Refusing to Enforce California’s Extremist Agenda

Quote of the Day

California continues to push out a steady stream of absurd, unscientific, and flat out impossible regulations across many industries in an attempt to impose its extremist, green agenda on the whole country by forcing manufacturers and businesses who want to do business in California to toe its far-left enviornut agenda.

It has become so pervasive that 17 states have banded together to sue the federal Environmental Protection Agency to cancel the special rules it has for allowing California to make its own environmental rules. That began in 1970 when the federal government added that carve out to the Clean Air Act.

But, what we see here is just another example of how far California is from every other state and even from the federal government on its commitment to the shrill environmentalist agenda. And it is long past time California’s absurd regulations are reigned in and to end its special powers to coerce the rest of the country to abide by its extremist agenda.

Todd Huston
March 1, 2024
Coast Guard Refuses to Enforce California’s New Environmental Regulation (msn.com)

If only the Feds would reign in California gun laws as well. It wouldn’t be that hard. Just prosecute and send the governor, attorney general, a few senators and representatives to jail and/or death row, and California would be much better behaved for several years.

History Rhymes

Quote of the Day

I’ll never forget the @FBI calling me into their office in Seattle in 2020.

They were looking for footage of a suspect I had taken during one of the many riots.

That’s when I asked them about Antifa.

The FBI agent told me Antifa was NOT a cause of concern, nor were they a terror group.

That’s when I lost all respect for the agency and refused to take any further calls.

I watched Antifa assault police, press, and innocent bystanders, as well as burn Seattle and Portland to the ground for nine months.

All without repercussions.

Imagine if a conservative did this?

Katie Daviscourt @KatieDaviscourt
Posted on X February 18, 2024

I’m reminded of stories in Gulag Archipelago. The police ignored and even encouraged criminal activity against the opponents of communism. History may not repeat but it does rhyme.

Prepare appropriately.

A Difference Without a Difference

Quote of the Day

That’s where we seem to fall down as a society. Not that we take constitutional rights away from people, but rather that we be more careful about who it is that we allow to exercise those rights in our society.

Frank Figliuzzi
February 18, 2024
Figliuzzi: More Caution Needed on Who’s Allowed to Exercise 2nd Amendment

How about we be more careful about who is allowed to exercise their 1st Amendment rights? We are not going to take Figliuzzi’s constitutional right away, we just aren’t going to allow him to exercise his right to say stupid crap like this in our society.

Let Your Rifle Speak

Quote of the Day

It doesn’t matter if robbery, rape, or murder is in the mind of the attacker — maybe it’s all of the above, plus cannibalism — what matters is the will and the ability to destroy the attacker. Forcible felonies are almost never one-and-done actions committed on the spur of the moment. Anybody you shoot has likely done this before and will, unless incapacitated, do this to others. Violence will be escalated, and the predatory conduct won’t cease until somebody stops them decisively.

image

Oleg Volk
January 20, 2024
The motive of your enemy is not relevant to the choice of remedy. | VolkStudio Blog (olegvolk.net)

Prepare appropriately.

White Americans Should Pay Reparations

Some people probably think I have a sick sense of humor.

They may be correct (the next to the last paragraph is the punch line):

THREAD: Proof that every White American should pay Reparations to every Black American.

Anthony Johnson, the first legal slave owner in America, was an Angolan Moor who achieved freedom in the early 17th-century colony of Virginia. In 1651, Anthony Johnson owned 250 acres and the services of four white and one black indentured servant.

Anthony Johnson , MSA SC 3520-14039 (maryland.gov)

Continue reading

Financial Big Brother is Watching You

Quote of the Day

The Committee and Select Subcommittee have obtained documents showing that FinCEN distributed slides, prepared by a financial institution, explaining how other financial institutions can use MCC codes to detect customers whose transactions may reflect “potential active shooters, [and] who may include dangerous International Terrorists / Domestic Terrorists / Homegrown Violent Extremists (‘Lone Wolves’).” For example, the slides instruct financial institutions to query for transactions using certain MCC codes such as “3484: Small Arms,” “5091: Sporting and Recreational Goods and Supplies,” and the keywords “Cabela’s,” and “Dick’s Sporting Goods,” among several others. Despite these transactions having no apparent criminal nexus—and, in fact, relate to Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights— FinCEN seems to have adopted a characterization of these Americans as potential threat actors. This kind of pervasive financial surveillance, carried out in coordination with and at the request of federal law enforcement, into Americans’ private transactions is alarming and raises serious doubts about FinCEN’s respect for fundamental civil liberties.

