Category Archives: Politics

NRA Files Lawsuit Against Oregon Gun-control Law

Monday, 05 December 2022 11:21

This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, December 5, 2022:

A third lawsuit challenging Oregon’s Measure 114 was filed on Thursday by the Oregon State Shooting Association, the state’s affiliate of the National Rifle Association (NRA).

As The New American noted regarding the requirements of Measure 114,

Anyone who wishes to purchase a firearm would first have to gain permission to do so by paying a fee of $65, completing an application, attending an “approved” firearms safety course at his own expense, submitting a photo ID and fingerprints, and then passing an in-depth background check that includes questions about his mental health.

Regrettably, the lawsuit filed on Thursday reveals that the “permission process” is vastly more complex than reported:

Measure 114 imposes severe and unprecedented burdens on individuals seeking to exercise perhaps the most basic right guaranteed by the Second Amendment: the right to lawfully acquire a firearm.

Although Measure 114 bills itself as creating a “shall issue” licensing regime that awards applicants a five-year “permit-to-purchase” firearms, in reality it erects a Kafkaesque regime that finds no support in history, tradition, or even modern regulation and that suffers from literally every defect the Supreme Court just identified as antithetical to the Second Amendment.

Under Measure 114, an individual must obtain a “permit-to-purchase” before she may acquire a firearm by any means. Obtaining this permit is no mean feat. To start, before an individual can even submit an application for the new permit, she first must complete a “firearms training course” that satisfies various strict new criteria…. But the state does not provide any such courses, and none that satisfies its demanding new criteria currently exists.

Even if one managed to take this as-yet-non-existent course, there would still be many hurdles yet to clear. Next up is submitting to fingerprinting and photographing by the sheriff or police chief, who must then ask the Department of State Police (“DSP”) to conduct a criminal background check…. That alone could delay any ability to exercise Second Amendment rights indefinitely, since Measure 114 neither imposes any time constraint on DSP to conduct the check nor creates a mechanism to force DSP to act.

Space does not permit listing the additional requirements to obtain permission to exercise a Second Amendment right, but the lawsuit sums it up nicely:

The net result is that, come just one week from now [Thursday, December 8], no one will be able to lawfully purchase a firearm in Oregon. [Emphasis in original.]

That’s how Oregon voters responded to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bruen: by embracing one of the strictest gun laws in the nation instead of celebrating the high court’s affirmation of the Second Amendment.

Last Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut heard two hours of arguments in the first lawsuit brought against the Oregon gun-control law, filed by the Oregon Firearms Federation. She said she will rule shortly on the matter, likely before the law becomes effective.

Judge Immergut is going to be busy. A fourth lawsuit against the gun-control law was filed late Friday, by Sportsmen’s Warehouse, and other lawsuits are pending.

Lawsuits Challenge Oregon’s Draconian Gun-control Law

Friday, 02 December 2022 14:27

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, December 2, 2022:

Oregonians, by the slimmest of margins — 27,000 votes out of 1.9 million cast — passed Measure 114, touted as one of the nation’s strictest gun-control laws. It is also doomed to failure at the U.S. Supreme Court, if the two lawsuits just filed against it get that far.

In Bruen, the high court ruled in June not only that New York’s gun permit requirements violated the Constitution, but also affirmed the right of a citizen to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense.

The Supreme Court just added to those rulings with another one, this one overturning California’s ban on magazines carrying more than 10 rounds of ammunition. In that ruling the high court directed the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to “revisit” its ruling supporting California’s 10-round magazine ban.

Nevertheless, voters in the Beaver State passed Measure 114, which is to become effective December 8. Anyone who wishes to purchase a firearm would first have to gain permission to do so by paying a fee of $65, completing an application, attending an “approved” firearms safety course at his own expense, submit a photo ID and fingerprints, and then pass an in-depth background check that includes questions about his mental health.

Assuming he obtains permission, he would then be unable to purchase a magazine containing more than 10 rounds of ammunition, under Measure 114.

The first lawsuit, filed on November 18, was brought by the Oregon Firearms Federation against the governor and the attorney general of the state. It claimed that the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen requires that any state attempting to infringe on the Second Amendment must justify that infringement:

The standard for applying the Second Amendment is as follows:

When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. The government must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

Only then may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s unqualified command.

The lawsuit claims that Measure 114 cannot be justified and should be tossed.

The second lawsuit, filed on November 30, was brought by the Second Amendment Foundation and the Firearms Policy Coalition against Oregon’s attorney general and the head of the Oregon State Police. Its focus was on the 10-round magazine ban, claiming that “absent relief from this court, defendants will violate the constitutionally protected rights of Oregon’s law-abiding citizens,” adding that such a ban “will do nothing to address or ameliorate … public policy concerns [over gun violence].”

To bolster its case, the lawsuit refers to both the California ruling — Duncan v. Bonta — as well as Bruen. On June 30, the Supreme Court issued in Duncan v. Bonta a “GVR” — grant, vacate, and remand — to the lower court. This requires the 9th Circuit Court to “adjudicate” its prior ruling in a manner consistent with the high court’s ruling.

It also noted that the Bruen decision protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms outside the home: “When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.”

These arguments are to be heard by U. S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut today in Portland.

“Respect for Marriage Act” One Step Away From Becoming Law

Wednesday, 30 November 2022 12:42

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, November 30, 2022:

As expected, enough Senate Republicans caved on Tuesday to help the Democrats pass their anti-Christian “Respect for Marriage Act.” The bill is now headed to the House, where changes made to the bill to mollify conservatives and assure its passage will be affirmed, and from there on to the White House for signing into law.

Much ado was made about the changes in the original bill offered back in July, to offset criticism that the language all but invited state officials, attorneys general, and the IRS to target not only churches but any group opposed to their same-sex marriage agenda.

The modifications promise “No impact on religious liberty and conscience”:

Nothing in this Act, or any amendment made by this Act, shall be construed to diminish or abrogate a religious liberty or conscience protection otherwise available to an individual or organization under the Constitution of the United States or Federal law.

Consistent with the First Amendment to the Constitution, nonprofit religious organizations, including churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, nondenominational ministries, interdenominational and ecumenical organizations, mission organizations, faith-based social agencies, religious educational institutions, and nonprofit entities whose principal purpose is the study, practice, or advancement of religion, and any employee of such an organization, shall not be required to provide services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges for the solemnization or celebration of a marriage. Any refusal under this subsection to provide such services, accommodations, advantages, facilities, goods, or privileges shall not create any civil claim or cause of action.

Mat Staver, founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, saw through the deceptive language: “This amendment does very little to protect religious freedom, but it was the hook to garner the votes of 12 Republicans.… The amendment … does nothing to protect Christians and other faithful religious adherents.”

Staver explained:

The bill has essentially no religious liberty protections. The fact that three religious liberty amendments were rejected by the Senate (proposed by Sens. Lee, Lankford and Rubio) in favor of the Baldwin-Collins amendment illustrates the open disdain the bill presents to religious freedom.

Staver revealed the pernicious and odious intentions of the bill:

Because HR 8404 changes federal policy, government edicts on marriage, schools and families WILL change, and all of America will be forced in one way or another to bow to the never-ending LGBTQ political agenda….

And because this federal bill removes gender from the gender-based relationship of marriage, it undermines gender altogether and opens the door to yet more child mutilation via “transgender” surgeries — all because a deviant Congress is saying gender does not matter and perversion should be embraced and even celebrated.

Another public-interest law firm, Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), expands on the bill’s purpose:

This dangerously cynical and completely unnecessary bill is a direct attack on the First Amendment.

It does nothing to change the legal status of same-sex marriage anywhere. But it undermines religious freedom everywhere and exposes Americans throughout the country to predatory lawsuits by activists seeking to use the threat of litigation to silence debate and exclude people of faith from the public square.

Today, the Senate has chosen to disregard legitimate concerns about the undeniable harms of this bill.

If the Senate truly cared about protecting religious freedom, it would have included comprehensive amendments proposed by Sens. Lee, Rubio, and Lankford.

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, sees the threat to Christians and Christian organizations built into the bill about to become law:

The amended language includes vague assurances that the legislation will not violate religious freedom but it mostly assures us that the bill will not do what no one claimed it would do, such as require congregations and churches to solemnize same-sex marriages.

What is left wide open is the threat to ministries such as Christian orphanages and children’s care as well as adoption ministries and foster care. This amended language resolves nothing, but is offered as an assurance that religious freedom is protected.

Mohler points out still another fault hidden in the language of the bill: “By the way, the language of the bill does not offer any absolute protection against polygamy if a state legalizes it in some form.”

