is confident that he is standing on solid Constitutional footing. Referring to the recent federal court ruling in NetChoice v. Paxton, he added, “We’ve seen a groundbreaking ruling come out of the Fifth Circuit limiting corporations’ ability to curtail American’s constitutional rights, so we are on solid legal footing to pursue a bill protecting Floridians 2nd Amendment Rights.”

Patronis is the just latest high-profile figure to push back against the threat posed by credit-card companies tracking gun purchases using a special code.

Those companies announced two weeks ago that they were “ready” to implement the special tracking code allegedly to detect suspicious sales and to prevent potential mass shootings. The perfidy was official, as a MasterCard spokesman said that “it will be implemented by merchants and their banks as we continue to support lawful purchases on our network while protecting the privacy and decisions of individual cardholders.

A spokesman for the National Rifle Association (NRA) disagreed, saying:

The decision to create a firearm-specific code is nothing more than a capitulation to anti-gun politicians and activists bent on eroding the rights of law-abiding Americans, one transaction at a time.

The driving force behind the move by ISO to urge credit card companies to start tracking gun sales was the union-owned Amalgamated Bank, with a majority interest held by Workers United, an SEIU affiliate. Its CEO, Priscilla Sims Brown, said having that data available “could” help reduce violent gun crime:

We could identify and detect where there may be gun sales that are intended for black markets, where we see patterns of gun purchases being made in multiple gun shops.

 

We could see the patterns of behavior that would indicate to us that there is something not right here.

Shannon Watts, founder of anti-gun Moms Demand Action, affirmed the move to track gun purchases: “These new merchant codes will help banks and financial institutions track suspicious and potentially illegal gun purchases.” She failed to clarify exactly what she meant by “suspicious” or “potentially illegal” gun purchases, or who would make those decisions.

The blatant move to allow credit-card companies to identify and track individuals exercising their constitutional rights didn’t sit well with New York Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik, who led 100 of her fellow pro-gun, pro-Second Amendment colleagues to sign a letter of protest against those credit-card companies. She said:

I am adamantly opposed to this attempt to track the information of law-abiding gun owners and am calling out this attempt to infringe on our Constitutional, Second Amendment rights.

 

As Far Left gun grabbing politicians seek to further erode our Constitution, I’m working to ensure credit card companies are not aiding in their anti-Second Amendment agenda.

 

I am demanding immediate answers to protect American citizens’ ability to exercise their Constitutional right to bear arms without fear that the Far Left is tracking their information or that this information will be used against them.

In her letter to Alfred Kelly, CEO of Visa, she said:

We write you today with grave concern regarding your implementation of a new firearm specific Merchant Category Code (MCC).

 

This implementation follows an equally concerning decision by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) to create this MCC, which is an assault on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding American citizens.

She called out the Amalgamated Bank for its role in pushing for the new surveillance tool, calling them “red flags”:

Amalgamated Bank stated its intent to utilize software to flag allegedly suspicious purchases made by Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights and file these red flags with law enforcement.

She also stated that there was no definition of who would be “suspicious” and who would not be, leading to the tracking and registering of every purchaser of a firearm:

There is no accepted, consistent, scientific, or legitimate way to determine from this data what is and what is not a “suspicious” purchase.

 

A gun control advocate could view any desire to own or obtain a firearm as per se suspicious.

 

Instead, this is a transparent attempt to chill the exercise of constitutionally protected rights and to circumvent existing legal restrictions on the creation of firearm registries by the government.

On Tuesday, two dozen state attorneys general sent a letter to the CEOs of each of the major credit card companies (American Express, MasterCard, and Visa), raising the issue of the legality of such a move:

We, the undersigned Attorneys General, write to express our concerns about the legality of recent actions you have taken or are considering taking at the behest of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

 

As our respective States’ chief legal officers, we are tasked with protecting the constitutional rights of our citizens, defending our consumers from privacy intrusions and other abuses, and enforcing antitrust laws.

 

Accordingly, we share our concerns and ask that you take immediate action to comport [do what is right concerning] our consumer protection laws and respect the constitutional rights of all Americans.

If those credit-card companies fail to “comport” and back off, they will face legal action:

Press releases from public officials make clear that the new merchant code was created and adopted in concert with various state actors, which may additionally create the potential for both civil and criminal liability for conspiracy to deprive Americans of their civil rights….

