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

ABC News’ “One Nation Under Fire” Will Promote the Lie About Gun Violence in the U.S.

Friday, 23 July 2021 14:44
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, July 23, 2021: 

ABC News is launching another attack on gun rights, starting Sunday. Its project, called “One Nation Under Fire”, will join with ABC affiliates across the country as well as with Good Morning America and GMA3. Variety, which made the announcement, breathlessly rejoiced that “various ABC-owned stations may also contribute their own reports on findings in their area of coverage.”

So, what will ABC News be using as its source to back up the attack? False data from the Gun Violence Archive, long considered to be biased in favor of more gun regulations and controls.

Said Pierre Thomas, ABC News’ chief justice correspondent, “We hope this is going to give us a better sense of who, what, where and why and that people will walk away from this with a much better sense of what’s happening.” That would include, of course, according to Variety, “solutions that might help reduce gun violence.”

Those watching to the end will no doubt have their opinions formed in the cauldron of canards, misinformation, and distortions served up by Gun Violence Archive.

For one example, according to the FBI, the media’s portrayal of “mass shootings” is more than 10 times higher than reality. The FBI reported that in 2016 there were 20 mass shootings, while GVA reported that there were 382. In 2017, the FBI reported 31, while GVA reported 346.

In 2018, the FBI reported 30 mass shootings, but GVA reported that there were 337. In 2019, the last year for which comparisons are available, the FBI reported there were 30 mass shootings, while the GVA reported that there were 417.

Why the great discrepancy? The GVA explains: “GVA uses a purely statistical threshold to define mass shooting based ONLY on the numeric value of 4 or more shot or killed, not including the shooter.” It adds:

GVA does not … exclude … victims based upon the circumstances in which they were shot.

That means the GVA includes any and all incidents, including gang- or drug-related shootings. It includes self-defense shootings, domestic disputes, shootings that include crossfire as a byproduct of another criminal act, and accidents (“actions that appeared not to have put other people in peril”).

The media, including ABC News, fails to mention the huge chasm between what the FBI reports and what GVA reports.

John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, complained that the focus on guns, both by the media and the White House, ignores this basic fact: More than 90 percent of violent crimes in American do not involve firearms at all.

Lott explains that, in attempting to rein in violence, many other relevant factors are ignored: unrest over the George Floyd murder; the impact of the COVID restrictions, including mass layoffs and youths being kept out of schools; the early release of many convicts from prison; softening of bail rules that allow those accused of crimes to remain on the streets; police ordered to stand down; police departments having their funding reduced; and liberal prosecutors in many major urban areas refusing to prosecute violent criminals.

Lott also points out facts that are conveniently missing from the mainstream media’s (and likely ABC News’ “One Nation Under Fire”) including: More than half of all murders in the country take place in just 60 of the nation’s 3,140 counties, most of them occurring within a 10-block area. Gun violence there is overwhelmingly gang related.

For those intending to watch ABC News’ “One Nation Under Fire,” they would do well to remember that what is being presented is propaganda, not reality. It will be another part of the effort to separate gun owners from their firearms, turn local police departments into mere appendages of a national police force, and prepare the nation for the imposition of the left-wing Marxist agenda.

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Michigan Legislators Repeal Law Governor Whitmer Abused During Pandemic

Thursday, 22 July 2021 13:55
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, July 22, 2021:  

Members of the Michigan House of Representatives voted 60-48 on Wednesday to end permanently the odious and unconstitutional 76-year-old law that Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer used and abused to inflict untold damage on her citizens during and after the COVID pandemic.

The Senate had already passed the measure ending the law — the Emergency Powers of the Governor Act, or EPGA — which dates back to 1945. The Michigan Supreme Court had previously ruled that the law was unconstitutional:

The Governor did not possess the authority to exercise emergency powers under the EPGA because the act unlawfully delegates legislative power to the executive branch in violation of the Michigan Constitution.

Whitmer unconstitutionally implemented draconian measures on her citizenry, including applying criminal charges for operating a motorboat, visiting a secondary home, and banning stores from selling gardening supplies. Pushback was almost immediate, with lawsuits being filed and public protests arising over those measures.

Her mandates resulted in the creation of Unlock Michigan, a citizen campaign that forced the issue when it gathered more than 540,000 signatures on a petition to repeal the law. It wasn’t sufficient for the state’s high court to declare it unconstitutional; citizens wanted to repeal the law entirely to keep it from being resurrected some time in the future. As one state legislator said, “Bad ideas never die in Lansing, they just take naps. And this one could wake back up.”

