According to auditor’s records, Harris County has not yet recovered more than $1 million paid for a since-canceled COVID-19 vaccine outreach contract tied to the felony indictments of County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s staff.
In addition, invoices indicate that the contractor paid more than half a million of the taxpayer funds to data firms assisting progressive candidates with campaigns and voter turnout.
In 2021, the county awarded an $11 million contract to Elevate Strategies, owned by highly-connected Democratic strategist Felicity Pereyra. Pereyra had previously worked for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, the Democratic National Committee, and Commissioner Adrian Garcia’s (D- Pct. 2) campaign when he ran for mayor of Houston.
After revelations that Hidalgo’s staff had sought to alter experience requirements for potential vendors, and had instructed the purchasing department to disqualify the University of Texas Health Science Center, Hidalgo announced she would cancel the contract. But the public later learned that the county paid out $1.4 million to Pereyra’s firm after the date of cancellation.
During a March 2022 meeting of the Harris County commissioners court, First Assistant County Attorney Jay Aiyer told commissioners that Elevate Strategies had repaid about $200,000 and he expected another $1 million in repayment soon.
In response to queries from FOX26 political reporter Greg Groogan, the county attorney’s office responded that they had recovered $600,000, but refused to comply with an open records request and appealed to Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office in an effort to keep the repayment amounts out of the public eye.
Attorney and former Houston mayoral candidate Bill King sought records from the county auditor, which showed that while the county had paid $1.425 million, Elevate Strategies has only returned $208,000.
Among invoices Elevate Strategies submitted to the county are expenditures of $538,057 for software and canvassers from known Democratic voter turnout groups Civis Analytics and NGP VAN EveryAction.
Founded by Dan Wagner, former chief analytics officer of Obama for America, Civis Analytics has worked to increase voter turnout for a variety of progressive candidates and organizations including Battleground Texas. The group touts data collection that can be compiled into individual voter records for use in political campaigns.
Likewise, NGP VAN’s website advertises the company as “the leading technology provider to Democratic and progressive campaigns and organizations.”
Last year, Hidalgo defended the use of political campaigning groups, saying they had the tools to conduct the outreach. But Rice University professor and political analyst Mark Jones told The Texan there is not a great deal of overlap between the kinds of residents targeted.
“Those are companies focused exclusively on likely voters, which is not the same thing as a vulnerable population that would be the target of a COVID vaccine outreach campaign,” said Jones. “The Civis Analytics and NGP data sets are not designed to reach those targets. They are designed to reach people who are likely to turnout in the 2022 county judge election.”
Jones also noted that Elevate Strategies contract lists as a sub-contractor the Texas Organizing Project, which is another group that conducts canvassing and campaigning on behalf of Democratic candidates, including Hidalgo.
Go that? Lina Hidalgo approved over $1 million in funding for a company who’s primary job is getting Democrats (including herself) elected, paid them money after the contract was cancelled, and when told to give the money back, the Democrat company kept more than $1 million, and then Hidalgo’s office tried to cover it up.
Hidalgo doesn’t just need to be voted out of office, she and her cronies need to be sent to prison for abusing taxpayer money by spending it for partisan political advantage.
Higher inflation, widespread corruption in the federal government, the Bank of England makes Liz Truss blink, and Muslims take exception to Dearborn Public School’s gay agenda. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
The Journal reviewed more than 31,000 financial disclosure forms and analyzed more than 850,000 financial assets and 315,000 trades to shed light on any conflicts of interest among more than 12,000 senior career bureaucrats and political appointees. Its investigation found that “thousands of officials across the U.S. government’s executive branch disclosed owning or trading stocks that stood to rise or fall with decisions their agencies made.”
“Across 50 federal agencies ranging from the Commerce Department to the Treasury Department, more than 2,600 officials reported stock investments in companies while those companies were lobbying their agencies for favorable policies, during both Republican and Democratic administrations,” the Journal reports. “When the financial holdings caused a conflict, the agencies sometimes simply waived the rules.”
The federal employees weren’t even subtle about it. Per the Journal, “More than five dozen officials at five agencies reported trading stocks of companies shortly before their departments announced enforcement actions against those companies, such as charges or settlements.”
That’s sus.
To get an understanding of how shady this behavior is, consider examples from a few specific agencies. At the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for example, the Journal found that “more than 200 senior officials… or nearly one in three, reported that they or their family members held investments in companies that were lobbying the agency.”
Similar corruption plagues the Department of Defense, where, per the investigation, “officials in the office of the secretary or their family members collectively owned between $1.2 million and $3.4 million of stock in aerospace and defense companies, on average, during years the Journal examined. Some owned stock in Chinese companies while the U.S. considered blacklisting the companies.”
Sometimes there’s a major story out there you don’t have time to really pay attention to, and such is the case with the UK “mini-budget”/Bank of England story. Basically, new UK PM Liz Truss and her Chancellor of the Treasury Kwasi Kwarteng went “We’re going to cut taxes despite soaring inflation” and the Bank of England (which evidently said that UK pension funds were hours from collapse last week) went “No you’re not.” Well, Truss just blinked, Kwarteng is out, and now the UK government is going to raise taxes.
Here’s a video explainer of the complexities of the Bank of England intervention in the bond market.
I’ll still trying to wrap my mind around the phrases “pension fund margin call” and “unlimited quantity” of short term repo liquidity reserves.
The Biden administration’s new technology restrictions are already causing disruptions in China as US semiconductor equipment suppliers are telling staff based in the country’s top memory chip maker to leave, according to WSJ, citing sources familiar with the matter.
State-owned Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. has seen US chip semiconductor equipment companies, including KLA Corp. and Lam Research Corp., halt business activities at the facility. This includes installing new equipment to make advanced chips and overseeing highly technical chip production.
The US suppliers have paused support of already installed equipment at YMTC in recent days and temporarily halted installation of new tools, the people said. The suppliers are also temporarily pulling out their staff based at YMTC, the people said. –WSJ
It’s hard to overemphasize how badly screwed China’s chip industry is with this latest move. Semiconductor equipment not only needs regular maintenance, but extremely specialized expertise when something goes wrong and your yields crash, wizards who can look at a wafer defect chart and determine by experience what’s gone wrong with which tool. Without support and spare parts from the western semiconductor equipment giants, expect yields to start crashing in a matter of months, if not weeks, especially if Applied Materials and Tokyo Electron join the pullout.
The IRGC may be mobilizing retired servicemembers and other affiliated officers to suppress protests in Tehran on October 15.
Protesters have killed more Iranian security personnel in the current protest wave than in any previous wave in the regime’s history according to regime statistics.
Anti-regime protests occurred in at least 11 cities in seven provinces.
Social media accounts that are representing themselves as youth groups organizing and coordinating protests called for countrywide unrest on October 15.
Snip.