 

Be advised that we will marshal the full scope of our lawful authority to protect our citizens and consumers from unlawful attempts to undermine their constitutional rights.

 

Please keep that in mind as you consider whether to proceed with adopting and implementing this Merchant Category Code.

Attorneys General from the following states signed on to the letter: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wyoming, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Hampshire, and Virginia.

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Christian Pastor Says He Will Not Back Down on School’s Policy Concerning Biblical Sexuality

Thursday, 22 September 2022 13:59
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, September 22, 2022:  

Barry McKeen, a pastor and school administrator of Grace Christian School in Valrico, Florida, has been under attack ever since NBC News learned of an email he sent to parents in June. McKeen has remained strong and stalwart in the face of those attacks.

Grace Christian School, located about 14 miles east of Tampa, offers a strong Christian education to students from pre-K through 12th grade. In June, McKeen sent an email to parents planning on enrolling their children for the upcoming fall semester. The email was titled “Important School Policy Point of Emphasis … Please Read,” and included these statements:

We believe that God created mankind in His image: male (man) and female (woman), sexually different but with equal dignity.

 

Therefore, one’s biological sex must be affirmed and no attempts should be made to physically change, alter, or disagree with one’s biological gender — including, but not limited to, elective sex reassignment, transvestite, transgender, or non-binary gender fluid acts of conduct (Genesis 1:26-28).

 

Students in school will be referred to by the gender on their birth certificate and be referenced in name in the same fashion.

 

We believe that any form of homosexuality, lesbianism, bisexuality, transgender identity/lifestyle, self-identification, bestiality, incest, fornication, adultery and pornography are sinful in the sight of God and the church (Genesis 2:24; Leviticus 18:1-30; Romans 1:26-29; I Corinthians 5:1; I Corinthians 6:9; I Thessalonians 4:2-7).

 

Students who are found participating in these lifestyles will be asked to leave the school immediately.

While the policy is not new, it must be understood and accepted completely, the email said, adding that parents would “have to agree to all policies and procedures before your student may start school in August.”

This was enough to light the fire of indignation among those who don’t follow Christ. In the days immediately after NBC reported on the email, the school came under withering attack, with threats of violence and death threats against McKeen, his family, and his staff.

The Epoch Times reached out to pastor/administrator McKeen on Monday to learn that he remains fixed in his policies and in his determination to keep the school grounded on its purpose:

To help every student to be “thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (II Timothy 3:17);

 

To encourage all students to “love the Lord their God with all their heart and with all their soul and with all their mind, and to love their neighbor as themselves.” (Matthew 22:37-39); and

 

To give Christ the pre-eminence in all things. (Colossians 1:18).

The Times asked if the tidal wave of indignation and threats had subsided. Said McKeen:

The backlash for about a day and a half was very severe, a lot of death threats, burn-my-house-down threats. And then after about a day and a half, most of our commentary turned positive, because some of the more, I guess you could say, conservative outlets started picking up the story.

In the last two weeks, thanks to those “conservative outlets picking up the story,” Grace Christian School has received more than 7,000 emails, with 80 percent of them positive, and many letters of encouragement, some of them enclosing checks.

Those letters and checks came from around the world, with the school receiving more than $45,000 in unexpected donations. Said McKeen, “One guy gave $5,000. I’ve never met him. He’s never been to our church or school. But he read about the story and said, ‘I believe what you’re standing for, and here’s some money.’”

The small school now has a waiting list of more than 100 potential students hoping to gain acceptance for the fall term.

McKeen expressed surprise and dismay that his email had generated so much reaction. Following the NBC story, he told Fox News:

If I backed down from something like this, I’m abandoning what God has said is the truth.

 

I [asked] how is this hard for people to understand? This is what God said. This is one of the many reasons we have a Christian school, and we’re not going to abandon this policy. God has spoken on these issues.

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House Oversight Committee Rejects Republican Resolution to Investigate Hunter Biden

Wednesday, 21 September 2022 20:35
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, September 21, 2022:  

Following two hours of debate on Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee, dominated by Democrats, rejected a resolution from Republicans on the committee seeking documents from White House resident Joe Biden relating to Hunter Biden’s business deals with the Chinese communists, along with those involving other Biden family members.

James Comer, the ranking Republican on the committee said:

This resolution of inquiry requires President Biden to hand over documents in his possession that are related to the Biden family’s international business schemes and influence peddling.

