Category Archives: Crime

Pending Missouri Bill Protects Doctors From Sanctions for Prescribing Ivermectin or Hydroxychloroquine

Wednesday, 18 May 2022 14:03

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, May 18, 2022:

When Missouri Governor Mike Parson signs HB 2149 into law as he is expected to, doctors prescribing ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine for their patients won’t be subject to sanctions, penalties, or loss of their medical licenses.

Overwhelmingly passed by a 130-4 vote in the House last week, the bill’s language is crystal clear:

The act of lawfully dispensing, prescribing, administering, or otherwise distributing ivermectin tablets or hydroxychloroquine sulfate tablets for human use shall not be grounds for denial, suspension, revocation, or other disciplinary action by [any state medical] board.

The bill also prohibits pharmacists from questioning or otherwise interfering with the dispensing of these prescriptions to their patients:

A pharmacist shall not contact the prescribing physician or the patient to dispute the efficacy of ivermectin tablets or hydroxychloroquine sulfate tablets for human use unless the physician or patient inquires of the pharmacist about [their] efficacy….

It’s about time. As Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson noted when his state passed a similar law late last year:

Ivermectin has been used in humans since the 1980s…. In 2015 its discoverers won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work in uncovering it and bringing it to market…. By 2017, ivermectin had demonstrated antiviral activity against several RNA viruses…. Before the pandemic, scholarly literature had also recognized ivermectin’s anti-inflammatory capacity…. For more than three decades, ivermectin has also shown itself to be very safe….

The same goes for hydroxychloroquine:

In 2004, long before the Covid-19 pandemic began, a lab study revealed that chloroquine is an effective inhibitor of the replication of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) in vitro and thus that it should be considered for immediate use in the prevention and treatment of SARS-CoV infections…. It is widely recognized in the medical community that hydroxychloroquine is generally safe, so safe in fact that it may be prescribed to pregnant women and children of all ages.

Peterson’s opinion is backed up by no fewer than 304 footnotes, with more than 275 of them referring to medical studies, articles from medical journals, statements from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and other medical authorities.

In many states, however, the potential for sanctions has intimidated physicians into shying away from such remedies, despite such evidence of their effectiveness. Henry F. Smith, Jr., M.D., practices medicine in such a state, and posed the following scenario:

Now let’s imagine [a] patient calls in. This patient … has a dry cough, scratchy throat, muscle aches, and a low-grade fever. This patient had a COVID test kit at home and tested positive.

The physician wants to prescribe a medication with no risk of bacterial resistance and a very benign side-effect profile.

He’s read lots of literature to suggest it will be helpful. There are a significant number of double-blind studies showing it to be effective in the treatment of SARS Co-V2. It has been used in multiple countries with excellent results.

Except, in this case, the physician will find it impossible to prescribe that medication. It will be impossible because that medication is Ivermectin. And somehow it has been removed from the market.

Why? Smith follows the money:

[Pfizer’s Paxlovid and Merck’s Molnupivinir] have exactly one company-sponsored study each to vouch for their efficacy. Merck’s drug, by its own testing, is only 39% effective in reducing severe disease and/or death. There are no long-term safety data for either medication.

Yet both have received emergency use authorization and have suddenly popped up on government-approved treatment protocols….

As I look towards the end of my career, I’ve seen a lot of profit-oriented behavior by pharmaceutical companies.

I think of the me-too drugs, molecules that are only slightly different than their now off-patent predecessors aggressively marketed to physicians.

I’ve seen pharmaceutical reps actually reimburse physicians for a certain number of prescriptions written for their medications.

I’ve seen manipulation of the rules regarding inhaled medications to maintain their patents long after they would have expired.

But this banning of treatments proven to be efficacious is beyond anything Smith has seen in his decades of medical practice:

But if they actively suppressed the adoption of useful medications during a pandemic, then this is beyond the pale. It would suggest a total collapse of any morality or sense of responsibility within the pharmaceutical industry and their partners in the regulatory agencies.

The money flowing to drug companies is nearly incomprehensibly large. According to Morningstar, Pfizer collected nearly $40 billion in sales of its Covid-19 vaccine in 2021, while Merck reported gross sales in 2021 from all sources of nearly $50 billion, 17% over the year before. Merck’s profit rose from $4.5 billion in 2020 to $12.3 billion in 2021, an astounding 273% jump in just one year.

While Big Pharma was raking in obscene profits, even more obscene were the deaths directly attributable to the lack of the two remedies.

As Smith noted:

Let’s do some mathematics. As of this writing [February], there are roughly 890,000 deaths recorded in the United States related to COVID-19.

I think most people understand that a lot of these deaths are not due to the virus but from other comorbid conditions. The CDC has long stated that the number of deaths from COVID where there was no comorbid condition (in other words, healthy people who died from COVID) is roughly 7% of the total (65,000).

In several meta-analyses, Ivermectin was shown to be roughly 65% effective at preventing serious disease and/or death. So, in the best-case scenario for them, our public health organizations, by suppressing Ivermectin, may be responsible for roughly 40,000 deaths.

Once Missouri Governor Mike Parson signs HB 2149 into law he puts an end to the holocaust in the Show Me State. Missouri will then join more than two dozen other states in the union allowing medical freedom from sanctions for practicing medicine according to the Hippocratic oath: “Primum non nocere”: First, do no harm.

Musk Demands Hard Numbers of Fake Accounts on Twitter, Stock Drops

Tuesday, 17 May 2022 21:09

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, May 17, 2022:

A tweet by Elon Musk posted early (1:32 a.m.) Tuesday morning sent Twitter stock (TWTR) below $37 a share. That’s 31 percent below what Musk offered to pay to buy the company and take it private.

Musk posted:

20% fake/spam accounts, while 4 times what Twitter claims, could be “much” higher.

My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC [Security and Exchange Commission] filings being accurate.

Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO [Parag Agrawal] publicly refused to show proof of < [less than] 5%.

The deal cannot move forward until he does.

Agrawal had tweeted the day before that he couldn’t provide the proof, even though in SEC filings the company repeatedly estimated that those fake or sham or false bots constituted less than five percent of the total.

From an advertiser’s perspective, that meant that 95 percent or more of the 217 million “daily active users” (DAUs) were really human eyeballs constituting an enormous target market for his product or service. He was willing to pay for that opportunity.

But upon receiving Agrawal’s claim that “we don’t believe that this specific estimation can be performed.… It’s not even possible to know which accounts are counted as mDAUs [million daily account users] on any given day,” Musk responded, “So how do advertisers know that they’re getting for their money? This is fundamental to the financial health of Twitter.”

It’s also fundamental to Musk, as he is pricing his offer to buy on what Twitter tells the SEC.

That 20 percent number that Musk used is confirmed by market research firm SparkToro, which estimates non-human accounts at 19 percent. Although some of those accounts provide automated news updates, inspirational quotes, and stock-price changes, advertisers aren’t willing to pay extra for them. They want to know the hard number of humans actively tweeting every day.

If Agrawal cannot prove the “less than five percent” claim, then Musk has a decision to make: terminate his offer and pay a $1 billion breakup fee, or negotiate for a lower price.

This puts Agrawal and Twitter in a pickle: If they cannot verify the five-percent number and admit that the real number of non-human Twitter accounts is higher — perhaps much higher — then they will have to deal with lawsuits from advertisers claiming they were misled. There will be lawsuits from shareholders claiming they purchased shares at artificially high prices. Bondholders holding the $5 billion in Twitter debt will claim they were defrauded.

And, of course, there are the SEC and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), who would likely sue as well.

Added all up, these lawsuits, if successful, could not only bankrupt Twitter, but end the company’s existence altogether.

Musk is aware of all of this, and has little interest in assuming those enormous and essentially unknowable liabilities.

If Agrawal and the board can provide the proof that Musk is demanding — that real humans constitute more than 95 percent of those 217 million accounts — then Musk should be very happy to proceed with the purchase. In which case, buyers of TWTR at under $40 a share will enjoy a nice gain when the purchase is consummated later this year.

Second Petition to Recall LA’s Progressive DA Has More Than 400,000 Signatures

Friday, 06 May 2022 11:09

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, May 6, 2022:

When the first effort to recall Soros-backed progressive Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón failed last summer, backers reorganized. The second effort needs to obtain 566,857 signatures by July 6 to put his future on the November ballot. As of May 1, the group has not only obtained more than 400,000 signatures, but it has also raised over $6 million in support as well.