Social media accounts that are representing themselves as youth groups organizing and coordinating protests called for countrywide unrest on October 15. Dozens of social media accounts are presenting themselves as provincial components of a broader youth movement aimed at overthrowing the regime. The movement does not appear to have a central headquarters or hierarchy—at least on social media—and some of these groups’ rhetoric is notably disjointed from the others. These accounts claim to have a presence in multiple Iranian cities, including Tehran, Karaj, Neyshabour, Hamedan, Shiraz, and Ahvaz. Some of these accounts called for protests in Khuzestan on October 14, which did materialize in three different cities across the province on that date. Another account claimed that it had activated “sabotage groups” to destabilize the regime on October 14. The Tehran Neighborhood Youth group currently has the most followers and has posted for the longest period of time, possibly suggesting that it inspired copycat accounts based in other cities.
Some of these groups are presenting themselves as having moved from protest organization to coordinating phase one insurgency attacks.
In private, Democratic party officeholders are super racist.
But they’ll arrest parents and take their children if you fail to bow to their transexual madness. “Virginia Democrat Bill Would Criminally Prosecute Parents Who Don’t Affirm Their Kids As Transgender. Previous attempt at the bill was co-sponsored by a senator who served jail time for having sex with a teenager.”
A Virginia Democrat lawmaker says she will introduce legislation to have parents criminally prosecuted if they do not “affirm” their child as transgender. Teachers and social workers would report parents to Child Protective Services under the bill envisioned by state Delegate Elizabeth Guzman (D-Fauquier).
Guzman told WJLA that “It could be a felony, it could be a misdemeanor, but we know that CPS charge could harm your employment, could harm their education, because nowadays many people do a CPS database search before offering employment.”
Guzman, a social worker, went public with her plans to introduce the bill a week after The Daily Wire reported that a National Association Of School Psychologists official named Amy Cannava boasted that she was working with an unnamed state delegate matching Guzman’s description to craft such legislation. “I want to see a kid in a home with food and shelter and insurance and support, but I also don’t want to lose kids to death,” Cannava said, adding that “I will not deny the fact that I have put parents in their place in my office or at school.”
Cannava is also affiliated with a group called the Pride Liberation Project that said it would pick up trans and gay teens who didn’t like their parents, and “work with other supportive adult organizations in the region to find you someone who can provide you a kind and affirming home.”
A similar bill was quietly introduced in 2020 by Guzman and four other Democrats immediately after they took control of the legislature in the 2019 elections. It redefined the term “abused or neglected child” to include one whose parent “inflicts, threatens to create or inflict, or allows to be created or inflicted upon such child a physical or mental injury on the basis of the child’s gender identity or sexual orientation.”
The sole Senate sponsor of the 2020 bill was Joe Morrissey, who served prison time for contributing to the delinquency of a minor after sleeping with his teenage secretary. He accepted a plea deal after initially being indicted on possession of child pornography and other charges.
You know who else hates rolling out the gay agenda to public schools? Muslims.
The only religious people the left is truly scared to offend are Muslims. Criticizing Muslims is completely off the table according to the left’s rules of engagement, so if Muslims are upset about something, the amount of twisting, back-bending, and acrobatics the left will perform in order not to offend them will be something to see.
So when hundreds of Muslim parents, upset at gay porn in the school libraries, showed up to a school board meeting in Dearborn, Mich., and it devolved into shouting and chaos with board members running away and gay protesters being chased to their cars, the fallout was absolutely hilarious. The headline in the Detroit Free Press after the event went haywire was “LGBTQ and Faith Communities Struggle for Unity.” BAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Can you imagine what the headline would have been if it were a Baptist church chasing gay protesters to their cars? “Fascist White Supremacist Book Burners Bash Gay Man in Parking Lot,” or “Rabid Religious Zealots Terrorize Gay Man Defending Right to Read,” or something equally terrible. I don’t know about you, but I’m enjoying this disaster.
Enjoy this thread and all the videos in it. I know I did.
Shouting between various factions as groups take over Dearborn public schools board meeting. Board members have left. Unclear if they are coming back or if meeting will restart. Heavy police presence. pic.twitter.com/XIMEqIRR1X
Problem: Too many Germans are voting for a rightwing party the left disapproves of. Solution: Ban it. Thank God banning other political parties in Germany has never had any negative consequences…
Speaking of things that could never possibly have any negative consequences, Balarus dictator and Putin toady Alexander Lukashenko decrees that all price increases are forbidden. Enjoys those coming goods shortages, Belarussians. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Florida Surgeon General releases study showing heightened cardiac death rates for men ages 18-39 after taking the Flu Manchu mRNA vaccine. So Twitter banned him. Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before The Narrative. (They later reinstated him.)
Ukrainian troops shoot down a cruise missile with a MANPADS.
Alex Jones ordered to pay $965 million to Sandy Hook families. As I noted last week, Alex Jones is an unreliable loon, but that judgment seems excessive and punitive merely for running his mouth.
In an attempt to subvert the Supreme Court’s clear directions in the Bruen decision, California’s gun grabbing Democrats have actually made their case weaker through their own arguments. Armed Scholar Anthony Miranda:
Some takeaways:
“The state of California just backed themselves into a major corner in the California ‘assault weapons’ ban case, Miller v Bonta.”
California “requested that the Ninth Circuit vacate Judge [Roger] Benitez’s ruling and remand the case back down to him for him to have to completely rehear the case all over again from square one. This was the State of California’s effort to stall this case out as long as possible because that’s really one of the only cards they have left.”
“[Firearms Policy Coalition] just obliterated all the State of California’s arguments in their reply, and they completely trapped the State of California with their own words.”
In short, California was still trying to argue that the two-step approach to exercising Second Amendment would be upheld on appeal despite the fact that the Supreme Court had explicitly bitch-slapped the two-step approach into oblivion.
California also falsely announced that in striking down the two-step approach, the Supreme Court had created a new legal framework, when in fact they had merely explicitly affirmed the existing framework of Heller.
The district court “found that California’s ban on modern firearms was not one of the presumptively lawful measures that was identified in Heller, and also found that the ban on modern firearms has no historical pedigree.”
To whit: “Prior to the 1990s, there was no national history of banning weapons because they were equipped with features like pistol grips, collapsible stocks, flash hiders, flare launchers or barrel shrouds.”
“Benitez ultimately found that those arguments were exactly the type that the Supreme Court and Heller broadly caution courts against when deciding whether analogous regulations were long-standing. Something that was put in place or didn’t pop up until the 1930s or the 1940s or 50s doesn’t actually align with the historical pedigree that the supreme
court commands that courts must look at.”
California “acts as if Judge Benitez did not consider text as informed by history, when in fact he actually did in his original ruling. Also, all the harm California claims that will be suffered if the state is lifted has also been found 100% illegitimate prior by Benitez himself.”