Whitmer is powerless to veto the measure, as it was a citizen petition rather than a bill offered by the state legislature. Previous attempts to repeal the unconstitutional law were passed but then vetoed by Whitmer and her veto couldn’t be overridden. This way she is powerless to keep the law in place.

State Representative Andrew Fink, a Republican, said that the law “is discordant with the principles of American government, which are designed to prevent a single part of the government from acting unilaterally.”

Said House Speaker Jason Wentworth: “Hundreds of thousands of our families, friends and neighbors changed Michigan forever when they decided they had enough and stood up to make a difference.”

State Representative Matt Hall added:

Our action today helps reestablish needed balance between the executive and legislative branches during an emergency, something that has been so desperately missing during this pandemic.

This is the essence of the unique American experiment: that citizens are sovereign over their government, and not the other way around. The lesson from history is that governments, given the opportunity, will shortly become oppressive and destructive of citizens’ liberties. Unless bound down from such mischief by the chains of a constitution, governments will become tyrannical.

Another lesson from the victory in Michigan is that it is repeatable. California Governor Gavin Newsom is shortly to face a recall election by unhappy citizens over the same excessive use of government force, using COVID as the excuse.

Unlock Michigan is far from done. It shortly will begin circulating petitions to revise another law that Whitmer’s executive branch abused, which allowed the state health department to continue to promulgate and enforce Whitmer’s directives even after the Supreme Court ruled the 1945 law unconstitutional. If successful, the new petition will rein in the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, making its orders such as masking and capacity restrictions unenforceable after 28 days unless extended by the legislature.

Tyrants can have their wings clipped and their overreach reined in only if an aroused citizenry takes action. As Thomas Jefferson said, “they are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”

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Gun-rights Groups Weigh in on Supreme Court Case on New York’s Concealed-carry Restrictions

Wednesday, 21 July 2021 20:50
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, July 21, 2021:  

Two gun-rights groups — the National Foundation for Gun Rights and the National Association for Gun Rights — have entered the fray over the Second Amendment. On Tuesday they filed an amici curiae (friends of the court) brief on the complaint filed by two gun owners against the State of New York.

When New York citizens Robert Nash and Brandon Koch each applied for permission to carry a firearm outside the home, permission was denied. The official used his discretion, claiming that neither Nash nor Koch had provided “proper cause” sufficient to justify his granting them such permission.

It didn’t matter that both of them cited their needs for self-protection, nor that each had completed extensive firearms training. It didn’t matter that they were upstanding law-abiding citizens concerned for their personal safety. New York has structured the law in such a way that almost no one can obtain such permission.

Each joined with the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association (NYSRPA) in filing suit in federal court in February 2018, claiming that the official violated their Second Amendment-protected rights. In December, a district court dismissed their complaint. They appealed. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal in August 2020.

They appealed to the Supreme Court, and on April 26, 2021, the high court agreed to hear the appeal, but with a catch: The NYSRPA wanted the high court to rule on “whether the Second Amendment allows the government to prohibit ordinary law-abiding citizens from carrying handguns outside the home for self-defense.” This would cure and close the loophole left behind in the Heller decision.

The high court instead limited the question to: “Whether [New York’s] denial of petitioners’ application for concealed-carry licenses for self-defense violated the Second Amendment.”

In other words, by limiting the question just to the application required to obtain a permit to carry concealed in New York, the high court is already, by inference, allowing other infringements to remain in place. The core right guaranteed by the Second Amendment will remain open to question even if the high court finds New York’s restrictions on its application unconstitutional.

Nevertheless, the amici curiae makes the case for the fullest and broadest understanding of the Second Amendment even if the high court refuses to consider it in the present case.  The brief notes that “New York officials only grant a permit if an applicant can show ‘proper cause’ … [but] the term ‘proper cause’ is not defined within the statute.” This then “makes it impossible for the typical law-abiding New Yorker to obtain such a permit.”

Just the requiring of a permit to exercise a right is, in and of itself, an infringement:

Requiring law-abiding citizens to obtain a special permit to keep and bear arms, whether for concealed or open carry, violates the Second Amendment….

 

This is clear from the text of the Second Amendment itself, which enumerated the right and declared that it “shall not be infringed.”