Gascón’s 2020 campaign was well funded by the Left, including George Soros, who contributed $2.5 million, as well as Democrats Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, then-Senator Kamala Harris, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors.

Almost immediately after taking office in December 2020, Gascón began to implement the same far-left liberal policies that got him in trouble as San Francisco’s DA: eliminating cash bail for certain offenses, not seeking the death penalty no matter how violent or outrageous the crime, reopening closed cases against LAPD officers, and “reevaluating” sentences for which the convict had already served time.

And the results were the same. In 2021, there were 52 percent more homicides and 59 percent more shootings than in 2019. LA has seen a 15-percent increase in violent crimes, while arrests decreased by more than 23 percent.

Within weeks of Gascón assuming office, rank-and-file LA prosecutors revolted and attempted to block their new boss in court. DAs elsewhere in California refused to share cases with him. As Association of Deputy District Attorneys Vice President Eric Siddall said, “You can’t just use the law to implement your personal worldview of what society should look like.” Siddall added,

The idea of one man coming in and saying, “You all are wrong, and this is what the law should be,” is … counter to what our entire American system of justice is all about. It’s the antithesis of the rule of law.

When Siddall’s group took a vote on whether to support the recall, 83 percent of them participated in the vote, with 98 percent of them supporting the recall effort.

In addition, the recall effort is supported by several other influential groups, including the Association of Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs and the Los Angeles Police Protective League. In addition, more than 34 California cities, including San Gabriel, Santa Clarita, Beverly Hills, Pico Rivera, Whitter, La Mirada, and Covina have issued votes of no confidence in Gascón.

The Committee to Recall District Attorney George Gascón writes on its website:

As soon as he was sworn into office, District Attorney George Gascón began issuing directives to his prosecutors, instructing them to go soft on crime, coddle criminals, and trample upon the dignity and rights of crime victims.

To keep our communities safe, to mete out just punishment to those who break our laws, and to provide justice to crime victims throughout Los Angeles County, we must recall District Attorney George Gascón.

The petition spells out the grounds for the recall:

Since being elected, Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón has deserted crime victims and their families.

Gascón has disregarded the rule of law and weakened lawful sentencing requirements for the most violent criminals, including murderers, armed robbers, and rapists.

George Gascón’s new policies treat career and repeat violent offenders as if they had never committed a crime, ignoring public safety laws approved by the people.

Gascón has reduced sentences on crimes against children, and gun crimes.

On behalf of crime victims and their families and in the interest of public safety, this notice of intention to recall George Gascón as Los Angeles District Attorney is submitted.

Even in ultra-liberal Los Angeles County, voters are having serious second thoughts about the DA they elected in November 2020. The recall group is mounting a final push to obtain the remaining required signatures by July 6. Many are persuaded that if this second effort succeeds, voters will likely dump their far-left progressive district attorney into the dustbin of history.

Poll: 54% Think Abortion Should Be Illegal

Thursday, 05 May 2022 13:38

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, May 5, 2022:

The latest Fox News poll reflects a pro-life trend that has been growing for years. In a poll completed just before Politico announced the leak of the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on Monday, Fox reported that a majority thinks abortion should be illegal “all (11%) or most of the time (43%).” Those who think abortion should be legal “is [at] a record low and it’s also the first time the portion saying ‘illegal’ has been above 50% on a Fox News poll.”

The trend favoring the pro-life position has been apparent for years. Back in 1998, Gallup asked, “Do you think abortions should be legal under any circumstances, legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all circumstances?” At the time, 15 percent said abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. Ten years later, that percentage was 18 percent, and since then it has moved higher, to nearly 20 percent.

According to the Pew Research Center’s latest polling results, 39 percent say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.

Last June, Gallup found that 52 percent of Americans take a pro-life position on abortion, wanting all (19 percent) or almost all (33 percent) abortions made illegal. That same poll found that only 32 percent of those polled think abortions should be legal up to the moment of birth.

A January 2021, a Marist poll found a majority of those polled were pro-life and oppose all or nearly all abortions. A poll conducted later that year by CBS News reported that 55 percent of Americans say abortion should either be more limited or should not be permitted at all.

A Morning Consult poll conducted last year found that a majority of those polled want abortions to be made illegal either in all cases or only legal in very rare cases such as rape or incest, or when the pregnancy directly affects the life of the mother. Those exceptions constitute less than two or three percent of all abortions, which means, as Steven Ertelt of Life News put it, “Most Americans support making virtually all abortions illegal.”

Another measure of growing opposition to abortion comes from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, which reported that since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, states have imposed more than 1,300 restrictions on the procedure, including more than 100 last year alone.

At least one of them — Texas SB 8, the “Heartbeat Law” — made headline news, especially as other states such as Oklahoma and Idaho passed nearly identical laws.

In commenting on the Texas law, former Texas congressman Dr. Ron Paul pointed out that

It is no coincidence that Roe v. Wade came at a time when respect for natural rights of life, liberty, and property, was on the decline.

Roe contributed to the decline….

The ultimate solution, Dr. Paul wrote, was to reverse the trend by recognizing that abortion is the taking of an innocent life:

The way to reverse these developments is to restore respect for the inalienable right to life, liberty, and property, of all human beings, both born and unborn.

The cause of life is inseparable from the cause of liberty.

It’s taken 50 years, but the trend, and the momentum, is unmistakable. The Supreme Court “leak” is now propelling forward the conversation that states and their citizens must have on the issue. And they’re increasingly moving back to the Declaration of Independence’s crystal-clear statement:

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, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Oklahoma to be the First State to Ban All Abortions After Heartbeat

Friday, 29 April 2022 12:43

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, April 29, 2022:

The moment Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt signs two bills into law — expected today — Oklahoma will be the first state effectively to ban all abortions in the state from the moment a heartbeat is detected onward to birth. Sooner State legislators aren’t waiting for the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, expected in June, to act.

The state’s Senate passed the “Oklahoma Heartbeat Act” — Senate Bill 1503 — on Thursday, which prohibits abortions any time after a heartbeat can be detected, usually around six weeks into a pregnancy.

The Senate also passed House Bill 4327 (after reconciliation) on Thursday, allowing private citizens to file civil lawsuits against abortion providers or anyone assisting an abortion. That includes not only the individual performing or attempting to perform an abortion, but also anyone who knowingly “aids and abets” an abortion. That would include anyone paying for the abortion, providing information leading to an abortion, or providing transportation to or from an abortion facility — in other words, anyone who assists in abortion in any way could be sued. If convicted, that individual would pay a fine of at least $10,000 plus other penalties and legal fees.

This mirrors the “Texas Heartbeat Act” — SB8 — that has effectively all but shut down abortions in the Lone Star State.

When combined with previous legislation that Governor Stitt has already signed making performing an abortion a felony (with a $100,000 fine and 10 years in jail), Oklahoma can now boast the most protection for the unborn of any state in the union.

While the previous bill that the governor signed making performing an abortion a felony won’t become effective until later this summer, the two bills on his desk become effective immediately upon signing.

This will effectively shut down the traffic abortion clinics have enjoyed from Texans fleeing that state in order to kill their unborn legally. Before the Texas ban, about 40 women from that state traveled to Oklahoma for abortions. That number jumped to over 240 in October — a 600-percent increase.

Once the bills are signed into law, those deciding to kill their unborn child will have to travel to states that still don’t consider abortion as murder, such as Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas, and Arkansas.

Abortion providers are suing to prevent implementation of the Oklahoma felony law and are threatening to sue over the two bills sitting on Stitt’s desk once he signs them. They can see what’s coming, as Nancy Northrup, president for the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights, noted:

We are asking the state courts to uphold the State Constitution and apply Oklahoma precedent to block these insidious abortion bans before they take effect.

Oklahoma is a critical state for abortion access right now, with many Texans fleeing to Oklahoma for abortion care. These bans would further decimate abortion access across the South.

Abortion facilities in Oklahoma are already refusing to schedule abortions for next week in anticipation of Stitt’s signing those two bills into law shortly. Tony Lauinger, chairman of Oklahomans for Life, said that “we are hopeful that [these bills] will save the lives of more unborn children here in Oklahoma.”

Through these bills, Oklahomans are declaring that the sanctity of life must be protected. In a world where there are clearly efforts to destroy the foundations of the culture, it’s comforting to know that states such as Oklahoma — along withTexas, Idaho, and others — are defending those foundations.