It would be nice if the citizens of California could enjoy the Second Amendment rights enjoyed by American citizens in the overwhelming majority of the other 49 states…
The Biden Recession continues to wreck the pocketbooks of Americans, EU economies are sucking even worse than ours, more Bidens Behaving Badly, and unlimited abortion is not nearly as popular among the American public as it is among New York Times staffers.
Support for unlimited abortion is deeply unpopular:
New Harvard/Harris poll: Huge super-majority of Americans favor 15-week abortion bans in states. Women more likely than men to favor such restrictions; men more likely to support no limitations. Just 10% of respondents agree with federal Dems' 9-month-abortion radicalism: pic.twitter.com/wyOzUPg9uE
Democrats are just tired of Joe Biden and of having to explain away his poor performance. Since Biden was elected, the only thing that has gone right is that the Covid-19 pandemic effectively ended and the unemployment rate has remained low. Inflation is out of control, gas prices are at record highs, grocery bills are skyrocketing, the stock market is getting battered and people’s 401(k)s are shrinking, crime remains high, mass shootings keep bedeviling America’s public spaces, Russia’s invading Ukraine, there’s a global food and commodity crisis, and the Taliban is running Afghanistan and oppressing women again. Democrats are apoplectic that the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, a New York State gun law, and the EPA’s right to regulate carbon emissions without explicit approval from Congress. Parents are up in arms, the teachers’ unions look like callous fools who kept schools closed and harmed a generation of schoolchildren, and “abolish the police” looks like a suicidal public policy. Republicans notice that waves of illegal immigrants headed north shortly after Biden’s inauguration and haven’t stopped coming since.
You didn’t even mention the Social Justice insanity and all the transexual madness.
That New York Times poll found that 64 percent of Democrats want a different presidential nominee in 2024. Nobody’s willing to cover for this guy anymore; no one is inclined to avert their eyes when Biden or his wife blurts out something tone-deaf now.
There are some of us who would argue that Joe Biden has always been an insecure, abrasive, presumptuous, disingenuous, demagogic, insufferable blowhard who was largely protected by a cozy, all-too-friendly relationship with a press inclined to airbrush his glaring character faults, presenting him as a wacky neighbor or a kindly, ice-cream loving grandpa.
What we see now is what happens when much of the national media, the Democratic Party establishment, and liberal interest groups stop playing along with the narrative that Biden is a wiser, sharper, kinder, more energetic and sensitive man than he is. And the truth isn’t pretty.
Speaking of unwanted Bidens: “Hunter Biden could face prostitution charges for transporting hookers across state lines and disguising checks to them as payments for ‘medical services.'” I’ll believe Hunter Biden prosecution when I see it. Also, I’ve been treating the 4Chan “Hunter Biden iPhone leak” with a certain amount of skepticism. Certainly the Hunter laptop revelations were real, and Hunter is a big enough scumbag to do the the things alleged iPhone leak materials depict. But I try to be cautious about anything that fits too neatly into my preconceptions. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
“Left-Wing Nonprofit Scores $171.7 Million-$1 Billion Government Contract To Help Illegal Immigrants Avoid Authorities.”
A liberal non-profit group has been given a taxpayer-funded government contract worth at least $171.7 million — which could potentially reach just under $1 billion — for assisting illegal immigrant minors in avoiding capture or incarceration by U.S. Border Patrol and state officials.
The Department of the Interior was the awarding agency and “The Vera Institute of Justice,” based out of New York — which supports the “defund the police” movement and has lax views on immigration enforcement — was the beneficiary.
Thanks in part to a lack of zoning, Houston builds housing at nearly three times the per capita rate of cities like New York City and San Jose. It isn’t all just sprawl either: In 2019, Houston built roughly the same number of apartments as Los Angeles, despite the latter being nearly twice as large. This ongoing supernova of housing construction has helped to keep Houston one of the most affordable big cities in the U.S., offering new arrivals modest rents and accessible home prices even amid seemingly endless demand.
Houston is by no means a model for planning. Like every other Sun Belt city, it struggles with segregation and sprawl. Yet its continued success as one of America’s most affordable and prosperous cities reveals the workability—indeed, the desirability—of non-zoning. Houston is a profoundly weird place, resistant to seductive oversimplifications. But it provides insight into what comes after the arbitrary lines that have misshapen our cities—and how we might get there.
So why didn’t Houston adopt zoning like every other U.S. city? The answer comes down partly to process. Unique among major cities, Houston subjected zoning to a citywide vote. While most city councils had, historically, quietly adopted zoning after a few perfunctory public hearings, the Bayou City invited voters to decide on zoning in 1946, 1962, and 1993. Voters rejected it each time—a reality that calls into question the often-postulated popularity of zoning.
Zoning critics rightly dispensed with the comforting myths surrounding zoning—that its purpose was to merely rationalize land use—and zeroed in on its tendency to restrict new housing construction, limit access to opportunity, institutionalize segregation, and force growth outward. Far from being duped, Houston’s working-class residents exhibited a subtler understanding of the purposes of zoning than many contemporary planners and rejected it accordingly.
But the answer to why Houston remains unzoned also comes down to politics. Zoning proponents didn’t merely lose the referendums—they were also tactfully bought off by being allowed to have something resembling zoning in their immediate vicinity. Indeed, the dark little secret of non-zoning in Houston is that it depends on a system of land-use regulations known as deed restrictions, which empower certain communities—principally middle- and upper-class homeowners—to effectively “opt out” of non-zoning, writing their own land-use rules for their own neighborhoods. In exchange, Houston is able to protect the vast majority of the city from the types of arbitrary-use distinctions, density limits, and raucous public hearings that cause so much harm in every other U.S. city. That is to say, in exchange for respecting pockets of private land-use regulation, Houston is able to grow, adapt, and evolve like no other city.
Deed restrictions are private, voluntary agreements among property owners—typically the homeowners of a particular subdivision or neighborhood—regulating how they can and cannot use their land. These rules are literally tied to the deed, meaning that a property owner must agree to them as a condition of the sale. Since the failed 1962 zoning referendum, the city has enforced these agreements on behalf of the relevant parties, refusing to issue permits that run afoul of their provisions and bringing legal action against violators.
Is this system of publicly enforced deed restrictions “basically zoning,” as some might argue? On the one hand, deed restrictions—like zoning—demarcate specified areas subject to a distinct set of stricter land-use rules. Both zoning and deed restrictions in Houston are enforced by the government, principally with the aim of propping up home values and maintaining a certain quality of life. Many deed restrictions even have rules banning apartments and enforcing a strict two-and-a-half-story height limit.
Yet, the similarities end there, and Houston’s system of deed restrictions is a significant improvement over zoning. For starters, deed restrictions only cover an estimated quarter of the city, largely in areas with low-rise, detached, single-family housing. Industrial areas, commercial corridors, mixed-use and multifamily neighborhoods, urban vacant lots, and yet-to-be-developed greenfields are virtually never subject to their provisions. This means that roughly three-quarters of Houston—including its more dynamic sections—are largely free to grow without anything even resembling zoning holding them back.