Jim Jordan
Chairman Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
January 17, 2024
Letter to Noah Bishoff, former Director of the Office of Stakeholder Integration and Engagement in the Strategic Operations Division of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)

Via email from John S.

See also Financial Big Brother is Watching You – by Matt Taibbi (racket.news).

We live in interesting times. Prepare appropriately.

Like Watching a Racial Desegregation Case

Quote of the Day

I just listened to the California “Assault Weapon” ban oral argument before the Ninth Circuit in Miller v. Bonta. I will do extremely detailed breakdown of the argument later. In short, 2A will NOT win with this panel.

The questions and comments from the two liberal judges Berzon and Nguyen were unimpressive. Judge Berzon called AR-15s “A-15s” (seriously).

Based on today’s argument and the efforts by the two liberal judges to avoid applying Heller/Bruen, I now understand what it was like watching a court argument in 1950s Alabama/Mississippi over racial desegregation where intellectually dishonest, results-oriented judges worked overtime to avoid the obvious, legally-compelled outcome based upon clear, binding US Supreme Court precedent.

Mark W. Smith/#2A Scholar @fourboxesdiner
Posted on X January 24, 2024

And, no surprise, it was the same political party deliberately infringing upon the rights of people in both instances. There is an reason they are called the evil party.

Shutting down the FBI & ATF

Quote of the Day

I’ll shut down the FBI & ATF and here’s one more reason why. A voter in Iowa recently reminded me of the story of Ruby Ridge & the Weaver family. In 1992, Randy Weaver sold a sawed-off shotgun to a federal informant & was then surrounded at his cabin for refusing to appear in court. First they killed his dog, then they shot & killed his son, *14-year-old* Samuel Weaver. His wife, Vicki, also was shot & killed by an FBI sniper while holding their 10-month-old daughter inside their house. Weaver was later acquitted & awarded a $3mm settlement by the DOJ. Another classic case of entrapment & a disproportionate, politicized abuse of federal police power. I will *shut down* toxic 3-letter agencies like the FBI & ATF that are beyond the point of incremental “reform,” using my Constitutional authority as U.S. President to do it.

Vivek Ramaswamy @VivekGRamaswamy
Posted on X January 9, 2024

I would vote for that.

MN Gun Owners Caucus @mnguncaucus

Quote of the Day

A horribly written law that would make criminals out of careful, law-abiding citizens is not a solution to the tremendous problem we face with gun violence and firearm accidents. Publicly supported and funded, age-appropriate firearm safety education ought to be a part of it.

Brad Johnson
Anoka County Attorney
Letter to state representative Jaime Becker-Finn.

Via MN Gun Owners Caucus @mnguncaucus on April 3, 2023.

We must recognize we have allies in government.

It wasn’t too long ago that I read a book about the resistance to Nazi’s in Italy. A young woman got a job as a maid and nanny to a Nazi officer and his wife. She was also a spy who obtained information which was smuggled to the allies which was used to save countless lives. As the Nazis were retreating out of Italy local “patriots” rounded up the Nazis and collaborates they could find and killed them without trials. The young woman was among them.

Gun Laws are an Unmitigated Disaster

Quote of the Day

Gun laws in the United States are an unmitigated disaster. The amount of asinine minutiae that can send you straight to jail is downright embarrassing, and it requires a conscious effort to believe we’re in this situation because of incompetence rather than malice. All this to say: I’ve made a genuine effort to work on this project without running afoul of any state or federal gun laws, like Tom Frickin’ Cruise navigating a hallway of laser tripwires.

Evan @ Cottage Arms
Posted in 2022

Meet Shirley: The .22LR built for the year 2022 from Cottage Arms on Vimeo.

The Point of Government

Quote of the Day

Because the point of government is to create social trust. I started this talk by explaining the importance of trust in society, and how interpersonal trust doesn’t scale to larger groups. That other, impersonal kind of trust—social trust, reliability and predictability—is what governments create.

To the extent a government improves the overall trust in society, it succeeds. And to the extent a government doesn’t, it fails.