 

Oversight Republicans’ ongoing investigation has revealed the Biden family has peddled access to the highest levels of government to enrich themselves.

 

And unfortunately, often to the detriment of U.S. interests.

 

By passing this resolution of inquiry we will provide the American people with much-needed transparency to understand the Biden family’s businesses.

 

It is time President Biden answers questions about his participation in his family’s business schemes with some of our most significant adversaries for years, including the Chinese Communist Party.

Predictably, the committee rejected the move along party lines, 23-19.

But the rebuff merely delays the inevitable. When Republicans retake control of the House in November, said Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), “We’re absolutely going to look into this stuff. We’re going to reveal it for the American people.”

Much of that “stuff” to which Higgins referred has recently been exposed to public view: “My Son Hunter” became available for live streaming on September 7. Based largely on Hunter’s own personal revelation Beautiful Things, the film warns viewers of its sordid, sinful, and degrading nature:

This picture contains Sex, Prostitution, Drugs, Cronyism, Money Laundering, More Sex, a Laptop from Hell, Chinese Spies, Ukrainian ‘Businessmen’, the CCP, the Selling Out of America, the Big Guy, Corn Pop, More Sex, Additional Drugs, and … Family.

Even Andrew O’Hehir, writing for left-wing Salon, was forced to admit after viewing the film that Hunter “used his dad’s name to get paid big-time by shady companies in China and Ukraine.”

Since 2018 Delaware’s United States Attorney General, David Weiss, has been doing his own investigation into Hunter’s “stuff” and has uncovered sufficient damning evidence to charge him with various felonies. In July Weiss’ investigation had reached what CNN called a “critical juncture” over which charges he and his team might make.

But that “critical juncture” came and went as it ran into an unwritten rule in the Department of Justice, revealed by various whistleblowers, that no charges be made within 60 days of an election.

This outraged 30 Senate Republicans, who sent Attorney General Merrick Garland a letter demanding that he allow Weiss authority to expand his investigation into additional areas of likely felonious behavior by the son of Biden.

From that letter:

As you know, the United States Attorney’s office for the District of Delaware — led by U.S. Attorney Weiss — has been investigating Hunter Biden. There is no way of knowing the entire scope of the investigation, but evidence seems to be mounting that Hunter Biden committed numerous federal crimes, including, but not limited to, tax fraud, money laundering, and foreign-lobbying violations.

 

Indeed, Senators Grassley and Johnson have conducted an investigation for several years that has resulted in the public disclosure of facts that support criminal concerns, including the disclosure of financial records showing the Biden family’s close financial connections to the communist Chinese government and questionable foreign nationals.

 

It is clear that Hunter Biden thrived off of a “pay to play” culture of access to his father, then Vice President Joe Biden, in exchange for financial compensation….

“We believe it is important to provide U.S. Attorney Weiss with special counsel and authorities and protections to allow him to investigate an appropriate scope of potentially criminal conduct…,” the senators said.

It is highly unlikely that Garland will grant such expanded authority to Weiss, thus leaving the door open, come January, for Republicans on the Oversight Committee and in the Senate to pick up where the investigations of Hunter Biden left off.

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Review of “Letter to the American Church” by Eric Metaxas

Tuesday, 20 September 2022 17:09
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, September 20, 2022:  

Author Eric Metaxas, used his #1 best-selling book Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy as the basis for his latest one, Letter to the American Church. Released Tuesday, September 20, Metaxas’ book reveals parallel after parallel between events in the 1930s and events now. He warns that unless the American church awakens from its slumber and its focus on just the Gospel and nothing else, the destruction of America is imminent.

His target: pastors who offer “cheap grace,” i.e., the mental assent that Jesus Christ died for their sins, but leaving out the part about following Him through a totally changed life. He wrote:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer … called the German church to be the church in their time, and as I hope to make clear, his voice to them is his voice to us today, calling the American Church to actually be God’s church, with all that entails, so that we might avoid the mistakes of the German church in in the 1930s, and those direst consequences we know to have been their result….

 

I have written this book because I am convinced the American Church is at an impossibly — and almost unbearably — important inflection point.

 

The parallels to where the German Church was in the 1930s are unavoidable and grim.

 

So the only question … is whether we might understand those parallels, and thereby avoid the fatal mistakes the German Church made during that time, and their superlatively catastrophic results.

 

If we do not, I am convinced we will reap a whirlwind greater even than the one they did.