The brief expands the argument that the Second Amendment doesn’t stand alone but is part of the remarkable “experiment in liberty” represented by the Constitution of the United States and its Bill of Rights:

The right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right necessary to our system of ordered liberty.… It is an individual right that existed prior to the Founding….

It is unique:

The right to keep and bear arms is an advantage to that system of ordered liberty “which [quoting Federalist No. 46] the Americans posses over the people of almost every other nation.”

The brief extended its quote from Federalist, No. 46:

Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation … it forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition.

New York’s restrictions contradict the intention of the Founders:

That original understanding binds government from creating policy and regulations which encroach on the original understanding of the pre-existing right that the Second Amendment protects.

The brief also dispatches any notion that somehow only “a well-regulated militia” may carry firearms, by quoting from the high court’s ruling in Heller:

At the time of the founding, as now, to “bear” meant to “carry”…. The phrase implies that the carrying of the weapon is for the purpose of “offensive or defensive action,” [and] it in no way connotes participation in a structured military organization.

The brief makes the case that the Second Amendment’s position as an enumerated right removes it from discretionary restrictions by governments. It quoted Justice Clarence Thomas:

The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government — even the Third Branch of Government [the Judicial] — the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon.

 

A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges’ assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all.

The brief invites the high court to broaden its consideration of the matter:

This Court should focus on the fact that the exercise of the right to keep and bear arms, concealed or not, was never understood, in the history and traditions of that right, at the Founding, to be limited to the home … a right so limited to one’s home would be no “right” at all.

The brief reminds the high court of the sovereignty of the individual citizen:

[In] our particular form of government … it is the individual citizen who stands as the ultimate source of governmental power and authority.

 

It is the individual citizen who ultimately possesses inalienable and pre-existing rights such as the right to keep and bear arms for self-defense against tyranny and violence.

The brief decries attempts by the courts to keep the Second Amendment as a “second-class” right:

Consider the value of the rights to speech, assembly, and religion [in the First Amendment] were they to be relegated only to being exercised within the home. Such limitation would neuter the right to the point of it being meaningless.

The brief concludes that “there is no historical or legal basis for the lower courts restricting the right to keep and bear arms, concealed or not, to being exercised solely within the home.” Consequently,

Governments and courts that fear or dislike arms should not be able to cavalierly treat the right of citizens to keep and bear arms, concealed or not, as a lesser right than the right to speech, assemble, or practice one’s religion.

Whether the high court listens and agrees to expand its consideration of the complaint to encompass the full and robust guarantee of the Second Amendment remains to be seen. There are six so-called originalists now on the high court, but recent rulings have brought into question just how “originalist” they really are.

The high court will hear arguments in the fall and make its ruling next spring. In the meantime, the war against private ownership of firearms continues.

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Democrat Support for Biden’s ATF Pick Is Crumbling

Tuesday, 20 July 2021 13:54
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, July 20, 2021:

Joe Biden’s pick to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, or ATF, David Chipman, has such a sorry and odious anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment, and anti-American stance on the private ownership of firearms that even the No. 2 Senate Democrat is having second thoughts.

On Monday, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said “there are a lot of issues” with Chipman, admitting that the nomination “is not where we want it yet, but there’s always a chance.”

That’s Democrat double-speak for “any chance Chipman had to be confirmed by the Senate is now zero.”

Those “issues” to which Durbin referred were reviewed by The New American in May. Chipman’s responses to particularly probing questions by Republican senators were diffident, indirect, and in some cases incoherent. When pressed, he couldn’t define an “assault” weapon, even though he had worked for the ATF for 25 years and no doubt carried one on his person much of that time.

When quizzed about looking into Hunter Biden’s lying on the ATF’s Form 4430 in order to purchase a firearm, Chipman responded, “I will ensure that all violations of law are investigated and referred to.” Regarding Hunter Biden specifically, Chipman was incoherent: “I’m not sure that it has not been investigated.”

Unimpressed with his lies, prevarications, and distortions, not a single Republican Senator leaving the hearing said he would support the Biden nominee. That means that every single one of the 50 Democrat Senators must line up behind Chipman, or his nomination is dead.

The committee deadlocked, 11-11, on whether or not to move his nomination to the floor. That leaves the issue in the hands of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has yet to schedule a floor vote on the nomination.