Another key difference is that deed restrictions must be voluntarily opted in to. This serves to discipline deed restrictions in a way that is rarely true of zoning: If the rules are stricter than what prospective homebuyers might prefer, or not strict enough, or simply focus on the wrong concerns, this may translate into lower home values. This in turn nudges homeowners to think through the optimal form of land-use regulation to a degree that rarely happens with zoning.
After deciding to let drug-abusing transients use their restrooms, Starbucks is now closing 16 stores because of rising violence, and the fact that transients are shooting up in their restrooms. Golly, who could have possibly seen that coming?
Another Texas school superintendent has stepped down amid criticism from parents concerned about liberal indoctrination in their children’s classrooms.
At a special meeting Monday afternoon, Clear Creek Independent School District’s board of trustees accepted the retirement of Superintendent Eric Williams, effective in January 2023.
Conservative parents in the Houston-area district had complained that Williams, who started in early 2021, was subjecting their students to liberal ideologies he brought from his former job as superintendent of
This is a catch-all post of various instances of Democrats acting badly I meant to include in the last few LinkSwarms and just didn’t manage to squeeze in.
On Wednesday, Reuters revealed that more than 5 million barrels of oil from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves were sent overseas as part of President Joe Biden’s latest release initiated in March.
Some of that oil went to India, some to the Netherlands, and some was sent to China where the president’s son has engaged in years of potentially criminal business activity embroiling the Biden White House in scandal since the 2020 campaign.
On Thursday, the Washington Free Beacon published new details about the Chinese oil shipments from the U.S. emergency reserves that Biden promised were tapped to “ease the pain that families are feeling” in the United States from high energy prices.
“The Biden administration sold roughly one million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a Chinese state-controlled gas giant that continues to purchase Russian oil, a move the Energy Department said would ‘support American consumers’ and combat ‘Putin’s price hike,’” the Beacon’s Collin Anderson reported. “Biden’s Energy Department in April announced the sale of 950,000 Strategic Petroleum Reserve barrels to Unipec, the trading arm of the China Petrochemical Corporation. That company, which is commonly known as Sinopec, is wholly owned by the Chinese government.”
Sinopec is also tied to Hunter Biden, whose private equity firm, BHR Partners, bought a $1.7 billion stake in the company seven years ago.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer told the New York Times in November that the president’s son, “no longer holds any interest, directly or indirectly, in either BHR or Skaneateles.”
According to the Washington Examiner, however, Hunter Biden remained listed as a part-owner of the firm as late as March.
“Business records from China’s National Credit Information Publicity System accessed Tuesday continue to identify Skaneateles as a 10% owner in BHR, and Washington, D.C., business records continue to list Biden as the only beneficial owner of Skaneateles,” the paper reported. “The White House has routinely deflected questions about Biden’s business dealings to his attorneys, who have remained largely mum.”
“It’s possible that China’s business registry hasn’t yet been updated to reflect a potential transfer or sale of Skaneateles’s 10% stake in BHR to another party,” the Examiner added.
Meanwhile, Biden’s Energy Department has refused compliance with requests under the Freedom of Information Act probing the administration’s improper use of the nation’s strategic oil reserves maintained for emergencies. Last week, the Functional Government Initiative, a nonprofit government watchdog, filed a lawsuit to compel records concerning administration officials’ decision to tap the oil reserves in the absence of a sudden disruption in supply such as a hurricane or cyberattack.
I would say it’s quite revealing how quickly Democrats resorted to racist slurs against Justice Clarence Thomas following the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, but not really. They’ve long shown they are racist against any minority that refuses to toe the leftist line.
Twitter has been a cesspool of liberals calling Justice Thomas endless racist slurs … and of course, Twitter does nothing. Samuel Jackson called him ‘Uncle Clarence,’ and several people reported him and said they were told by Twitter it was not against the rules to call him that slur.
Why has Clarence Thomas become the target of so much flak following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v Wade? It’s because he’s black. It’s because, as someone with black skin, he is not meant to hold conservative views on issues like abortion. In the eyes of the furious woke agitators who are haranguing Thomas even more than they are the other Roe-sceptical justices, he has not only made a bad legal decision – he has also betrayed his race. His sin is twofold: he has undermined the right to abortion and he has failed in his racial duty to nod unquestioningly along to every ‘progressive’ idea. He’s a racial transgressor, a bad black man, and therefore he must be reprimanded even more severely than the white folk on the Supreme Court. Ladies and gentlemen, behold the scourge of woke racism.
We have just witnessed one of the clearest examples yet of identity politics crossing the line into flagrant, undeniable racism. No sooner had it been announced that the Supreme Court was ditching Roe v Wade than so-called progressives were gunning for Thomas. They’ve never liked Thomas, who has been serving on the Supreme Court since 1991. Sure, he might be just the second African American to sit on the court, but for the identitarian elites he’s the wrong kind of African American, so his historic achievement doesn’t count. He’s Catholic – ‘decidedly and unapologetically Catholic’, as he says – and he’s not down with abortion or same-sex marriage. ‘Wait, I thought all blacks were BLM-supporting, pro-trans, sassy progressives like the ones I know from Twitter?’, you can almost hear the upper-middle-class left say. Thomas doesn’t compute for them. To paraphrase Biden, ‘He ain’t black!’.
And so it was inevitable he would get it in the neck following the fall of Roe. Vile racial hatred has been hurled his way since the ruling. Angry woke Twitter has even used the N-word. Thomas is ‘just another dumb field nigger’, said one tweeter. Another called him a ‘nigger slave’ to his white ‘nutcase’ wife. He’s a ‘coon-ass motherfucker’, apparently. And of course he’s an Uncle Tom. Or ‘Uncle Clarence’, as Samuel L Jackson called him. As a result, ‘Uncle Clarence’ trended online for hours. Welcome to the twisted moral universe of Silicon Valley, where you can be banned for life for saying ‘he’ about someone with a penis but you can happily surf a wave of retweets for using racial slurs about high-ranking black men.
For some reason that I really can’t fathom, the progressive left is escalating its hounding of conservative Supreme Court Justices. If they’re trying to turn off normal Americans, they’re doing a great job. If they’re trying to intimidate or coerce SCOTUS, they are failing miserably. But radicals gotta radical.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh already was the target of an attempted assassination. But the hounding and targeting of him continue.
Politico reports that Justice Kavanaugh was escorted by his security team out the back door of a DC restaurant because leftists were “protesting” outside.
On Wednesday night, D.C. protesters targeting the conservative Supreme Court justices who signed onto the Dobbs decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion got a tip that Justice BRETT KAVANAUGH was dining at Morton’s downtown D.C. location. Protesters soon showed up out front, called the manager to tell him to kick Kavanaugh out and later tweeted that the justice was forced to exit through the rear of the restaurant.
