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

Category Archives: Constitution

Texas OB/GYN Who Bragged About Doing Illegal Abortion Is Being Sued

Tuesday, 21 September 2021 15:11
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, September 21, 2021:  

Alan Braid, a Texas OB/GYN, is being sued following an op-ed in the Washington Post in which he boasted of deliberately performing an illegal abortion.

He opened his practice in 1972 when abortion was illegal, but focused on performing abortions once the Supreme Court struck down state abortion restrictions in its historic Roe v. Wade ruling. He boasted:

For the next 45 years … I was a practicing OB/GYN in Texas … providing abortion care at clinics I opened in Houston and San Antonio, and another in Oklahoma.

 

But then, on September 1, Texas law SB8 became effective.

Complained Braid:

[The law] shut down about 80 percent of the abortion services we provide. Anyone who suspects I have violated the law can sue me for at least $10,000. They could also sue anybody who helps a person obtain an abortion past the new limit, including, apparently, the driver who brings a patient to my office.

 

For me, it is 1972 all over again.

So, Braid decided to break the law:

That is why, on the morning of September 6, I provided an abortion to a woman who, though still in her first trimester, was beyond the state’s new limit [i.e., the child’s heartbeat could be detected].

 

I acted because I had a duty of care to this patient, as I do for all patients, and because she has a fundamental right to receive this care.

He knew he was setting himself up to be sued:

I fully understood that there could be legal consequences — but I wanted to make sure that Texas didn’t get away with its bid to prevent this blatantly unconstitutional law from being tested….

 

I understand that by providing an abortion beyond the next legal limit, I am taking a personal risk, but it’s something I believe in strongly.

Any financial risk the abortionist might suffer is being mitigated by legal help he is getting:

Represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights, my clinics are among the plaintiffs in an ongoing federal lawsuit to stop S.B. 8.

But it might end his profitable practice if Operation Rescue has its way. The pro-life group filed a complaint with the Texas Medical Board seeking an immediate suspension of his medical license. Said OR’s President Troy Newman:

Because Braid publicly admitted guilt in violating Texas law by killing a baby whose life was protected by that duly enacted law, Operation Rescue filed [the complaint]. The emergency suspension is necessary to prevent [Braid] from further illegal conduct and to ensure the protection of innocent lives.

The official complaint from Operation Rescue stated:

The intentional taking the life of an innocent child whose life is under the protection of the law is a permanent and egregious loss that cannot be restored. It cannot be rectified. It cannot be undone. That human being is lost forever, and that loss represents a grievous crime that cannot be tolerated in the name of civil disobedience, political theater, or financial profit. It would certainly not be tolerated at any other stage of life in Texas.

Two lawsuits have been filed against Braid. Both are from attorneys, and neither has any interest in saving lives of unborn children.

Oscar Stilley, who is currently serving a 15-year sentence for tax fraud under home confinement, told the Associated Press: “I don’t want doctors out there nervous and sitting there and quaking in their boots and saying, ‘I can’t do this because if this thing works out, then I’m going to be bankrupt.’”

Stilley told the Wall Street Journal that he is neutral on the issue of abortion, but he considers the new Texas law as an “end run” around established law and that “he wants to see a clear ruling on whether [SB8] is legitimate.”

 

The other suiter, Felipe Gomez, a resident of Illinois, calls himself a “pro-choice plaintiff” who said that, if he wins, he would likely give the $10,000 reward to an abortion-rights organization.

 

Texas Right to Life, the state’s largest pro-life group, said they consider neither lawsuit as having anything to do with saving lives:

Neither of these lawsuits are valid attempts to save innocent lives. We believe Braid published his op-ed intending to attract imprudent lawsuits, but none came from the Pro-Life movement.

To be valid, each plaintiff must first persuade a judge that they have standing to sue, even though neither has personally suffered financial or economic damages because of Texas’ new pro-life “heartbeat” law.

The pressure to reestablish abortion as murder continues to grow. The Supreme Court just announced that it will begin hearing arguments to reverse Roe in the Mississippi case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in December.

Federal Judge Denies DOJ Demand to Halt Texas’ Heartbeat Law

Friday, 17 September 2021 15:35
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, September 17, 2021: 

Federal District Court Judge Robert Pitman on Thursday denied the federal government’s demand for a restraining order against Texas’s Heartbeat Law. He wrote that “this case presents complex, important questions of law that merit a full opportunity for the parties to present their positions to the court.”

Texas has until September 29 to present its case. The Department of Justice will have until October 1, two days later, to respond.

The demand from the DOJ was presented on Tuesday, claiming that the Texas law, which became effective on September 1, “prevent[s] women from exercising their constitutional rights,” and that the temporary injunction against that law is “necessary to protect the constitutional rights of women in Texas.”

Nothing was mentioned about the “constitutional rights” of the unborn and defenseless child whose life is at stake. The way the law stands now is untenable: 30 seconds before giving birth a mother may choose to have an abortionist kill her child. She will be deemed to be a hero, exercising her “constitutional rights.”

If she kills the child after birth, she is a murderer.

It’s not the life of the child that motivates the DOJ and the Attorney General of the United States, Merrick Garland, but politics. He said:

This kind of scheme to nullify the Constitution of the United States is one that all Americans, whatever their politics or party, should fear.

 

If it prevails, if may become a model for action in other areas, by other states and with respect to other constitutional rights and judicial precedents.

That’s already happening. The Texas Heartbeat Law follows similar “heartbeat laws” passed by more than a dozen states. But it is the first one that liberal courts haven’t been able to quash.

By October 1 Texas’ Heartbeat Law will have been in effect for a month. That means it is already saving the lives of unborn children who otherwise would have been murdered in their mothers’ wombs. As the Texas Tribune noted, Texas abortion clinics “stopped offering abortions that were still allowed under the law for fear of being sued.”

However the judge rules, there is sure to be an appeal to the Supreme Court. As The New American noted, “Roe didn’t uncover a right of a woman to kill her unborn child. The court created the right out of whole cloth — and political ideology.”

That is the dirty little secret behind Roe v. Wade and its sister case decided years later, Planned Parenthood v. Casey: The emperor has no clothes. There is no such “right” anywhere in the Constitution. As one of abortion’s most liberal supporters, legal scholar Laurence Tribe, noted: “One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which [the decision] rests is nowhere to be found.”

There is an increasing chance that the entire effort to quash the Texas law before it goes national will backfire. The high court could take the appeal under review, and decide that it made a horrendous error in Roe back in 1973, and compounded it in Casey in 1992. The high court has overturned previous decisions more than 300 times. Those who believe that life, a gift from God, begins at conception, would celebrate such a reversal. It would be one more step towards that joyful day when all courts, state and federal, rule that abortion, at any time, is murder.

Prior to 1973, abortion was murder. It still is.

Latest Survey Reveals Women Now Nearly Half of all New Gun Buyers

Thursday, 16 September 2021 13:57
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, September 16, 2021:  

According to the most recent 2021 National Firearms Survey, almost half of all new gun buyers in the last two and a half years have been women. There were 7.5 million brand new gun owners since January 2019, and 3.4 million of them were female. Among those women, more than a quarter of them were black.

The survey also noted that among those new gun owners 55 percent were white, 21 percent were black, and 19 percent were Hispanic.

A previous survey issued in July provided even more details about gun ownership in the United States. That survey found that nearly a third of all American adults owned at least one firearm. That translates into more than 81 million Americans who are armed. And that number keeps growing. In 2020, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, there were more than 21 million background checks completed on people purchasing firearms, up an astonishing 40 percent from the previous year.

That same survey revealed that more than half of those gun owners carry a firearm on their persons for self-defense purposes, with an estimated 21 million of them carrying concealed.

The survey further revealed that about a third of those gun owners have used a firearm to protect themselves or their property. It estimates “that guns are used defensively by firearms owners in approximately 1.67 million incidents each year.”

In sum, 58 percent of gun owners are male, 42 percent are female. And approximately a quarter of blacks own at least one firearm while 28 percent of Hispanics own firearms, nearly 20 percent of Asians own firearms, and 34 percent of whites own firearms.

Those new gun owners are taking their purchases seriously as nearly a quarter of them have subsequently taken at least one gun class, and many have become proficient in the handling of their firearms.

Much of this surge in private gun ownership may be ascribed to the breakdown of law and order by BLM and Antifa groups, the defunding of local police, and the threat of additional gun regulations emanating from the present administration.

This makes the job of turning the United States into a “gun-free zone” — necessary for those working to turn the country into a communist dictatorship — ever more difficult. There are an estimated 100 million U.S. households where a firearm is present, and the task of disarming them would be incomprehensibly difficult.

The reason? Whether each new gun owner realizes it or not, he or she is taking advantage of the freedom to own a firearm guaranteed by the Second Amendment. This peculiar, and vital, freedom is what distinguishes the U.S. from every other nation on the planet. And as long as that freedom is recognized, and enjoyed, it presents a nearly insurmountable stumbling block to those who would disarm the populace in preparation for their New World Order.

Nevertheless the war against the private ownership of firearms in America continues. Earlier this month William Malzahn — with the imposing title of Acting Deputy Director of Office of Conventional Arms Threat Reduction, Bureau of International Security & Nonproliferation at United States Department of State — told the 7th Conference of States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty:

I have come from Washington, D.C., this week to take the floor on the agenda item Treaty Universalization to underscore the continuing commitment of the United States to responsible international trade in conventional arms … the Arms Trade Treaty is an important [tool] for promoting those controls internationally.

This treaty is the one that President Donald Trump “unsigned” at the National Rifle Association’s 2019 annual meeting.

As long as the present administration presses forward in its efforts to disarm the American people, the ownership of private firearms by those people is likely to continue and even accelerate, making the task of tyrants ever more difficult.

