Archive for the ‘Second Amendment’ Category

Trump on possible 2024 presidential run: "We may have to do it again" – WSGW

Dallas Former President Donald Trump made his return to the CPAC stage on Saturday, pushing his baseless election claims, bashing his enemies, and hinting at a possible 2024 run by saying, We may have to do it again.

If I stayed home, the persecution of Donald Trump would stop immediately, but I cant do that because I love my country and I love the people, he said.

Later in the nearly two-hour speech, he said, Americas comeback begins this November, and it will continue onward with the unstoppable momentum that we are going to develop in November 2024.

Trump did not announce another run for the White House in 2024, but he still comfortably won the CPAC straw poll, as he has in past years. In a straw poll with Trump removed from the list, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was the clear favorite with 65%, and Sen. Ted Cruz coming in a distant second with 6%. All others had less than 5%.

BRANDON BELL / Getty Images

Trump pointed to the straw poll results frequently on stage, especially his approval rating among the conferences conservative attendees.

Trump spent a significant portion of the speech trashing moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who have both signed onto the climate deal that the Senate was voting on while Trump was on the stage. Vice President Kamala Harris delivered the tie-breaking vote to advance the legislation as Trump was speaking. The bill received the support of all 50 Democrats and no Republicans. The Senate began debate after her vote, which will last for up to 20 hours before the Senate begins voting on the amendments.

Trump vowed to go to West Virginia, a state he won by nearly 20 points, and campaign against Manchin when he is up for reelection in 2024, as well as to campaign against Sinema when she also goes up for reelection that same year in Arizona.

Trumps former Attorney General Bill Barr, who resigned amid Trumps false claims after the 2020 election, warned earlier this week to CBS News Catherine Herridge that if Trump won in 2024, he would be a 78-year-old lame duck whos obviously bent on revenge more than anything else.

When Trump mentioned Barr, there were boos from the crowd. He also blasted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for allowing the deal to come to the Senate floor. Trump last month called McConnell, who refuses to defend Trumps actions surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, disloyal. On Saturday, Trump said senators are only loyal to him because of his fundraising.

Trump made a few references to the House Jan. 6 committee which has been holding public hearings to present their findings about the attack on the U.S. Capitol calling them disgusting.

During an earlier speech by GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert, there were shouts in the crowd to free the J6 defendants. Trump mentioned those charged in connection to the attack, saying, Look at these people whose lives are being destroyed.

He also mocked the testimony of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who said that she heard Trump tried to grab the steering wheel of the presidential vehicle.

So my hands fell around another powerful guy, strong as hell I know these people well, its just not my deal, Trump said.

He jokingly added, When that story came out, people said, I never knew you were that strong physically.'

Trump repeated the claim that he wanted to call in the National Guard ahead of the Jan. 6 attack, saying that former Defense Department official Kash Patel was a witness to that. The Jan. 6 committee has shared footage disputing Trumps claim about having 10,000 troops at the ready.

Not from my perspective, I was never given any direction or order or knew of any plans of that nature, Trumps acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller said in a recorded deposition that the committee tweeted last month.

The biggest applause lines of the night, though, came when Trump discussed culture war issues, such as parental rights, and said he would abolish the Department of Education and keep men out of womens sports. He also said he would not allow the teaching of critical race theory.

But Trump did not focus heavily on some of the Republican partys biggest culture war issues over the years, making only a passing reference to the Second Amendment. He made no mention of the Supreme Courts decision in June to overturn Roe v. Wade, although it heavily featured throughout the conference.

Trump stuck to many of the themes of his previous speeches, hitting on crime, inflation and the U.S. being a nation in decline.

Trump began his speech by announcing many of his allies running for office, or already in office, who were at the conference. That included Kari Lake, who introduced him Saturday fresh off her victory this week in the Republican primary for governor in Arizona.

Trump gave the closing speech on the final day of the three-day conference, which also featured far-right Hungarian leader Viktor Orban, who has said he does not want Hungarians to become peoples of mixed race.

Saturday was the second speech in as many days for the former president, who visited Waukesha, Wisconsin, on Friday night, where he took a victory lap after a number of wins by his backed candidates in Tuesdays primaries.

This has been an exceptional week for the America First movement, exceptional, Trump said Friday.

Trump had targeted Arizona one of the states that swung toward President Biden in 2020 in Tuesdays primaries, in an effort to install his loyalists. His endorsed candidates in Arizona won the Republican primaries for Senate, governor and secretary of state, the states top election official.

Trump also had endorsed David Farnsworth, a candidate in Arizonas 10th state Senate district running against Rusty Bowers, who had testified about Trump and his allies attempts to install phony electors who supported Trump after the 2020 election. Farnsworth won that election as well.