Example:

The church folded like an accordion in 1954 when then-Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson, angered that local Texas churches called him out for his egregious sins, offered a bill granting tax exemptions to churches provided they don’t get political. It was passed into law and is now called the “Johnson Amendment.”

The parallel:

Pastors in the eighteenth century spoke boldly from their pulpits against the tyranny of King George III, and opposed him by name….

 

[But in the 1950s] it is astonishing that pastors in America allowed this wild idea to go uncontested. In this they behaved rather like many of the submissive pastors in Germany two decades earlier.

Example:

When we think of the death camps and the murder of so many millions … we need to understand that in the beginning [German citizens and their pastors] had no idea where it was leading, and had no idea there were facing nothing less than the forces of anti-Christ.

Parallel:

We are now facing those same forces [but] in different guises … those forces … have an agenda … that is globalist.

Example:

Part of this may be traced back to the 1960s, when the U.S. Supreme Court took prayer out of the public schools … part of a general trend down a path that was fundamentally mistaken in its views of [Thomas] Jefferson’s famous “wall of separation” between church and state.

 

Rather than protecting people of faith from government intrusion, as the Founders intended … the judiciary began to interpret it to mean that the public square should be stripped of faith entirely….

 

Because the American people did not see the dangers … and because Christian leaders did not speak out boldly, the drift toward an unconstitutional and secular view began to be enshrined in our laws and in our culture.

The Covid parallel:

What the Nazis did first, a mere four weeks into Hitler’s [takeover], was to use the incident of the Reichstag Fire — in which a Dutch madman set fire to the German Parliament building — to enact sweeping emergency decrees….

 

It was a stunning erasure of [legitimate] German government, with blitzkrieg swiftness….

 

[The Nazis used the incident] to demonize their enemies … and to crush dissent by instilling fear in anyone who wished to object.

Wayne Grudem, professor of theology at Phoenix Seminary and author of the massive and highly regarded Systematic Theology, was moved to say this about Metaxas’ effort:

[It is] bold and insightful.… Metaxas calls for pastors (and other Christian leaders) who … will be courageous enough to speak unambiguously against the massive anti-Christian forces that now threaten to permanently transform American society and bring to an end America’s role as a beacon of freedom for the world.

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Federal Appeals Court Upholds Texas Bill Prohibiting Social Media From Censoring Content

Monday, 19 September 2022 16:23
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, September 19, 2022:  

The Appeals Court for the Fifth Circuit reversed a lower court’s ruling in NetChoice v. Paxton on Friday, setting the stage for another appeal to the Supreme Court.

At issue is the First Amendment’s guarantee of the right to free speech — “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…” — and whether Texas House Bill 20 violates or upholds it.

When Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill into law last September, he stated:

Social media websites have become our modern-day public square. They are a place for healthy public debate where information should be able to flow freely — but there is a dangerous movement by social media companies to silence conservative viewpoints and ideas.

 

That is wrong, and we will not allow it in Texas.

NetChoice disagreed:

The Act tramples the First Amendment by allowing [Texas] to force private businesses [i.e., Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube] to host speech they don’t want to … [and additionally allows Texas to] police and control speech online, overriding the First Amendment rights of [those businesses].

Fifth Circuit Judge Andrew Oldham, a Trump nominee with a law degree from Harvard, minced few words in his decision:

A Texas statute named House Bill 20 generally prohibits large social media platforms from censoring speech based on the viewpoint of its speaker.

 

The platforms urge us to hold that the statute is facially unconstitutional and hence cannot be applied to anyone at any time and under any circumstances.

 

In urging such sweeping relief, the platforms offer a rather odd inversion of the First Amendment. That Amendment, of course, protects every person’s right to “the freedom of speech.”

 

But the platforms argue that buried somewhere in the person’s enumerated right to free speech lies a corporation’s unenumerated right to muzzle speech. [Emphasis in original]

He and fellow appeals court judges Edith Jones and Leslie Southwick rejected outright that “rather odd inversion”:

Today we reject the idea that corporations have a freewheeling First Amendment right to censor what people say.

 

Because the district court held otherwise, we reverse its injunction and remand [return it to the lower court] for further proceedings.

Because Friday’s decision is counter to a ruling by an appeals court in Florida on the same issue, it is certain to be appealed to the high court once again for final resolution.