At least eight Democrats, not including Durbin, are having their doubts. As of Monday, Maine Independent Senator Angus King (who caucuses with the Democrats) said that he still hadn’t made up his mind about Chipman. Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said he was still “working on it.”

Senate Democrat Jon Tester (D-Mont.) said he’s “still analyzing” the issue but added that he’s not “feeling the urgency” to move ahead with the Chipman nomination. Others not “feeling the urgency” include Senators Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), and Gary Peters (D-Mich.).

Chipman hasn’t helped himself with his anti-gun sentiments. But most enraging are his deprecating comments about American gun owners. His denigration made headlines in March when he told them to “secure that gun, locked and unloaded, and hide it behind the cans of tuna and beef jerky that you have stored in a cabinet, and only bring that out if the zombies start to appear.”

With that, he ended his nomination. Those law-abiding gun owners didn’t need to know that he remains on the payroll of the anti-gun Giffords Law Center, or that he previously worked for Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun Everytown for Gun Safety. They didn’t need to know that Chipman, if confirmed, would advance the plan to disarm the American people as part of the Left’s attempt to transform America.

For all intents and purposes, Chipman’s nomination is dead.

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WSJ Headline Misleading: Democrats Will Greatly Increase IRS Funding

Monday, 19 July 2021 13:59
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This article was published by TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, July 19, 2021:  

The Wall Street Journal trumpeted the good news on Monday: “Senate Infrastructure Bill Drops IRS Funding.” It failed to mention, until deep into the article, that Democrats dropped the provision in favor of another much more robust measure to increase IRS funding.

Meeting resistance from some Republican senators over the increased funding, Senate Democrats instead are planning on increasing the revenue gathering agency’s budget by much more than the $40 billion that was taken off the table on Sunday. They will include new funding for the agency in the $3.5 trillion spending plan that they plans to pass using the reconciliation process, which they can accomplish without any Republican support.

Senate leaders, including RINO Ohio Senator Rob Portman, admitted that, in light of the Republican resistance, “there are other ways” to increase the IRS’ funding.

Said Portman:

One reason [the agreement to increase IRS funding] is [no longer] part of the proposal is that we did have pushback [from Republicans].

 

Another reason is that we found out that the Democrats were going to put a [much more robust] proposal into the reconciliation package … with a lot more IRS enforcement.

The original plan was touted as a “bipartisan” effort to spend money on “infrastructure,” thus lending credibility to the plan. A lack of sufficient Republican support, however, forced Democrats to change tactics and add the new funding in a way that doesn’t require any Republican support.

Increased funding for the IRS was being sold as a way to pay for the new spending. Biden administration official Charles Rettig, head of the tax collection and enforcement agency, laid the groundwork for the canard back in April. He said that the gap between taxes owed and taxes collected was about $1 trillion every year, and that all that he needed was more money to go after the tax deadbeats whom he said were cheating.

Many saw through the facade, reminding other senators of past IRS abuses. (Remember Lois Lerner and her targeting of conservative groups under Obama?) Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz had the audacity to suggest the proper thing to do with the agency. Increasing its funding, he said, would be a “foolish and dangerous idea,” adding, “Rather than giving tens of billions of dollars to the IRS to harass and persecute American taxpayers, I think we should abolish the IRS and instead adopt a simple flat tax.”

The Wall Street Journal failed to inform with its misleading headline. The progressive revolution continues unabated. The “rush to control the pass” continues as the mid-term elections come ever closer, allowing citizens to express at the ballot box their real feelings about that revolution.

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Circuit Court: Law Prohibiting Citizens Under 21 From Purchasing Handguns Unconstitutional

Saturday, 17 July 2021 06:15
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, July 16, 2021:  

In ruling for the majority of the three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday, Judge Julius N. Richardson not only reversed a lower court’s ruling, he exposed the fatal flaw behind Congress’ creation of the Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968: Congress relied on fudged numbers to make its case restricting the gun rights of those under 21.

The original lawsuit was brought by 19-year-old Natalia Marshall in 2018 after she was denied the freedom to purchase a handgun for personal protection. Familiar with firearms since an early age, she decided to attempt to purchase one through a licensed dealer, but was denied thanks to the 1968 law:

[It is] unlawful for any licensed … dealer … to sell or deliver any firearm or ammunition to any individual … who the licensee knows … is less than twenty-one years of age.

Richardson wrote:

When do constitutional rights vest? At 18 or 21? 16 or 25? Why not 13 or 33?