New York’s Highest Court Rejects Democrats’ Redistricting Gerrymander

Thursday, 28 April 2022 15:22

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, April 28, 2022:

The ruling on Wednesday by New York State’s highest court, its Court of Appeals, tossing the Democrats’ obvious and unconstitutional gerrymander of the state’s voting districts dashed the last chance Democrats had to overcome (or at least mitigate) the Republican Party’s momentum in the November elections. Democrats were counting on the blatant gerrymander of New York’s districts to offset Republican gains from redistricting in Republican states such as Kansas and Florida.

Democrats have a supermajority in both houses of the state’s legislature, and the Court of Appeals’ seven justices were all appointed by Democrats. What could go wrong?

New York has a tawdry history of political gerrymandering that is so offensive that the state’s constitution was amended in 2014 in an attempt to limit, if not eliminate, the ability to stack the deck in favor of the ruling party.

But the high court surprised and disappointed those counting on the gerrymander to give the Democratic Party at least a fighting chance to ward off the coming Republican tsunami in November. From the majority opinion:

During the first redistricting cycle to follow adoption of the 2014 amendments, the IRC [Independent Redistricting Commission] and the legislature failed to follow the procedure commanded by the State Constitution.

A stalemate within the IRC resulted in a breakdown in the mandatory process for submission of electoral maps to the legislature.

The legislature responded by creating and enacting maps in a nontransparent manner controlled exclusively by the dominant political party — doing exactly what they would have done had the 2014 constitutional reforms never been passed.

On these appeals, the primary questions before us are whether this failure to follow the prescribed constitutional procedure warrants invalidation of the legislature’s congressional and state senate maps and whether there is record support for the determination of both courts below that the district lines for congressional races were drawn with an unconstitutional partisan intent.

We answer both questions in the affirmative and therefore declare the congressional and senate maps void.

The left-leaning FiveThirtyEight political analysis website said the ruling “just cost Democrats their big redistricting advantage,” adding:

The decision was a huge blow to Democrats, who until recently looked like they had gained enough seats nationally in redistricting to almost eliminate the Republican bias in the House of Representatives….

That’s because much of Democrats’ national redistricting advantage rested on their gerrymander in New York.

Under the map created by the Democrat supermajorities and signed into law by New York’s Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul, Democrats were expected to win 22 of New York’s 26 House seats. It didn’t matter that this is way out of proportion with how New York State voters vote. It was designed to give Democrats three more seats in the House and cost the Republicans four seats – a swing of seven. Since the Democrat margin in the House is just five seats, Democrats were looking to New York’s gerrymander to keep the House under Democrat control.

In his revised analysis, Nathanial Rakich, writing for FiveThirtyEight, said:

Now, however, Republicans clearly have the advantage.… I estimate that redistricting currently positions Republicans for a net gain of around four or five House seats and Democrats for a net loss of about four.

Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, has concluded that it’s all over for the Democrats in November:

The overturned New York Congressional map was widely viewed as an aggressive Democratic gerrymander that likely would cost Republicans 4 seats.

At the very least, a marginally fair map would likely return [the House] at least to GOP control. In the current political environment, a partisanly neutral map could give Republicans as many as ten of The Empire State’s 26 seats.

Dave Wasserman, who is affiliated with The Cook Political Report, thinks the ruling will have catastrophic consequences for Democrats in November. On Wednesday he Tweeted:

In a 4-3 ruling, NY’s top court has turned Dems’ 2022 House outlook from terrible to potentially horrific. A court-appointed special master will draw a remedial map, perhaps costing Dems three NY seats they otherwise would have gained & making R[epublican]s clear redistricting winners.

And all because, in New York State, there are Democrat judges who followed the Constitution. As New York Republican Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis said:

Today, New York State’s highest court confirmed the decision by two lower courts and the opinion of editorial boards, good government groups, academics, and voters across the state.

I am heartened to see that the judicial system worked and that the will of the people is being preserved.

Federal Judge Ends Challenge to Texas Heartbeat Law

Wednesday, 27 April 2022 13:57

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, April 27, 2022:

In a terse statement, a federal appeals court has dismissed all lawsuits pending against Texas state officials and administrators who have challenged the state’s “heartbeat” law:

Having received the ruling of the Texas Supreme Court that named official defendants may not enforce the provisions of the Texas Heartbeat Act … this court REMANDS the case with instructions to dismiss all challenges to the private enforcement provisions of the statute and to consider whether plaintiffs have standing to challenge.

Put another way, the ruling dismisses all attempts by pro-abortion advocates and providers to overturn Texas’ “Heartbeat Act.” And it requires the lower court to consider whether those bringing those challenges even have legal standing to do so.

In short, this ends the matter: Texas’ “heartbeat” law stands, and will continue to save an estimated 100 babies from being murdered in their mothers’ wombs every day.

The Texas law prohibits Texas officials from enforcing the law but allows private citizens to do so. It empowers them to sue anyone suspected of aiding or abetting an abortion after a heartbeat is detected (usually after six weeks of pregnancy). That would include physicians and their assistants, those providing advice and counsel to a woman considering ending her pregnancy, and those providing transportation to and from the abortion clinic.

The penalties against those providers are tough and have, for all intents and purposes, ended the abortion holocaust in the Lone Star State.

More than 20 lawsuits have been filed since the law became effective last September, and 14 of them were filed against Texas Right to Life (TRL). Said TRL President Jonathan Saenz:

This final federal court decision for life leaves no doubt that the Texas Heartbeat Act is the law of the land in the Lone Star State. We are grateful to the federal courts for upholding this groundbreaking law and protecting pre-born babies.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott celebrated the ruling: “Another legal loss for those challenging SB8 — the pro-life law that is saving babies every day.” So did Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, tweeting:

Very proud of my team for bringing win after win for the unborn in Texas! The Texas Heartbeat Act is one of the greatest pro-life laws in the nation, and I’m glad to defend it. Tens of thousands of babies have been saved in Texas because of SB 8 and our victories in court!

One lawsuit — Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson — sought to exploit an opening the Supreme Court allowed back in December: that anti-life challengers could bring action against state licensing officials. That opening has now been firmly shut.

All eyes are now on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, heard by the Supreme Court in December with an expected ruling in June. Optimists are hoping the high court will overturn Roe v. Wade and return the issue of abortion to the states, where it rightfully belongs.

But they could be disappointed, as the Supreme Court is only considering “whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.”

For now, pro-life supporters are celebrating, as well as thousands of babies who have been saved from the holocaust since the Texas Heartbeat Act became effective last September.

Kentucky Legislature Overrides Governor’s Veto of Pro-life Bill

Monday, 18 April 2022 15:03

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, April 18, 2022:

Five days after Kentucky’s Democrat Governor Andy Beshear vetoed the most protective pro-life bill in the country, the state’s Republican-controlled legislature overturned it. The state’s house voted 76-21 on Wednesday and the state’s senate followed later the same day, voting 31-6, to quash his veto.

The override allowed the law to become effective immediately, with Reuters declaring that it “makes Kentucky the first U.S. state without legal abortion access since the 1973 Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade established [a mother’s] right to end a pregnancy.”

The law models the Mississippi abortion law that is pending before the Supreme Court — Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The high court will rule on “whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional” with its decision due in June.

Many are expecting the high court to restrict the right to abortion, and a number of states, including Kentucky, are enacting laws to reflect the high court’s anticipated ruling. Dobbs is an opportunity for the Supreme Court to reverse its 1973 decision and allow the states to make their own decisions, as the Constitution allows (see the Ninth and 10th Amendments).

Kentucky’s law is unique, however, in that it demands accountability among abortion providers in the state that simply cannot be met, and so, for all intents and purposes, abortion is dead in Kentucky.

In his veto message, Kentucky Governor Beshear complained that the bill contains no exceptions or exclusions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest and that it makes certain demands of the state to implement, among other things, an electronic database for all abortions, but without providing the funding for it. He also expressed his opinion that “House Bill 3 is likely unconstitutional.”

Both Planned Parenthood and the ACLU have filed suits against the law. ACLU Communications Director Samuel Crankshaw said the law “inserts politics into medicine, aggressively sidelines science in healthcare, and threatens the wellbeing of Kentuckians.” He didn’t mention the death sentences being rendered on the unborn by mothers with “unwanted pregnancies” and the abortion providers assisting them.

The new law requires that a pregnant woman must be examined in person by a doctor before being given abortion pills (it is estimated that half of all abortions in Kentucky are caused by those “kill pills”). It also requires physicians performing abortions to maintain hospital admitting privileges close to where the abortion is to be performed.