What is clear is that, once signed into law, the bill will in fact allow state officials, state attorneys general from liberal states, and the IRS to ramp up their attacks on Christians and Christian ministries. Senator Mike Lee expressed his disappointment that his amendment to clarify this failed, along with the warning:

Despite the support of every voting Republican but one, and even a Democrat, the Respect for Marriage Act just passed [the Senate] without my amendment, which would have prevented the government from retaliating against religious individuals and institutions for their sincerely held religious beliefs regarding marriage.

This is a discouraging development in our country’s storied history of protecting the free exercise of religion.

The bill, once signed into law, will be such an egregious threat to the First Amendment that it is likely that the ADF and Liberty Counsel are already looking into challenging it in court.

Red-state Voters Opposed to “Respect for Marriage Act”

Tuesday, 29 November 2022 13:07

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, November 29, 2022:

In response to what Democrats perceived as a potential threat to the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which ruled that there is a fundamental right somewhere in the Constitution guaranteeing that two people of the same sex can legally be married, they crafted and are about to pass a bill “codifying” that alleged right into law.

The bill about to be voted on, perhaps as early as today, H.R. 8404, is a simple bill with a nasty and potentially devastating paragraph: Anyone who violates the new law may be sued.

Here’s the language:

No person acting under color of State law may deny “full faith and credit to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State pertaining to a marriage between 2 individuals, on the basis of the sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin of those individuals”….

Any person who is harmed by a violation of [this section of the law] may bring a civil action in the appropriate United States district court against the person who violated such subsection for declaratory and injunctive relief.

The Heritage Foundation asked voters in states represented by the five Republicans who allowed this bill to move forward what they really thought about the bill. The sell-out Republican Senators were Todd Young of Indiana, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Mitt Romney of Utah, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming.

The foundation asked 2,000 voters from those five Republican states how they felt about the bill. Wes Anderson, who ran the poll, wrote:

The results show that conservative voters’ support for the questionably named Respect for Marriage Act is significantly lower than the national media coverage would have you believe. On top of this, when voters are given more information of the impacts of the bill, support slips even further.

Initially, 47 percent opposed the bill while just 42 percent favored it. But when Anderson asked the questions based upon how the bill is likely to impact Christian churches, groups, and charities, the support faded away.

Here are the questions:

This law would allow religious organizations to be sued for refusing to perform gay marriages, forcing them to defend their First Amendment rights in court, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars;
This bill would punish faith-based organizations. For example, religious adoption agencies could lose their non-profit status and be forced to close if they refuse to recognize same sex marriage in their operations; and
This bill could weaponize the IRS against faith-based organizations, including religious schools, by threatening their nonprofit status for not recognizing same sex marriage.

Support for the bill dropped to 18 percent, 20 percent, and 22 percent, respectively.

Anderson concluded:

These results show that voters’ opinions of the Respect for Marriage Act in these five states is not what is being reported.

Voters in these conservative states oppose the bill and this opposition only grows when more information is given.

It is clear that it will take more than a naming misdirect [that is: falsely name the bill as “respecting” the institution of marriage] to convince the GOP base that this bill is not a threat to their religious liberty.

Utah’s other Republican senator, Mike Lee, has presented an amendment to the bill to make certain that these possibilities don’t become reality. In an opinion piece in Fox News, Lee wrote that “there is a legitimate risk that, without robust protections in place, federal recognition of same-sex marriage could … inflict harm on those who, for reasons rooted in sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction, do not embrace same-sex marriage.”

His amendment would prohibit the federal government from retaliating against any person or group for adhering to those beliefs or convictions. Accordingly, wrote Lee, “my amendment should be a no-brainer.”

Lee’s amendment will be voted on prior to a vote on the bill itself.

Homeschooling Surge Continues as States Relax Rules

Monday, 28 November 2022 12:34

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

The surge in homeschooling, aided and abetted by the pandemic, continues.

The pandemic revealed to many parents for the first time just what sort of socialist and cultural indoctrination their children were being subjected to in the public schools. The school shooting in Uvalde, Texas; the increase in the use and sale of drugs on campus; the imposition of CRT in place of real American history; bullying; and — oh yes — poor academic performance — all have figured into the new educational equation.

Initially, the number of students leaving public schools during the first year of the pandemic was staggering. At one point, instead of just three percent of all students being schooled at home, that percentage tripled. Among black families, it quintupled.

In Texas, for example, the percentage of students being homeschooled during the 2019-2020 school year was estimated to be 4.5%. The very next year the percentage nearly tripled, to 12.5%.

That surge continues thanks not only to the results being enjoyed by those homeschooled students in terms of educational excellence, but also to the homeschool movement itself.

Taking Texas as an example, opting out of public schools is fairly simple and mostly unregulated. If a child is moving out of a public school, the parents are required to notify the local school district. The state then only mandates that the child’s learning at home be in a visual format (workbooks and online courses) and that the curriculum include reading, grammar, math, and what Texas calls “good citizenship.”

South Dakota has taken notice and relaxed its home schooling rules. Efforts of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) paid off with the passage of Senate Bill 177, which ended the requirement that homeschool students take standardized tests. Prior to that, if a student failed the tests, the state had power to intervene.

An HSLDA attorney celebrated the victory:

It was a big win for parental rights. It cut out unnecessary regulation and streamlined the process so parents can invest their time in providing the best education they can for their children.

Similar victories or relaxations have occurred in Virginia, Illinois, South Carolina, Iowa, Idaho, Mississippi, and Utah, according to a study by The Epoch Times:

Beyond requirements that homeschooling parents teach a few core subjects like math and English, they are free to pick the content.

Another factor favoring homeschooling is flexibility. Homeschooling mom Kim Quon of Missouri reported to The Epoch Times that after finishing the required classes — usually from 8:30 to noon on weekdays — her children “had a lot of time left in the day to explore their own interests.”

And Quon had plenty of help from online sources:

I’m not a college graduate. So you don’t have to be a brainy person to homeschool your kids because there are so many resources and people available to help.

For another homeschooling mom, Linda McCarthy of Buffalo, New York, the decision to homeschool was easy. In the public schools,

There are kids who don’t know basic English structure, but [the schools] want to push other things on children, and it can be blatant. But it can be, and mostly is, very subtle, very, very subtle.

So we were ready to pull [our children out] and will never send them back to traditional school.

The continuing growth of the homeschooling movement is especially encouraging to those involved in the freedom fight. Abraham Lincoln said: “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”

Eric Metaxas frequently voices his support for the homeschooling movement as being fundamental in the freedom fight, as does David Davenport, a fellow at the Hoover Institution: “If you are concerned about the direction of America, it is time to do something about the study of civics, which is the real long-term solution.”

Biden Rants Against Guns Again, but Little Chance Anything Passes in Lame-duck Session

Saturday, 26 November 2022 15:53

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Saturday, November 26, 2022:

Like a windup doll, White House resident Joe Biden took off after assault weapons following two recent mass shootings. Early on Thanksgiving Day he told reporters, “the idea … we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick. It’s just sick. It has no, no social redeeming value. Zero. None. Not a single, solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturers.”

He thinks he might be able to get something passed during the upcoming lame-duck session of congress — that lull in the storm between the midterm elections and the installation of a new Congress in January: “I’m going to do it whenever I — I got to make that assessment as I get in and start counting the votes.”

The votes aren’t there, Joe. For a sweeping gun-control bill banning the purchase, possession, or sale of semi-automatic firearms to pass the Senate, it must first pass a nearly insurmountable barrier: the filibuster.

As the liberal Brennan Center for Justice explains:

Once a bill gets to a vote on the Senate floor, it requires a simple majority of 51 votes to pass after debate has ended.

But there’s a catch: before it can get to a vote, it actually takes 60 votes to cut off debate, which is why a 60-vote supermajority is now considered the de facto minimum for passing legislation in the Senate.

But there’s the “silent” filibuster rule that may end any chance of Biden getting anything passed:

But since the early 1970s, senators have been able to use a “silent” filibuster. Anytime a group of 41 or more senators simply threatens a filibuster, the Senate majority leader can refuse to call a vote.

Dead. Done. Gone.

So ol’ Joe can count votes until the end of time and there’s little chance anything the Democrats can dream up to infringe further on citizens’ Second Amendment rights will see the light of day between now and January.

But that doesn’t mean ol’ Joe won’t keep trying. Somehow he thinks that with sufficient repetition of the lie that the problem is guns, not the people using them, voters will support a ban on them.

In August, following the Uvalde, Texas, shooting at Robb Elementary School (where, it will be remembered, law enforcement delayed responding to the threat for 74 minutes!), Biden repeated the canard: “A 20-year-old kid can walk in and buy [a firearm]? … What’s the matter with us?” He added: “I’m determined to ban assault weapons in this country. Determined. I did it once, and I’ll do it again.”