Oldham lays the groundwork for that appeal:

The First Amendment protects speech: It generally prevents the government from interfering with people’s speech or forcing them to speak.

 

The Platforms [NetChoice, et al.] argue that because they host and transmit speech, the First Amendment also gives them an unqualified license to invalidate laws [like Texas House Bill 20] that hinder them from censoring speech they don’t like.

 

And they say that license entitles them to pre-enforcement facial relief against HB 20.

 

We reject the Platforms’ attempt to extract a freewheeling censorship right from the Constitution’s free speech guarantee.

 

The Platforms are not newspapers. Their censorship is not speech. They’re not entitled to pre-enforcement facial relief. And HB 20 is constitutional because it neither compels nor obstructs the Platforms’ own speech in any way.

 

The district court erred in concluding otherwise and abused its discretion by issuing a preliminary injunction. The preliminary injunction is VACATED, and this case is REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

Big Social Media sued in December, getting a judge to block the bill’s enforcement.

Texas appealed to the Fifth Circuit, which lifted the sanction, but NetChoice et al. immediately appealed to the Supreme Court. The high court suspended the law pending a full review by the Fifth Circuit. Friday’s decision by the Fifth Circuit overruled the lower court’s sanction, setting in motion another appeal to the Supreme Court.

The Texas law bars social media platforms from acting to “block, ban, remove, de-platform, demonetize, de-boost, restrict, deny equal access or visibility to, or otherwise discriminate against expression.”

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Chicago’s Richest Resident Moves to Florida

Thursday, 15 September 2022 13:29
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, September 15, 2022: 

At first blush this is hardly news. Illinois has high taxes. Florida has no personal income tax. But for Ken Griffin, the billionaire entrepreneur who made his money trading stocks and then started two companies that trade stocks, there’s another reason: crime.

While a student at Harvard, Griffin persuaded school administrators to allow a satellite dish to be installed on the roof of his dormitory so he could receive stock quotes. He turned a few dollars into many, moved to Chicago after graduation, and now sports a net worth of nearly $30 billion.

He owns 80 percent of Citadel LLC, a multinational hedge fund already operating in Miami, and 100 percent of Citadel Securities, one of the largest market makers in the U.S. Approximately one-third of all individual stock transactions that take place in the United States are completed through Citadel Securities.

Citadel employs more than 1,000 people, and they are tired of being attacked on the way to and from work. Said Griffin:

If people aren’t safe here, they’re not going to live here. I’ve had multiple colleagues mugged at gunpoint. I’ve had a colleague stabbed on the way to work, countless issues of burglary.

Griffin himself experienced an attempted carjacking, and there continue to be reports of shootings, riots, and looting near some of his employees’ homes.

In June he announced to his employees that he was moving Citadel Securities to Miami, and then moved himself and his family to the Sunshine State. This follows similar moves, for perhaps similar reasons, by Boeing (which is moving its operations to Arlington, Virginia) and Caterpillar (which is moving its operations to Dallas-Ft. Worth in Texas).

While Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker is putting the best possible face on Griffin’s departure — “Countless companies are choosing Illinois as their home,” he said — Citadel’s move will cost Chicago and the state billions of future tax dollars, as well as more than $600 million in gifts that Griffin himself has given to local charities and other good works over the past 30 years.

It’s true that Florida has lower taxes than Illinois. According to the Tax Foundation, Florida ranks #4 in its State Business Tax Climate Index, while Illinois lags far behind in the #36 position. That’s because, in every tax category — corporate taxes, individual income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and unemployment insurance premiums — Illinois’ burdens are significantly higher that Florida’s.

On a per capita basis, which is the best measure of how those taxes impact the working individual — who ultimately pays all taxes — Florida collected $2,002 on average from each citizen in 2020, while Illinois extracted almost twice as much: $3,534.

But on crime the difference is staggering. In Chicago the violent crime rate, according to Neighborhood Scout, is 9.69 per 1,000 residents. In Miami, it’s 6.00 per 1,000. The chances of becoming a victim of a violent crime in Chicago are one out of every 103 residents; in Florida it’s one out of every 167.

Taken all together then — weather (the average temperature in January in Chicago is 26 degrees; in Miami in January it’s 69 degrees), taxes, and crime — one wonders why Griffin and Citadel stayed so long in such an inhospitable place.