Without funding, the bill’s requirement that the state’s Board of Pharmacy certify providers writing prescriptions for those pills can’t be implemented. Furthermore, the law requires the state’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services to create three new full-time positions (along with the new database), and establish public reporting requirements. But there’s no funding in the law for these either.

Kentucky is the latest state to enact pro-life bills in anticipation of a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court. The Texas “heartbeat” law was followed by similar bans in Mississippi, Arizona, South Dakota, Idaho, Florida, and Oklahoma.

The veto power granted in the states’ constitutions, as part of the “separation of powers” doctrine unique to the American Republic, has just operated to save the lives of unborn babies in Kentucky. May other legislatures facing governors who are attempting to thwart the will of the people through the veto power have similar success.

Bidenflation? No! Putinflation? No! Fedinflation? Yes!

Tuesday, 12 April 2022 13:51

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, April 12, 2022:

Anticipating the worst inflation numbers in four decades, White House Press Secretary Jan Psaki tried not only to get ahead of it but to deflect from its root cause. On Monday, the day before the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that, year-over-year, inflation rose by 8.5 percent, she stated :

Because of the actions [that] were taken to address the “Putin Price Hike,” we are in a better place than we were last month, but we expect March … CPI headline inflation to be extraordinarily elevated due to “Putin’s Price Hike.”

In March she said there was a “consensus” among economists that the coming report “was caused by the building of Putin’s troops at Ukraine’s border.”

On the other hand, Spencer Brown, writing for Townhall, called the surge “Bidenflation,” indicating that policies enacted during the present administration’s first term were largely, if not totally, responsible.

However, Inflation predates both Psaki and Brown by decades. Wrote Milton Friedman in 1992 in Money Mischief: Episodes in Monetary History, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.”

Friedman explained:

Inflation is always and everywhere, a monetary phenomenon. It’s always and everywhere, a result of too much money, of a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.

Moreover, in the modern era, the important next step is to recognize that today, governments control the quantity of money. So that as a result, inflation in the United States is made in Washington and nowhere else.

Friedman puts the blame where it belongs:

If you listen to people in Washington and talk, they will tell you that inflation is produced by greedy businessmen or it’s produced by grasping unions or it’s produced by spendthrift consumers, or maybe, it’s those terrible Arab Sheikhs who are producing it.

Now, of course, businessmen are greedy. Who of us isn’t? Trade unions are grasping. Who of us isn’t? And there’s no doubt that the consumer is a spendthrift. At least every man knows that about his wife.

But none of them produce inflation for the very simple reason that neither the businessman, nor the trade union, nor the housewife has a printing press in their basement on which they can turn out those green pieces of paper we call money.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told the unvarnished truth about inflation and its consequences in his article “Gold and Economic Freedom,” published in 1967:

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold….

The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth.

Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.

Inflation is part of the attack on the foundations of the American Republic. Wrote Robert Welch in his monumental presentation that later became The Blue Book of the John Birch Society in 1958:

Here are the Communists’ aims for the United States:

(1) Greatly expanded government spending, for missiles, for so-called defense generally, for foreign aid, for every conceivable means of getting rid of ever larger sums of American money – as wastefully as possible.

(2) Higher and then much higher taxes.

(3) An increasingly unbalanced budget, despite the higher taxes….

(4) Wild inflation of our currency, leading rapidly towards its ultimate repudiation.

(5) Government controls of prices, wages, and materials, supposedly to combat inflation.

(6) Greatly increased socialistic controls over every operation of our economy and every activity of our daily lives.

This is to be accompanied, naturally and automatically, by a correspondingly huge increase in the size of our bureaucracy, and in both the cost and reach of our domestic government.

(7) Far more centralization of power in Washington, and the practical elimination of our state lines….

(8) The steady advance of Federal aid to and control over our educational system, leading to complete federalization of our public education.

(9) A constant hammering into the American consciousness of the horror of “modern warfare, ” the beauties and the absolute necessity of “peace” — peace always on Communist terms, of course.

And (10) the consequent willingness of the American people to allow the steps of appeasement by our government which amount to a piecemeal surrender of the rest of the free world and of the United States itself to the [communist] tyranny.

As Representative Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) expressed it, “Inflation is taxation.” But it is much more than that. It is a tool used to impoverish the middle class, reducing its ability to resist the onslaught of tyranny.

And it all starts with the Fed.

Biden to Take Another Shot at Nominating an Anti-gunner to ATF

Thursday, 07 April 2022 13:40

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, April 7, 2022:

The last time Joe Biden nominated a left-wing anti-gun ideologue to head up the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the nominee’s virulent anti-gun position sank his nomination into oblivion.

According to Politico’s inside sources, Biden’s going to try again: same ideology, different name. Politico said that, according to “multiple people” inside the White House, including “one official within the Senate Democratic Caucus,” Biden will officially nominate Steve Dettelbach. He served as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio during the Obama administration from 2009 to 2016.

Dettelbach has the right (i.e., left) credentials: Graduating from Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School, he was nominated by then-President Obama in 2009 to his U.S. attorney position. This no doubt was a payoff for his work in Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, for which he provided legal assistance and advice. Following Obama’s election, Dettelbach served as a legal advisor to his transition team.

He was a candidate for the office of Ohio’s attorney general in 2018 and lost, but in the process revealed where he stands on issues relating to private gun ownership: No one should own an “assault-style” rifle, and everyone buying a firearm anywhere from anybody at any time needs to undergo a background check first. That background check would then be added to the recently revealed secret registry that the ATF has been keeping, now totaling nearly one billion records.

If confirmed, Dettelbach would go along with the Biden administration’s stated determination to weaponize the ATF against private gun owners and dealers, especially gun dealers.

Given the labyrinthine minefield of current regulations under which gun dealers operate, there would be no forgiveness even for minor errors, mistakes, or infractions. Lawrence Keane, general counsel for the firearms trade association National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), warned in October 2020:

The Biden-Harris ticket will weaponize the ATF against retailers to close them down for even minor clerical errors in inspections.

This is a promise Senator Kamala Harris made from the campaign stage.

She has vowed to turn the ATF from an agency which assists family-owned firearm retail businesses to stay within the overwhelming labyrinth of federal and state laws and regulations to one that carries a heavy hammer and will shutter federally licensed retailers for minor administrative errors.

When Biden’s first nominee to head the ATF, David Chipman, went down to defeat, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) tweeted: “His defeat is a win for the Constitution — and a crushing flow for Joe Biden.”

Dudley Brown, founder and president of the National Association of Gun Rights (NAGR), was pleased to learn that the White House had dropped Chipman down its memory hole:

Chipman … 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 pro-gun grassroots, we’ve put Chipman back where he belongs: at home.

But, warned Brown:

We know … Biden will prop up another anti-gun pawn in the near future.… We [must] stand ready to oppose their unconstitutional actions.

Brown and his nearly five million members, along with Gun Owners of America, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, and other Second Amendment supporters, will once again need to push back against Biden’s second effort to weaponize the ATF with another anti-gun radical.

Biden is expected to make the official announcement during National Police Week, May 11-17.

Indiana the 24th Constitutional-carry State. Three More States Right Behind

Monday, 04 April 2022 12:30

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, April 4, 2022:

Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb signed into law on March 21 his state’s permitless carry bill that had passed both the state’s House and Senate overwhelmingly.

That makes 24. And the third state so far this year.

On March 10, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed a similar bill into law. This was followed by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, who signed a constitutional-carry bill into law on March 14.

Georgia is next, as a similar bill passed both state houses last Friday and will arrive shortly on Governor Brian Kemp’s desk for signing.

Said Kemp earlier, “The Constitution should be our carry permit, and I look forward to signing a Constitutional Carry measure this year to enshrine hardworking Georgians’ ability to protect themselves and their families in Georgia law.”

National Rifle Association (NRA) Chairman Wayne LaPierre told Fox News:

The success of the carry movement in America cannot be denied at this point. When Gov. Brian Kemp signs this landmark legislation, half of America will protect the right to carry as an inherent and inalienable right.

Two more states — Florida and Nebraska — are on the brink of passing laws protecting their citizens’ right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment, without first having to get permission to do so.

South Carolina is right behind, with conservative, pro-constitutional Republican majorities in both state houses. Constitutional-carry bills failed to pass last year, but pressure is building on Governor Henry McMaster to urge the legislature to bring such a bill to his desk for signing.

Tennessee already has a “partial” constitutional carry law in place, but it only applies to handguns, and legislators in the Volunteer State are itching to amend it to include long guns. What’s in place, according to John Harris, executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association, is “not real constitutional carry,” and his group is lobbying to expand the present law.