Democrat Strategist Declares His Party Will Suffer “Blowout Defeat” in 2022

Wednesday, 15 September 2021 21:08
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, September 15, 2021:  

Political analyst and consultant to A-list Democrats Douglas Schoen self-identifies as a Democrat and sees his party losing massively in November 2022. In The Hill he wrote:

The marked decline in support for President [sic] Biden and his administration nationally and in key states indicates that the Democratic Party could endure a blowout defeat in the 2022 midterm elections.

Comparing where Biden is with where Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were at the same time in their administrations “suggests,” wrote Schoen, “that Democrats could suffer even more substantial losses in 2022 than the party did in 1994 and 2010.”

In 1994, with Clinton’s disapproval rate at 42%, Democrats lost 52 House seats and eight Senate seats.

In 2010, with Obama’s disapproval rate at 41%, Democrats lost 64 House seats and six Senate seats.

According to the latest poll from Civiqs, taken from Biden’s inauguration in January through September 13 and capturing responses from more than 100,000 registered voters, Biden’s national disapproval rate is 50% and climbing.

Drilling down into the data from the Civiqs poll Schoen laments that in five key swing states – Georgia, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania – registered voters disapprove of Biden’s job performance by ten full percentage points or more. In reliably Democratic Michigan and Wisconsin voters there disapprove of Biden’s performance by margins of 7 and 8 points, respectively.

He concludes that “the current outlook for Democrats is grim – and it could be even worse,” adding:

If the Biden administration continues to push unnecessarily big government spending initiatives and tax increases, along with weak immigration policies and an incoherent foreign policy strategy, Democrats could suffer the most substantial midterm loss of any party in recent history.

Schoen’s analysis confirms what The New American wrote a week ago, that Biden’s falling approval numbers are putting Congress into play for Republicans next November.

But The New American asked: will it make any difference? Will those campaigning on Trump’s platform of “Make America Great Again” keep their promises and begin the long, arduous path to restoring the Republic?

C. Mitchell Shaw, writing for The New American magazine last March, answered those questions:

Too many Americans seem to believe that the right president will solve our country’s problems. The past four years — with a good, but imperfect, president who fought to “Make America Great Again” by resisting the Deep State and putting America first — shows that that is short-term thinking.

 

After four years of doing what he did, the establishment moved heaven and earth to burn him to the ground (as has now been confirmed by a Time magazine article, which tells about the actions of some of those involved), steal the election from him, and impeach him a second time under bogus charges. And the establishment succeeded in all of that.

 

The takeaway is this: Patriotic Americans need to stop looking for a hero to save America and be the heroes that save her. Real resistance requires an informed electorate.

Shaw, a member of The John Birch Society, writing for The New American which is sponsored by The John Birch Society, declared that “without the effective work of the JBS over past decades, full-blown, dystopian tyranny would already cover the globe.”

It will take more than just showing up once every couple of years to vote to “throw the rascals out” and replace them with other rascals making false promises. The awakening of the electorate as measured by numerous polls is heartening. The real work of restoring the republic begins, not ends, after the election by making sure the new crop of representatives keeps their promises and their oaths of office to preserve and protect the Constitution of the United States. Only citizens who understand their history and their present peril will be up to the job.

Mississippi Abortion Clinic begs Supreme Court to keep Roe v. Wade

Tuesday, 14 September 2021 15:13
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com com on Tuesday, September 14, 2021:  

Attorney Julie Rikelman, representing Mississippi’s only remaining abortion clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, filed a brief with the Supreme Court on Monday asking the high court to keep its 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade intact.

Her brief is a response to the Supreme Court’s decision in May to take under review a lower court’s ruling against Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act, which the governor signed into law in 2018. The Act prohibited nearly all abortions after 15 weeks, providing severe penalties for transgressors, including suspension or loss of medical license, other penalties and fines.

Days after passage a court ruled the Act unconstitutional, holding that the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, and its confirmation of that decision in Casey in 1992, overrode Mississippi’s attempt to protect unborn children from being allowed to be murdered by their mothers. An appeals court upheld the lower court’s decision, and the state appealed to the Supreme Court.

After dozens of conferences over the case the high court agreed to review it, with its ruling expected next summer.

Rikelman claimed that “in Casey, this Court carefully considered every argument Mississippi makes here for overruling Roe. After doing so, the Court reaffirmed the “most central principle” of its abortion jurisprudence: that states cannot prohibit abortion until viability [ability of the child to survive outside the mother’s body, usually around 24 or 25 weeks into the pregnancy].”

“The Court reasoned,” wrote Rikelman, “that, until fetal life can be sustained outside the woman’s body, the decision whether to continue or end the pregnancy must remain hers.”

There, for all to see, is the fatal flaw in the entire abortionist position: The unborn child is merely a “fetus”, not a human, until “viability” and therefore may be discarded at the will of the mother, for any reason.

But, Rikelman continues, 30 years of precedents confirms the court’s incorrect and disastrous decision: it “presents an even higher bar…. Casey is precedent on top of precedent — that is, precedent not just on the issue of whether the viability line is correct, but also on the issue of whether [the ruling in Roe] should be abandoned … time and time again, the Court has reaffirmed that it is ‘imperative’ to retain a ‘woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy before viability.’”

So, warned Rikelman, Mississippi must be prevented from overturning five decades of error: “Mississippi asks the Court to take the grave step of overruling a rule of law it has repeatedly reaffirmed.”

That is exactly what Mississippi is asking. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, filed in May, the state bases its entire argument on what the Constitution of the United States says, or doesn’t say, about abortion, viability, and a woman’s “right” to terminate her pregnancy:

On a sound understanding of the Constitution, the answer to the question presented in this case [whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional] is clear and the path to that answer is straight. Under the Constitution, may a State prohibit elective abortions before viability? Yes.

 

Why? Because nothing in constitutional text, structure, history, or tradition supports a right to abortion.

Mississippi declares that “Roe and Casey are egregiously wrong…. Roe broke from prior cases by invoking a general ‘right of privacy’ unmoored from the Constitution…. Casey repeats Roe’s flaws by failing to tie a right to abortion to anything in the Constitution…. So Roe broke from prior cases, Casey failed to rehabilitate it, and both recognize a right that has no basis in the Constitution.”

Mississippi decries the damage done by these “egregiously” wrong decisions: “Roe and Casey are unprincipled decisions that have damaged the democratic process, poisoned our national discourse, plagued the law — and, in doing so, harmed this Court.”

To say nothing of the more than 60 million lives snuffed out by these decisions by the high court.

Mississippi isn’t alone. Some 80 pro-life amicus briefs have been filed in support, insisting that the Supreme Court reverse its decisions in Roe and Casey. Many of them make the case that unborn children are protected “persons” under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Missing from the debate is an argument based upon the Tenth Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.” Simply put, the Supreme Court doesn’t even have jurisdiction on the matter, as such powers are not given to the federal government but are left to the states and to the people.

For the record, as of 2018 the Supreme Court has overruled more than 300 of its own cases. May the justices reverse themselves on this one and stop the murdering of innocents!

Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt Holds Ceremonial Bill Signing to Celebrate Nine Pro-life Bills

Monday, 13 September 2021 16:22
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, September 13, 2021: 

Last Thursday, 10 days after Texas’ “heartbeat law” became effective on September 1, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt held a ceremonial bill signing for one just like it, HB 2441, as well as eight other pro-life bills. All nine bills were signed into law earlier in the year. HB 2441, which prohibits abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected, becomes effective on November 1, 2021.

The other pro-life bills that were part of last week’s ceremonial bill signing, which served to underscore Oklahoma’s enactment of the bills and their importance, included:

• SB 918, which would restore Oklahoma’s prohibition of abortion if/when Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court and the power to regulate it is properly returned to the states;

• HB 1102, which declares that the performance of an abortion represents “unprofessional conduct” and results in the abortion provider’s medical license being suspended for at least one year;

• HB 1904, which requires abortionists to be board certified in obstetrics and gynecology;

• SB 778 and SB 779, which safeguard women and girls from dangerous chemical abortion drugs;

• SB 960, which extends the time relinquished children can be given to rescuers from seven to 30 days;

• SB 647, – “Lily’s Law” – which requires birthing centers to keep a written policy to allow for the family to direct the disposition of the remains of a child who was stillborn or miscarried; and

• SB 584, which prohibits fetal trafficking.

 

During the ceremony Stitt said:

 

I promised Oklahomans I would sign every piece of pro-life legislation that came across my desk, and I am proud to keep that promise.

As a father of six, it’s an honor to be the most pro-life governor in the country, and I will always step up to protect the lives of unborn children.

 

That same day Governor Stitt pushed back against the uncivil and tyrannical commands from the Oval Office over vax mandates. Declared the President Joe Biden: “It they’ll not help — if these governors won’t help us beat the pandemic, I’ll use my power as President to get them out of the way.”

Responded Stitt:

It is not the [federal] government’s role to dictate to private businesses what to do.

 

Once again President [sic] Biden is demonstrating his complete disregard for individual freedoms and states’ rights.

 

As long as I’m governor, there will be no government vaccine mandates in Oklahoma.

 

My administration will continue to defend Oklahoma values and fight back against the Biden administration’s federal overreach.

The governor was backed up by his state’s Attorney General John O’Connor:

We respect the right of Oklahoma businesses and individuals to make healthcare decisions for themselves and their families.

 

My office will vigorously oppos any attempt by the federal government to mandate vaccines.

 

We are preparing litigation to stand up for our rights and defend the rule of law against the overreach of the federal government.

Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall added,

President [sic] Biden is about to see the U.S. Constitution still matters in Oklahoma.

 

This isn’t the only unconstitutional Biden administration action Oklahoma needs to challenge. Our country is a republic … and the president does not have the constitutional authority to issue these types of edicts.