 

In the law, a line must sometimes be drawn. But there must be a reason why constitutional rights cannot be enjoyed until a certain age.

 

Our nation’s most cherished constitutional rights vest no later than 18. And the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms is no different.

 

Plaintiff seeks an injunction and a declaratory judgment that several federal laws and regulations that prevent federally licensed gun dealers from selling handguns to any 18-, 19-, or 20-year-old violate the Second Amendment.

 

We first find that 18-year-olds possess Second Amendment rights. They enjoy almost every other constitutional right, and they were required at the time of the Founding to serve in the militia and furnish their own weapons….

 

Looking through this historical lens to the text and structure of the Constitution reveals that 18- to 20-year-olds have Second Amendment rights. Virtually every other constitutional right applies whatever the age. And the Second Amendment is no different.

 

The militia laws in force at the time of ratification uniformly required those 18 and older to join the militia and bring their own arms.

While some historical restrictions existed, none support finding that 18-year-olds lack rights under the Second Amendment.

 

Judge Richardson then opened Pandora’s Box:

We then ask, as our precedent requires, whether the government has met its burden to justify its infringement of those rights under the appropriate level of scrutiny.

 

To justify this restriction, Congress used disproportionate crime rates to craft overinclusive laws that restrict the rights of overwhelmingly law-abiding citizens.

 

And in doing so, Congress focused on purchases from licensed dealers without establishing those dealers as the source of the guns 18- to 20-year-olds use to commit crimes.

 

So we hold that the challenged federal laws and regulations are unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

 

Despite the weighty interest in reducing crime and violence, we refuse to relegate either the Second Amendment or 18- to 20-year-olds to a second-class status. Congress may not restrict the rights of an entire group of law-abiding adults because a minuscule portion of that group commits a disproportionate amount of gun violence….

 

Neither the government nor [its “friends”, i.e., Brady, Giffords, Everytown, etc.] can show that the burden of the challenged laws imposed on 18- to 20-year-olds’ rights has led to any meaningful or measurable positive effects. This highlights the lack of a reasonable connection between licensed dealers and gun crimes.

This is extraordinary. After 53 years of “settled law,” Judge Richardson boldly concludes that Congress erred in using phony data to support its infringements of young citizens’ rights under the Second Amendment.

The two judges concurring were appointed by Republican presidents. The dissenting judge, Obama appointee James A. Wynn, Jr., predictably avoided confronting the arguments the majority presented. Instead, he claimed they gave the “gun lobby a victory” that was otherwise unmerited: “The majority’s decision to grant the gun lobby a victory in a fight it lost on Capitol Hill more than fifty years ago is not compelled by law.”

He then invented another reason why the Second Amendment and its impact on young citizens should be treated differently:

The Second Amendment is exceptional not because it is uniquely oppressed or imperiled, but rather because it is singularly capable of causing harm.

Wynn makes up a new “right” under the Constitution that he thinks must be taken into account when considering the Second Amendment: the “public’s right to live — or “right not to be shot.”

Wynn claimed that the restrictions in the GCA of 1968 applying to young citizens only prevented them from buying a handgun from a licensed dealer and therefore was not really an “infringement”:

Young adults aged 18 to 20 may still possess and use handguns, may still receive handguns as gifts, and can even purchase handguns through unlicensed, but otherwise legal, private sales.

 

In other words, in enacting the challenged provisions, Congress was careful not to burden use, possession, or non-commercial sales.

This is how a judge unmoored from the “originalist” position when considering what the Founders meant at the time they wrote the Second Amendment responds. Instead, he relied on the fact that, until now, the GCA of 1968 has successfully survived various constitutional challenges and therefore it must be good law:

The challenged provisions are longstanding because they, just like the federal ban on possession of firearms by the mentally ill, were passed in 1968 — over fifty years ago — and because similar provisions making 21 the minimum age to purchase or use certain firearms have been commonplace for more than a century [i.e., the National Firearms Act of 1934 was signed into law by Democrat President Franklin Roosevelt 87 years ago].

The ruling is likely to be challenged by the now anti-gun Justice Department under Biden, knowing that the majority of the judges on the full court are Democrats who will reverse the panel’s ruling. The chances that the inevitable appeal to the Supreme Court will be considered by the high court are slim.

The fight to restore the Second Amendment to its full and robust intention is painfully slow, but the goal is worthy and increasingly achievable. Tuesday’s initial ruling is a small victory in the larger war.