Of course, he is referring to the Clinton gun ban of 1994 that ended after ten years of evidence showing that it did nothing to reduce gun violence.

According to Biden, it’s the firearms themselves that somehow are the cause of the shootings. In August he repeated the fable: “We’re living in a country awash with weapons of war. Weapons that weren’t designed to hunt, they’re designed to take on an enemy … what’s the rationale for these weapons outside of a war zone?”

He added:

We have to act for all those kids gunned down on our streets every single day that never make the news…. You have to act so our kids can learn to read in school, instead of learning to duck and cover.

Journalists unpacking the lies spouted by ol’ Joe in just this statement alone could make a nice living doing so.

In his statement following the recent shooting in Colorado Springs, Biden touted his support for a law that further infringes on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, the real target (sorry) of the legislation:

Earlier this year, I signed the most significant gun safety law in nearly three decades, in addition to taking other historic actions. But we must do more. We need to enact an assault weapons ban to get weapons of war off America’s streets.

Biden is referring to what the mainstream media called the “most important piece of gun legislation since 1994,” which includes the odious and unconstitutional federal funding for red flag laws to states wanting to pass them.

All those red flag laws have managed to do, according to the Associated Press, is “remove the firearms from people 15,049 times since 2020,” but with no evidence of any measurable related decrease in gun violence.

Naturally, rights are in danger any time Congress is in session, but even more so during the lame-duck session, as enough Republicans In Name Only could climb on board a complete firearms ban to end the filibuster, providing a path to the legislation’s passage, while escaping punishment from voters.

Philadelphia DA Krasner’s Impeachment Trial Set for Next Week

Friday, 25 November 2022 13:16

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

George Soros-backed Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s impeachment trial begins next week. If successful, he will be removed from office.

But not without a fight. First, the rules of impeachment (similar to those in the U.S. Constitution) must be approved by the state Senate on Tuesday. Next, the Senate will invite the House impeachment managers to present their case for impeachment.

Following that, a final resolution, a writ of summons, will be voted on before sending the summons on to Krasner requiring him to defend himself. He will have to respond in writing no later than Wednesday, December 21. He will then be ordered to appear in person before the senate on January 18, 2023.

Krasner won’t leave quietly. In response he said, “They have impeached me without presenting a single shred of evidence connecting our policies to any uptick in crime … That Pennsylvania Republicans willfully avoided hearing the facts about my office is shameful.”

Krasner got the cart before the horse: impeachment will take place only after the Senate has heard all of the evidence from the House managers. And they have much more than “a single shred of evidence.”

According to the Second Interim Report by the Select Committee on Restoring Law and Order,

[B]etween January 1, 2021, and October 16, 2022 [Krasner first assumed office on January 1, 2018], 992 people have died as a result of a homicide in Philadelphia. This is a stark increase from the 557 deaths resulting from homicides in 2015 to 2016 combined….

[B]etween 2017 and September of 2022, 81% of non-fatal shootings and 61.5% of fatal shootings did not result in arrests of the shooters….

To date in 2022, 65% of all violent offenses have been withdrawn by the DAO [District Attorney’s Office] or dismissed by the courts, resulting in no prosecution for those crimes. (Emphasis in the original)

Thomas Jefferson wrote that “once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles.”

If Krasner is successfully impeached and removed from office, it will be a good start, but only a start. As Parker Thayer, an investigative researcher for the Capital Research Center, noted, Soros has backed the election campaigns of numerous far-Left candidates for the office of District Attorney across the land, with Krasner being just one of them.

Others include:

Diana Becton, Contra Costa County, California

George Gascon, Los Angeles County, California

Monique Worrell, Orange and Osceola Counties, Florida

Darius Pattillo, Henry County, Georgia

Kim Foxx, Cook County (Chicago), Illinois

James Stewart, Caddo Parish, Louisiana

Scott Colom, Circuit Court District Sixteen, Mississippi

Jody Owens, Hinds County, Mississippi

Kim Gardner, St. Louis, Missouri

Raul Torrez, Bernalillo County (Albuquerque), New Mexico

Alvin Bragg, Manhattan, New York

David Clegg, Ulster County, New York

Jack Stollsteimer, Delaware County, Pennsylvania

Joe Gonzalez, Bexar County (San Antonio), Texas

John Creuzot, Dallas County, Texas

Brian Middleton, Fort Bend County, Texas

Kim Ogg, Harris County (Houston), Texas

Jose Garza, Travis County (Austin), Texas

Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, Arlington County and City of Falls Church, Virginia

Steve Descano, Fairfax County, Virginia

Buta Biberaj, Loudoun County, Virginia

Ramin Fatehi, Norfolk County, Virginia

As Thayer noted, “it is vital that [these] communities regain control of their own criminal justice systems and reject the false promises of the progressive district attorney movement [funded by Soros]. These ‘woke’ criminal justice policies have universally led to disaster, and our poorest communities, not Soros, are left holding the body bags.”

Soros-funded Dallas DA Backs Down From One Destructive Policy, Leaves Others in Place

Wednesday, 23 November 2022 14:36

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

One of George Soros’ many progressive financial beneficiaries backed off from a single “progressive” policy on Monday, but left in place many others. Dallas County District Attorney John Cruezot, whose elections were backed by hundreds of thousands of dollars not only from George Soros but from the left-wing Texas Justice & Public Safety (TJPS) political action committee (founded by Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King), announced on Monday:

Through data analysis and conversations with community organizations, retailers, and independent loss prevention specialists, I found the policy had zero effect on crime in the county — positive or negative.

I have come to the understanding that this policy is more aspirational than realistic and rather than helping those in need, I have watched that population, and primarily people of color, be blamed for a rise in crime.

“The policy” in question that Cruezot is now reversing was stated just months after he first won office in 2019:

Study after study shows that when we arrest, jail, and convict people for non-violent crimes committed out of necessity, we only prevent that person from gaining the stability necessary to lead a law-abiding life.

Criminalizing poverty is counter-productive for our community’s health and safety. For that reason, this office will not prosecute theft of personal items less than $750 unless the evidence shows that the alleged theft was for economic gain.

Let’s parse this: stealing is justified if it is “committed out of necessity.” Left alone, it is suggested, the thief will gain enough from stealing to then suddenly become a legitimate, law-abiding member of society, saving the county thousands of dollars in attempts to rehabilitate him.

Said another way, according to Cruezot’s twisted logic, “criminalizing poverty” is “counter-productive,” so it must not be prosecuted.

In announcing another of his policies at the same time, Cruezot proudly said, “I have declined prosecution on misdemeanor possession of marijuana cases for first-time offenders … [and am] in the process of dismissing all pending misdemeanor marijuana cases filed before I took office.… To date I have dismissed over a thousand misdemeanor marijuana cases.”

This and other “progressive policies” — failing to prosecute THC possession, criminal trespass, or driving with a suspended license; reducing or eliminating probation; and reducing or eliminating altogether cash bail requirements — remain in effect.

And the outcome has been predictably catastrophic. As noted by news aggregator DiscoverTheNetworks.com (DTN):

The city of Dallas, home to nearly half of Dallas County’s 2.6 million people, experienced an immediate rise in crime during Creuzot’s initial year in office.

Between 2018 and 2019, murders increased from 155 to 198 (27.7%), robberies increased from 3,986 to 4,400 (10.4%), and assaults increased from 5,456 to 6,369 (16.7%).

Violent crime overall rose by 15%, while total convictions dropped by 30%.

One of Cruezot’s most despicable policies was to not seek the death penalty for a serial murderer named Billy Chemirmir. From DTN:

In June 2021, Cruezot announced that his DA office would not seek the death penalty for 48-year-old Billy Chemirmir, an illegal alien and longtime criminal from Kenya who stood accused of having robbed and murdered, by suffocation, 24 elderly Americans — 23 of whom were women aged 75 to 94 — between 2016 and 2018.

The criminal had initially escaped conviction thanks to a hung jury, but a second trial convicted him of capital murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison without any chance of parole.

In his press release on Monday, Cruezot affirmed his commitment to his other progressive policies:

My assistants and I will use our discretion to prosecute those who deserve it and utilize our strengthened Pre-Trial Intervention programs and other community resources to get vulnerable [read: criminal] populations the help they need.

As for George Soros, he said: “I have supported the election … of prosecutors who support reform. I have done it transparently, and I have no intention of stopping.”

As Parker Thayer pointed out:

Soros’s influence on left-wing DA candidates is often wildly underestimated.