It should be noted that not a single state has repealed a constitutional-carry law, nor has there been a single move in any state to consider such a move.

It should also be noted that arguments against such laws consist primarily of worries that more firearms will mean more gun violence. But that has simply not been the case. According to the Crime Research Prevention Center (CRPC), firearms violations by police officers are very low — about 16.5 for every 100,000 police officers. For citizens who already have a permit, the rate is even lower: 2.4 per 100,000.

Further research by the CRPC reveals that gun violence drops as private gun ownership increases. As John Lott, founder of the CRPC, noted in an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Several dozen peer-reviewed academic studies show there’s no evidence of any uptick in gun crimes linked to concealed carry laws, and most show violent crime declines.

Research also shows that murder rates fall even more when states move to Constitutional Carry laws.

That makes sense, as the people who benefit the most from carrying a firearm are the most likely to be victims: They are “overwhelmingly,” wrote Lott, “poor Blacks who live in high-crime urban areas.”

As states increasingly remove infringements from the right to keep and bear arms, it becomes increasingly difficult for tyrants to turn the American Republic into a dictatorship. To succeed, they must first disarm every private owner of his firearms. At present, the momentum is heading in the other direction.

The Second Amendment was never about duck hunting. It was always about keeping the government in check.

A quote from Adolf Hitler bears repeating:

The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races 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.

War in Ukraine Reminds Americans of Need for Second Amendment

Thursday, 31 March 2022 14:50

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, March 31, 2022:

The day before the Russian invasion, Ukrainian citizens suffered under some of the most severe gun-ownership restrictions in the world: One had to be 21 to buy a shotgun and 25 to own a rifle. Handgun ownership was banned altogether.

A background check was required, along with a mental exam, the payment of a fee, taking a gun-safety class, and owning a government-certified gun safe for storage.

The process was designed to impede approval, which often took months and usually resulted in permission being denied.

That same day — February 23, 2022 — the Ukrainian parliament passed a law allowing Ukrainians to buy all the firearms they wanted. President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted:

We will give weapons to anyone who wants to defend the country. Be ready to support Ukraine in the squares of our cities.

It has been reported that between 10,000 and 25,000 fully automatic rifles were snapped up by Ukrainians that same day.

As English writer Samuel Johnson once famously said, “Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

From the NRA’s institute for Legislative Action:

Anti-gun commentators — Joe Biden among them — often mock the idea that an armed populace poses any obstacle to a modern military force. But some are now singing a different tune, now that ordinary Ukrainians are taking up arms in response to [the] Russian invasion.

From the Firearms Policy Coalition:

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unequivocally reinforces the importance of the right to keep and bear arms beyond defense against single attackers and reminds Americans that the Second Amendment is as relevant today as ever.

From Bearing Arms:

Better late than never. This is a “break glass in case of emergency” moment, which is why the country’s parliament is … willing to reverse decades of restrictions and allow citizens the ability to carry firearms.

From Gun Owners of America:

Severe gun control policies infringed on the right of Ukrainian citizens to keep and bear arms until the very moment a nuclear world superpower launched its ground invasion.

Now it’s up to the government to pass out as many fully automatic weapons as it can … [so] that civilians might successfully repel a Russian invasion.

From Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms:

While we’ve seen reports that the Ukraine Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) has voted to ease restrictions allowing civilians to carry arms outside their homes, in our country this has been the constitutional law of the land since our nation was founded.

The right of the people to keep and bear arms has protected this country since the beginning, and what is happening right now in Ukraine should be a lesson to all of those who push for citizen disarmament and a ban on private gun ownership how perilous that would be….

Our Second Amendment was enshrined in the Bill of Rights by men who had just fought a war for independence. They returned to their homes from battlefields, not from some deer hunting camp.

The right to keep and bear arms has never been about shooting ducks, but about protecting our right as citizens of the greatest nation on earth to defend our homes and families immediately against the kind of international outrage now unfolding in eastern Europe.

From John Lott, founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center:

A lot of these countries have laws left over from the Communist era when gun ownership was basically banned. In the Ukraine, less than 2 percent legally owned a gun until the invasion. Then 18,000 fully automatic rifles were handed out in one day.

Even the far-left media outlet Occupy Democrats reversed itself. It tweeted:

Ukraine’s Interior Minister announces that 10,000 automatic rifles have been handed out to the civilians of Kyiv as they prepare to fight tooth and nail to defend their homes against Putin’s invasions. RT (retweet) if you stand with the brave Ukrainian People!

Putin failed to learn a valuable lesson from another tyrant bent on enslaving people: Adolf Hitler. On the same that day France surrendered to his Nazi blitzkrieg, June 25, 1940, he ordered his generals to draw up a plan to invade and subjugate Switzerland. The plan, called Operation Tannenbaum, which called for 11 German divisions and 15 more Italian divisions — between 300,000 and 500,000 troops — was drawn up but never implemented. As Michael Peck, writing for The National Interest, explained why:

The Axis would have faced formidable opposition. As with Sweden, Swiss neutrality was an armed neutrality.… All Swiss men were liable for conscription, and all were issued with rifles that they kept at home in case of mobilization.

For a nation of just four million people, the Swiss could have mustered an army as large as 850,000 strong. Largely mountainous Switzerland, where German tanks would have been useless, would have been a tough nut for blitzkrieg to crack.

States Preparing for a “Post-Roe,” “Pro-life” America

Friday, 25 March 2022 13:26

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, March 25, 2022:

Numerous states are preparing for an America where the contentious issue of abortion is properly and constitutionally returned to the states to resolve. Even the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute (named after the former president of Planned Parenthood with which it was once affiliated) is lamenting the expected outcome of the case before the Supreme Court: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

A favorable ruling in Dobbs would not only uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion law, but would also likely overturn the court’s finding in Roe v. Wade that a mother somehow has a constitutional right to murder her child while in her womb.

Guttmacher laments:

In 2021, state legislatures set an alarming record of 108 abortion restrictions enacted in 19 states. With the fate of Roe v. Wade hanging in the balance at the U.S. Supreme Court, 2022 is shaping up to be even more devastating for abortion rights….

Already, a number of state bills have grabbed headlines for proposing outrageous and shocking abortion restrictions … [and] other restrictions and bans … are moving quickly through some state legislatures.

At least 12 states have already enacted so-called trigger bans that would instantly prohibit abortion if the high court does in fact overturn Roe and/or returns the issue to the states to resolve.

Lawmakers in Arizona, Florida, and West Virginia have adopted, or are about to adopt, laws similar to Mississippi’s. Idaho has adopted one similar to Texas’s “heartbeat” law. Four states — Tennessee, Alabama, and West Virginia — have gone further by amending the state constitutions, declaring that there is “no right to abortion.”

Two other states — Kentucky and Kansas — have constitutional amendments pending voter approval later this year. Iowa will vote on a “no right to an abortion” ballot measure in 2024.

Kansas is a rare situation. The state’s supreme court has ruled — as has the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade — that somehow, buried in the Kansas state constitution, there is a right of a mother to murder her unborn child. That has made the Sunflower State a “destination state” for the abortion industry frustrated over abortion restrictions imposed in other states.

So, even if the Supreme Court overturns Roe and returns the issue to the states, the Kansas state supreme court would still allow the murder of the unborn to continue.

The reasoning of the Kansas state supreme court follows that of the high court:

Section 1 of the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights provides: “All men are possessed of equal and inalienable natural rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

We are now asked: Is this declaration of rights more than an idealized aspiration? And, if so, do the substantive rights include a woman’s right to make decisions about her body, including the decision whether to continue her pregnancy?

We answer these questions, “Yes.”

Here’s how the Kansas high court came to that conclusion:

Included [in Section 1] is the right of personal autonomy, which includes the ability to control one’s own body, to assert bodily integrity, and to exercise self-determination.

This right allows a woman to make her own decisions regarding her body, health, family formation, and family life — decisions that can include whether to continue a pregnancy. Although not absolute, this right is fundamental.

Accordingly, the State is prohibited from restricting this right….

This is how a court creates law from the bench — by ignoring the right of the fetus to enjoy the same rights as a post-partum baby. The court ignores the fact that the fetus is a human. Instead, it’s a blob that somehow only gains those rights by being born. Pre-born, it may be discarded.