The passage of these laws and the statements against federal overreach didn’t happen in a vacuum, but are the result of decades of grassroots education and action by Oklahomans. Through the educational campaigns of members of The John Birch Society (the society has a strong presence in Oklahoma) and other groups, informed pressure resulted in strengthening the state’s pro-life resolve.

The celebration of life at the ceremonial bill signing included statements such as these:

“Governor Stitt has kept his promise to sign every piece of pro-life legislation that reaches his desk. He is at the forefront of nationwide momentum to challenge the status quo and modernize our extreme abortion laws. Across the nation, pro-life governors are taking bold action to ensure that state laws reflect the will of their constituents and the clear science showing humanity of unborn children.” — Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser

 

“All life is precious and a gift from God.  The pro-life measures we passed this year seek to ensure each life is protected at every single stage in Oklahoma.  My life and my public service will continue to be dedicated to making sure that we recognize the dignity of every human being.  Thank you to my colleagues who shepherded these important bills through the process and to the Governor for standing strong for life.” — Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat (R-Oklahoma City)

 

“The Oklahoma House will continue passing strong pro-life legislation for as long as it is necessary to protect the unborn in this country. Securing life who cannot secure it themselves is a solemn duty expected by Oklahomans of the conservatives they have elected. We take that duty seriously and uphold it at every turn.” — Speaker of the House Rep. Charles McCall (R)

 

I’m grateful to the governor and the majority of my fellow legislators for helping to ensure that the day Roe v. Wade is overturned by the Supreme Court, Oklahoma statutes regulating abortions likewise will be reversed. This will end the practice of abortion in our state and protect our precious, innocent children. — House Majority Floor Leader Rep. Jon Echols (R)

 

There is no issue more critical in our time than the defense of the lives of innocent unborn babies. The greatest crime of our nation has been the murder of 60 million unborn babies. House bill 1102 takes the approach of removing the license of any physician who performs an abortion. We thank the Lord for the team of people that worked together to help make this happen, and the multitudes who have prayed for years about this. [Emphasis added.] We also thank the Lord for answered prayer. To God be the glory! — Representative Jim Olsen (R)

 

I consider all lives to be sacred, no matter the age. However, I am honored to be able to stand up for the lives that cannot advocate for themselves. It has been a privilege to work with faith leaders from around the state (emphasis added) on HB2441 the “Heartbeat Bill”, which protects the life of the unborn, by making it clear, that a heartbeat is the indicator of life, and we are called to protect life, no matter what. — Representative Todd Russ (R)

As the war on life and liberty intensifies, it will take educated citizens’ actions such as those being taken in Oklahoma to reverse the tide and excise the cancer of collectivism being injected (literally and figuratively) from the body politic.

Biden Administration Sues Texas Over “Heartbeat Law”

Friday, 10 September 2021 12:23
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, September 10, 2021:

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland filed a lawsuit on Thursday challenging the legality and constitutionality of Texas Law S.B. 8, known as the Texas Heartbeat Law. His claim rests on the idea that somewhere, somehow, deep inside the Constitution of the United States there resides a right for a woman to kill her unborn child.

No such right exists. But Garland claims it does, through precedent. In announcing the lawsuit, he said:

The [Texas] act is clearly unconstitutional under longstanding Supreme Court precedent.… In the words of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, “a State may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability.”

Repeating a lie doesn’t turn it into truth. Nevertheless, the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Austin Division, claims it does:

It is settled constitutional law that “a State may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability.” But Texas has done just that. It has enacted a statute banning nearly all abortions in the State after six weeks.

This statement, all by itself, shows the flimsy nature of the complaint. First, laws are made by Congress, not by the Executive nor by the Judicial branches of the government. Second, rulings in Roe v. Wade and Casey are rulings — opinions — relating to the particular cases and are not law.

But the suit ignores these facts, declaring that

Texas enacted S.B.8 in open defiance of the Constitution … [it] clearly violates the Constitution….

 

Instead of relying on the State’s executive branch to enforce the law, as is the norm in Texas and elsewhere, the State has deputized ordinary citizens to serve as bounty hunters.

The lawsuit claims that the Texas law is unconstitutional because it violates the “Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution [which] mandates that ‘the Constitution and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof … shall be the supreme Law of the Land … any Thing in the Constitution or Law of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.’”

But Roe didn’t uncover a right of a woman to kill her unborn child. The court created the right out of whole cloth — and political ideology. As Ryan T. Anderson, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals at Princeton University, wrote:

No such right can be found in the text of the Constitution, or in its structure, logic, or original understanding.

In referring to the Mississippi case pending before the Supreme Court, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Anderson noted:

Roe and Casey confected a “constitutional right” to abortion out of thin air. The majorities in those cases did not actually find such a right; they simply imposed their own moral-political opinions about the desirability of legal abortion.

The federal lawsuit ignored the conclusion of former Dean of Stanford Law School John Hart Ely, who declared that Roe was “bad because it is bad constitutional law, or rather because it is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.”

It also ignored the words of liberal, pro-abortion legal scholar Laurence Tribe, who said, “One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.”

It ignored the dissent of Kennedy-nominated Supreme Court Justice Byron White, who concluded that Roe wasn’t about interpreting the Constitution, its text, or its history, but was instead “an exercise in raw judicial power.”

The lawsuit also claims the Texas law violates the 14th Amendment. That amendment guarantees the right to every person equal protection under the law. But history has made plain that, at the time the amendment was ratified, unborn persons were considered to be covered as well. As Ryan Anderson explained, “The best originalist reading of the 14th Amendment, we are convinced, would include unborn persons within the scope of the provision stating that no state may ‘deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’”

There is a substantial risk of the lawsuit blowing up in the faces of Garland, Biden, and the entire pro-abortion culture: The high court just might use this lawsuit to address the underlying issues herein discussed, and rule that 50 years ago the court made a ghastly mistake that has cost the lives of millions.

White House Withdraws Nomination of David Chipman to Head ATF

Friday, 10 September 2021 08:26
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, September 9, 2021:  

Unable to pressure recalcitrant Senator Angus King (I-Maine.) into supporting its radical, anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment nominee to head up the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the White House gave it up and withdrew its nomination of David Chipman on Thursday.

In its official statement, the White House blamed Republicans for the embarrassment:

Republicans in Congress … moved in lockstep to block David Chipman’s confirmation….

 

He would have been an exemplary Director of the ATF.

As The New American reported, Chipman sank his own nomination back in May when he publicly promised to ban all “assault-type” weaponry. He used such expansive terms to include any firearm with a magazine containing rounds that could be fired with a single press of the trigger.

He waffled when he was asked about whether he would prosecute Hunter Biden for lying on his Form 4473 about his drug addiction while applying for and receiving approval to purchase a firearm.

His staff didn’t help any by filing complaints against him, accusing him of bullying and using racist comments.

Other Democrat senators, including Joe Manchin (E-W.Va.), Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Susan Collins (D-Maine), and Lis Murkowski (D-Alaska), backed away from confirming Chipman, sealing his fate and forcing the White House to withdraw his nomination.

This is the second nomination to fail to be confirmed. Neera Tanden, Biden’s nominee for the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), sunk her own ship with tweets that insulted the very senators whose votes she needed to be confirmed.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) explained why Chipman failed to be confirmed: “[His] long record as a partisan, anti-Second Amendment activist raised plenty of concerns about how he’d administer federal firearms laws,” adding,

But that wasn’t the only cause of concern. The record he concealed from Congress, some of which remains hidden to this day, about how he treated his fellow employees while at the ATF confirms his lack of fitness to lead the agency.

Chipman also mocked law-abiding gun owners, offending them by telling 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.”

Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) tweeted: “David Chipman is an unhinged gun-grabber. His defeat is a win for the Constitution — and a crushing loss for Joe Biden.”

Representative Chip Roy (R-Texas) expanded on the news of the withdrawal:

President Biden should have never nominated anti-gun David Chipman for ATF Director, and I’m pleased to see reports that his nomination will be withdrawn.

 

His confirmation would have jeopardized the constitutional rights of every legal firearm owner in America, and his anti-Second Amendment beliefs make him completely unfit to serve in any kind of leadership position anywhere in this administration.

 

The right to keep and bear arms in self-defense is a human right enshrined in our Constitution; those who enforce our laws need to understand that.

Dudley Brown, the head of the National Association of Gun Rights (NAGR), joined in celebrating the withdrawal, noting that it took major political action from gun owners to turn the tide:

Chipman, a former ATF agent and staunch gun control advocate, could not garner enough support in the U.S. Senate to make it through the confirmation process.

 

David Chipman’s nomination to lead the ATF was a slap in the face to gun owners across the country. Now, thanks to the pro-gun grassroots, we’ve put Chipman back where he belongs: at home, without a job….

 

His nomination and subsequent defeat comes at the hands of millions of law-abiding gun owners consistently lobbying the U.S. Senate to back down and remove him from consideration.

 

I want to personally thank the 4.5 million members of the National Association of Gun Rights and their tireless grassroots lobbying efforts. It’s the activism of honest gun owners which brought Chipman down.

Brown is a single-issue activist, and a much needed one. But in the war against liberty being waged by the Left, more than a single-issue campaign, no matter how successful, is needed.

For five decades, the John Birch Society has been the only organization that educates and then directs its members to attack where the insiders are the most vulnerable, no matter what the issue might be. A few members, educated, motivated, and activated, have made the difference in slowing the march of tyranny. More are needed. Go to JBS.org for more information on how to become active in the freedom fight.

As Dudley Brown rightly noted, “We know President Biden will prop up another anti-gun pawn in the near future.… We [must] stand ready to oppose their unconstitutional actions.”