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Trump on possible 2024 presidential run: "We may have to do it again" - WSGW

The New Era of Rightwing Judicial Supremacy – Progressive.org

In Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton famously predicted that the judicial branch of government would always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution; because it will be least in a capacity to annoy or injure them. In retrospect, Hamilton could not have been more wrong.

The U.S. Supreme Court is now dominated by five hardcore ideologuesthree of them nominated by former President Donald Trump. In its most recent term, the court made a mockery of Hamiltons forecast of judicial restraint, crossing a variety of political fault lines on abortion, the Second Amendment, religious liberty and the separation of church and state, climate change, civil rights, campaign finance, and voting rights (see sidebar). Far from the neutral institution envisioned by Hamilton, the court has become, according to many commentators, a quasi-legislative body dedicated to advancing a regressive political agenda free from democratic accountability.

Welcome to the new era of rightwing judicial supremacy.

The courts power grab reached new heights last term with its landmark abortion decision inDobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, which concerned a Mississippi statute that bans almost all abortions after fifteen weeks, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Authored by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett,Dobbsdelivered on the rights long-festering fever dream of reversingRoe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the twin pillars of the federal right to abortion.

Alito declared that bothRoeandCaseywere egregiously wrong from the start because the word abortion doesnt appear anywhere in the first eight amendments to the Constitution, or anywhere else in our national charter. He also pontificated that abortion cannot be considered an implied or unenumerated fundamental right under the Fourteenth Amendments due process clauseasRoeandCaseyboth heldbecause it is not deeply rooted in [our] history and tradition. As a result, he concluded, the court was free to overruleRoeandCaseydecided in 1973 and 1992, respectivelyunconstrained by the doctrine ofstare decisis, whichholds thatjudges should adhere to precedent.

Instead of respecting precedent, Alito reached deep into the bowels of Anglo-American common law to override it. He cited, among other sources, the work of Henry de Bracton, a thirteenth-century English cleric andjudge who condemned abortions as homicide, and, a seventeenth-century English jurist who described abortion as a great crime and sentenced at least three women to death for witchcraft. By the time the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, Alito raged on, three quarters of the States [had] made abortion a crime at all stages of pregnancy, in order to prove his point that abortion rights are not deeply rooted in our history.

The only solution, in Alitos view, was to strip abortion of its Constitutional protections and return the issue to the peoples elected representatives. According to the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute, in response toDobbs, twenty-six states have already outlawed or severely restricted abortion, or will soon do so.

Alitos analysis, though the last word in our Constitutional system, is deeply flawed. While controversial,RoeandCaseywere decided squarely in line with prior Supreme Court precedents that extended the concept of liberty under the Fourteenth Amendment to other unenumerated privacy interests like the right to interracial marriage (Loving v. Virginia, 1967), the right to obtain contraceptives (Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965), and the right to not be sterilized without consent (Skinner v. Oklahoma, 1942).

Nor is it true, as a matter of historical fact, that abortion at all stages was mostly illegal beforeRoe. As University of Illinois history professor Leslie J. Reaganexplainedin her definitive study,When Abortion Was a Crime, During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, abortion of early pregnancy was legal under common law. Abortions were illegal only after quickening, the point at which a pregnant woman could feel the movements of the fetus (approximately the fourth month of pregnancy).

RepudiatingRoeandCaseywas also unnecessary. The court easily could have upheld the Mississippi statute without scrapping the federal right entirely. This was the position advocated by Chief Justice John Roberts, who penned a concurring opinion, agreeing that the Mississippi law should be upheld, but urging his colleagues to move more cautiously.

A draft of Alitos opinion wasleakedto the press in May, sparking speculation that Roberts haslost controlof the panel he heads. Together with the recentrevelationsthat Virginia Ginni Thomas, the wife of Justice Thomas, was part of the plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and thearrestof a man in early June for attempting to murder Justice Kavanaugh, the leak has created the impression that a once stable institution is now in turmoil as it moves ever rapidly to the right.

BothDobbsand this terms transformational ruling on the Second AmendmentNew York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruenare based on the judicial philosophy known as originalism.

Originalism has led the court to enter a legal fantasy world in which the answers to contemporary questions about matters such asvotingrightsandgerrymandering,unionorganizing, thedeath penalty, abortion, and gun control are to be found solely in the meaning that the Constitution had for the Founding Fathers. For originalists, this meaning is forever fixed, and can only be altered by Constitutional amendments.

As a tool of judicial decision-making, originalism has been around a long time. One of its earliest expressions came in theDred Scottcase of 1857, perhaps the most odious decision ever issued by the Supreme Court, which held that Black Americans of African descent could never be U.S. citizens.Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 decision that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation even after the ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, is another originalist landmark.