But they have to. We need government to constrain the behavior of corporations and the AIs they build, deploy, and control. Government needs to enforce both predictability and reliability.

That’s how we can create the social trust that society needs to thrive.

Bruce Schneier
December 4, 2023
AI and Trust

Via a message from Stephanie.

Schneier raises my hackles. It seems to me, that far too often he concludes more government is the solution to problems he imagines. What would he have us do when it is extraordinarily clear that the government is less trustworthy than any corporation or AI?

I’m far more inclined align myself with:

The end of Law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge Freedom: For in all the states of created beings capable of Laws, where there is no law, there is no Freedom.

Chains are but an ill wearing, how much Care soever hath been taken to file and polish them.

John Locke
Two Treatises of Government

Explicitly and from a source far more important, just governments are created to protect the rights of individuals:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

To the extent that a government does not align itself with this goal is the extent to which it is unjust and illegitimate.

Political Affiliation of People Moving to Idaho

With all the people moving to Idaho (“Idaho has been one of the top five fastest growing states in the nation since 2016.”) the question comes up, “Are they bringing their failed politics with them from California and other failed states?”

The Idaho Secretary of State has some data to shed some light on the topic. The short answer is that Idaho has 58% Republicans, 28% unaffiliated, and 13% Democrats. The incoming mixture is 65% Republican, 21% unaffiliated, and 12% Democrats. So, that says the incoming people is make the state “redder”.

But that is not the whole story:

Californians have been programmed in a way that they think they’re conservative, but then they move to a place like Eagle, Idaho, and they start asking for the same things that the government was providing them in California,

See also what Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times has to say.

And for my county of Clearwater:

image

There are only 8,734 people in the entire county. Hence, over 7.5% have moved there recently.

“Possessions” Do Not Include Private Land

Quote of the Day

How much power does the government claim on private land?

“Unfettered,” according to a Commonwealth Court decision in a case pitting the Pennsylvania Game Commission against two private gun clubs.

On Sept. 29, a court ruled against two hunting clubs in their lawsuit accusing the Game Commission of private property rights violations.

In its ruling, the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania noted the government’s absolute power to “roam private land without consent, warrants or probable cause.”

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said “possessions” do not include private land.

Chris Bennett
January 25, 2023
Pennsylvania court rules against gun clubs in private property case

Interesting. Perhaps I should see if I can find those old bear traps, abandoned wells, and explosives testing grounds so as to make sure no government agents get hurt when they venture beyond the no trespassing signs.

Prepare appropriately.

The Cultural Revolution in the U.S.

Quote of the Day

In CCP’s China, one can find a Party Branch (党支部) in any workplace.

According to the CCP, its function is to propagate & implement the Party’s principles, policies, & resolutions.

In America today, we have a DEI office in every institution.

Xi Van Fleet @XVanFleet
Posted on X December 21, 2023

I read and really like her book.

Well, “like” in the sense of interesting and enlightening. She grew up in China during the cultural revolution and then moved to the U.S. where she now sees frightening similarities to her native country. Daughter Jaime refuses to read it because it sounds too dark.

Some of the terrible stuff in China would not fly in the U.S. because of the widespread ownership of firearms and a substantial number of the population tend to distrust the government and highly regard individualism. But other stuff can be seen closing in all around us.

News You Can Use

Freedom in the 50 States

1    New Hampshire
2    Florida
3    South Dakota
4    Nevada
5    Arizona
…     …
14    Idaho
…     …
37    Washington
…     …
46    Oregon
47    New Jersey
48    California
49    Hawaii
50    New York

See also The American Voter’s Flight to Freedom

Washington has some advantages but I would rather be in Idaho. Washington seems to want to oppress their citizens just for the meanness of it and in total spite of the state and Federal Constitutions..

Inconvenient Constitutionally Guaranteed Rights Must Be Ignored

Quote of the Day

Wednesday’s arguments focused primarily on this first theory: that adjudicating securities fraud before an administrative law judge violates the right to a trial by a jury. This right arises from the Seventh Amendment, which provides a jury trial in some civil cases. Current Supreme Court precedent breaks it down like this: When the U.S. government seeks to enforce a congressional statute that prohibits or punishes wrongdoing, it is enforcing “public rights.” And these enforcements don’t implicate the Seventh Amendment. That means they can be brought within an agency, before administrative law judges, who are shielded from removal by the commission. As Kagan put it on Wednesday, quoting major precedent, the Seventh Amendment “is no bar to the creation of new rights or to their enforcement outside the regular courts of law.”