Biden’s Falling Approval Numbers Are Putting Congress Into Play for Republicans in 2022

Wednesday, 08 September 2021 21:12
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, September 8, 2021: 

Remington Research Group, a reputable GOP-aligned polling outfit with a “B” rating from FiveThirtyEight, discovered in its latest survey of seven “middle-of-the-road” congressional districts that “the left’s ‘Build Back Better’ agenda is toxic.” This downturn in approval will likely cost the seven Democrats presently representing those districts their jobs next November.

In every district polled, Joe Biden’s approval rating is underwater, averaging 46%. When matched against a “generic” Republican candidate, they are expected to lose by an average of six percentage points.

This is a microcosm of Biden’s approval rating nationally. The eight most recent polls recorded at RealClear Politics show Biden’s approval between 43 and 47 percent, the lowest of his administration so far. FiveThirtyEight’s poll averages similarly have his deficit at 4.1 points as of Sept. 8.

Most vulnerable is the razor-thin eight-seat Democrat majority in the House of Representatives. A loss of just five seats next November would turn control back to the Republicans.

According to Sean Trende, a political analyst at RealClear Politics, the party in power typically loses around 30 seats in the House and two to four seats in the Senate. But, says Trende, “the most important predictor of a party’s performance in a midterm is the president’s job approval rating … abysmal elections for parties in power have occurred when the president was generally unpopular.”

As Biden’s approval rating continues to drop, the likelihood of losses for Democrats in the midterms increases. At 50% approval, Democrats in the Senate would expect to break even. “At 46%,” wrote Trende, “Democrats … only retain control about four percent of the time.”

In the House, Biden’s continuing dismal performance would, per Trende, cost the Democrats upwards of 25 seats. “If he declines much further, however, it could turn into an ugly rout.”

In the Senate, there are five Republican senators with targets on their backs: Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.), Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.). They painted those targets themselves either by voting to impeach President Trump or supporting the “bipartisan” infrastructure spending bill. Each is taking the easy way out by retiring.

The vacuum in each case is being filled by what Politico calls “Trump acolytes”: those “who have made loyalty to the former president a cornerstone of their campaigns.” For example, former Republican Missouri state Senator John Lamping said that Senator Roy Blunt “is a super-super insider and that’s not what the base wants. No one is running to be a Roy Blunt senator. They’re running to be a Donald Trump senator.”

Three other Republican senators are in jeopardy as well: John Thune (R-S.D.), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). They have not yet formally announced their candidacies and could be replaced by Trump “acolytes,” turning the Senate an even darker red.

Biden’s approval ratings are dropping due to his Afghanistan withdrawal disaster, a southern border inundated with illegal immigration, and inflation. Add to that rampant crime in big cities and the economy struggling to find workers, and it’s not at all difficult to see why Biden’s numbers are flagging.

The GOP has other advantages going into the November 2022 midterms: the party controls the redistricting process for 187 House seats, with the Democrats controlling just 75. Biden is unlikely to be an asset on the campaign trail, and his hapless Vice President Kamala Harris is too toxic to put in front of a microphone.

Assuming the Republicans regain control of both houses of Congress in 2022, the next questions must be: will it make any difference? Will those campaigning on the Trump platform of “Make America Great Again” keep their promises and begin the long, arduous path to restoring the Republic? Will they hew to their oaths of office to support and defend the Constitution? Will they make serious efforts to reverse the damage being done by the Democrats? Or will they become invisible in the freedom fight currently raging across the land?

That’s the role of the John Birch Society: creating an informed electorate who will not only select statesmen who promise to keep their oaths but hold them to those promises when they fall away. For more information on how to get involved in the freedom fight, go to JBS.org.

Texas’ Pro-Life Law Infuriates the Left, Satanists, and Portland, Oregon

Tuesday, 07 September 2021 11:48
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This article was published by TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, September 7, 2021:  

The unprecedented pro-life Texas law that the Supreme Court left in place last week has confused the President, confounded the Left, infuriated Satanists, and invoked the ire of Portland, Oregon’s Mayor Ted Wheeler.

Joe Biden, who announced that the Declaration of Independence holds that “all men and women are created by the… go… you know… the thing,” now claims that the Texas law SB8 is “un-American” and that Attorney General Merrick Garland is busy exploring ways the federal government can undo the new law.

Garland said that his Justice Department would actively seek to “protect the constitutional rights of women and other persons, including access to an abortion.” He’s asked the DOJ to look into how the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE) can be twisted into sanctioning anyone in Texas suing abortionists under the new law.

The Satanic Temple, which has been granted tax-exempt status by the IRS as a legitimate church, stated on its website that anyone in Texas wanting an abortion is welcome to “undergo” its Satanic Abortion Ritual. Just call the local number and the ritual, which involves the use of abortion pills, will be promptly arranged. After all, said the group: “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.”

The group said nothing about the government’s increasing pressure to demand that everyone get vaccinated, willing or not.

Portland’s City Council is scheduled to vote Wednesday on whether to punish Texas financially. It will decide whether the city will intentionally refrain from purchasing any goods or services from Texas businesses, as well as block any city workers from travelling to the state. Mayor Ted Wheeler explained:

The ban will be in effect until the state of Texas withdraws its unconstitutional ban on abortion, or until it is overturned in court….

 

[The Texas] law does not demonstrate concern for the health, safety and well-being of those who may become pregnant. This law doesn’t not recognize or who respect for the human rights of those who may become pregnant.

 

This law rewards private individuals [who seek to] exercise … control over others’ bodies. It violates the separation of church and state. And it will force people to carry pregnancies against their will.

The Founders understood clearly the proper role of government. In the Declaration of Independence they held “these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life.”

They added: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

They tasked the government with a few and specific responsibilities, chief among them: protect the rights God endowed at the beginning of life. “The fact,” writes Tony Vets at American Thinker, “that her child is in its prenatal stage of development and therefore resides, temporarily, within her womb does not diminish the child’s right to life.” Besides, killing is against the law:

It is illegal to murder anyone who has been born. It should be not at all different for the unborn, who are no less human for being in the initial stages of development.

Science now proves conclusively that life begins at conception. Knowledge of prenatal development “affirms the humanity of unborn children,” write Melanie Israel and Sarah Perry for the Heritage Foundation. “From the moment of conception, every person possesses inherent dignity and worth. Our humanity doesn’t depend on our age, our stage of development, or our abilities… medical technology has evolved significantly to let all women see the reality that their babies are humans, worthy of legal protection.”

South Dakota has a 12-week heartbeat law and Governor Kristi Noem “directed the Unborn Child Advocate in my office to immediately review the new Texas law and current South Dakota laws to make sure we have the strongest pro-life laws on the books.”

The legal issue of abortion is far from resolved. As Chief Justice John Roberts noted, “[The court’s] order [letting the Texas law stand] is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’s law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law.” The moment a citizen of Texas sues under the new law against an abortion provider is the moment when pro-abortion forces will leap into action and sue.

As The New American has iterated, the right to life is the core of all the Creator’s rights. In the present war against America, Satan and his helpers focus on that most precious of rights, hoping that the high court will continue to validate its shameful decisions in Roe and Casey that a woman has the constitutional right to kill her child before he or she is born.

California, LA County Pay $800K to Grace Community Church Over COVID Lawsuit

Thursday, 02 September 2021 13:51
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, September 2, 2021:  

The statement from Los Angeles County’s attorneys announcing its settlement with Pastor John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church said nothing about the underlying issues. It only said it was withdrawing from the field of battle and paying MacArthur’s church $800,000 to please go away:

After the U.S. Supreme Court ruled [in February] that some public health safety measures could not apply to houses of worship, resolving this litigation is the responsible and appropriate thing to do.

When elders of Grace decided in July 2020 to reopen their church for indoor worship, they knew it would rouse the ire of LA County health officials who had banned such worship, using COVID as cover for their illegal and unconstitutional mandates. They prepared for the battle, issuing a statement that said:

While civil government is invested with divine authority to rule the state [no authority exists which] grants civic rulers jurisdiction over the church.

 

God has established three institutions within human society: the family, the state, and the church.

 

Each institution has a sphere of authority with jurisdictional limits that must be respected….

 

Government is specifically tasked with the oversight and protection of civic peace and well-being within the boundaries or a nation….

 

God has not granted civic rules authority oved the doctrine, practice, or polity of the Church….

 

Government officials have no right to interfere in ecclesiastical matters in a way that undermines or disregards the God-given authority of pastors and elders.

Those government officials demanded under penalty of fines and imprisonment that church officials stop indoor services immediately.

The church ignored the demands and instead filed suit against those officials, claiming they were violating the church’s rights to free speech and free exercise of religion under the First Amendment. The church also claimed it was being discriminated against, as those mandates weren’t being applied equally to secular institutions and organizations.

Sure enough, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ruled in favor of those government officials. The church refused to follow that ruling, and in November, the county went to court.

The church’s attorneys made the persuasive case to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff that the lower court’s ruling couldn’t be enforced until the constitutionality of those mandates had been decided.

And there matters stood until February, when the Supreme Court ruled that most (not all) of those mandates were indeed unconstitutional.

Jenna Ellis, the lead attorney helping Pastor MacArthur’s church fight against the state, rejoiced:

We are very pleased to see Pastor MacArthur and Grace Community Church’s First Amendment protections fully vindicated in this case.

 

It has been a hard-fought battle to preserve religious liberty and we hope that this result will encourage Californians, and all Americans, to continue to stand firm that church is essential.

Lacking further evidence in this case, Ellis’ rejoicing appears to be premature. There was no ruling by a court that the state’s officials were out of bounds constitutionally. There was no admission of guilt by those officials. There appears to be nothing in the record that resolves the conflict between church and state.

Both parties, given the ruling by the Supreme Court (half-hearted that it was), decided to withdraw from the contest, leaving the underlying issue unresolved.