In a rare move, Supreme Court Marshal Gail Curley has sent letters to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich, and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin demanding that authorities put an end to picketing and “threatening activity” outside the homes of SCOTUS justices.
The letter seeks to use state laws to achieve what the Justice Department has clearly rejected under federal law. If the letter prompts arrests, we could see a major free speech challenge in the courts. The timing of the letter, however, is particularly interesting and may reflect a recognition of the limits of the federal law.
Snip.
Under a federal law, 18 U.S.C. 1507, any individual who “pickets or parades” with the “intent of interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice, or with the intent of influencing any judge, juror, witness, or court officer” near a U.S. court or “near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness, or court officer” will be fined or “imprisoned not more than one year, or both.”
The Hunter Biden shenanigans, though illegal, immoral and infuriating, is just more of the foreign graft rakeoff that Joe Biden and other high ranking Democrats have been pulling off for years. But the radical unhinged attacks on the Supreme Court after Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned the Democratic Party’s most Holy of Holies shows that the new pitch of derangement Democrats showed after Donald Trump’s unexpected election was not a temporary aberration.
These days, the Democratic Party seems less a political party than a criminal graft conspiracy married to a crazed social justice cult enraged by any setbacks to its grandiose plans or any questioning of their delusional status as anointed saviors of designated victims.
As reality crashes through their swaddling cocooned delusions and limitless self-regard, expect the derangement to get worse.
On May 12, Biden’s Interior Department blocked a proposal to open up more than one million acres of land in Alaska for oil and gas drilling. Two days later, Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency blocked plans to expand an oil refinery in the US Virgin Islands.
Biden and his defenders said he had to block the expansion of the Virgin Islands refinery, given how polluting it was.
But had Biden’s EPA allowed the Virgin Island refinery to expand, the owners would have poured nearly $3 billion into retrofitting the plant so it produced gasoline and other products more cleanly, while significantly increasing production at the same time.
In truth, there are many things Biden could have done, and still should do, to lower energy prices. He could invoke the National Defense Act to accelerate the rate of oil and gas permits. He could set a floor of $80/barrel for re-filling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which would be a powerful incentive for the industry, because it would prevent prices from falling to unprofitable levels. Biden could announce trade agreements with American allies to supply them with liquified natural gas, which would incentivize more natural gas production and lower prices.
If Biden got America on a wartime footing, as he should be given Russia’s aggression in Europe, we would see the lowering of oil, gas and petroleum prices in less than one year.
Why won’t Biden do it? Because he has declared war on fossil fuels. “I guarantee you, we’re going to end fossil fuel,” Biden promised a student climate activist in 2019. “I am not going to cooperate with them,” he said, referring to the oil and gas industry.
Joe Biden has proven once again that he has no interest in reducing the record-high costs of gasoline, which have gone up throughout his time in office.
Biden not only wants to block all new oil drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, but he’s also taking steps to shut down exploration of oil and gas on federal lands.
“A plan released Friday shows the White House proposed no more than 10 potential lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, an option for one potential lease sale in the northern portion of the Cook Inlet of Alaska, and no lease sales for the Atlantic or Pacific planning areas over the 2023-2028 period,” reports Breitbart. This plan is not finalized, however, but any potential areas of exploration or sale not mentioned in the proposal will reportedly be off-limits from 2023-2028.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe assassinated by a man with a homemade shotgun while giving a speech.
Abe’s Japan was a reliable ally to the United States. But we should not let the shocking assassination blind us to the fact that Abe’s much-praised (by western MSM outlets, anyway) runaway deficit spending “Abenomics” efforts to lift Japan out of its long-running recession were a colossal failure, jacking up Japan’s national debt to the highest debt-per-GDP ratio in the world while failing to measurably increase actual economic activity.
Here’s a little leadership secret that’s actually not a secret at all to competent commissioned and non-commissioned officers. There are no bad cohorts of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Coast Guardsmen and whatever the hell Space Force people are called. There are only bad leaders, and we have the worst military leadership in American history, starting right at the top with a commander-in-chief who is less like Ike than Beavis.
In fact – and this rips me up to say because I would not trade my about 27 years in the Army for anything – the reluctance to enlist of the traditional, normal Americans who are most likely to serve and who are the most desirable for service, is entirely rational. You do have an obligation to serve your country in some way, the military being the highest and best way for those who are able. But you do not have an obligation to do so if your life is going to be squandered by a leadership whose strategies are a disaster, whose priorities are not the defense of this country but some sort of bizarre pan-global progressive ideology, and who will use you as a guinea pig in freakish and morally bankrupt social experiments, all while failing to fulfill even the most basic obligations of the leaders to the led. Our military today is failing to meet its recruiting goals because it has failed to earn the trust of normal Americans who would otherwise be inclined to raise their hands.
Snip.
That social justice nonsense is another reason we can’t recruit. Would you want to waive your civil rights and sleep in the dirt to be part of an institution that hates you? Would you feel like joining an organization whose leadership is very, very focused on mythical “white privilege” and those scary “insurrectionists?” Remember, if you are conservative, you are an official extremist threat. If you are a believer, you run afoul of the official morality of CRT. If you think men can’t become women because they feel like it, you are a horrible bigot and you will be ordered to lie and use the pronoun du jour or else.
This is your city on Woke: “Over 400,000 High-Priority Incidents In Chicago In 2021 Had ‘No Police Available To Send.'”
Speaking of Democratic Party-ruled city approaches to crime, look at the New York City case against Jose Alba, who “was sitting in his store working and was no harm to anyone. Then the perpetrator came behind the counter and attacked him.” Alba defended himself by killing his attacker with a knife. Naturally, Soros-backed DA Alvin Bragg charged Alba with murder.
The Social Justice Warrior love affair with pedophiles continues: “Top New Biden Staffer Defended Underage, Gay Prostitution Website Raided By Feds.”
“The owner of a Washington sex shop, who also serves as the director of the local school board, is hosting a pair of sex education workshops for children as young as 9 years old. Jenn Mason, the owner of the Wink Wink Boutique in Bellingham, Washington, and the director of the Bellingham School Board, is hosting a sex-ed workshop titled ‘Uncringe Academy: Sex Education Without (most) of the Awkward’ for children ages 9-18.” If the story seems familiar, it’s because she tried to do the same thing in May. According to their website, she’s still a Bellingham School Board Director.
“The ailing #WokeSuperheroes and teenagers-talking-in-hallways network The CW has been sold for zero dollars.” Plus $100 million in debt assumption. Bonus: Critical Drinker reviews Batwoman.