This system is the only plausible way that the executive branch can carry out the duties assigned to it by Congress. Federal agencies rely on administrative adjudication to penalize polluters, scammers, abusive employers, crooked banks, and a whole range of unsavory parties. Obviously, these agencies can’t send anyone to prison, and their procedures must comply with due process. Their goal is to catch countless cases that would otherwise slip through the cracks—often because the harm involved applies to the public at large, or to potential harms that haven’t yet caused an injury. If the government had to bring these cases in federal court, the judiciary would be overwhelmed, its docket flooded with disputes that it lacks the time or resources to resolve by trial.

Mark Joseph Stern
November 29, 2023
The Supreme Court Has Figured Out How to Gut a Bunch of Crucial Federal Laws at Once

Emphasis added.

To refresh your memory on the 7th Amendment:

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by Jury shall be preserved, and no fact, tried by a Jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

I’m not a lawyer, but the only exemptions to a jury trial granted by the 7th Amendment is if the value must be less than or equal to $20 or the controversy is not a suit at common law. “At common law” appears to mean “cases that triggered the right to a jury under English law”. Article III protects the right to a trial by jury for all criminal cases.

So what are these regulations that Stern is so upset about? Are they criminal or are they civil? It would appear to be criminal cases to me. They are violations of laws created by congress, right?

So, it would appear to me that the only exemption Stern can hang his hat on when he claims the 7th Amendment doesn’t guarantee a jury trial are those trials which involve less than or equal to $20.

Of course he doesn’t try to explain why these regulations are exempt. He just rants about how it is not practical to allow the defendants to have their right to a trial by jury. In other words, inconvenient constitutionally guaranteed rights must be ignored..

I suspect this mindset is common in those opposed to the 2nd Amendment as well.

Perhaps he would revise his option at his own trial.

You Are a Pre-Criminal

Quote of the Day

All criminals start off as non-criminals. But if they do break the law in respect to gun use they THEN become criminals. So even non-criminals can be a problem. You should know this!

Paige Kristinson (@SquirlyGirll)
Tweeted on December 11, 2022

This is what they think of you. You are a pre-criminal and “can be a problem”.

The real problem is people like her who have no respect for civil rights. Perhaps she should consider the consequence of people like her being treated as civil rights infringers before they have actually infringed upon the civil rights of others.

Politicians are Sociopaths

Quote of the Day

This is a society infected by socialism and what we need to achieve is to remove socialism from people’s minds.

Politicians are sociopaths who want to make us believe that we are mentally invalid in every sense because we cannot live without them.

If the country were divided between those who produce on one side and the other side, the f*cking politicians, the syndicalists, this whole bunch of parasites, they would sink and die.

Javier Milei
President Elect of Argentina
2023
Via Tommy Robinson @TRobinsonNewEra

This is a presidential candidate I could vote for with enthusiasm.

Argentina will be an interesting place to watch for the next few years. This is assuming he doesn’t get assassinated

Prep for a Communist Revolution

Quote of the Day

There are basically 5 scenarios in which civilians drastically lose their liberties, lives, and fortunes:

  1. Communist Revolution
  2. Civil War broadly defined: regime change/guerilla campaigns/insurgency/ complete loss of order
  3. Foreign Invasion
  4. domestic outward invasion/war
  5. economic sanctions/blockade (externally or internally imposed).

    And as we’ve seen recently… there’s a 6th condition:

  6. Disease outbreak and public health totalitarianism (i.e. Soft Communist Revolution)

Anyone one of these 5 (6) conditions can be caused by or cause economic collapses, and there are numerous examples of all of them resulting in things such as: mass starvation, breakdown in healthcare, concentration camp style detainment of populations, ethnic cleansing, mass enslavement, government by terror, conscription, press gangs, banditry, confiscation of wealth.

Of these 5 however, the worst is number 1: Communist Revolution. And for that reason we’re going to assume that’s what you’re dealing with.

Not just because I hate communists which, yes, but because inherent in every communist revolution are the other 5.

Kulak
August 21, 2023
Realistic Prepper Advice

Via Hank Archer.

Prepare appropriately.