Since 2016, when Soros first began to back the campaigns of district attorneys (presumably as part of the “Resistance” to the Trump administration), [Capital Research Center] researchers have tracked more than $29 million in funding from Soros through a personal network of political action committees (PACs) formed specifically to back left-wing DA candidates.

In total, Soros cash has generously supported over 20 individual candidates, many of whom won their elections and remain in office today.

That includes Dallas County District Attorney John Cruezot.

Newsmax Gets It Wrong on Colorado Springs Shooting

Tuesday, 22 November 2022 13:10

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, November 22, 2022:

Just hours after the horrific mass shooting at Club Q — a gay and lesbian nightclub in Colorado Springs — Eric Mack, a journalist with Newsmax, did the automatic thing: he reached out to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) for some data. Without analyzing the actual data Mack appeared to be content with simply adding up all their “Mass Shootings in 2022” and wrote this:

After a week of a pair of mass shootings — an LGBTQ club in Colorado and the University of Virginia — the U.S. total has gone over 600 for the year at a record-setting pace, according to Gun Violence Archive data.

Mack added, “A mass shooting is defined as one where four or more people are injured or killed by firearms, which does not include the shooter being stopped.”

It was easy then for him to conclude that “mass shootings” are on the upswing: “Nearly 700 mass shootings occurred in 2021, up from 610 in 2020 and just 417 in 2019.”

Except that in 2019 there were only 30 mass shootings, according to the FBI. And in 2020, instead of 610 such incidents, the FBI reported only 20, a 50-percent decline over 2019!

AWR Hawkins, the Second Amendment writer for Breitbart, explained why: “The GVR standard [when counting mass shootings] is a much lower threshold for qualifying incidents as ‘mass shootings’ than has traditionally been used. In fact, it allows incidents in which there were no fatalities to be counted.… It also allows gang incidents, drive-by shootings, and other common street crimes to be counted as ‘mass shootings.’”

Investigative journalist Lee Williams, writing for Armed American News, was much more explicit:

According to their new report titled: “Active Shooter Incidents in the United States in 2020,” the FBI defines active shootings as:

Shootings in public places

Shootings occurring at more than one location

Shootings where the shooter’s actions were not the result of another criminal act

Shootings resulting in a mass killing

Shootings indicating apparent spontaneity by the shooter

Shootings where the shooter appeared to methodically search for potential victims

Shootings that appeared focused on injury to people, not buildings or objects

Shootings were excluded from the FBI’s list if they were the result of:

Self-defense

Gang violence

Drug violence

Contained residential or domestic disputes

Controlled barricade/hostage situations

Crossfire as a byproduct of another ongoing criminal act

An action that appeared not to have put other people in peril

Williams noted, “By comparison, the Gun Violence Archive excludes nothing, even if the shooting is gang or drug related — the two main causes of most violence in the country today.”

Why do mainstream journalists turn so readily to GVA for data on mass shootings? Wrote Wiliams, “Anytime four or more people are killed or even slightly wounded with a firearm, it’s labeled a mass shooting, and politicians, gun control advocates and the mainstream media treat their reports as if they’re gospel.”

GVA includes everything, and lets those writers seeking to promote their anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment agenda decide for themselves how they will use the data. The GVA website records police shooting injuries and deaths, mass shootings, individual gun related incidents, suicides, injuries, teen, child, and adult related injuries and deaths.

Another writer who fell into the GVA data trap is Mother Jones Editor Mark Follman. In 2015 he used their data to claim that there were 355 “mass shootings” that year, but then discovered the mistake, and corrected it:

At Mother Jones, where I work as an editor, we have compiled an in-depth open-source database covering more than three decades of public mass shootings. By our measure, there have been four “mass shootings” this year, including the one in San Bernardino, and [just] 73 such attacks since 1982.

We are persuaded that Newsmax writer Eric Mack made an honest mistake. We are not persuaded that mainstream media writers are as innocent of misusing GVA data.

Barna: More Than Half of “Voting-eligible” Public Didn’t Vote in the Midterms

Thursday, 17 November 2022 16:44

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, November 17, 2022:

George Barna, founder of the polling company Barna Group and director of research at Arizona Christian University’s Cultural Research Center, was blunt in his assessment following the November 8 midterm elections:

We have reached the turning point, the moment when Americans must finally decide if they want government to rule their lives or if they will rule themselves.

I believe 2024 may be the point of no return: either it will be government of, by, and for the people — exercised through the nuclear family — or it will be a government of elites, not unlike the monarchy we left behind in England more than 200 years ago.

Based on the latest survey taken of nearly 4,000 adults, Barna concluded that the failure of the majority of “voting-eligible” people to show up last Tuesday was because neither political party spoke to their own interests:

The choice facing Americans is really not about Democrat or Republican rule; that’s a distraction.

It is about re-establishing the will, the vision, the rights, and the rule of the people. Right now we have the wrong people pushing the wrong actions for the wrong reasons.

Matters will only get worse unless the people are willing to invest in restoring their authority in this republic.

When asked if “individuals should have the rights and freedom to make legitimate choices rather than having the government make those choices for them,” those surveyed overwhelmingly wanted to be left alone. All across the political spectrum and party affiliations, three-quarters wanted to make their own decisions.

Almost 80 percent agreed that “political leaders cannot only focus on today. They must anticipate what’s coming and consider long-term possibilities in order to prepare us to successfully address future challenges.”

And they are persuaded that the country’s political system isn’t broken; it’s being dreadfully abused by power-hungry politicians. Over 70 percent agreed that:

Our political system is not broken; it is being abused by people who are in politics for their own benefit or personal interests.

The system still works but it requires officials who will protect our freedoms by applying constitutional principles rather than changing the system to satisfy personal preferences or ideological ideals.

This only works when the voting public is presented with clear-cut choices among competing candidates: those seeking power for power’s sake, or those seeking to serve their constituents. Said Barna: “That puts the burden on the citizenry to demonstrate the wisdom and courage to … empower those committed to serving the public.”

Following Donald Trump’s announcement for the presidency in 2024, Conrad Black, the founder and publisher of The New York Sun, wrote that Trump has tapped into many of those values American voters were seeking but not finding in the midterms. He wrote:

President Trump’s announcement of his candidacy to regain his former office was one of the outstanding political speeches given in the United States in the post-Reagan years. He jumped from being a grumbling re-litigator to an imaginative reformer….

In his presidential candidacy announcement address, Mr. Trump was temperate, focused on the issues, and took the lead in repositioning the Republican Party as an agent of positive change more than of vengeance.

Late, certainly, but apparently not too late, he did what critics had been urging, and more.

Trump followed the advice of those who, like Barna, have their finger on the pulse of the American voter:

Mr. Trump promised early on in his remarks that he would avoid the expression “fake news,” and as if to emphasize that he has turned a new page and listened to his critics, he did not use the phrase again. His criticisms of the press in the balance of his address were few, precise, and not overstated.

Oratorically speaking, it was a new Trump. It was a logical sequence delivered forcefully but without bluster and with none of the usual asides and expatiations that, however amusing, often have made him seem unserious and self-obsessed, and have been harmful to his credibility….

It was tactically and psychologically important for him to promise reform and not vengeance. He highlighted one of the many weaknesses in Democratic attacks upon him: The Democrats do not fear Trump-sponsored chaos or a Trump assault upon democracy; they fear exposure of their own misdeeds and hypocrisy.

Trump, according to Black, played to his strength: “He is not really a politician but entered the political world to make it better.” In one hour, wrote Black,

Donald Trump reminded the nation of his great strengths and by not displaying them, caused millions of people to begin to forget what caused them to fear or dislike him.

Whatever the political future may hold, and it is likely to be tortuous and contentious, Donald Trump revived his political fortunes….

Donald Trump has been underestimated before, and he has strained the patience even of long-time supporters, but he showed on Tuesday night his intuitive political brilliance, his indomitable personality, and his indestructible status as the evocative voice of profound and widespread, if often almost unspoken, popular political aspirations.

Whether Trump knew the results of Barna’s study is not known. What is known is that Trump largely tapped into many — if not most — of the reasons that half the “voting-eligible” public didn’t show up in 2022.

Now they have a reason to show up in 2024.

Pa. House Committee Approves Articles of Impeachment Against Soros-backed Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner

Wednesday, 16 November 2022 12:45

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, November 16, 2022:

When the Old Testament prophet Hosea warned that those who “have sown the wind shall reap the whirlwind,” he could have been speaking of Philadelphia voters. In 2017, intoxicated by promises of Larry Krasner, the Soros-funded candidate for the city’s district attorney, to revamp the city’s law-enforcement policies, the heavily Democratic city’s voters bought the lie.

They reelected him by even more overwhelming numbers in 2021.