Welcome to the second half of 2022! The Biden Economy suckage becomes more obvious, the world’s most taboo lawsuit wants justice for real women being raped by fake women that the state of California forced on them, the Supreme Court slaps the EPA with a ruler over regulating carbon dioxide without congressional authority, and Eric Adams finally realizes he’s running a hellhole. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Welcome to the world’s most taboo legal case, a lawsuit over imprisoned woman having the right not to be raped by men who “identify” as women.
On November 17, 2021, the Women’s Liberation Front, or WoLF, filed a civil rights lawsuit in California that drew almost no coverage. A press corps gearing up to be outraged en masse by the Amber Heard-Johnny Depp defamation case had zero interest in a lawsuit filed by far poorer female abuse victims.
Janine Chandler et al vs. California Department of Corrections targeted a new California state law, the “The Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act,” a.k.a. S.B. 132. The statute allows any prisoner who self-identifies as a woman — including prisoners with penises who may have stopped taking hormones — into women’s prisons. There was nothing TV-friendly about the scenes depicted in the complaint:
Plaintiff Krystal Gonzalez (“Krystal”) is a female offender currently incarcerated in Central California Women’s Facility. Krystal was sexually assaulted by a man transferred to her unit under S.B. 132. Krystal filed a grievance and requested single-sex housing away from men; the prison’s response to Krystal’s grievance referred to her assault by a “transgender woman with a penis.” Krystal does not believe that women have penises…
After a week spent denounced for reviewing the Matt Walsh documentary What is a Woman?, and for saying things I think will be boring conventional wisdom within a year, I was ready to never go near trans issues again and move to the impending financial disaster. But accident sucked me back. I’d made a point of pride of not reading a line of commentary about Heard-Depp, but listened to an episode of Blocked and Reported that touched on it after it was over, and learned three things that made me furious and think immediately of Chandler.
One, the ACLU, in apparent exchange for a pledge of $3.5 million, ghost-wrote Heard’s offending editorial, and in particular a line about her having “felt the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out.” Two: Guardian writer Moira Donegan declared, “We are in a moment of virulent antifeminist backlash.” Three: Vice proclaimed without irony, “We’ve all failed Amber Heard.” Almost as one, the establishment press declared itself concerned with the suffering of a rich actress. However, there’s a gaping loophole in their concern for women, and Chandler sits in the middle of it.
Let’s talk about “the full force of our culture’s wrath for women who speak out” in the context of this case:
Chandler is the headline legal action in a nationwide battle over whether or not prisoners who self-identify as women, including those with histories of rape or sexual abuse, should be allowed to transfer to women’s correctional facilities. There have been both official and unofficial policy changes on this front in a growing collection of states across the country. These often happen with little to no public debate, because this issue may be the most impenetrable media taboo in America now.
The group bringing the suit, WoLF, has been targeted from every conceivable angle by pressure and censorship campaigns. While we at least heard about protesting Canadian truckers having their GoFundMe campaigns frozen, WoLF didn’t even bother trying to raise money on that platform, “because they just ban you really easily,” as legal director Lauren Adams put it.
They moved to a purportedly speechier platform, GiveButter, hoping they would have “less of a censorious kind of view.” But even GiveButter soon gave WoLF the boot (I reached out to the company, which hasn’t provided public comment yet). “It was just a general fundraiser,” Adams explains. “And they said we violated their community standards. So now we’re on GiveSendGo, which is a Christian crowdfunding site.”
If there’s a better illustration of the upside-down state of politics in 2022 America, it’s a feminist activist group forced to seek cyber-refuge in a Christian fundraising company.
Snip.
Most of the cross-dressing men claiming a “transgender identity” and granted transfer… are sex offenders, most are heterosexual men who want to be housed with women to get penis-in-vagina sex, most stop taking any feminizing hormone medications right after getting into women’s prison, they all refer to themselves as men when speaking to the women inmates, many have threatened to “fight you like a man” to women inmates, many have threatened to rape us, and they all have working penises that they are using to have sex with female inmates.
Transexism is now so central to the social justice victimhood politics ideology that controls the Democratic Party that it leads to letting men rape women rather than question the holy tenant that a man can magically become a women by declaring it so.
Notice how that “giant backlash” against the overturning of Roe vs. Wade seems to be limited to leftwingers freaking out on social media? Here’s a good explanation why:
This sums up my evolution better than I could have. Bet it’s highly highly a common sentiment.
Speaking of which, New York City mayor Eric Adams is shocked, shocked to discover that the city he runs sucks.
During an exclusive interview conducted as Adams rode the subways overnight for more than three hours last week, the former NYPD transit cop said he was astounded by the botched “deployment of resources” that has New Yorkers on edge amid a nearly 40 percent surge in major crimes this year.
“Let me tell you something: When I started looking into this, I was shocked at how bad this place is,” he said of the city.
Adams — who campaigned on a promise to restore order to an increasingly lawless Gotham — said the scales fell from his eyes when he began reviewing internal city operations following his swearing in moments after midnight on New Year’s Day.
Yet somehow I could tell that despite living some 1,700 miles away, thanks to the magic power of “paying attention” and “not depending on the MSM for news.”
Nowhere is the shift more pronounced — and dangerous for Democrats — than in the suburbs, where well-educated swing voters who turned against Trump’s Republican Party in recent years appear to be swinging back. Over the last year, far more people are switching to the GOP across suburban counties from Denver to Atlanta and Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Republicans also gained ground in counties around medium-size cities such as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Raleigh, North Carolina; Augusta, Georgia; and Des Moines, Iowa.
Who has the highest debt in the EU? Exactly who you would think: The PIGS (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, in that order), then France, Belgium and Cyprus.
Following other western tech giants, Cisco plans to exit Russia permanently. Unless you’re in the sector, you might underestimate just how many pies Cisco has fingers in. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced his office’s latest election integrity prosecution in Victoria County. Monica Mendez of Port Lavaca pleaded guilty to 26 felony counts of voter fraud, including three counts of illegal voting, eight counts of election fraud, seven counts of assisting a voter to submit a ballot by mail, and eight counts of unlawful possession of a mail ballot. Mendez ran a vote-harvesting operation on behalf of a subsidized housing corporation in order to influence the outcome of a utility board election.
A utility board election. Stakes that low and here’s demonstrable proof that someone thought it was worth committing voter fraud. Imagine how much more temptation there must be to commit voting fraud in a presidential election?
A Victoria County grand jury indicted Mendez on 31 felony election fraud counts:
7 counts of illegal voting (second-degree felony—2 to 20 years in prison, fine up to $10,000)
8 counts of unlawfully assisting a voter voting by mail (third-degree felony—2 to 10 years in prison, fine up to $10,000)
8 counts of unlawful possession of a ballot (state jail felony—180 days to 2 years in jail, fine up to $10,000)
8 counts of election fraud (state jail felony)
The charges relate to eight mail-in ballots in a May 2018 water district board election in Bloomington, a town of around 2,000 residents near Victoria.