But as an explicit judicial theory, originalism did not come into vogue until theearly 1980s, popularized by Reagan-era Attorney General Ed Meese, the late,failedSupreme Court nominee Robert Bork, and the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Since then, it has been embraced almost universally by legal conservatives.

InBruen, the court struck down a New York regulation that required applicants for concealed handgun permits to show a special need for protection. In a 6-3 opinion written by Thomas, and joined by all the courts Republican appointees, including Roberts, the court held that the regulationwhich has been on the books since 1911was a historic outlier on gun control, and as such, violated the Second Amendment right to bear arms outside the home.

If anything, Thomas is an even more incompetent historian than Alito. As Fordham University history professor Saul Cornell, one of the foremost authorities on the actual history of the Second Amendment,notedin a scathing critique ofBruenpublished by SCOTUSBlog:

The originalist methodology applied by Thomas has one set of rules that apply to interpreting legal texts that support gun rights, and another more demanding set of standards that apply to those that undermine them. The Thomas version of originalism might be summarized as follows: No amount of evidence is enough to support gun control, but no iota of evidence is too little to legitimate gun-rights claims. If one of the goals of originalism was to limit judicial discretion (a value few originalists continue to espouse now that they have a supermajority on the court), then the Thomas rule does the opposite. It provides a license to cherry-pick evidence with reckless abandon if the materials support the ideological agenda of the Federalist Society.

The big question now is where the court goes from here. In his concurring opinion inDobbs, Thomas called on the court to reconsider such substantive due process privacy-based precedents as the right to contraception (Griswold), the right to engage in same-sex intimacy (Lawrence v. Texas,2003), and the right to same-sex marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015). Notably absent from Thomass hit list was interracial marriage. Thomas, of course, is married to a white woman.

As hypocritical and cruel as Thomas is, he no longer operates on the fringes of the bench. To the contrary, he has become one of the courts intellectual leaders.

If there is any kind of afterlife, Alexander Hamilton is no doubt turning in his grave at theTrinity Church cemetery in Lower Manhattan.

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The New Era of Rightwing Judicial Supremacy - Progressive.org

Supreme Court guns ruling opens new fronts in Second Amendment fight – USA TODAY

  1. Supreme Court guns ruling opens new fronts in Second Amendment fight  USA TODAY
  2. 'NYT' Shocked To See Public Defenders Championing the Second Amendment  Reason
  3. After Supreme Court ruling, it's open season on US gun laws  ABC News
  4. The Supreme Court Pulls the Trigger on the Right to Carry a Firearm Outside the Home  JD Supra
  5. Tracking How SCOTUS's Bruen Ruling Changes State Gun Laws  The Trace
  6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Supreme Court guns ruling opens new fronts in Second Amendment fight - USA TODAY

Implementing all of the Second Amendment – The Ellsworth American

Dear Editor:

From the 1700s through Jan. 6, our unorganized paramilitary groups have a poor track-record of meeting the intent of a well-regulated militia.

The next clause, being necessary for the security of a free State, makes it clear that risks were evident in the founders era, that states rights needed to be accommodated and secured.

The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed drumbeat has created a powerful lobby, an accommodating arms industry, which together, and in concert with targeted political rhetoric, has driven many to focus solely on this clause, and to armor up. It has also empowered mentally unstable, largely lone wolves, to wreak havoc.

Per the Constitution, Congress can provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining militias. And for each state to appoint their officers and have the authority to train their militias within congressional guidelines.

Not to the professional level, but with specific training, including attitudinal indoctrination, to systematically equip members with the tools needed to combat hate and discrimination, and to evaluate and critique online toxic propaganda. Each militia a team, promoting guardrails, watching for outliers.

Members of the Armed Forces and the National Guard, relieved of active duty, get your militia card, and keep and bear. Citizens, until the sign-up is implemented, no changes to arms acquisition. After which, patriots must first join before arming.

Were worried about troubled citizens, medically or emotionally shaky. Militias would provide an inclusive environment, dedicated to our states and nation. Will there be incidents? No doubt. Problems will arise and adjustments needed. But with the right approach, those who may stray toward the fringes just may have comrades who, seeing troublesome signs, have Got Your 6, and raise a flag.

The SCOTUS (5-4) ruling in the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm for self-defense, unconnected with militia service, minimized the first clauses, aka the prefatory.

Why cant Congress and each state implement the whole of the amendment?

Perhaps the idea of militias is worrying?