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Michigan Legislators Expected to Repeal Law Whitmer Used to Justify COVID Lockdowns

Thursday, 15 July 2021 16:02
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on  Thursday, July 15, 2021:  

Under orders by Michigan’s Supreme Court, the Board of State Canvassers on Tuesday voted to allow a petition to be presented to the state’s legislature for consideration and likely passage into law.

What’s unique is that the Michigan Supreme Court has already ruled that the 1945 law — the Emergency Powers of Governor Act, or EPGA — is unconstitutional. But, as one state legislator stated, “Bad ideas never really die in Lansing, they just take naps. And this one could wake back up.”

A group called Unlock Michigan, made up of citizens increasingly infuriated by Whitmer’s executive orders and the expansion of her draconian lockdowns, gathered more than enough signatures to allow the petition to be presented to both houses of the Michigan Legislature next week. The bill would repeal the noxious and unconstitutional act, and passage is likely.

That act on which Whitmer relied as she shut down the state (applying criminal charges for operating a motorboat, visiting a secondary home, and banning stores from selling gardening supplies, for example) was passed in 1945, giving legislative powers to the executive in the event of an emergency:

The governor may proclaim a state of emergency … and may promulgate reasonable orders, rules, and regulations as he or she considers necessary … to bring the emergency situation … under control….

 

It is hereby declared to be the legislative intent to invest the governor with sufficiently broad power of action in the exercise of the police power of the state to provide adequate control over persons and conditions during such periods.

Last October, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled not only that the ERPG was unconstitutional, but it also ruled that the 1976 Emergency Management Act on which Whitmer also relied for her mandates “did not give Whitmer the power, after April 30 [2020], to issue or renew any executive orders related to the COVID-19 pandemic after 28 days without Legislative approval.”

Specifically, the state’s high court ruled that the EPGA “is an unlawful delegation of legislative power to the executive branch in violation of the Michigan Constitution,” adding:

The Governor did not possess the authority to exercise emergency powers under the EPGA because the act unlawfully delegates legislative power to the executive branch in violation of the Michigan Constitution.

Whitmer, not to be denied, used the state health department to continue her orders without legislative approval. So, Unlock Michigan began their petition campaign to rein in the state’s Department of Health and Human Services. If successful in persuading the legislative branch, another law would limit that department’s rulings to be effective for just 28 days. After that, such administrative mandates would end unless the state’s legislative body approved their extension.

The core issue here is that of the separation of powers that limits just such illegal overreach by eager tyrants-in-waiting such as Whitmer. The success of Unlock Michigan serves as an example to follow in reining in federal administrative agencies’ similar overreach and abrogation of constitutional limits. Hats off to the success of Michiganders using Unlock Michigan to help restore those limits.

 

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Pastor Received 1,500 Death Threats Over COVID Resistance

Wednesday, 14 July 2021 16:27
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Pastor Brian Gibson, a graduate of Oral Roberts University and founder of HIS Church in Owensboro, Kentucky, has a target on his back. In an interview on Epoch TV’s Crossroads program last Thursday he said he’s being targeted “just for being a vocal proponent of the First Amendment … just for being someone who supported President Trump, and someone who spoke out actively.”

He added:

I’ve received closed to 1,500 death threats. People broke into my home, kicked my gate down, hacked all of our accounts.

 

It’s amazing what they can do and how coordinated some of these intimidation rings can really be. I think I underestimated what that would really be until it happened to me.

He was forced to move when thugs started intimidating his children, but they found his new location and continued the harassment.

Gibson gained national attention and notoriety back in January for telling the truth about how COVID restrictions, mandates, and lockdowns were greatly infringing upon precious rights guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution. He told NTD’s Focus Talk:

Whenever you watch the church being shut down, you watch the freedom of speech being taken away, you watch the censorship, you watch the ability to assemble together being threatened in the name of COVID.

He then added a phrase that rang all across the internet: “The Constitution has no COVID clause!”

He explained:

The first thing that’s listed there … is the freedom of religion. If it falls, and the First Amendment falls, the rest of the Constitution falls like dominos.

He noted the root cause of the collectivist cancer eating away at America’s foundations: “I think America needs to wake up on who has the mind of your children. Because, if you can shape the mind of a child, you can shape the mind of the future of our nation.” To restore the country’s culture, said Gibson, “We have to first start with the children.”