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New Software Negates Latest “Ghost Gun” Rules

Wednesday, 14 September 2022 21:22
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, September 14, 2022:  

A new software program (protected under the First Amendment) is protecting the Second Amendment. The software allows a 3D printer to create a “jig,” a simple but necessary piece of plastic that is used in assembling a firearm at home.

After the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) issued its latest infringement on the Second Amendment, software developers quickly created open source (free to the world) software to allow owners of 3D printers to print out their own jig. In essence this is an end-run around the latest ATF transgression of precious rights.

The continuing flow of misinformation from the ATF sets up the straw man to justify its latest violation of the Second Amendment:

To help keep guns from being sold to convicted felons and other prohibited purchasers, the rule makes clear that retailers must run background checks before selling kits that contain the parts necessary for someone to readily make a gun.

 

To help law enforcement trace guns used in a crime, the rule modernizes the definition of frame or receiver, clarifying what must be marked with a serial number – including in easy-to-build firearm kits.

 

To help reduce the number of unmarked and hard-to-trace “ghost guns,” the rule establishes requirements for federally licensed firearms dealers and gunsmiths to have a serial number added to 3D printed guns or other un-serialized firearms they take into inventory.

It admitted that its latest transgression generated a lot of pushback from gun owners:

On May 7, 2021, the Department of Justice issued a notice of proposed rulemaking, and during the 90-day open comment period, the ATF received more than 290,000 comments, the highest number of comments submitted to a proposed rule in ATF’s history.

Here’s the loophole in the new regulation that software developers are exploiting: if the jig isn’t part of the “kit,” then there’s no firearm under the latest definition and hence no required background check. Specifically, the rule states that when an unfinished frame or receiver is “distributed or possessed with a compatible jig or template,” it is now automatically considered to be a firearm. Leave out the jig, however, and the” kit” is incomplete and doesn’t fall under the rule.

On its website, Tactical Machining in Orlando, Florida, offers this update to its customers:

As many of you know or heard, ATF’s lawless and corrupt ruling went into effect on August 24, 2022. At the advice of our counsel, Tactical Machining was advised to maintain a holding pattern. Since then, we have some developing updates.

 

Per ATF, 80% AR-15 lowers are still legal!

 

In recent testimony during lawsuits against the ATF, they have admitted in open court that the “Final rule” does not restrict the sale of 80% lowers IF they are not sold with a jig/instructions or Templates.

 

Our local ATF agent tasked with enforcing the new rule changes also confirmed, in writing, that all of Tactical Machining’s 80% products are legal to buy and sell since we stopped offering our jigs.

Jim Jusick, Tactical’s design engineer and manager, quoted this from that letter from the ATF:

As we’ve been instructed, and our understanding here in Orlando, the unfinished receiver, with a jig, instructions, or template is NOT A FIREARM.

 

The combination of such an item (unfinished receiver) with other parts (excluding the jig) does not reach the standard for Readily Convertible.

 

In other words, your manufacture and selling of unfinished receivers with a lower parts kit [without the jig] does not meet the [newly defined] firearm threshold.

Just as was the case with radar detectors, developers were always one step ahead of the enforcers. In their zeal to criminalize all gun owners and eventually disarm them, the enforcers continue to play catch-up ball with the developers.

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Oberlin College Finally Gives Up, Pays Up in False Racism Charges Against Local Bakery

Tuesday, 13 September 2022 21:13
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, September 13, 2022:  

The board of trustees of Oberlin College — a proud incubator of radical student progressivism almost since its founding — gave up the fight last Thursday, declaring it “would not pursue the matter further.” It has begun paying out to Gibson’s, a local bakery in Oberlin since 1885, the $36,590,000 awarded by the court.

The “matter,” put succinctly, is the attack on the bakery by Oberlin College officials, professors, and several hundred students that occurred six years ago.

Three black students entered the store (which also sells wine) on November 9, 2016, and the police recorded what happened next:

On Wednesday, November 9, 2016, at approximately 4:58pm, officers responded to the area of Gibson’s Bakery in reference to a report of a fight in progress.

 

As officers were responding to the area, dispatch advised that this was involving an alleged theft complaint.

 

Dispatch advised that Allyn Gibson, who is an employee of Gibson’s Bakery, was attempting to apprehend a subject who Allyn had witnessed attempt to steal several items.

 

As officers approached the area, Sgt. Ortiz, and Officer Feuerstein both stated they observed Allyn Gibson lying on his back with several individuals kneeling over him punching and kicking him….