What’s encouraging in the Kansas case is the grassroots effort to pass an amendment overturning the state high court’s dictum. Said Kansans for Life director Danielle Underwood, “Kansas is in a unique position regardless of what happens at the federal level.” So she, along with the Kansas Catholic Conference and Kansas Family Voice, are mounting an effort to inform Kansans on the issue. And that includes more than 1,000 churches:

We’re mobilizing the largest grassroots effort in Kansas history. We are working through over 1,000 churches in the state and making sure we get the word out to Kansans about what is at stake….

Now it is up to the people of Kansas to make sure we do our part to ensure Kansas does not remain a destination state for abortions.

This is “all hands on deck.”

Of all institutions that should be supporting the right to life, churches should be leading the way. After all, the Sixth Commandment declares, “You shall not murder.” (Exodus 20:13).

New York City’s Reinstated Neighborhood Safety Teams Already Making a Difference

Wednesday, 23 March 2022 21:04

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, March 23, 2022:

Following some initial success by New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ newly resurrected Neighborhood Safety Teams (NSTs), he announced on Monday that he is rolling out a second wave. He called it “precision policing”: “This is what precision policing is all about.… There’s a clear message: do it right, don’t violate the liberties of people, but go after those guns and those who are the trigger pullers.”

Since the first wave of some 168 officers — in teams of six in each of 28 of the Big Apple’s 177 precincts — began surveilling on Monday, March 14, “we have made 31 arrests,” said the mayor, “and 10 guns [have been] removed from our streets.”

The second wave began on Monday, focusing on another five precincts in high-crime areas.

The city’s police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, who initially was skeptical of the move to reinstate the teams, seemed to be on board. She said, “These impressive results represent the next era of responsive, responsible crime fighting,” adding:

These teams are for gun violence. They’re there for criminal activity. But they look like police officers. They are not in plain clothes. The uniform clearly states on the back: NYPD Police.

Since the effort was suspended in June 2020 by then-Mayor Bill DeBlasio, crime has soared. So far this year there have been 284 people shot, compared to 215 shootings in the same period last year. Adams’ promise to rein in the violence was widely seen as a major factor in his election last November.

Adams’ initial success is being viewed by many as just the first step. Part of his plan is not only to reinvigorate the NSTs, but to work to appoint judges with a “demonstrated commitment to keeping violent criminals who use guns off New York City streets.”

The strategy is similar to the “stop, question, and frisk” policies instituted under former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, except for the “frisk” part. The teams use a Terry Stop — based on a Supreme Court decision (Terry v. Ohio) that watered down the Fourth Amendment from “probable cause” to “reasonable suspicion.”

But that “reasonable suspicion” is enhanced using the latest technology, which allows NST officers to identify from a distance when an individual is carrying a firearm. In essence, that technology allows officers to conduct a “virtual” frisk without touching the individual.

It remains to be seen if the initial “success” can be maintained. Tiffany Caban, a Democrat on the city council, said, “Much of the Mayor’s plan is cause for deep concern … [that it’s] built on a foundation of surveillance and punishment, which are ineffective and dangerous.”

Liz Cheney Repeats Claim That Trump “Provoked January 6 Attack,” Must Suffer “Enhanced Criminal Penalties”

Monday, 21 March 2022 20:43

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, March 21, 2022:

Liz Cheney, co-chair of the infamous January 6 investigative committee, tried to breathe life into the dormant and essentially invisible effort to turn the event into a political tool Democrats can use in November. After months of investigation by the Democrat-controlled committee (also including two rabid Republican anti-Trumpers, Cheney and Adam Schiff), she breathlessly told Chuck Todd, host of NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday:

We’re looking at things like: do we need additional enhanced criminal penalties for the kind of supreme dereliction of duty that you saw with [President Donald] Trump when he refused to tell the mob to go home after he had provoked that attack on the Capitol?

After issuing 90 subpoenas and hearing testimony from almost 700 witnesses, this is all she could come up with: “There will be legislative recommendations, and there certainly will be new information.”

But she is sure that former President Trump is guilty of something:

I have not learned a single thing since I have been on this committee that has made me less concerned or less worried about the gravity of the situation and the actions that President Trump took and also refused to take while the attack was underway.

The Washington Post has exposed the sham and the fraud: The committee is nothing more than a political weapon to be used against Trump and his supporters in an attempt to influence the midterm elections in November. Wrote the Post: “They’ll attempt to do so this spring through public hearings, along with a potential interim report and a final report that will be published ahead of the November midterms — with the findings likely [to be] a key part of the Democrats’ midterm strategy.”

Daniel Oliver, chairman of the board of the Education and Research Institute (ERI), writing in Human Events, agrees:

The Pelosi committee is just a tool: a tool with which the Democrats are attempting to discredit Republicans of all stripes and to win the 2022 election … and perhaps also cover up Pelosi’s own rejection of National Guard assistance on January 6….

The goal of her committee members is not to discover the truth; they don’t care about the truth any more than they cared about the truth of the now wholly debunked Trump-Russia collusion story, which we now know (we always surmised it) was a Hillary Clinton campaign dirty trick.

The immediate goal of the Pelosi cabal is just another dirty trick … poison the 2022 elections.

The only problem with that strategy is that the American people don’t care. They do care about high and increasing gas and grocery prices. They do care about the increase in violent crime, they do care about the Russian attacks on Ukraine, they do care about the immigration flood overwhelming the nation’s southern border. What don’t they care about? The Cheney/Pelosi farce that is the only tool Democrats think they might have to avoid a cataclysmic, historic bashing in November.

The Cheney/Pelosi cabal will enlist the help of the compliant media. As The Washington Post explained:

[The January committee is] seeking to compile dramatic videos, texts and emails in a digital format that is easy to understand — and easy to share on social media.

And they want to put together blockbuster hearings that the public actually tunes into.

But even if they build it, people won’t come. They’ll be much more focused on the failures of the Biden administration and his Democratic enablers in the House and the Senate. And polls show that they’re prepared to do something historic come November: possibly so weaken the Democratic Party with such devastating losses that it will, for a time at least, cease to function as a credible political party.

San Francisco’s Communist DA Will be Recalled, According to Latest Poll

Friday, 18 March 2022 16:09

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, March 18, 2022:

The latest poll from EMC Research confirms what now appears to be a certainty: San Francisco’s communist District Attorney Chesa Boudin will be recalled in June.

According to the poll, two-thirds of voters likely to participate in the recall election say they will vote “yes” to the question “Shall Chesa Boudin by recalled (removed) from the Office of District Attorney?”

The secondary results of the poll were equally devastating to Boudin:

• 74% have an unfavorable opinion of Boudin;

• 78% give him a negative job performance rating;

• 73% disagree that he “is keeping San Francisco safe”;

• 69% disagree that he “does what is best for the community”;

• 51% disagree that he is “honest and trustworthy”; and

• 61% do agree that he “is responsible for rising crime rates in San Francisco, especially burglaries and thefts.”

Those polled hold Boudin directly responsible for increases in car and home break-ins, public drug use, violent crime, retail theft, and panhandling and public nuisances.

From EMC Research:

Significant majorities of voters find messaging in support of the recall compelling, including:

• 71% (52% extremely compelling) for “Chesa Boudin has emboldened criminals who know his ‘catch and release’ policy means they will face no consequences. In his first year in office, burglaries spiked by 49%, and 84% of charged perpetrators were back on the streets within two days”.

• 71% (46% extremely compelling) for “Under Chesa Boudin’s te

nure, 51 prosecutors have left his office in protest over his mismanagement, threats to withhold evidence, decisions to hand down lenient sentences or not press charges, and release violent criminals early. Until we recall Chesa Boudin, more and more prosecutors will continue to leave”; and

• 67% (39% extremely compelling) for “Domestic violence cases in San Francisco are rising under Chesa Boudin, yet he has chosen to prosecute only 14% of cases, leaving the vast majority of domestic violence victims, and their children, vulnerable to their abusers who remain on the streets — every single day.”

Boudin won election to the post in November 2019 by garnering more than 86,000 votes. Now, in just two years in office, Boudin has so outraged the citizens with his ultra-progressive agenda that more than 83,000 people signed his recall petition.

Did they not know what they were getting back in 2019? Efforts to inform apparently failed. The San Francisco Police Department mounted a campaign against his election. His communist background was public knowledge with even Wikipedia reporting:

Boudin was born in New York City to Jewish parents. His parents, Kathy Boudin and David Gilbert, were Weather Underground members.