Gibson founded a group called Peaceably Gather where like-minded pastors could learn how to resist the COVID cancel culture, rapidly reaching more than 5,000 pastors with the message of resistance.

He sees the battle as “a fight for the heart and soul of America,” explaining on the Peaceably Gather website:

There is a constitutional crisis occurring right before our very eyes in America. Many of the governors of various states see the freedom of religion as something they can step over anytime they choose.

 

In this instance they’ve used public health and safety to silence the church. Opposing scientific opinions have been silenced, big tech is censoring conservative thought.

 

The last thing that can defeat this giant is the local church.

 

If we allow the forces that want to take away our first amendment rights to win in America we will be no different than China, Iran, or Vietnam.

 

Our children and our grandchildren will be raised in a nation where the government controls every aspect of their lives. They will live in a society where Caesar not Christ is God. America would become like any other communistic nation on the earth — totalitarian, ungodly, and impoverished.

The media made much of a selfie Gibson took of himself and another man who later attended the January 6 Capitol incident. The media, said Gibson, tried to frame him by saying that he was “one of the masterminds of the Capitol siege. I wasn’t in the Capitol, but I think what they do when they create these hit pieces, they’re trying to build a narrative against you: No. 1, with the public, and No. 2, they want a legal case against you. The mainstream media works to try to spin the narrative, and to spin public opinion, before they’ll ever file charges.”

Gibson says the church in America has become soft and decadent and doesn’t want to give up its privileges by taking controversial stands:

In America we’ve become so comfortable. We don’t want to give up any of our comforts for real truth and real conviction anymore. And that’s why the church remained silent during the lockdowns [with notable exceptions]. So that’s why so many pastors didn’t speak up and push back.

Gibson said believers and pastors have to begin to stand against the encroaching tyranny:

Stand up for what you believe in. Don’t be afraid. Continue to love your enemies, but stand your ground. I think that’s what’s really needed in America.

 

Stop being afraid of what somebody might do to you. The high cost of living is potentially dying. I don’t want to die. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have martyr’s complex. I want to live a long life, be an old man, see all of my kids’ kids.

 

But if somebody has such a grip of fear around you that you can’t live or be who you are, what good is living?

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Acclaimed Yale Economist Shiller Declares U.S. Housing Market in a Bubble, Warns of Eventual Collapse

Friday, 28 May 2021 14:29
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This article was published by TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, May 28, 2021:  

Robert Shiller, the Yale economist and inventor of the Case-Shiller Index, told Yahoo Finance Alive on Wednesday that the U.S. housing market has “aspects of a bubble to it.”

Shiller added:

This is not a market that collapses overnight … but you can see that we’re seeing price increases now that haven’t [been seen] since those years just before the [2008] financial crisis.

The Case-Shiller Index — now called the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index — released on Tuesday showed that prices for the average home in the United States rose more than 13 percent since last April. Three major cities — Phoenix, San Diego, and Seattle — led the way, with annual gains of 20 percent, 19.1 percent, and 18.3 percent, respectively. Home prices in all 20 cities included in the index increased as well.

The reasons behind a housing-market bubble include:

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Biden’s ATF Nominee David Chipman to Ban All “Assault-type” Weapons

Thursday, 27 May 2021 17:52
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This article was published by TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, May 27, 2021:

During a Senate confirmation hearing on Monday, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) pressed Biden pick, David Chipman, who is poised to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), to explain his position on banning the popular semi-automatic AR-15 rifle. Asked Cruz, “The AR-15 is one of if not the most popular rifles in America. It’s not a machine gun, it’s a rifle. Your public opinion is that you want to ban AR-15s. Is that correct?”

Chipman was crystal clear: “With respect to the AR-15, I support a ban.”

He then expanded on his remark, calling the rifle “particularly lethal”:

The AR-15 is a gun I was issued on ATF’s S.W.A.T. team and it’s a particularly lethal weapon, and regulating it as other particularly lethal weapons, I have advocated for.

This was the first among many lies, distortions, and prevarications that punctuated the nominee’s responses to intense probing and questions by Republican senators. The lie: the firearm Chipman was issued was no doubt a fully automatic weapon, capable of firing many rounds rapidly with a single press of the trigger. This is a far cry from popular AR-15s now owned by an estimated 20 million law-abiding American citizens.

The second statement — that the AR-15 is a “particularly lethal weapon” — is even more chilling:

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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