 

Officers attempted to gain control of the situation and were met several times with resistance from several different individuals.

 

After a few minutes officers were finally able to take one female into custody and calm the incident and attempt to figure out what had taken place.

Please note the day: This was the day after Donald Trump was surprisingly (and legally) elected president of the United States, and the students and faculty of this communist training center in the small town of Oberlin, Ohio (population 8,000), were suffering mightily. There were tears, mourning, whining, weeping — and anger.

When Jonathan Aladin (aka Elijah Aladin), who was accompanied by two female associates, tried to purchase some wine using a fake ID, the owner of the store, Allyn Gibson (son and grandson of the owners), turned him down. Gibson noted that Aladin had two bottles of wine inside his coat, and when Gibson pulled out his iPhone to take a photo, Aladin slapped it away, striking Gibson’s face.

The three then ran out of the store, with Gibson in hot pursuit. Gibson attempted to detain Aladin, but Aladin knocked him to the ground and the two female associates joined in the melee. They were punching and kicking Gibson when the police arrived.

Those are the facts.

But to the upside-down, truth-is-falsehood, criminals-are-the victims world in which Oberlin College lives, this was an act of racism, pure and simple: a white man attacking a black man. End of discussion.

School officials supported a student-led riot involving some 200-300 radicals outside the bakery the following day. Some of the school’s staff, including the dean of students — one Meredith Raimondo — distributed flyers that said: “This is a RACIST establishment with a LONG ACCOUNT of RACIAL PROFILING and DISCRIMINATION. PLEASE STAND WITH US.”

The flyer, created by Raimondo and copied by the thousands on college copy machines, gave this view of the incident:

A member of our community [Aladin] was assaulted by the owner [Gibson] of this establishment [Gibson’s] yesterday.

 

A nineteen y/o young man [Aladin] was apprehended and choked by Allyn Gibson of Gibson’s Food Mart & Bakery.

 

The young man, who was accompanied by 2 friends [Cecelia Whettstone and Endia Lawrence] was choked until the 2 forced Allyn to let go.

 

After [t]he young man was free, Allyn chased him across College St. and into Tappan Square.

 

There, Allyn tackled him and restrained him again until Oberlin police arrived.

 

The 3 were racially profiled on the scene.

 

They were arrested without being questioned, asked their names, or read their rights.

 

2 were released shortly after and charged with assault.

 

The young man is being held in Lorain County Jail, charged with robbery….

 

If you have been victimized by this establishment in any capacity, we ask you to stand with us in support of our community member.

Oberlin’s student senate participated in the canard, publishing this:

A Black student was chased and assaulted at Gibson’s after being accused of stealing.

 

Several other students, attempting to prevent the assaulted student from receiving further injury, were arrested and held by the Oberlin Police Department.

 

In the midst of all this, Gibson’s employees were never detained and were given preferential treatment by police officers.

 

Gibson’s has a history of racial profiling and discriminatory treatment of students and residents alike.

This statement appeared in the college public square, where it remained posted for a year after the incident.

This is the “reality” in which Oberlin students are immersed, ready to spread their poison to the culture upon graduation. They have both the dean of students, Meredith Raimondo, and the college’s vice president of communications, Ben Jones, as role models.

When retired Oberlin professor Roger Copeland (from another time and, to the students, another planet) wrote a year after the incident, “The time has come for the Dean of Students Meredith Raimondo, on behalf of the College, to apologize to the Gibson family,” she texted: “F**k him….”

Jones remained unrepentant for his and his school’s support of the boycott of Gibson’s. In an email, he posted this screed:

All these idiots complaining about the college hurting a “small local business” are conveniently leaving out their massive (relative to the town) conglomerate and price gouging on rents and parking and the predatory behavior toward most other local business. F**k ’em.

The school had been fighting the lawsuit brought by Gibson’s since 2016, finally giving up when the state’s Supreme Court refused to hear its appeal. The award — the largest in state history — would have been vastly larger except that the state has capped such damage claims at just $25 million. The balance due is legal fees incurred by Gibson’s.

The school said it has begun the process of transferring the funds demanded by the court to Gibson’s, announcing that “this does not diminish our respect for the law and the integrity of our legal system.”

Nor its mission to turn students into radicals.

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Many of the articles on Light from the Right first appeared on either The New American or the McAlvany Intelligence Advisor.
Copyright © 2021 Bob Adelmann