His policies have resulted in a jaw-dropping increase in every category of violent crime, and caused the Pennsylvania House Judiciary Committee to approve two articles of impeachment against him on Tuesday.

Krasner’s “progressive” policies, aided and abetted by a supportive far-Left mayor, included ending criminal charges against those caught possessing marijuana, ending cash bail for criminals charged with “minor” crimes, and demanding lenient sentences for certain crimes.

In addition, the progressive reordering of justice in Philadelphia included reviewing past cases and sentences in order to seek re-sentencing to lesser punishment, or even release from prison.

Rep. Martina White, a Philadelphia Republican and prime sponsor of the two articles of impeachment, told a press conference following the committee’s vote on Tuesday:

I suspect that we will have bipartisan support for this effort as we have thus far. The investigation and holding Larry Krasner in contempt was bipartisan.

Tomorrow, I believe this will also be bipartisan because the people of Philadelphia deserve better than what they receive out of the district attorney’s office.

He has not been doing his job well enough for us, endangering the lives of citizens that he’s supposed to serve and protect by prosecuting criminals and making sure that they’re convicted guilty, should the evidence be there.

But that’s not what’s happening right now. The district attorney is basically withdrawing cases at an unprecedented level.

The investigation to which she referred — the Second Interim Report by the Select Committee on Restoring Law and Order — opened with this:

The Select Committee begins this Second Interim Report by summarizing the statistics with respect to the increase in the number of homicide victims—between January 1, 2021, and October 16, 2022, 992 people have died as a result of a homicide in Philadelphia.

This is a stark increase to the 557 deaths resulting from homicides in 2015 to 2016 combined. [Emphasis in original.]

The report attributed the increase — Hosea’s “whirlwind” — directly to the policies of the district attorney and his office:

It is no secret that the DAO [district attorney’s office] and DA Krasner’s progressive policies are the focus of criticism with respect to the increasing crime rate, the handling of criminal cases, and the abject failure to respond, in any meaningful way, to the current crisis….

Between 2017 and September of 2022, 81% of non-fatal shootings and 61.5% of fatal shootings did not result in arrests of the shooters.

However, most troubling to the Select Committee, is what happens after arrests are made—the DAO’s prosecution, or lack thereof. The DAO categorizes violent offenses as homicides, nonfatal shootings, rape, robberies, aggravated assault, and other forms of assault.

To date in 2022, 65% of all violent offenses have been withdrawn by the DAO or dismissed by the courts, resulting in no prosecution for those crimes. [Emphasis in original.]

Criminals are emboldened by the new policies, says the report:

The Select Committee has learned that while a prosecutor’s discretion to enforce criminal laws is broad, the most powerful impact of that discretion is a prosecutor’s decision not to prosecute a case.

The Select Committee shares Philadelphia Police [Commissioner] Danielle Outlaw’s outrage that arrests in Philadelphia are not leading to criminals being removed from the streets.

No doubt, Philadelphia criminals are emboldened by the knowledge that (a) the likelihood that they will be arrested is slim, and (b) once caught, the likelihood that they will be prosecuted and incarcerated is minimal. [Emphasis in original.]

Pennsylvania’s state constitution says that Krasner can be impeached and removed from office if convicted “for any misbehavior in office.” Assuming the full House approves the committee’s vote, Krasner’s future as DA moves to the Republican-controlled Senate for trial.

Trump Sues Jan. 6 Committee Over Subpoena

Tuesday, 15 November 2022 11:38

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Tuesday, November 15, 2022:

No doubt tempted to take on the January 6 “select” committee in a public forum, former President Donald Trump decided to take a more formal, and decisive, route: by suing the committee last Friday, he effectively ended its existence.

The lawsuit won’t likely be decided until after the new Congress is installed in January. And the new Congress is highly unlikely to continue the charade as it focuses on other vastly more important matters.

Voters, as The New American pointed out, have already effectively dismissed the committee in any event, with just five of the committee’s nine members surviving the November 8 midterm elections.

Trump has held all the cards. After the subpoena was issued, he ignored it. After a deadline passed, the committee extended it. Following failed “negotiations” with the committee, Trump’s lawyers filed suit.

The lawsuit is a beauty:

The Committee’s Subpoena is invalid because, as explained below, the Committee did not issue the Subpoena to further a valid legislative purpose; the Subpoena is unwarranted because other sources can provide the information the Subpoena seeks; the Subpoena is broader than reasonably necessary; the Subpoena infringes on executive privilege; the Subpoena infringes President Trump’s First Amendment rights; the Committee is not duly authorized; and the Committee lacks the authority to issue subpoenas.

The former president is immune from such demands:

[It is] the Department of Justice’s longstanding view that Presidents and former Presidents are absolutely immune from compelled testimony before Congress. To wit, “[s]ince the 1970s, [the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice] has consistently advised that ‘the President . . . [is] absolutely immune from testimonial compulsion by a Congressional committee’ on matters related to their official duties.”

Other presidents have rightly refused similar demands. When President Harry Truman absolutely refused an investigative committee’s subpoena, he said:

I am carrying out the provisions of the Constitution of the United States; and am following a long line of precedents commencing with George Washington himself in 1796.

Since his day, Presidents Jefferson, Monroe, Jackson, Tyler, Polk, Fillmore, Buchanan, Lincoln, Grant, Hayes, Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, Coolidge, Hoover, and Franklin D. Roosevelt have declined to respond to subpoenas or demands for information of various kinds by Congress.

The committee itself is a sham and a fraud:

The composition of the Committee is governed by Section 2 of H. Res. 503. Section 2(a) states “Appointment of Members. —The Speaker shall appoint 13 Members to the Select Committee, 5 of whom shall be appointed after consultation with the minority leader.”

Speaker Pelosi has appointed only nine members to the Committee: seven Democrats and two Republicans. None of these members was appointed from the selection of five GOP congressmen put forth by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

While the Court has determined authorized congressional committees have certain subpoena authority implied by Article I of the Constitution, the Committee is not an authorized congressional committee.

Trump, through his attorneys, is demanding:

A declaratory judgment that the Subpoena and any subpoena similar in form and content to the Subpoena is invalid, unlawful, and unenforceable because President Trump … has absolute immunity … it does not further a valid legislative purpose … [it] is an unwarranted intrusion into the Executive Branch … [it] is broader than necessary … it seeks documents and testimony protected from disclosure by Executive Privilege … it violates President Trump’s First Amendment rights … [and] because Congress failed to comply with resolutions regarding the creation of the committee and the issuance of subpoenas.

The response from the chair and vice-chair of the committee, Bennie Thompson and Liz Cheney, respectively, claimed Trump was merely hiding from the committee:

Even though the former President initially suggested that he would testify before the committee, he has since filed a lawsuit asking the courts to protect him from giving testimony. The truth is that Donald Trump … is hiding from the Select Committee’s investigation….

No, he’s not. He’s just letting the clock run out on the committee’s existence already foretold by voters last week.

Parental Rights Groups Chalk Up Victories in School Boards Across the Country

Monday, 14 November 2022 19:13

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, November 14, 2022:

Recent elections have revealed the increasing momentum of parental rights, anti-CRT, and anti-LGBT groups in electing traditional-values candidates to school boards across the land.

The Minnesota Parents Alliance (MPA) lauded their efforts following the recent elections in that state:

Despite the negative headwinds against conservative candidates nationally and in Minnesota, school board candidates backed by the upstart Minnesota Parents Alliance had a very good election night.

Forty-nine candidates running with the official MPA endorsement won election to the school board last night, a tremendous accomplishment for an organization that was founded just nine months ago.

Dozens of other candidates who received support from MPA such as campaign training, technical assistance, and educational resources also cruised to victory. In fact, 22 out of 38 candidates who attended one of the MPA campaign schools won their elections.

Several more winning candidates throughout greater Minnesota benefitted from online access to MPA training sessions and support.

The 1776 Project PAC told the Christian Post that their efforts “from November 2021 to November 2022 … flipped 100 school board seats across the country.”

Specifically, the PAC-endorsed candidates won school-board seats in Pinellas County, Flagler County, Indian River County, and Volusia County in Florida. All four of its endorsed candidates in Brandywine, Michigan, won school-board seats there, while three of its endorsed candidates won seats in Carroll County, Maryland.

The PAC-endorsed candidates also won seats in Bedford, Virginia; Alliance, Ohio; and Bentonville, Arkansas. In Frederick County, Virginia, two of the group’s endorsed candidates won.

These successes followed similar victories last year, when the 1776 Project PAC saw four candidates win school-board seats in New Jersey, three in Ohio, and four in Virginia. It touted a 70-percent success rate for its candidates in Kansas, and a 100-percent success rate in Colorado last year.