Supreme Court Inaction Grants Major Pro-Life Win

Wednesday, 01 September 2021 12:46
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, September 1, 2021:  

By allowing the midnight deadline for Texas’ Heartbeat Act to pass without taking action against it, the Supreme Court has granted an enormously important win for pro-life advocates in America.

Under the law, which became effective at midnight, no Texas physician may now “knowingly perform or induce an abortion on a pregnant woman if the physician detected a fetal heartbeat for the unborn child … or failed to perform [such] a test.”

This is strikingly similar to other states’ “heartbeat laws,” but with this difference: Planned Parenthood and pro-abortion activists cannot sue to stop it from going into effect. That’s because “any person … may bring a civil action against” physicians or others providing such now-illegal abortion services. Such a person, prevailing in court against a physician or other abortion provider, will be granted damages of not less than $10,000 for each abortion performed that violates the law, plus court costs and attorneys’ fees.

Pro-abortion Vox claimed the law was “drafted to intentionally frustrate lawsuits challenging its constitutionality.” And the consequences are unequivocally enormous:

The stakes in this case are astronomical. Six weeks into a pregnancy is often very soon after a pregnant person misses their first menstrual period. So they may not even be aware that they are pregnant until it is too late.

 

According to the abortion providers who are suing to block SB 8, at least 85 percent of abortions in Texas take place after the sixth week of pregnancy. Those abortions are now illegal under SB 8.

Even before the passing of the midnight deadline all 11 of Texas’ Planned Parenthood clinics stopped scheduling abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy in mid-August. Other abortion providers, frightened of the financial and public relations costs, “will,” lamented Vox, “almost certainly cease doing so” now that the Heartbeat Law is in force.

As Vox noted, “If no state official [can be] charged with enforcing the law, there’s no one to sue in order to block the law. Checkmate, libs!”

Pro-abortion mouthpiece the Washington Post noted that “the law effectively eliminates the guarantee in Roe v. Wade and subsequent Supreme Court decisions that women have a right to [abortion] before viability.”

The Texas Heartbeat Law sets the stage for the next act: the Supreme Court’s consideration of the Mississippi heartbeat law — Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. That state’s law is similar to Texas’ except it prohibits abortions after 15 weeks of gestation.

It also will likely give great encouragement to those states whose “heartbeat laws” have been tossed by courts that claimed they violated the precedents set by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade and Casey.

The die is cast. Claimed Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, “Roe is grievously wrong for many reasons, but the most fundamental is that its core holding — that the Constitution protects a woman’s right to abort her unborn child — finds no support in the text of the Fourteenth Amendment. The idea that the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment understood the Due Process Clause to protect a right to abortion is farcical.”

In the long war the elites and the abortion industry have conducted against the Constitution and the Declaration (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life…”), and by inference the Creator of life Himself, the passing of the midnight deadline for the Texas Heartbeat Law is one of the most important battles that pro-life forces have won.

Now it’s up to the Supreme Court to confirm it in Dobbs, to be decided by June 2022.

Harvard Unanimously Names Atheist as Chief Chaplain

Friday, 27 August 2021 13:50
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, August 27, 2021: 

Harvard University has completed the circle. Founded as a religious educational institution in 1636 (and named for Pastor John Harvard), the school trained its students to become pastors with a Puritan perspective. The school’s original motto was, “Truth for Christ and the Church.”

On Thursday, the school discarded any remaining links to that past by unanimously naming Greg Epstein as chief chaplain, who will oversee 30 other chaplains of various disciplines and traditions.

Epstein received his ordination as a Humanist Rabbi from the International Institute for Secular Humanistic Judaism in 2005. He also holds B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Michigan as well as a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School.

The author of Good Without God: What a Billion Nonreligious People Do Believe, Epstein describes his role: “I combine Jewish culture with the belief that this [observable] world is all we have.” Because so many incoming students hold the same view — about 40 percent of them consider themselves as either agnostic (not sure about God) or atheist (sure that He doesn’t exist) — Epstein’s role is to “minister” and “converse” with them about how to become a good person without recognizing the role of the Creator:

There is a rising group of people who no longer identify with any religious tradition but still experience a real need for conversation and support around what it means to be a good human and live an ethical life.

He told the New York Times that “we don’t look to a god for answers. We are each other’s answers.”

That means that in his role as counselor without God, he (according to the Times) “frequently meets individually with students who are struggling with issues both personal and theological, counseling them on managing anxiety about summer jobs, family feuds, the pressures of social media and the turbulence endemic to college life.” He does this through his “positive belief in tolerance, community, morality, and good without having to rely on the guidance of a higher being, according to the flyleaf of his book ‘Good Without God.’”

How is that working out? Ask U.S. Representative Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who was removed from a panel by the “tolerant” university for her views on the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Or consider the petition Harvard students have presented to ban any Trump administration alumni from speaking or teaching at the school.

In this sinful and declining world, Epstein is looking in all the wrong places for answers to questions such as these. The Apostle Paul explained in his letter to the Romans (Chapter 3):

For what if some did not believe? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?

 

God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar.

He added that every individual is a sinner, without exception:

Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;

 

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:

 

There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

 

They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

 

Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:

 

Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:

 

Their feet are swift to shed blood:

 

Destruction and misery are in their ways:

 

And the way of peace have they not known:

 

There is no fear of God before their eyes….

 

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.

That understanding undergirded the beliefs of our nation’s Founders as they strove to build a limited government that would allow maximum freedom for citizens whom they considered to be sovereign, instead of government. “Our Constitution,” wrote President John Adams, “was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any another.”

In his Farewell Address, President George Washington was clear:

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports….

 

Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.

 

Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure [a “humanist rabbi”?], reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

It may fairly be stated, then, that any deliberate intentional removal of God as creator of the universe from the instruction of young minds is an attack on the very foundations of the American Republic. King David asked, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

David provided the answer: God will not long be mocked by those posing as chaplains without acknowledging Him:

The LORD is in His holy temple.

The LORD is on His heavenly throne.

 

His eyes are watching closely;

 

they examine the sons of men.

 

The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked;

 

His soul hates the lover of violence.

 

On the wicked He will rain down fiery coals and sulfur;

 

a scorching wind will be their portion.

 

For the LORD is righteous; He loves justice.

 

The upright will see His face.

“Chaplain” Epstein, when he comes face to face with his Creator, is going to have some serious explaining to do.

Angry and Organized Voters Set to Recall California Governor Gavin Newsom

Wednesday, 25 August 2021 10:28
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, August 25, 2021:  

With just 24 percent of California’s voters registered as Republicans, one would assume that Governor Gavin Newsom will easily survive the recall election set for September 14.

Maybe not.

Nearly eight out of 10 of those Republicans are galvanized into action, while Democrats are remaining complacent. After all, California is the bluest of blue states. Why worry?

Katie Merrill, a Berkeley-based Democrat strategist, is worried: “I think, right now, if the election were held today, we’d probably have [just] a 30 percent turnout. That’s problematic.” She added, “Every poll has shown that the voters that are most engaged in the race right now are the ones who want to recall Gavin Newsom.”

Newsom’s shutdown of the state, bankrupting millions of small businesses, is just one reason why it’s likely that it will only take a third of those voting in the recall election to determine his future. It’s a case of organization versus complacency.

Said pollster Adam Probolsky, “It may sound silly to some people, but there is probably a large portion of the electorate that is quite uninterested in this election. They’ve heard something about a recall, something about Republicans being angry. But they’re not really engaged at all.”

It’s also a case of organization. Those angry voters — Republican, Democrat and Independent — have for months focused on a single theme: Remove Newsom from office. That is why more than 1.7 million of them were able to put Newsom’s future on the ballot — far more than the number needed.

Panic has set in, and the attacks on Newsom’s leading Republican opponent, talk-show host Larry Elder, have ramped up.

The incumbent governor has warned:

[Elder is] to the right of Donald Trump. To the right of Donald Trump. That’s what’s at stake in this election and don’t think for a second you can’t do damage in that role.

 

Think about the judges he could appoint. Who would he have appointed to replace Kamala Harris in the Senate? How would that impact the trajectory of this country?

 

What would that mean for the future of the Democratic Party in our efforts to keep the House of Representatives?

Newsom’s message is simple: “Just vote no. You don’t even have to touch the other part [of the ballot]. Don’t even touch it. Simple no. This is about the easiest ballot you ever had to fill out. Just vote no. No on the recall.”

So far his message isn’t getting through. A recent poll from SurveyUSA showed that 51 percent of likely voters would instead vote “yes” to remove him, while just 40 percent would keep him in office.

So, the establishment media has entered the fray. Los Angeles Times columnist Erika Smith wrote an article headlined, “Larry Elder is the Black face of white supremacy. You’ve been warned!”

In it she decries Elder’s facility for “cherry-picking” the facts he’s using to make the case for recall. One of those inconvenient facts was a rhetorical question asked by Elder:

Do we still have the phenomenon where a young Black man is eight times more likely to be killed by another Black man than a young white man?

Smith enlisted the help of BLM leader Melina Abdullah, who said that Elder “is a danger — a clear and present danger,” adding,

Anytime you put a Black face on white supremacy, which is what Larry Elder is, there are people who will utilize that as an opportunity to deny white supremacy….

 

But everything he’s pushing, everything that he stands for, he is advancing white supremacy.

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is the Marxist group of street thugs working in conjunction with the mainstream media to change America’s culture from individual responsibility under law to rampant mobocracy. From there it’s a short step to a dictatorship to be installed when the violence exceeds local efforts to quell it.

The Sacramento Bee has joined the chorus of Elder naysayers. Quoting from his writings dating back 20 years ago the Bee claims they “make him wholly unfit to be California’s governor. Elder must drop out of the race immediately.”