The Texas Secretary of State referred the case to the AG’s office for criminal investigation after receiving reports from residents of possible illegal voting activities ahead of the election, including about 275 new voters who registered using the same mailing address—a P.O. box associated with a local nonprofit housing provider ALMS.
Tenants said ALMS threatened to raise their rent if they didn’t vote for their landlord’s preferred water board candidates. ALMS wanted to oust the incumbents because they said the water district overcharged for services at their rental properties.
In 2016, Texas Rangers investigated similar allegations that ALMS coerced tenants to vote for certain candidates.
Authorities haven’t said which candidate or candidates may have benefited from Mendez’ alleged ballot harvesting.
A total of 563 ballots were cast in Bloomington’s 2018 water district election. Each voter chose up to three of the six candidates, and the top three were elected.
Just 12 votes separated the third- and fourth-place finishers.
I’ve seen various reports that Mendez is a Democrat (which the “subsidized housing corporation” part would suggest), but I am unable to find definitive proof of that. If you have any, feel free to share it in the comments below.
Between contractors working on my house and finishing up a book catalog, yesterday was super busy, resulting in short shrift analyzing one of the most important Second Amendment decisions in the history of the Republic. Fortunately, a lot of other good analysts have been doing the heavy lifting.
First up, here’s the actual text of the decision. For this post, I’m going to snip much of Justice Thomas’ reasoning to get to the meat of the conclusions.
In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570 (2008), and McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742 (2010), we recognized that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect the right of an ordinary, law-abiding citizen to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense. In this case, petitioners and respondents agree that ordinary, law-abiding citizens have a similar right to carry handguns publicly for their self-defense. We too agree, and now hold, consistent with Heller and McDonald, that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.
The parties nevertheless dispute whether New York’s licensing regime respects the constitutional right to carry handguns publicly for self-defense. In 43 States, the government issues licenses to carry based on objective criteria. But in six States, including New York, the government further conditions issuance of a license to carry on a citizen’s showing of some additional special need. Because the State of New York issues public-carry licenses only when an applicant demonstrates a special need for self-defense, we conclude that the State’s licensing regime violates the Constitution.
Snip.
In Heller and McDonald, we held that the Second and Fourteenth Amendments protect an individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense. In doing so, we held unconstitutional two laws that prohibited the possession and use of handguns in the home. In the years since, the Courts of Appeals have coalesced around a “two-step” framework for analyzing Second Amendment challenges that combines history with means-end scrutiny.
Today, we decline to adopt that two-part approach. In keeping with Heller, we hold that when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct. To justify its regulation, the government may not simply posit that the regulation promotes an important interest. Rather, the government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation. Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.” Konigsberg v. State Bar of Cal., 366 U. S. 36, 50, n. 10 (1961).
Snip.
Despite the popularity of this two-step approach, it is one step too many. Step one of the predominant framework is broadly consistent with Heller, which demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history. But Heller and McDonald do not support applying means-end scrutiny in the Second Amendment context. Instead, the government must affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.
Snip.
This Second Amendment standard accords with how we protect other constitutional rights. Take, for instance, the freedom of speech in the First Amendment, to which Heller repeatedly compared the right to keep and bear arms. 554 U. S., at 582, 595, 606, 618, 634–635. In that context, “[w]hen the Government restricts speech, the Government bears the burden of proving the constitutionality of its actions.” United States v. Playboy Entertainment Group, Inc., 529 U. S. 803, 816 (2000); see also Philadelphia Newspapers, Inc. v. Hepps, 475 U. S. 767, 777 (1986). In some cases, that burden includes showing whether the expressive conduct falls outside of the category of protected speech. See Illinois ex rel. Madigan v. Telemarketing Associates, Inc., 538 U. S. 600, 620, n. 9 (2003). And to carry that burden, the government must generally point to historical evidence about the reach of the First Amendment’s protections. See, e.g., United States v. Stevens, 559 U. S. 460, 468–471 (2010) (placing the burden on the government to show that a type of speech belongs to a “historic and traditional categor[y]” of constitutionally unprotected speech “long familiar to the bar.”
Snip.
If the last decade of Second Amendment litigation has taught this Court anything, it is that federal courts tasked with making such difficult empirical judgments regarding firearm regulations under the banner of “intermediate scrutiny” often defer to the determinations of legislatures. But while that judicial deference to legislative interest balancing is understandable—and, elsewhere, appropriate—it is not deference that the Constitution demands here. The Second Amendment “is the very product of an interest balancing by the people” and it “surely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms” for self-defense. Heller, 554 U. S., at 635. It is this balance—struck by the traditions of the American people—that demands our unqualified deference.
The test that we set forth in Heller and apply today requires courts to assess whether modern firearms regulations are consistent with the Second Amendment’s text and historical understanding. In some cases, that inquiry will be fairly straightforward. For instance, when a challenged regulation addresses a general societal problem that has persisted since the 18th century, the lack of a distinctly similar historical regulation addressing that problem is relevant evidence that the challenged regulation is inconsistent with the Second Amendment. Likewise, if earlier generations addressed the societal problem, but did so through materially different means, that also could be evidence that a modern regulation is unconstitutional. And if some jurisdictions actually attempted to enact analogous regulations during this timeframe, but those proposals were rejected on constitutional grounds, that rejection surely would provide some probative evidence of unconstitutionality.
Snip. Here’s Thomas disposing of the “musket” red herring:
While the historical analogies here and in Heller are relatively simple to draw, other cases implicating unprecedented societal concerns or dramatic technological changes may require a more nuanced approach. The regulatory challenges posed by firearms today are not always the same as those that preoccupied the Founders in 1791 or the Reconstruction generation in 1868. Fortunately, the Founders created a Constitution—and a Second Amendment—“intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs.” McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 415 (1819) (emphasis deleted). Although its meaning is fixed according to the understandings of those who ratified it, the Constitution can, and must, apply to circumstances beyond those the Founders specifically anticipated. See, e.g., United States v. Jones, 565 U. S. 400, 404–405 (2012) (holding that installation of a tracking device was “a physical intrusion [that] would have been considered a ‘search’ within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment when it was adopted”).
We have already recognized in Heller at least one way in which the Second Amendment’s historically fixed meaning applies to new circumstances: Its reference to “arms” does not apply “only [to] those arms in existence in the 18th century.” 554 U. S., at 582. “Just as the First Amendment protects modern forms of communications, and the Fourth Amendment applies to modern forms of search, the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.” Ibid. (citations omitted). Thus, even though the Second Amendment’s definition of “arms” is fixed according to its historical understanding, that general definition covers modern instruments that facilitate armed self-defense. Cf. Caetano v. Massachusetts, 577 U. S. 411, 411–412 (2016) (per curiam) (stun guns).