David Trigg

Ellsworth

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Implementing all of the Second Amendment - The Ellsworth American

Democrats Lame Attempt to Flip the Narrative on Crime: Claiming 2nd Amendment is Anti-Police – AMAC

AMAC Exclusive By Andrew Abbott

Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, with rising violent crime a top concern for voters, the vast majority of Democrats are now working overtime to distance themselves from their prior support for the Defund the Police movement. Increasingly, however, it appears that theyre linking this professed newfound support for law enforcement to another pillar of Democrats far-left agenda gun control.

After backlash to the defund movement contributed to dozens of House Democrats losing or facing closer-than-expected races in 2020, the party slowly began changing its tune on policing. While some, like Missouri Congresswoman Cori Bush, have continued their calls for dismantling police departments, the White House and Democratic leadership are now saying that they in fact support police and have always supported police even accusing Republicans, who spent all of 2020 and 2021 vigorously defending police from attacks by left-wing politicians and news outlets, of not supporting them.

As Axios reported late last month, Democratic candidates in Ohio, Georgia, Florida, and other states are spotlighting law enforcement to boost their credibility on fighting crime. Party strategists are now privately admitting that the defund debate damaged Democrats reputation on crime, and many fear a voter perception that Democrats dont recognize the problem with violent crime and dont respect the role police play in keeping communities safe.

But as part of their effort to mask their complete reversal of position when it comes to support for police, many Democratsincluding Biden himselfhave attempted to make the issue of rising crime about guns rather than policing, implying that support for the Second Amendment is incompatible with support for law enforcement.

Take, for example, a recent ad aired by a group aligned with Stacey Abrams, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Georgia. In the 30-second spot, a man identified as a former Deputy Sheriff accuses incumbent Republican Governor Brian Kemp of making us less safe for signing a constitutional carry bill into law earlier this year. The ad accuses Kemp of making it easier for criminals to carry loaded guns in public, at the movies, in church. The implication is that by signing the law, which allows Georgians who arent otherwise prohibited from owning a firearm to concealed carry without submitting to a tedious and sometimes expensive permitting process, Kemp is undermining public safety and making it more difficult for police to do their jobs.

Notably, however, more than 100 sheriffs have endorsed Kemps reelection bid, and the sitting governor has broad support from the law enforcement community. Abrams, who now proclaims to support pay raises for police, has in the past called for reallocating police resources. Moreover, Abrams still sits on the board of the Marguerite Casey Foundation, a group that has supported defunding and abolishing the police.

Abrams is far from the only Democrat attempting to employ this strategy. At the federal level, Democrats in Congress led by vulnerable incumbents like Abigail Spanberger of Virginia and Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey have pushed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to pass a number of supposed police funding bills that are intended to lend credence to Democrat claims to support law enforcement. But these efforts have all been tied to greater gun control measures, sending a clear message that Democrats view the two issues as inextricably connected.

The White House, meanwhile, has introduced a new initiative called the Safer America Plan, which purportedly increases funding for law enforcement. Once again, however, support for police is tied to gun control measures. In a fact sheet on the plan released by the White House, Biden calls for requiring background checks for all gun sales and banning so-called assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

But as Republicans have long pointed out, Democrats assertion that restricting gun ownership will automatically lead to less crime isnt supported by the facts. As economist John Lott argued in his work More Guns, Less Crime, empirical evidence actually points to the opposite conclusion. Recent examples, like the shooting at a mall in Greenwood, Indiana, where an armed bystander stopped a mass shooting in progress, also support the idea that responsible gun ownership can be an effective crime deterrent. A similar case occurred in West Virginia in May, when an armed woman stopped a man firing indiscriminately into a crowd at a birthday party. These incidents are just two of at least 21 such cases since the start of 2020. As Republicans continue to point out, laws making it more difficult for Americans to own and carry firearms wont stop criminals from doing so but will stop law-abiding Americans interested in protecting themselves and their families.

At the same time, even as they work to restrict legal gun ownership, Democrats seem to have largely given up on prosecuting illegal gun ownership. New York Citys stop and frisk policy was originally designed in large part to get illegal guns off the street, and was quite successful at doing so yet former mayor Bill de Blasio ended the practice anyway. Democrat soft-on-crime prosecutors have also allowed criminals caught with illegal guns back out onto the streets, in some cases to commit more gun crimes.

Democrats and the mainstream media, meanwhile, have construed Republican opposition to gun control measures as evidence that the GOP in fact does not support police, attempting to completely flip the script on the popular perception of the two parties records on public safety. As American communities continue to suffer the tragic consequences of the lefts two-year war on law enforcement, however, Democrats complicity in their suffering will be a difficult memory to erase.

Andrew Abbott is the pen name of a writer and public affairs consultant with over a decade of experience in DC at the intersection of politics and culture.

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Democrats Lame Attempt to Flip the Narrative on Crime: Claiming 2nd Amendment is Anti-Police - AMAC