Those attacks aren’t getting traction, according to Dan Walters. Writing for Cal Matters, he said they “are making an Elder governorship more likely.… If Newsom, the media and [other liberals] are ganging up on Elder, perhaps he’s just the man to lead the revolt against the political status quo.”

What’s causing Democrat panic is this: In a state with nearly 40 million people, fewer than two million of them have forced Newsom to face recall. They are small in number, but highly organized. A small, well-informed, and highly organized group of people can have an influence far beyond their numbers. That fact is being borne out in California.

In the same vein, this is the principle upon which The John Birch Society has operated since 1958, and explains why the influence of the JBS has never been greater as more and more concerned citizens are seeking ways to restore the Republic to its original intent as dreamed of by the Founders.

For more information, go to JBS.org.

Two Courts Take Opposite Views of Second Amendment

Monday, 23 August 2021 06:38
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Sunday, August 22, 2021:

Chief Justice J. Michael Seabright — a George W. Bush appointee — of Hawaii’s District Court blasted two of Hawaii’s more ridiculous infringements of the Second Amendment last week, claiming that they had no basis in fact, or history, or common sense.

Seabright declared that Hawaii “has entirely failed to demonstrate how each law effectuates its asserted interest in public safety [and therefore] neither law can pass constitutional muster.”

At issue are two parts of Hawaii’s Revised Statutes: 1) that requires an individual to obtain permission to purchase a firearm and that that permission expires 10 days later if it isn’t exercised; and 2) that a firearm thus purchased must be taken in person to the police department for inspection and registration five days after purchase.

Plaintiffs brought suit last October when they alleged that these provisions violated their rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Seabright excoriated attorneys defending Hawaii’s laws, declaring that “there is no evidence in the record suggesting that these laws are tethered — in any way — to the ‘original meaning of the American right to keep and bear arms.’” They tried to hold that the 10-day permit somehow “furthers the ‘important government interest’ of public safety … but [they] failed to demonstrate how the 10-day permit use furthers that interest.… The government provides no empirical evidence or case law suggesting that a 10-day permit use period would enhance public safety.” (Emphasis in original.)

He nailed shut his decision: “It is worth nothing that if it really were common sense that a 10-day permit use period promoted public safety, Hawaii likely would not be the only state in the nation to maintain such a restrictive requirement.” (Emphasis in original.)

He obliterated the second part of the law requiring inspection and registration of the firearm after purchase: “The Government has provided absolutely no evidence suggesting that in-person inspection and registration was historically understood as an appropriate regulation on the right to bear arms.”

He dismissed the defendant’s attorneys’ claim that such a requirement “ensures that the registration information is accurate, [that] it ensures that the firearm complies with Hawaii law, and [that] it confirms the identity of the firearm so as to facilitate tracing by law enforcement.” Wrote Seabright:

The Government wholly fails to demonstrate how the in-person inspection and registration requirement furthers [Hawaii’s] interests [in public safety].…

 

In the absence of concrete evidence, the only support that the Government offers is conjecture. [Emphasis in original.]

He added:

It appears that the Government’s only permissible argument is that common sense shows the law is reasonably related to its interest in promoting public safety.

 

But the notion that in-person inspection and registration promotes public safety is not a matter of common sense….

 

If it were truly a matter of common sense that in-person inspection and registration promoted public safety … one would expect additional states to maintain similar requirements.

 

The Government has failed to show that the in-person inspection and registration requirement is reasonably tailored to a significant, substantial, or important government interest. [Thus, Hawaii’s statute] does not survive intermediate scrutiny.

Seabright’s ruling follows a ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (in Young v. State of Hawaii), which declared that Hawaii’s total and complete ban on carrying a firearm, open or concealed, in public places was constitutional. In fact, the court ruled, 7-4, that the Second Amendment had no bearing on the matter at all!

Wrote Judge Jay Bybee, also a George W. Bush appointee,

There is no right to carry arms openly in public; nor is any such right within the scope of the Second Amendment….

 

The overwhelming evidence from the states’ constitutions and statutes [at the time of the nation’s founding], the cases, and the commentaries confirms that we have never assumed that individuals have an unfettered right to carry weapons in public spaces.

In dissent, Judge Ryan Nelson, a Trump appointee, wrote:

The Second Amendment does protect a right to carry a firearm openly for self-defense in public — and Hawaii’s near complete ban on the open carry of handguns cannot stand.

 

I cannot join an opinion that would flout the Constitution by holding, in effect, that “in regulating the manner of bearing arms, the authority of [the State of Hawaii] has no other limit than its own discretion.” [Emphasis in original.]

Another dissenter, Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain, a Reagan appointee, took the majority to task as well:

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution guarantees “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms.”

 

Today, a majority of our court has decided that the Second Amendment does not mean what it says. Instead, the majority holds that while the Second Amendment may guarantee the right to keep a firearm for self-defense within one’s home, it provides no right whatsoever to bear — i.e., to carry — that same firearm for self-defense in any other place.

 

This holding is as unprecedented as it is extreme. While our sister circuits have grappled with — and disagreed over — the question of whether public firearms carry falls within the inner “core” of the Second Amendment, we now become the first and only court of appeals to hold that public carry falls entirely outside the scope of the Amendment’s protections.

 

In so holding, the majority reduces the right to “bear Arms” to a mere inkblot. The majority’s decision undermines not only the Constitution’s text, but also half a millennium of Anglo-American legal history, the Supreme Court’s decisions in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago, and the foundational principles of American popular sovereignty itself. [Emphasis in original.]

In stark relief, these two diametrically opposed decisions make an increasingly strong case for appeals to the Supreme Court to sort them out. Gun-rights attorney Alan Beck, who represents Young, said, “The Second Amendment can’t mean one thing in California, in Texas it means something else, and then in Tennessee something different entirely.”

He plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. As of this writing, it’s unclear whether Hawaii will appeal the ruling against its permit and registration requirements to the high court. But the time is certainly ripe for such a conflict to be resolved.

Judge Napolitano Asks, “Does the U.S. Still Have a Constitution?”

Thursday, 12 August 2021 14:15
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This article was published at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, August 12, 2021:  

In the Washington Times on Wednesday, Judge Andrew Napolitano asked rhetorically in the title above his column: “Does the United States still have a Constitution?“ Though he never explicitly says yes, it is clear from his analysis that his question refers to a de facto abandonment of, not de jure elimination of, the Constitution.

Despite being ignored and circumvented, the Constitution is still the law of the land, and still protects our freedom, needing only to be upheld and applied. Napolitano writes:

The Constitution does not permit the government to infringe upon personal freedoms, no matter the emergency or pandemic.

The founders crafted the Constitution “both to establish the government and to limit it.” Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution specifies the powers of the Congress, the only branch of the federal government that may make law. But Congress may not make any law it chooses; in its law-making it is limited to exercising only its enumerated powers.

Others protections against the abuse of power are found in the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, collectively known as the Bill of Rights. For example, the First Amendment explicitly prohibits Congress from violating freedom of religion, speech, and the press, and “the right of the people peacefully to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” And the Second Amendment protects “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” But in addition to the rights listed in the Bill of Rights, the people possess many other rights not articulated therein.

Napolitano explains:

The Ninth [Amendment] declares that the enumeration of rights in the first eight shall not mean that there are no other rights that are fundamental, and the government shall not disparage those other rights.

 

The Tenth [Amendment] reflects that the states have reserved [to themselves] the powers that they did not delegate to the [federal government.]

Without explanation or expansion the judge used the term “natural rights,” assuming that his readers would automatically know what he was referring to:

Natural rights collectively constitute the moral ability and sovereign authority of every human being to make personal choices – free from government interference and without a government permission slip.

In an interview with The New American magazine, Pastor David Whitney with the Institute on the Constitution gave a fuller description of the source of man’s rights by quoting from the opening paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. [Emphasis added.]

The Declaration states clearly that

All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights….

 

We, therefore, the representatives of the united state of America, “appeal … to the Supreme Judge of the World….

 

With a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

In other words, as expressed by Whitney’s Institute:

  1. There is a God.
  2. Our rights come from Him.
  3. The purpose of civil government is to secure and protect our God-given rights.

On the day the Declaration was signed Samuel Adams said: “We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom alone men ought to be obedient. He reigns in Heaven and … from the rising to the setting sun, may His kingdom come.”

John Hancock wrote: “Let us humbly commit our righteous cause to the great Lord of the universe … let us joyfully leave our concerns in the hands of Him Who raises up and puts down the empires and kingdoms of the earth as He pleases.”

James Madison wrote: “Religion … [is] the basis and foundation of government … before any man can be considered as a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe.”

John Adams wrote: “We recognize no Sovereign but God, and no King but Jesus.”

Napolitano’s article flowed naturally from the principle that all rights come from God — though again, he uses the phrase “natural rights.” All powers that temporal government might have come only “from the consent of the governed” who are themselves governed by their Creator.

Napolitano noted in his column that

interferences with the exercise of rights protected by the Bill of Rights devolve around travel, assembly, commercial activities, the exercise of religious beliefs, and your face. These infringements have all come from mayors and state governors who claim the power to do so, and they raise three profound constitutional issues.

He then raised three critical questions regarding these infringements. First, Napolitano asked:

Do mayors and governors have the inherent power to craft regulations that carry the force of law in an emergency?

 

The answer is no … the separation of powers [crafted into the Constitution by the founders gives] each [branch of government] a distinct core function that cannot constitutionally be performed by either of the other two.

What about state legislatures that give temporary powers to the governor to handle “emergencies”? Asked the judge:

Can state legislatures delegate away to governors their law-making powers? Again, the answer is no, because the separation of powers prevents one branch of government from ceding to another branch its core powers.