Moms for Liberty (MFL), founded in late 2020, now boasts 100,000 members in 195 chapters in 37 states. Part of its mission is to abolish critical race theory and “The 1619 Project” from the public-school curriculum. Of the more than 270 MFL school-board candidates the group endorsed in 2022, over half won their respective races. In the past, conservative, traditional-values candidates would capture less than 30 percent of those seats.

The Christian Post recorded MFL’s remarkable successes:

Moms for Liberty indicated that all three of its endorsed candidates won school board races in Ocean City, New Jersey; five of its eight endorsed candidates won seats on the school board in Charleston County, South Carolina; six of its supported candidates emerged victorious in school board elections in Berkeley County, South Carolina; and four seats on the school board in New Hanover County, North Carolina, went to candidates the group supported.

Moms for Liberty touted additional victories in Rock Hill School District and Fort Mill School District in York County, South Carolina; Tipton, Indiana; and Iredell, North Carolina. Two of the three candidates supported by the group to serve on the school board in Shelby County, Tennessee, won their races, as did the organization’s chosen candidates in Pulaski County, Arkansas; Brevard County, Florida; Collier County, Florida; Lee County, Florida; Manatee County, Florida; Pasco County, Florida; and Volusia County, Florida.

According to unofficial results, the candidate endorsed by Moms for Liberty also emerged vict.orious in a school board race in Laramie County, Wyoming, as did two out of three candidates it supported in Natrona County, Wyoming. In Harford County, Maryland, unofficial results show three of the four candidates endorsed by Moms for Liberty winning their races.

In Baltimore County, Maryland, one out of the group’s three preferred candidates appears to have prevailed, while one of its four endorsed candidates appears to have won in Talbot County, Maryland.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis lent his credibility to several races in his state after signing into law the Parental Rights in Education Act earlier this year. All six of the school-board candidates that he endorsed won their races.

In Maryland, 25 socially conservative school-board candidates won seats in 14 counties.

In Texas, 10 Republicans were voted onto the Texas State Board of Education, while just five Democrats won seats there.

Thanks to the Covid infringements, parents have recently become aware of the infiltration of foreign ideologies into public schools, and the move to restore traditional education programs is now gaining traction.

If the results from the last two years are any indication, the restoration of “reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic” in place of LGBT, CRT and Project 1619 Marxist history is well underway.

Vermont High School Backs Down Over “Transgender” Incident After ADF Files a First Amendment Lawsuit

Friday, 11 November 2022 14:38

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Friday, November 11, 2022:

Lawyers representing Randolph Union High School (RUHS) in Randolph, Vermont, persuaded school officials to drop their threats of punishment upon receiving a 124-page lawsuit filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

At issue: the school’s determination to force its transgender policies upon a 14-year-old girl and her father. For daring to question those policies — i.e., complaining when a male who declared himself to be a female entered the girls’ locker room to observe them undressing — RUHS officials demanded that the student, Blake Allen, “take part in a restorative circle … to help her understand the rights of [transgender] students to access public accommodation … in a manner consistent with their [self-proclaimed] gender identity.”

School officials also demanded that her father, Travis Allen, apologize for a Facebook post challenging the mother of the transgender male/female over the veracity of a Facebook post she made defending her transgender male/female son/daughter.

ADF reviewed the incident:

Travis Allen and his fourteen-year-old daughter, Blake, were punished for expressing their views on a matter of profound public concern: whether a teenage male who identifies as female should be permitted to change in a girls’ locker room regardless of the discomfort experienced by girls in that room.

In objecting to a male being in the room while the girls are changing, Travis and Blake each made comments underscoring that the trans-identifying student is in fact a male, including by using male pronouns.

Indeed, their view of the student’s maleness was foundational to their opinions on appropriate use of the locker room.

Yet, their remarks were too much for Defendants’ transgender orthodoxy — Travis was deemed to have “misgendered” the student, while Blake was found guilty of “harassment” and “bullying” — so Defendants disciplined both of them.

ADF claimed that by doing so the school officials violated the Allens’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights:

Defendants are state actors and violate the First Amendment when they attempt to dictate what may be said on matters of public concern.

And they cannot discriminate against speech on the basis of its viewpoint.

Yet, that is exactly what happened here. Defendants punished Travis and Blake for saying that a male is a male, as a matter of sex and biology, regardless of the gender identity that the male has assumed.

On September 21 a male who identifies as a female entered the girls’ locker room while the girls were changing. Many of them got upset and demanded that he leave. Their parents called the principals to complain.

The next day Blake expressed her thoughts on the incident to some of her classmates, exclaiming, “[he] literally is a dude,” who “does not belong in the girls’ locker room.”

That triggered school officials into conducting an “investigation,” after which it was concluded that Blake was guilty of “harassment on the basis of gender identity” and needed to be punished:

Defendants also seek to coerce her to agree with their transgender dogma. In addition to giving Blake two days’ out-of-school suspension, Defendants are requiring her to “[t]ake part in a restorative circle with … our Equity Coordinator and at least two students who can help her understand the rights of students to access public accommodations … in a manner consistent with their gender identity,” and “submit a reflective essay.”

Defendants intend to render their own judgment on this reflective essay; and if they deem it “lacking good faith,” Blake will be required to serve an additional three days’ out-of-school suspension.

Blake’s father, Travis, got involved when he responded to the following Facebook post by the mother of the son/daughter:

I am the mother of the trans student in question and my [son] daughter did not make any comments at all. The entire team can back this up, other than the girl that made up the story for attention.

This is slander, defamation of character, and we have secured a lawyer….

Travis responded:

I am the father of the girl you claim “made up a story for attention.” The truth is your son watched my daughter and multiple other girls change in the locker room. While he got a free show they got violated.

You think this is fine and dandy. I wonder how you would feel if I watched you undress?

For that transgression school officials demanded that Travis apologize, and ended a contract it had with him as coach of the school’s girls’ soccer team.

Claimed the ADF in its lawsuit:

The First Amendment does not countenance this kind of government censorship, where a public school mandates that students and coaches refrain from expressing any view that offends its prescribed views, particularly on an issue as important as whether the school should permit males identifying as girls to undress, shower and change in the girls’ locker room.

Travis and Blake Allen were entitled to express their views on that issue and, in expressing those views, to support them with what is a biological fact — that a biological teenage male is, indeed, a male.

This case presents a textbook example of unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, and Plaintiffs are entitled to all appropriate relief.

ADF summed up their argument:

By requiring Blake Allen to take part in a “restorative circle” to help her “understand the rights of students to access public accommodations … in a manner consistent with their gender identity” and “submit a reflective essay” that meets Defendants’ own standards in order to avoid additional out-of-school suspension, Defendants are seeking to compel her to speak in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

By requiring Travis Allen to issue a public apology for his September 29 Facebook post as a condition to be reinstated as a coach, Defendants are seeking to compel him to speak in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

The state of Vermont has created this problem by its willingness to buy into the current fad of “transgenderism.” It states that

All students have a gender identity which is self-determined;
All persons, including students attending school, have privacy rights.

Vermont defines “transgender” as “an individual whose gender identity or gender expression is different from the individual’s assigned sex at birth.”

Conflict is therefore inevitable, yet it never existed when the Genesis account was considered the basis of all law. Genesis 1:27, if Vermont state officials would follow it, eliminates the conflict: “God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them.”

After reviewing the lawsuit, school officials backed down. Said ADF: “Shortly after filing the lawsuit, counsel for the school officials notified ADF attorneys that the superintendent was rescinding the disciplinary actions.”

Voters Dismiss January 6 Committee

Thursday, 10 November 2022 14:26

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, November 10, 2022:

With voters effectively dismissing the January 6 “select” committee, former President Donald Trump now holds all the cards: He may choose to ignore the committee’s demands for his records and his presence before the committee, or comply. He could challenge the committee’s last-ditch effort to embarrass him by going to court.

History is likely to record that the year-long effort by the “insurrection” committee was not only an enormous waste of taxpayer funds, but a waste of time as well.

After that investigation, during which it interviewed hundreds of individuals and reviewed millions of documents, the committee has failed in its efforts to pin responsibility of the so-called insurrection on the former president.

Voters decimated the committee on Tuesday, leaving just five of the nine-member committee in office after January. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) was voted out on Tuesday, while Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.), Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), and Adam Kinzinger (D-Ill.) were either voted out in a primary or decided not to run for reelection.

That it was a “show” committee from the start was proved when the committee, in subpoenaing the former president, stated its foregone conclusion: “You were at the center of the first and only effort by any U.S. President to overturn an election and obstruct the peaceful transition of power, ultimately culminating in a bloody attack on our own Capitol and on the Congress itself.” It spent millions trying to prove this, and failed.