A long, interesting discussion of the history of firearms regulation (including the right of blacks to own guns for self-defense in the south) snipped. His conclusion:
The constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not “a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.” McDonald, 561 U. S., at 780 (plurality opinion). We know of no other constitutional right that an individual may exercise only after demonstrating to government offic ers some special need. That is not how the First Amendment works when it comes to unpopular speech or the free exercise of religion. It is not how the Sixth Amendment works when it comes to a defendant’s right to confront the witnesses against him. And it is not how the Second Amendment works when it comes to public carry for self-defense.
New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment in that it prevents law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms. We therefore reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
SCOTUS just tossed the use of scrutiny in examining the Second Amendment. No more “shall not be infringed except for…” quibbling. As the opinion says, HELLER did that, and Thomas sounds angry that he’s is now having to tell lower courts to cease and desist the use of means testing. He’s stating it about as clearly as can be done in the English language.
This is even better than the use of strict scrutiny, which was previously the best I thought I could hope for. A quick review of intermediate and strict scrutiny is in order.
Strict scrutiny requires that there must be a compelling government interest for a restriction of rights, it must narrowed tailored, and it must be the least restrictive way to do it.
Intermediate scrutiny requires little more than We need this to fix that.
SCOTUS just said, rather forcefully at that, that “compelling government interest” doesn’t apply when analyzing restrictions on fundamental Constitutional rights. Instead, you must demonstrate that there is a longstanding and general historical tradition for the rule… or you can’t do it at all.
The Ninth Circuit, infamous for invoking limited intermediate scrutiny — despite HELLER — must be excreting masonry construction units right about now. California Dims likewise, because the Ninth has abused scrutiny to uphold all of the state’s 2A infringements.
The Supreme Court just told them, Stop it, damnit! No more games; follow our instructions.
Thomas rebuffed New York’s effort to justify its proper-cause requirement as an effort to regulate guns in “sensitive places” – specifically, crowded urban areas, like Manhattan, where people are likely to gather. Thomas agreed that, as a historical matter, there have long been laws restricting guns in places like courthouses and polling places. Moreover, he continued, restrictions that apply to the modern versions of “sensitive places” may also pass constitutional muster. Although Thomas left open exactly what might qualify as a “sensitive place,” he made clear that urban areas do not meet that definition. The state’s “argument would in effect exempt cities from the Second Amendment and would eviscerate the general right to publicly carry arms for self-defense,” Thomas concluded.
Two landmark Supreme Court cases drop, another woke social justice child-rapist exposed, Keith Olbermann channels John C. Calhoun, and the secret plans to nuke Yorkshire. It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
Just like the old gypsy woman said leakers indicated, the Supreme Court has overturned Roe vs. Wade.
The Supreme Court on Friday overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion, allowing a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks to take effect.
“The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the 6-3 majority.
Justice Alito was joined by Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, and Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority. Justice Roberts wrote in a concurring opinion with the majority that he would have taken a “more measured course” stopping short of overturning Roe altogether, but agreed that the Mississippi abortion ban should stand.
The Court’s liberal Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor dissented….
The ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization means each state will now be able to determine its own regulations on abortion, including whether and when to prohibit abortion.
In New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, the Court affirmed that gun rights are due the same protection as all other constitutional rights.
To which I can only reply “Duh. What took them so long?”
Today’s Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen is not only the most important Second Amendment ruling since D.C. v. Heller, it is potentially the most important Second Amendment ruling in American history.
Not sure about that, as Heller firmly established the gun ownership was an individual right unconnected to militia service. That laid the conceptual groundwork for today’s ruling.
For all the brouhaha, the question at hand in Bruen was rather straightforward: Can the state of New York require that applicants for gun-carry permits “demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community,” or is New York obliged by the Constitution to offer a “shall issue” regime of the sort that 43 of the other 49 states have adopted? By a 6–3 vote, the justices decided that the latter approach is required. In the United States, Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion concluded, “authorities must issue concealed-carry licenses whenever applicants satisfy certain threshold requirements, without granting licensing officials discretion to deny licenses based on a perceived lack of need or suitability.” Moreover, while there is nothing illegal about America’s existing state-level permitting systems, those systems may not be mere smokescreens for outright prohibition, unequal protection, or unacceptable delay. “We do not rule out,” Thomas added in a footnote, any “constitutional challenges to shall-issue regimes where, for example, lengthy wait times in processing license applications or exorbitant fees deny ordinary citizens their right to public carry.”
As Justice Alito was keen to note, this “holding decides nothing about who may lawfully possess a firearm or the requirements that must be met to buy a gun. Nor does it decide anything about the kinds of weapons that people may possess.” It concludes solely that:
The exercise of other constitutional rights does not require individuals to demonstrate to government officers some special need. The Second Amendment right to carry arms in public for self-defense is no different. New York’s proper-cause requirement violates the Fourteenth Amendment by preventing law-abiding citizens with ordinary self-defense needs from exercising their right to keep and bear arms in public.
Bottom line: New York is allowed to exclude carry-permit applications on a categorical basis (e.g., the applicant has a felony conviction), but not on a subjective one (e.g., the applicant doesn’t “need” a gun in the view of the determining officer).
To get there, the majority first determined that “nothing in the Second Amendment’s text draws a home/public distinction with respect to the right to keep and bear arms.” Indeed, “to confine the right to ‘bear’ arms to the home,” the majority observed, “would nullify half of the Second Amendment’s operative protections.” This, Thomas explained, would not do, because “the constitutional right to bear arms in public for self-defense is not ‘a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.’”
Liberals are taking the gun and abortion rulings well. Ha, just kidding! Keith Olbermann came out for nullification. Because nothing says “progressive liberalism” like adopting the policies of South Carolina from 1832.
Ukraine has banned the main opposition party. Not a great look. Though you know FDR would have tried that with Republicans if he thought they posed more of a threat to his agenda and the Supreme Court would let him get away with it…
Israel is headed for yet another election. “After almost one year of taking power, Israel’s ruling coalition has agreed to dissolve the parliament and hold new elections. ‘Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s office announced Monday that his weakened coalition will be disbanded and the country will head to new elections.'” (“How many elections is that now, five?” “Shut up! Don’t tell Mere!”)
International Swimming Federation bans men from competing. It’s astonishing that headline even needs to be written…
Powers that be in Tennessee are threatening YouTuber Whistlin Diesel with a year in prison for…splashing with a jet ski. Sounds like a clear abuse of power to me…
A review of one of the last production Trebants, the crappy, under-powered, plastic communist car East Germans had to wait years to buy. Let this be another reminder that commies aren’t cool and the consumer goods produced by commie companies that don’t have to deal with market competition are crap.
“In my day, we had to work twenty-five hours a day, eight days a week, and they set off a nuclear explosion underneath us! You tell that to kids these days and they don’t believe you!”
“After ‘Lightyear’ Bombs, Disney Quietly Cancels Their Upcoming Movie ‘Brokeback Woody.”