Lastly the judge asked:

Third: can a state legislature enact laws that interfere with personal liberties protected by the Bill of Rights, prescribe punishments for violations of those laws, and authorize governors to use force to compel compliance?

 

Again, the answer is no, because all government in America [federal, state, and local] is subordinate to the natural rights [emphasis added] articulated in the Bill of Rights and embraced in the Ninth Amendment.

Why did the founders limit governmental powers? Why did they separate those limited powers among three branches of government, and also divide powers between the national government and the states? Because men — including men who govern others — possess a sinful nature that must be held in check. John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902), an historian and moralist who was otherwise known simply as Lord Acton, expressed this opinion in a letter to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887:

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.

Thomas Jefferson explained:

In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

Back to Napolitano. Referring particularly to those “dangerous people” who govern on the state level and “who are again threatening to take away our ability to make personal choices and use force to compel compliance,” he ended optimistically:

We must remind them that by using the powers of state governments to do this, they will make themselves candidates for federal criminal prosecutions when saner days return.

Letter From House Members Blasts ATF Attempt to Expand Definition of a Firearm

Wednesday, 11 August 2021 10:11
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This article was published by TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, August 11, 2021:  

When the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) proposed expanding its power over firearms in May, it invited public response. On Tuesday, the bureau received a blistering response from eight Republican members of the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security:

[Your] attempt to expand the definition of firearm, like other ATF regulatory efforts, is deeply flawed, beyond the scope of ATF’s authority, contrary to years of previous ATF opinions, and harmful to millions of law-abiding American firearm owners….

 

[Your] proposed rule goes well beyond the authority granted to the agency in any applicable federal statutes … [and] expands the definition of a firearm beyond the intent of Congress….

 

[Your proposed] rule appears to be a deliberate attempt to usurp the authority of Congress. In so doing, ATF has also unconstitutionally infringed on American citizens’ fundamental Second Amendment rights [as well as] privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment.

In its statement of proposed redefining of “Frame or Receiver” on May 21, the bureau claimed that the present definitions “fail to capture the full meaning of those terms” and it proceeds to “clarify” such terms as “complete weapon,” “complete muffler or silencer device,” “privately made firearm,” and “readily,” stating that redefining, or clarifying, such terms is necessary “given advancements in firearms technology.”

It added, “Because ‘frames’ or ‘receivers’ are included in the definition of ‘firearm,’ any person who engages in the business of manufacturing, importing, or dealing in frames or receivers must obtain a license from ATF.”

A large portion of the 34-page expansion was dedicated to “Privately Made Firearms or ‘Ghost Guns’”:

Technological advances have also made it easier for unlicensed persons to make firearms at home from standalone parts or weapon parts kits, or by using 3D printers or personally owned or leased equipment, without any records or background check….

 

[This] makes it difficult for law enforcement to determine where, by whom, or when they were manufactured, and to whom they were sold or otherwise disposed.

The ATF cited “intelligence reports” from the FBI, the DHS, and the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) that claim that “ghost guns … enable prohibited buyers to purchase deadly weapons with just a few clicks online … [while] hamstringing law enforcement’s ability to investigate crimes committed with untraceable weapons.” They also claim that the “wide availability of ghost guns and the emergence of functional 3D-printed guns are a homeland security threat.”

All of which, as The New American has repeatedly pointed out, are lies (see here, here, here and here). Hundreds of millions of firearms are already untraceable, either due to inheritance or private purchase. “Ghost guns” are costly both in terms of money and time expended in their manufacture. While popular media suggest that the average “ghost gun” can be made or purchased for around $400, the real cost is over $1,000 and approaches $2,000 when all related costs are counted.

And “ghost guns” make up an imperceptibly small percentage of the estimated 400 to 600 million firearms already legally possessed by American gun owners.

Finally, criminals find it much easier to steal, or purchase on the street, a firearm rather than to manufacture one.

Unfortunately missing from the letter was mention of the fact that any attempt to regulate the possession or use of a firearm is an infringement on the Second Amendment-protected right to keep and bear arms. That would include the first infringement dating back to 1934 — the National Firearms Act. Everything from that moment on concerning the regulation, licensing, limiting, etc., of the right to keep and bear arms is an infringement.

And, it must be asked, where did Congress gets its power to assign its legislative responsibility to an unelected agency (the ATF) in the first place?

The New American has repeatedly noted that the real effort is the ultimate disarming of the American public so that all weaponry remains in the hands only of the police, the government, and criminals. As Adolph Hitler said:

The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject race to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.

There is good news in all of this. As the effort to disarm the public becomes increasingly obvious, so does the mounting pushback. The John Birch Society, smeared repeatedly in its early days by the leftist media, is seeing enormous growth in numbers and influence. Its program is simplicity itself: A lone citizen, concerned about how to fight the coming tyranny, can do little. But organized and following a strategic plan to expose the plans where the communists are most vulnerable, just a few can make an enormous difference.

If you’ve read this far, consider JBS.org for more information on how to join the increasing resistance to the tyranny planned and being implemented by agencies such as the ATF.

NYC Gun-trafficking Case Reveals Surveillance Against Perps and Lawful Gun Owners

Thursday, 05 August 2021 15:47
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, August 5, 2021:  

The announcement by the U.S. attorney’s office of the Southern District of New York on Wednesday revealed not only indictments against nine individuals accused of gun trafficking, but also the vast array of surveillance technology involved in the investigation.

Said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss:

Today’s arrests shut down the alleged gun pipeline of these nine defendants. These arrests should also send a message to anyone who is thinking about illegally selling guns to New Yorkers or illegally bringing guns to New York.

 

We and our law enforcement partners are watching. And we will prosecute gun traffickers to the fullest extent of the law.

The key player in the scheme is DuVaughn Wilson, also known as “Dupree,” who, over an eight-month period, purchased some 87 firearms (mostly handguns) in his own name, and then provided them to members of the network. They transported them, mostly via public transportation, to New York City where they were sold for cash to various buyers.

If convicted, Wilson and his accomplices could spend the next 15 years in prison for the crime.

Strauss exposed part of the vast network that was involved in the takedown, including law-enforcement “partners” in Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Massachusetts, and New Jersey.

The announcement came just days after the U.S. Department of Justice announced its “strike force” focused on gun trafficking. Initially, that “strike force” — enhanced personnel and technology — would focus on New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said the effort is designed to “bolster cooperation” between the federal government and “local partners,” calling it “another concrete step to address violent crime and illegal firearms trafficking.”

The danger to law-abiding gun owners is clear, as those “strike forces” can also be used to track firearms they legally own. The program is, according to the DOJ, a “long-term, coordinated, multi-jurisdictional strategy” using gun trafficking as cover:

This new approach that links law enforcement and prosecutors and locations where violence is occurring with the law enforcement and prosecutors in the jurisdictions where the firearms originate broadens our focus to ensure a comprehensive and coordinated response in both of those areas.

The technology that is being used has been installed over recent years and is vast and intrusive. It includes the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN), which automates ballistics evaluations and analyses that used to be done by hand. Cartridge-casing evidence gathered at a crime scene is now entered into the Integrated Ballistic Identification System, which can be searched online by law-enforcement agencies.

At the DOJ’s disposal is eTrace, a web-based application that tracks the purchase and use history of firearms used in violent crimes. “These leads,” notes the ATF, “help law enforcement agencies quickly identify potential firearm traffickers and suspects … in order to identify an unlicensed purchaser.” eTrace, added the ATF, “is part of the broader ATF mission to catch violent offenders and criminal suppliers, and get their firearms off the street.” It added ominously, “ATF is constantly looking to leverage technology like eTrace to streamline the investigative process.” “The eTrace system allows law enforcement to conduct comprehensive traces of recovered crime guns and establish potential leads in their investigations,” the ATF continued.

The ATF uses the National Tracing Center to track the movement of a firearm from its manufacture through the distribution chain of wholesalers and retailers to identify “unlicensed” purchasers. “That information,” intones the ATF, “can help to link a suspect to a firearm in a criminal investigation and identify potential traffickers.”

Since 1968, the ATF has received several hundred million such records. So much for the claim that there is no national registry of firearms legally owned by American citizens.

The ATF has 25 Crime Gun Intelligence Centers (CGICs) across the land “designed to collect, analyze and distribute intelligence data about guns, mass shootings, and major incidents across multiple jurisdictions.” These centers “take a preventative approach to violent crime by targeting and prosecuting the sources of crime guns.” The ATF proudly reports that “CGICs disrupt the shooting cycle by identifying and prosecuting shooters and their sources of crime guns.”

All of this technology was woven together in late 2019 with the launch of Project Guardian in November, and Operation Relentless Pursuit in December. Project Guardian, launched by the DOJ, was “designed to reduce gun violence and enforce federal firearms laws across the country.” As then-Attorney General William Barr explained:

Project Guardian will strengthen our efforts to reduce gun violence by allowing the federal government and our state and local partners to better target offenders who use guns in crimes and those who try to buy guns illegally….

 

[It] will coordinate with state, local and tribal law enforcement and prosecutors to consider potential federal prosecution….

 

[It] will create new … guidelines for … prosecution of federal cases involving false statements [on Form 4473] made during the acquisition … of firearms.

“These tools,” said Barr, “can greatly enhance the speed and effectiveness in identifying trigger-pullers and finding their guns.”

Operation Relentless Pursuit is a practical application of all of these technologies and purposes by combining the ATF, the DEA, the FBI, and the U.S. Marshals “to support those cities that … continue to be plagued by rates of violent crime that are simply too high.”

Barr made it clear:

Through Relentless Pursuit, we pledge to hold accountable the trigger-pullers, firearm traffickers, violent criminals and those who supply them the guns to terrorize our communities.