That the committee was a sham was further confirmed when Trump offered to appear in person, but only if the proceedings were televised. This was anathema to co-chair Liz Cheney, who told The New York Times that “this [would be] a situation where the committee is going to put itself at the mercy of Donald Trump in terms of his efforts to create a circus.”

Of course, the committee has assured that history will record its success in turning its own efforts into that circus without any help from Trump. As Trump himself said upon learning of the subpoena, “Why did they wait until the very end, the final moments of their last meeting?” He answered, “Because the Committee is a total ‘BUST’ that has only served to further divide our country.”

Voters have reduced the committee to a shell, about to be dismissed altogether in January as current results from Tuesday’s midterm elections appear to put Republicans back in control of the House. At the moment, RealClear Politics reports that eight House seats have already flipped from Democrat to Republican, with 31 races still to be decided. Republicans need only seven of them to regain control.

Until then, it must be a delicious moment for the former president, who holds all the cards. The temptation to take on the committee in person, in full view of the public, must be overwhelming. It’s likely that he will just let the committee disappear into history, with nary a whimper or a tear.

Church Sues New York State Over Law Prohibiting Worshipers From Carrying Firearms

Wednesday, 09 November 2022 12:03

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Wednesday, November 9, 2022:

Eight days after the Supreme Court ruled in June against New York in its Bruen decision that the state’s restrictions on concealed carry permits were unconstitutional, and declared further that all citizens, including New Yorkers, had the constitutional right to carry firearms outside their homes for self-protection, the Democrat-controlled state Legislature enacted a “work-around” law to circumvent Bruen.

The law — S51001 — declares a total ban on the carrying of firearms in “any place of worship or religious observation.”

In a lawsuit brought by First Liberty Institute (FLI) on behalf of Pastor Micheal Spencer and his church, His Tabernacle Family Church, with locations in Horseheads and Ithaca, New York, the complaint states that

It is thus now a felony in New York to carry a firearm in a place of worship, regardless of whether one has a license to carry a firearm and regardless of whether the place of worship expressly authorizes — or even encourages — the carrying of firearms on its property.

Pastor Spencer and a number of his parishioners have shown skill at arms and, until passage of the law defying Bruen, regularly carried firearms during church services to protect the flock.

What makes the new law especially pernicious is its flagrant disregard of the Bruen decision. It specifically targets churches, as the law allows other property owners to give permission to their visitors or customers to carry on site.

The complaint refers not only to Bruen as precedent, but also to another Supreme Court decision — Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo — that was decided in 2020 that struck down then-Governor Andrew Cuomo’s “Covid occupancy” requirements which unfairly applied to churches.

Wrote the lawyers from FLI:

Those decisions should have taught New York to proceed with extreme caution where First or Second Amendment rights are at stake going forward.

Instead, the state recently doubled down on its rights-denying tendencies — by infringing two fundamental liberties at the same time.

New York now puts houses of worship and religious adherents to an impossible choice: forfeit your First Amendment right to religious worship or forfeit your Second Amendment right to bear arms for self-defense.

The complaint focuses on Democrats’ deliberate intention to single out churches in its attempt to circumvent Bruen:

New York’s attempt to force houses of worship and their parishioners to choose between their First Amendment rights and their Second — an outlier policy shared by no other state in the Nation — stands as an act of defiance to the Supreme Court’s recent and emphatic holdings protecting both.

First, by prohibiting the exercise of a fundamental constitutional right in places of worship while permitting its exercise on a wide variety of other private property, and denying to religious leaders the authority it gives other private property owners to decide whether to permit the carrying of firearms, the state discriminates on the basis of religious status, singles out houses of worship for especially harsh treatment, and treats comparable secular activity more favorably than religious exercise.

Additionally, S51001 runs into the Establishment Clause by entrenching on core matters of internal church governance.

The state may have power to dictate many things, but how worshippers should conduct themselves at worship services on church property is not one of them.

Attorneys from FLI pointed out that the legislation passed within days of the Bruen decision had been carefully crafted months earlier, in anticipation of the ruling:

While Bruen and Roman Catholic Diocese should make New York [Democrats] particularly sensitive to protecting … citizens’ First and Second Amendment rights, they seem to have prompted exactly the opposite reaction.

Barely before the ink on Bruen could dry, New York embarked on a campaign “to offset the impact of the court’s decision” — a campaign that also tramples First Amendment rights….

Of course, New York was able to move so quickly because it began preparing legislation to undercut any eventual Supreme Court decision before it was even handed down and regardless of what it might say about the Constitution’s demands….

New York officials have made abundantly clear both their contempt for Bruen and their intention to vigorously enforce all aspects of S51001 notwithstanding the constitutional rights upon which it tramples.

The “workaround” law puts Pastor Spencer and his church — and all other churches in New York — at greater risk than before:

Pastor Spencer believes that someone planning to harm or kill his flock will not be deterred by S51001, and may in fact by emboldened by it since it leaves [all] houses of worship defenseless against those bent on doing violence to people of faith.

The complaint filed on behalf of Pastor Spencer and his church concludes that what New York Democrats have done is deliberately attack not only their church (and all other churches in the state), but also the constitutional basis upon which all religious institutions in the state and the nation operate:

It is therefore a constitutional vice, not a virtue, that New York has disarmed all religious people all at once, whether they kneel in prayer or stand in worship.

In short, S51001 is a compendium of constitutional infirmities, infringing in one fell swoop on Pastor Spencer’s and the Church’s rights to freely engage in religious exercise, to exercise autonomy over the Church’s internal affairs, and to carry firearms to ensure the safety of all persons on the Church’s premises.

The complaint exposes the agenda of New York Democrats: not only their complete and total disregard for and antipathy toward the Supreme Court’s decisions relating to this case, but their vicious animosity toward religion in general. The complaint exposes the real culture war: the church versus the state.

Pastor Spencer and his church are demanding a trial by jury to hear their complaint.

Liberal Think Tank Publishes Pre-election Post-mortem on Democrats’ Likely Destruction on Tuesday

Tuesday, 08 November 2022 14:27

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

A report by the liberal think tank Third Way published on Monday reveals clearly that the voters are unhappy with the current direction of the Democratic Party. These relevant quotes prove the point:

Voters see Democrats as … extreme, as well as far less concerned about the issues that most worry them….

The results indicate that Democrats are underwater on issues voters name as their highest priorities, including the economy, immigration, and crime, they are perceived as distant from the electorate ideologically, and voters question whether the party shares essential values like patriotism and the importance of hard work.

While Democrats maintain a lead on handling certain issues like abortion and climate change, voters also rank these issues as lower priorities. While it might be comforting to blame any midterm losses solely on historical trends, this data makes crystal clear that there is a much deeper problem at play.

On every issue that matters, Republicans win going away: inflation, the economy, immigration, and crime. It is not lost on those likely voters that Democratic mayors, governors, and compliant progressive district attorneys have deliberately and intentionally turned America’s largest cities into hellholes.

They see the impact of those policies on their paychecks, their lives, and their futures: inflation destroying the value of the currency, the tsunami of illegal immigration bringing criminals into the country, the reversing of American energy independence into the need once again to be dependent upon other countries — some hostile — for sustenance, its foreign policies working against America’s best interests, the shaming of American farmers and coal miners, and so on.

Even on issues such as patriotism and good old-fashioned hard work, those likely voters see through Democrats’ claims that they are destroying the country for the good of the country:

Only 43% of voters say Democrats value hard work, compared to 58% for Republicans. Less than half (46%) describe Democrats as patriotic while 56% say the same about Republicans.

A paltry 43% say Democrats share their values overall and a similar proportion (44%) think the party looks out for the middle class — a core element of a winning Democratic brand.

They don’t appreciate being talked down to by the elites in the Democrat Party:

Compounding these problems, a majority of voters (55%) describe Democrats as preachy and 53% say the party is “too woke.”…

59% say … the party has gotten more extreme in recent years. A super majority (61%) of voters say Democrats are too beholden to special interests.

Ironically, the only Democratic politicians likely to win on Tuesday will be those repudiating the party’s radical platforms:

It is clear that Democrats who overperform in the midterms will have succeeded in distinguishing themselves from the national party brand, with personal favorability that overcomes the liability of the “D” label.

This vast awakening among likely voters will not only cost the Democrats dearly on election day; it runs the risk of destroying what’s left of the Democrat Party: “If this … problem persists, Democrats will face an uphill climb in 2024 and beyond.”

Will the results on Election Day 2022 be sufficient to begin to repair the damage inflicted on the nation by the radical leftist takeover of the Democratic Party? Or will those “R”s replacing them on Tuesday ignore the existential threat to the body politic and continue business as usual?