When Boudin was 14 months old, both were arrested and convicted of murder for their role as getaway car drivers in the Brink’s robbery of 1981 in Rockland County, New York. His mother was sentenced to 20 years to life and his father to 75 years to life for the felony murders of two police officers and a security guard.

After his parents were incarcerated, Boudin was raised in Chicago by adoptive parents Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, who, like his parents, had been members of the Weather Underground….

Boudin descends from a long left-wing lineage. His great-grand-uncle, Louis B. Boudin, was a Marxist theoretician and author of a two-volume history of the Supreme Court’s influence on American government, and his grandfather Leonard Boudin was an attorney who represented controversial clients such as Fidel Castro and Paul Robeson.

An unrepentant communist bent on inflicting as much damage as he could to the city’s criminal justice system, Boudin could care less about the pending recall vote. In November 2019, while resistance to his progressive policies was gaining momentum, a 69-year-old Asian-American, Ahn Le, was attacked by a father-son team. Both attackers were arrested and charged with several felonies, including elder abuse and terrorist attacks.

However, as Yahoo News reported:

The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, however, refused to prosecute either the father or son with hate crime enhancements and agreed to a lenient plea deal with [the father] who pled guilty to a misdemeanor battery charge for no jail time and only a year of probation.

And the son who participated in the attack got off scot-free.

On January 24 the Alliance of Asian American Justice filed a federal lawsuit against Boudin on behalf of Ahn Le. Boudin couldn’t care less. He’ll be long gone by the time this lawsuit is settled.

Boudin’s campaign promise to “reform” the DA’s office was bought by the then low-information San Francisco voter. In two years, that voter has now learned, the hard way, just whom he elected to office.

Indiana, Georgia, Alabama, Ohio Could Soon Allow Constitutional Carry

Tuesday, 08 March 2022 13:46

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, March 8, 2022:

Indiana’s General Assembly is likely to pass “constitutional carry” legislation this week, perhaps as soon as today, making it the 23rd state to do so once Republican Governor Eric Holcomb signs it into law.

The law would allow any Hoosier aged 18 and older to carry a firearm without first having to obtain government permission. It’s called “constitutional” as it reflects the Second Amendment guarantee that exercising such a right may not be “infringed” by government.

The bill’s author, Representative Ben Smaltz, said his bill “levels the playing field” by allowing the state’s citizens to carry openly or concealed, adding:

House Bill 1077 gets us to a place where the law-abiding citizen is not required to go through a process of asking permission, submitting to government investigation, supplying their fingerprints to enjoy a right that is constitutional at the federal level and constitutional at the state level.

On March 5, the Georgia Senate passed a similar bill, removing the need for Georgians to obtain a permit before being able to carry a firearm in public.

Alabama’s Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill last week that would grant the state’s citizens the freedom to carry a firearm without first obtaining permission. It now heads to the full Senate for approval and then on to Governor Kay Ivey’s desk for her signature.

On March 3, Ohio’s General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a bill eliminating the need for Ohioans to get a concealed-carry permit — the House by 57-35, and the Senate by 24-8. That bill now heads to Governor Mike DeWine for signing into law.

The momentum is all in favor of such legislation. Vermont has never had any such requirements thanks to its carefully worded Constitution. A synonym for “constitutional carry” is “Vermont carry.”

In 2003, Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski signed a constitutional carry bill into law; Arizona followed suit in 2010. Wyoming passed similar legislation in 2011, followed by Maine and Kansas in 2015. Four more states passed constitutional carry laws in 2016: West Virginia, Idaho, Mississippi, and Missouri. New Hampshire and North Dakota joined the lengthening list of states removing the permission requirement in 2017, while South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Kentucky followed suit in 2019.

Arkansas joined the constitutional-carry crowd in 2020, followed by Utah, Montana, Iowa, Tennessee, and Texas in 2021.

CNN took note of the accelerating move toward constitutional carry, noting that similar legislation is now pending in Wisconsin, South Carolina, and Nebraska. Michigan and Louisiana are also lining up behind the move toward permitless carry. CNN complained that such a law somehow “protects criminals,” claiming further that such freedom will lead to a rise in violent gun-related crime.

Not so, wrote John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center. In fact, those carrying firearms are much less likely to be convicted of a gun-related crime than even police — 12 times less likely, in fact:

Permit holders nationwide are incredibly law-abiding. Police officers are extremely rarely convicted of firearms-related violations, but it still happens, at a rate twelve times more often than for permit holders.

The case for constitutional carry is persuasive:

The people who benefit the most are those who live in high-crime urban areas;

None of the states which have passed constitutional carry laws have reconsidered them, or even held a single hearing questioning the decision;

The citizens resisting tyranny in Ukraine provide unassailable evidence of the efficacy of the private ownership of firearms; and

Where firearms are prevalent violent crime predictably and consistently declines.

The Second Amendment is overcoming its status as a “second-class” right. Next on the agenda must be repeal of the oppressive Gun Control Act of 1968 and then the National Firearms Act of 1934.

Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan Indicted

Monday, 07 March 2022 17:01

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, March 7, 2022:

Michael Madigan, the longest-serving leader of any state legislature in history (50 years) is facing another possible 20 years — in prison. Last week he was indicted on 22 counts of conspiracy, racketeering, bribery, wire fraud, and attempted extortion. Following an investigation dating back to 2014, and ramped up over the last two years, U.S. Attorney John Lausch stated:

The indictment accuses Madigan of engaging in multiple schemes to reap the benefits of private legal work unlawfully steered to his law firm.… [he is charged with] racketeering conspiracy and individual counts of using interstate facilities in aid of bribery, wire fraud, and attempted extortion….

The indictment alleges a long-term, multi-faceted scheme to use public positions for unlawful private gain.

After reviewing the 109-page grand jury indictment, Crain’s Chicago Business journalist A.D. Quig called the scheme the “Madigan Enterprise,” which included co-conspirator and long-time political aide Mike McClain, along with the 13th Ward Democratic Organization and Madigan’s law firm, Madigan & Getzendanner. Madigan, claimed Lausch, used his considerable power accrued over five decades as House Speaker to reward his friends, ensure the cooperation of his allies, and generate income for various associates through these illegal activities. He “used threats, intimidation and extortion” to obtain the cooperation of his enemies.

There were so many enemies Madigan collected over the years that, according to Rich Miller, editor of the Illinois political newsletter the Capitol Fax, “The pile of political corpses outside Madigan’s statehouse door of those who tried to beat him one way or another is a mile high and a mile wide.”

Madigan is the latest in a long line of corrupt Illinois politicians that includes three governors (Rod Blagojevich, Otto Kerner, and George Ryan) and other state pols charged with corruption over the years.

Madigan is best known for his dictatorial control over members of the Illinois House, selecting which bills would receive a favorable hearing and which ones would disappear into the political woodwork. Those loyal received choice legislative assignments and campaign funds.

His former chief of staff, Timothy Mapes, was indicted last May for lying under oath to a federal grand jury that was investigating Consolidated Edison (ConEd) for seeking and receiving favorable benefits from Madigan. Although Madigan wasn’t indicted in that fraud, he was implicated in it, and ConEd ended up paying a $200 million fine.

In 2014, the Chicago Tribune found more than 400 current and retired state and local government employees who had “campaign ties” to Madigan’s machine. His daughter, Lisa, served as Illinois’ state attorney general for more than 15 years.

In 2016, the Illinois Policy Institute published a documentary about Madigan that almost didn’t get completed, thanks to pressure from the House Speaker. Titled “Madigan: Power, Privilege, Politics” and available for viewing here, the Institute said it was under pressure not to proceed from the beginning:

Making a documentary about the most powerful politician in Illinois is not for the faint of heart. Interviewees feared for their livelihoods. Three in-state production companies wouldn’t take the job, saying they couldn’t risk reprisal. The crew that decided to make the film received death threats.

This is Illinois’ political culture under House Speaker Mike Madigan’s reign.

Madigan is denying all charges: “It’s no secret that I have been the target of vicious attacks by people who sought to diminish my many achievements.… I [have] always act[ed] in the interest of the people of Illinois.”

Madigan’s longtime Republican counterpart in the House, Jim Durkin, responded to Madigan’s indictment: “This is another chapter in the sad story of corruption that has pervaded every corner of the state that was touched by Mike Madigan and his Democrat enablers, and has dismantled true democracy in Illinois.”

Illinois’ Democrat Governor J.B. Pritzker tried to distance himself from Madigan, saying that his indictment “is a condemnation of a system infected with promises of pay-to-play.… The era of corruption and self-dealing among Illinois politicians must end,” adding,

The conduct alleged in this indictment is deplorable and a stark violation of the public’s trust. Michael Madigan must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.