 

ATF will aggressively utilize every available tool, including our crime gun enforcement teams, National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, and firearms tracing, to identify, investigate and support the prosecution of the most violent firearm offenders.

It’s a short step to expand the definition of who those “violent firearm offenders” might be to include anyone who owns a firearm. That would be prima facie evidence that such an individual is a potential “violent firearm offender” merely by his possession of such a weapon.

If virulent anti-gun David Chipman, Biden’s pick to head the ATF, somehow gets confirmed, every legal gun owner in the country will shortly be in his crosshairs. All the tools are in place. And the agency knows where millions of those gun owners live.

The success the ATF and the DOJ had in rounding up those gun traffickers from Georgia to New York reveals just how potent those tools are.

SCOTUS Will Hear Challenge to New York’s Gun Laws

Wednesday, 04 August 2021 12:24
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, August 4, 2021:

The Supreme Court has accepted 52 amici curiae (friend of the court) briefs in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association’s lawsuit against New York’s superintendent of state police, Keith Corlett. Nearly all of them focus on a particular part of the case that the justices might otherwise miss during the deliberations scheduled to begin in October.

One of them, however, focuses directly on the personal and intimate pain suffered by innocents, especially innocent people of color — black and Hispanic — who transgressed, often without knowing it, New York City’s draconian and unconstitutional limits on their right to keep and bear arms.

The brief, presented by the Black Attorneys of Legal Aid, or BALA, a group formed in 2017 to defend innocents against laws such as New York’s, makes the case that not only do New York’s gun-control laws prevent law-abiding citizens from obtaining permission to keep and bear firearms outside their homes, they are being used primarily against people of color. BALA presents six cases. We will look closely at just one of them here.

BALA summarizes its argument:

The … Second Amendment affords the people “the right to keep and bear arms.”Despite the clear text and this Court’s precedents [McDonald and Heller], New York’s licensing regime does the opposite.

 

It deprives everyone of that right, only returning it to those select few who manage to first secure a firearm license from the police.

 

For everyone else, possession of a firearm is effectively a “violent felony,” punishable by 3½ to 15 years in prison.

 

New York’s licensing requirements criminalize the exercise of the fundamental Second Amendment right, with rare exceptions.

 

As a result, each year, we represent hundreds of indigent people whom New York criminally charges for exercising their right to keep and bear arms. For our clients, New York’s licensing regime renders the Second Amendment a legal fiction. Worse, virtually all our clients whom New York prosecutes for exercising their Second Amendment right are Black or Hispanic.

 

And that is no accident. New York enacted its firearm licensing requirements to criminalize gun ownership by racial and ethnic minorities. That remains the effect of its enforcement by police and prosecutors today.

 

The consequences for our clients are brutal. New York police have stopped, questioned, and frisked our clients on the streets. They have invaded our clients’ homes with guns drawn, terrifying them, their families, and their children.

 

They have forcibly removed our clients from their homes and communities and abandoned them in dirty and violent jails and prisons for days, weeks, months, and years.

 

They have deprived our clients of their jobs, children, livelihoods, and ability to live in this country. And they have branded our clients as “criminals” and “violent felons” for life.

 

They have done all of this only because our clients exercised a constitutional right.

This, wrote the attorneys, results in a system where the New York Police Department “unilaterally decides whose firearm possession is an unlicensed crime and whose is a licensed right. It thus leaves the right to keep and bear arms up to the discretion of local police.”

Consider the case of Jasmine Phillips, a Texan who lawfully owned a gun in that state but was prosecuted under the New York law for unlicensed possession of the firearm while visiting family in the city:

Ms. Jasmine Phillips is a combat-decorated military veteran who served in Iraq. She had never been convicted of a crime. She legally possessed a pistol in Texas for self-defense.

 

After she and her husband separated, her husband moved to New York. To have their children spend some time with their father, Ms. Phillips and her children drove to New York.

 

While Ms. Phillips was parked in her car in New York, police officers surrounded the vehicle. One officer knocked on the passenger side window. Another opened the driver side car door, put her in a chokehold, dragged her out of the car, threw her on the pavement, flipped her over and handcuffed her. She heard officers search the car and find her pistol.

 

The prosecution later justified these acts because of a “tip.”

 

“The arrest was traumatizing,” she recounts. “Being separated from my two baby boys, who were three and four years old, broke my heart.”

 

After the arrest, she was held at the precinct, and then the courthouse, without food, water, a phone call, or even access to a bathroom. After hours and hours of prearraignment detention and processing, she finally saw a judge.

 

Like virtually everyone else accused of possessing a firearm, she was charged with violating N.Y. Penal Law § 265.03(3), a violent felony.

 

The judge set high monetary bail.

 

“I felt completely hopeless,” she says. “I thought about my kids, wracked with guilt and worry about what they were going through — were they scared? Confused? I was taken away from them so suddenly. I was crushed. I also thought about my job and the home I was renting, realizing that I was going to lose both. I felt broken.”

 

Ms. Phillips was jailed on Rikers Island for weeks before she made bail.

 

Because of her arrest, the Administration for Children Services (“ACS”) intervened and filed a child-neglect proceeding against her.

 

“I lost everything: my job, my car, my home, and my kids.”

 

She couldn’t see her children again for a full year, missing her son’s fifth birthday. She recalls:

 

Through my attorneys, I petitioned the family court to allow ACS to let me see my child, but ACS was too slow to respond. I spent my son’s fifth birthday in an Airbnb, alone, surrounded by the gifts that I had bought for him.

 

When I was finally allowed to see my children while I was in New York, ACS required that I meet with them during supervised visits in an ACS facility. It was so humiliating to have someone stand there while I tried to have some semblance of a normal, loving interaction with my kids.

 

During one visit, my older son told me that he loved going to school.

 

I was absolutely devastated. No one had told me that he had started pre-K. I missed his first day of school. I missed the chance to ask how his first day of school went. I can never undo that.

 

After extensive advocacy, Ms. Phillips’ case was diverted and eventually dismissed.

 

Still, the case had lasting effects: a Texas judge ruled against her in a child-custody case because of her “felony arrest.”

 

For Ms. Phillips, that was “the lowest moment of [her] life and the most hopeless [she] ever felt. There are no words to fully reach the depth of that emotion I was feeling,” she explains.

 

But the effects of the case did not stop there, either. ACS failed to properly close Ms. Phillips’ case and, four years after the arrest, they called the local sheriff in Texas to do a “welfare check.” She was not at home when the police came by, but her landlord was.

 

The police repeated inaccurate information about the dismissed case, provided by ACS, and the landlord then terminated the lease.

 

In addition, to this day, Ms. Phillips reports that her younger son continues to suffer severe separation anxiety:

 

If I leave the house to get something from the car without telling him, he’ll run out and say, “Momma, why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?” It hurts me so much every time he asks.

 

In sum, Ms. Phillips’ arrest for gun possession outside of the home continues to affect her, her family, and their lives today.

This is the personal side of the unconstitutional law New York uses to persecute and prosecute innocents who unwittingly violate it. There are five more equally devastating cases in the brief.

 

The high court is limiting its role to determining not whether citizens can legally carry outside the home but merely determining whether New York City’s application for a concealed-carry license violates their Second Amendment-protected rights.

It will hear arguments this fall and make its ruling next spring.

Chip Roy: Biden Should Be Impeached Over Immigration Crisis

Tuesday, 03 August 2021 11:03
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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, August 3, 2021:  

Representative Chip Roy (R-Texas) essentially gave 200,000 reasons why he believes President Joe Biden should be impeached and removed from office. After noting that more than 200,000 illegals were taken into custody in July, Roy told the Daily Wire:

Over the past several months President Biden and [DHS Secretary] Mayorkas have blatantly and consistently refused to do their constitutional duty to take care that the immigration laws be faithfully executed, as required by Article II [of the U.S. Constitution], endangering countless American and foreign lives in the process.

An average of 6,779 illegals crossing the southern border of the United States every day in July. That’s more than 200,000 for the month and, if left unchecked, would approach two and a half million for the year.

Chip Roy’s reasons for impeachment add to those outlined by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in her impeachment filing the day after Joe Biden entered the Oval Office:

President Joe Biden is unfit to hold the office of the presidency. His pattern of abuse of power as President Obama’s Vice President is lengthy and disturbing.

 

President Biden has demonstrated that he will do whatever it takes to bail out his son, Hunter, and line his family’s pockets with cash from corrupt foreign energy companies.

 

President Biden is even on tape admitting to a quid pro quo with the Ukrainian government threatening to withhold $1,000,000,000 in foreign aid if they did not do his bidding. President Biden residing in the White House is a threat to national security and he must be immediately impeached….

 

Joe Biden abused the power of the Office of the Vice President, enabling bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors, by allowing his son to influence the domestic policy of a foreign nation and accept various benefits — including financial compensation — from foreign nationals in exchange for certain favors.

After detailing Hunter’s efforts to sell his father’s influence to officials of foreign governments, Greene concluded in her articles of impeachment:

President Biden gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government. Through blatant nepotism, he enabled his son to influence foreign policy and financially benefit as a result of his role as Vice President.

 

He supported his son engaging in collusion with Chinese Communist party-linked officials. He allowed his son to trade appointments with his father and other high-ranking administration officials in exchange for financial compensation. He permitted his son to take money from Russian oligarchs, including Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of Moscow.

By enabling the flow of illegals to become a flood, some say Biden and his DHS secretary are threatening the very foundations of the Republic. This is the same Republic that Biden swore to uphold and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Instead, he is allowing those enemies, both foreign and domestic, including his son Hunter, to run wild, without restraint.

The 200,000 who just entered the U.S. illegally last month merely add to the lengthening list of reasons why many say Biden should be impeached. Of course, since there is a Democrat majority in both houses of Congress, the possibility of this happening are basically zero.

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