Biden Eclipses Obama’s Record as the Country’s Greatest Gun Salesman

Monday, 07 November 2022 19:21

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

During the Obama administration monthly gun sales soared, jumping from about 850,000 in October 2009 to more than 1.3 million in October 2016, a gain of more than 50 percent.

With gun sales now averaging more than 1.25 million a month, what it took the Obama administration to accomplish in eight years the present administration has accomplished in two.

Of course, the present resident of the Oval Office has had some help. Crime in Democrat-controlled cities, thanks to progressive George Soros-backed district attorneys, has also soared. Of the 30 cities experiencing the highest crime rates, Democrats run 27 of them.

The momentum in gun sales was aided and abetted by the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision in June. In that decision not only did the highest court in the land rule that New York’s “may issue” restrictions on concealed carry licenses violated the Second Amendment, the high court went further: it ruled that the Second and the Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution protect an individual citizen’s right to carry a handgun for self-protection outside the home.

Writing for the 6-3 majority in the case — New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas held:

When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct [here the right to bear arms], the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.

[Any state or local] government [contesting that right] must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

Only then may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.”

This was huge, and is resulting in dozens of lawsuits being filed successfully against states with laws that are in violation of those same amendments. That would include Illinois, with its infamous Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card, as well as North Carolina, Minnesota, Nebraska, Hawaii, Michigan, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, which have similar “permit to possess” requirements.

With an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 present gun control laws now subject to repeal or serious modification, gun owners are seizing the opportunity to exercise their Second Amendment right by purchasing firearms in record numbers.

That momentum favoring the Second Amendment should flow over into the midterm elections on Tuesday. Voters in Oregon will have a chance to toss the state’s present “permit to purchase” requirement, while voters in San Jose, California, will have the opportunity to rein in the City Council’s demand that all gun owners pay a fee to exercise the right to purchase a firearm as well as buy liability insurance for the privilege.

In addition, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF, which just released the October numbers), a “sizeable number” — estimated at between five million and eight million — of those twenty or so million people purchasing firearms so far this year are brand-new gun owners. They are likely to be very possessive of their right to keep and bear arms, and are equally likely to vote against politicians running on a platform to infringe on that right.

Newport News Pastor “Under Investigation” for Talking Politics From the Pulpit

Thursday, 03 November 2022 16:22

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Thursday, November 3, 2022:

After promoting his own campaign from the pulpit for a seat on the City Council of Newport News, Virginia, Pastor Willard Maxwell of New Beech Grove Baptist Church found himself under investigation by local authorities.

A woman familiar with Maxwell’s alleged breach of federal law reported him to local authorities. She included a video of his remarks with her complaint. In that two-minute video, Maxwell said, “We have signs out there. If you want to take a sign to your house that would be great. Anytime you want to donate $5, $25 — it doesn’t matter. Or get other people to donate. I would really appreciate it.”

He then addressed the constraint put upon such activities by the Internal Revenue Service: “Now I know a lot of people say you can’t use certain things or say stuff at church…. Republicans and Democrats alike have been trying to tell me I can’t say nothing. Man, if I can’t say nothing, you can’t say nothing.”

On October 17, the Commonwealth’s Attorney Howard Gwynn responded to the complaint: “The video that you sent is very disturbing. Please be assured that this matter is under investigation and is being taken very seriously.”

It’s far from clear exactly what local, municipal, or state violations might be involved here. If the violations relate to the Johnson Amendment — the part of the IRS code that infringes on the freedom of pastors to speak on political issues from their pulpits under pain of losing 501(c)(3) status — it’s unclear just how Gwynn would be involved in enforcing that federal law.

That federal law passed in 1954 with nary a peep from any of the American pastors whose right to speak freely from their pulpits was being restricted. The Johnson Amendment is named for then-Texas Senator Lyndon Johnson, one of the most notoriously corrupt politicians of the day. Johnson’s litany of illegal activities had been exposed by local pastors, and in retaliation Johnson proposed the amendment.

The offending language from the IRS code reads:

Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.

Contributions to political campaign funds or public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of the organization in favor of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the prohibition against political campaign activity.

Violating this prohibition may result in denial or revocation of tax-exempt status and the imposition of certain excise taxes.

When he was informed of the investigation by local authorities, Pastor Maxwell responded that he has for years let various political candidates come to speak at his church: “I let Democrats come. I let Republicans come. The individual who is running against me [for City Council] even came and spoke from my pulpit. The rule is: whatever you do for one, you gotta let him do for all.”

He went further:

Anytime anyone wants to come to the church and speak about their campaign, whether I agree with them or not, I let them say whatever they need to say, and garner whatever support they need.

They pass out their literature, they pass out their signs, they say whatever they need to say. And I’ve done that forever.

Whether this molehill turns into a mountain remains to be seen. What popular Christian writer and speaker Eric Metaxas can’t abide is why American pastors let this Johnson Amendment slide into a bill to become federal law in the first place. Writing in his latest book, Letter to the American Church, Metaxas said:

It was in 1954 that then-Senator Lyndon Johnson introduced an amendment to the U.S. tax code prohibiting churches — and any other nonprofit organizations — from taking a public stand on political candidates. If anyone from a pulpit dared to endorse a candidate, that church’s [tax] exemption would be repealed.

It is astonishing that pastors in American allowed this wild idea to go uncontested. In this they behaved rather like many of the submissive pastors in Germany two decades earlier.

Of course, for American pastors meekly to submit to anything like this is far more shocking, given our own history of religious liberty and freedom of speech.

Metaxas then added ominously, “If the churches in America are not free to speak on any topic and in any way that they choose — and if they voluntarily go along with this view — then no one in America is truly free, and America itself has effectively ceased to exist.”

Cheney’s Attack on Kari Lake Backfires

Monday, 31 October 2022 13:02

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This article appeared online at TheNewAmerican.com on Monday, October 31, 2022:

In her zeal to upend the political career of anyone remotely supporting Donald Trump, Liz Cheney is succeeding in ending her own. On Friday, her PAC, The Great Task, announced it was spending more than half a million dollars urging the Arizona voters to reject both GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and GOP candidate for secretary of state Mark Finchem.

Within hours, Lake posted a letter on Twitter thanking Cheney for her “in-kind contribution” to her campaign:

Liz Cheney, Defeated Member of Congress (WY):

Thank you for your generous in-kind contribution to my campaign. Your recent television ad urging Arizonans not to vote for me is doing just the opposite. Our campaign donations are skyrocketing and our website nearly crashed from traffic as people rushed to learn more about my plan to put Arizona First and join our historic political movement.

In fact, my team tells me your commercial should add another 10 points to our lead. I guess that’s why they call the Cheney anti-endorsement the gift that keeps on giving….

Thank you again for the huge boost to our campaign! Enjoy your forced retirement from politics. I know America will rest easier knowing that one more warmonger is out of office.

According to RealClear Politics, the average of the last five polls among likely voters, taken before the big ad buy by Cheney’s PAC and the surge of donations to Lake’s campaign that followed, shows Lake leading Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs by 3.8 points. One of those five polls, conducted by InsiderAdvantage for FOX 10, shows Lake leading Hobbs by 11 points.

Lake appeared on Fox & Friends Weekend where she expanded on the benefit her campaign is enjoying from Cheney’s efforts to denigrate her:

My goodness. I’m telling you, she is going to be our best fundraiser yet. We have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars since her ad started and since we put that letter out….

She is hated by both sides right now….

We’re actually bringing Democrats over to our movement. They don’t like Liz Cheney either. And for her to think that she can come into Arizona and try to influence this election, it’s comical.

It’s sad and a little bit scary. I think the scariest costume you could put on for Halloween would be Liz Cheney. You’ll get no candy at anyone’s door.

Cheney, rejected overwhelmingly in Wyoming once she revealed her true colors, has vowed “to make sure [that] Donald Trump … I’m going to do everything I can to make sure he is not the nominee [in 2024]. And if he is the nominee, I won’t be a Republican.”

She won’t have to wait that long. Republicans have rejected her, and Democrats are quickly discovering that her support is toxic to their campaigns. Very soon Cheney will be a former politician, with neither party claiming her as their own. From there she will descend to a mere footnote in political history, as in her zealous attempt to burn down Donald Trump she will have succeeded in incinerating herself.

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Category Archives: Politics

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Liberal Think Tank Publishes Pre-election Post-mortem on Democrats’ Likely Destruction on Tuesday

Biden Eclipses Obama’s Record as the Country’s Greatest Gun Salesman

Newport News Pastor “Under Investigation” for Talking Politics From the Pulpit

Cheney’s Attack on Kari Lake Backfires

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