Madigan resigned his position as House Speaker in February 2021 as he began to lose control of his reelection campaign for a 19th term. Rather than suffer the indignity of being relegated to that of a mere House member, he left the chamber that he had ruled with an iron fist for five decades.

The odor of corruption remains, and it will take more than just this indictment to rid Illinois politics of the vast array of dishonest, venal, and unprincipled politicians who owe their very political lives to the former speaker.

New York State Attorney General Suffers Setback in Effort to Dissolve NRA

Saturday, 05 March 2022 06:08

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, March 4, 2021:

New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who called the National Rifle Association (NRA) a “terrorist organization” with a “poisonous agenda” during her election campaign in 2018, was rebuffed in her attempt to have the group dissolved altogether.

Judge Joel M. Cohen chided AG James for overreaching:

The Attorney General’s claims to dissolve the NRA are dismissed.

Her allegations concern primarily private harm to the NRA and its members and donors, which if proven can be addressed by the targeted, less intrusive relief she seeks through other claims in her Complaint.

The Complaint does not allege that any financial misconduct benefited the NRA, or that the NRA exists primarily to carry out such activity, or that the NRA is incapable of continuing its legitimate activities on behalf of its millions of members.

In short, the Complaint does not allege the type of public harm that is the legal linchpin for imposing the “corporate death penalty.”

Moreover, dissolving the NRA could impinge, at least indirectly, on the free speech and assembly rights of its millions of members. While that alone would not preclude statutory dissolution if circumstances otherwise clearly warranted it, the Court believes it is a relevant factor that counsels against State-imposed dissolution, which should be the last option, not the first.

In other words, Judge Cohen accused James of massive overreach in her attempt to close down the NRA altogether over the alleged, and as-yet unproven, misbehavior on the part of the group’s top officials.

Not surprisingly, James, on the day she filed suit, claimed that politics or her personal animosity against the NRA had nothing to do with her complaint: “This is not a question of the moment that I’ve been waiting for. This is a question … of following the facts and applying the law.”

Of course.

She began the investigation into the NRA’s alleged misconduct within a month of taking office in January 2019, an investigation involving dozens of lawyers and investigators in her office and costing taxpayers millions of dollars. In August 2020, she filed the infamous lawsuit, 169 pages long, detailing what she and her task force found: that NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre

has exploited the organization for his financial benefit, and the benefit of a close circle of NRA staff, board members, and vendors.

Contrary to his statutory duties of care, loyalty and obedience to the mission of the charity, LaPierre has undertaken a series of actions to consolidate his position; to exploit that position for his personal benefit and that of his family; to continue, by use of a secret “poison pill contract,” his employment even after removal and ensuring NRA income for life; and to intimidate, punish, and expel anyone at a senior level who raised concerns about his conduct.

The effect has been to divert millions of dollars away from the charitable mission, imposing substantial reductions in its expenditures for core program services, including gun safety, education, training, member services and public affairs.

And then, in a non sequitur, she claimed that La Pierre and his cohorts cost the group millions of dollars, as a result:

During the period 2015 to 2018, the NRA has reported a reduction in unrestricted net assets by $63 million.

In her humble opinion, therefore, she asked the court to dissolve the NRA, use its remaining liquidated assets to reimburse injured parties, and ban the guilty parties from ever running another charity in New York State:

As a result of these persistent violations of law by the Defendants, the Attorney General seeks a finding by this Court that the NRA is liable to be dissolved … based upon the NRA’s pattern of conducting its business in a persistently fraudulent or illegal manner, abusing its powers contrary to public policy of New York and its tax exempt status, and failing to provide for the proper administration of its trust assets and institutional funds; because directors or members in control of the NRA have looted or wasted the corporation assets, have operated the NRA solely for their personal benefit, or have otherwise acted in an illegal, oppressive or fraudulent manner.

The Attorney General requests that this Court determine … that the interest of the public and the members of the NRA supports a decision to dissolve the NRA.

James is disappointed in Cohen’s rebuffing of her request, but relishes the opportunity to pursue the defendants: “We are disappointed that the judge ruled against the dissolution portion of the case [but] are considering our legal options with respect to this ruling. We remain committed to enforcing New York law regardless of how powerful any individual or organization may be.”

Her campaign promise to attack the “terrorist organization” with its “poisonous agenda” will continue despite the court’s rebuff.

Ukrainian Resistance to Putin’s Invasion Is “Remarkable” as They Remember Holodomor

Monday, 28 February 2022 14:31

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, February 28, 2022:

Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s invasion is “remarkable,” according to retired U.S. Army General Jack Keane. Speaking at Fox News Digital over the weekend, Keane said: “It is nothing short of remarkable what the Ukrainian military has accomplished … it is significant that not a single population center had been captured after five nights and four days [of fighting].”

Keane added that Putin has greatly overreached: “I believe Putin has strategically overreached and will suffer long-term consequences for this.”

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer agreed: “[Putin] miscalculated the amount of resistance [Ukrainians would put up] … he was going for a decapitation of the Ukrainian leadership. If you cut off the head, you don’t need to invade everywhere else.”

Putin was counting on the president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to fold, pack his bags, and disappear into the night at the first show of force. Instead, not only did Zelensky encourage his countrymen to fight back, he ordered his staff to provide weapons to citizens requesting them. In addition, he visited the front lines of the developing conflict to encourage the resistance to Putin’s aggression. Finally, he turned down Biden’s offer to help him evacuate the country, firing back that what he needed was ammunition and “not a ride.”

There are times when numbers don’t matter, and this is one of them. Putin mobilized an estimated 250,000 soldiers to decapitate the Ukrainian government, but they met a Ukrainian force of about 110,000 soldiers and citizens. Putin’s army of invaders is not nearly enough to take over the entire country.

Putin’s advantage over Ukraine is staggering in the number of additional troops — active and reserve — he has at the ready, along with huge advantages in tanks, heavy artillery, and air power.

But it doesn’t matter, because Ukrainians remember Holodomor.

Holodomor, in Ukrainian, means to “inflict death by hunger.” Historians call it genocide. An estimated 10 million Ukrainians were deliberately starved in the early 1930s as a result of the Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin’s intention to “teach [them] a lesson through famine.”

In 1928 Stalin mandated an agricultural “collectivization” of Ukraine, ordering farmers to leave their farms, give up their livestock and equipment, and join collective farms. Ukrainian farmers resisted, and Stalin starved them in retaliation.

From the Holodomor Resource Library:

1.5 million Ukrainians in the countryside fall victim to Stalin’s “dekulakization” [removing private farmers — kulaks — from their farms] policies. Over the extended period of collectivization, armed dekulakization brigades forcibly confiscate land, livestock, and other property, and evict entire families.

Close to half a million individuals in Ukraine are dragged from their homes, packed into freight trains, and shipped to remote, uninhabited areas such as Siberia where they are left, often without food or shelter.

A great many, especially children, die in transit or soon thereafter.

The remaining farmers are hounded to give up their land, livestock, and equipment and join the collective farms.

As the traditional structures of rural livelihood disintegrate, the religious clergy are demonized and arrested or deported, and their churches destroyed or repurposed for grain storage or other secular use.

Stalin used nearly incomprehensible draconian measures, including the arrest and execution of anyone — even children — found taking as little as a few stalks of wheat from the fields where they worked. Stalin’s brigades swept through villages, confiscating hidden grain and any other food items from their homes.

At the bottom of the collectivization and forced starvation period (from 1930 to 1932), 28,000 Ukrainians every day were dying from starvation.

Ukrainians remember. In November 2006, the Ukrainian Parliament passed a decree declaring that Holodomor was a deliberate “Act of Genocide,” keeping the horror in the front of the minds of the country’s citizens.

When Ukraine was released from the yoke of Soviet imperialism in the early 1990s, Putin felt betrayed, as Keith Lowe noted in HistoryExtra.com:

Russian-Ukrainian relations have never been the same since. Russian nationalists, including President Vladimir Putin, have always felt betrayed by Ukraine, which they still regard as “Little Russia.” Putin has often claimed that Russians and Ukrainians are “one people” and accused Ukrainian leaders of being little more than foreign puppets.

To Putin’s mind, all he is doing is restoring Russian control over territory Russia lost after the end of the Cold War.

All Ukrainians are doing is fighting back, remembering the days of the Holodomor under Putin’s predecessor, Joseph Stalin.

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