James L. Paris's Blog, page 135
October 7, 2016
Federal Judge KO���s Several Gun Control Laws at Once
In rendering a recent decision, Ramona Manglona, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, did something we see far too seldom from federal judges presiding over cases that pertain to the Second Amendment: she deferred to logic and common sense.
At issue is a September 28 ruling that went very much to the favor of plaintiff Paul Murphy, a former U.S. Army Ranger. Murphy, like so many other Americans, found himself unable to reasonably exercise his rights to both keep and bear arms simply because of the particular jurisdiction in which he was living, but Manglona made it clear in this case that while there can be restrictions placed on the exercise of Second Amendment rights, those restrictions cannot be tantamount to wiping away those rights. As Judge Manglona put it, ���The individual right to armed self-defense in case of confrontation...cannot be regulated into oblivion,��� and further stated that although ���the right of armed self-defense, including in public, is subject to traditional limitations, it is not subject to elimination.���
Reason.com reports that Manglona, in one fell swoop, knocked out a Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands��� ban on handgun carry in public, an ���assault weapons��� ban, some caliber restrictions, a ridiculous $1,000 tax on handguns, and, also, a requirement that all citizens��� guns be registered with the government.
Bam!
Gun rights advocates have long been unclear as to why it is that so many restrictions on the Second Amendment have been allowed by the U.S. court system to stand, restrictions that, in some parts of the country, are so numerous and so constraining that they, for all intents and purposes, act to nullify the right to keep and bear arms altogether.
As for the restrictions on the carrying of handguns in public, Manglona said the existing law ���completely destroys that right. It is unconstitutional regardless of the level of scrutiny applied, and the Court must strike it down.���
Explaining her decision to throw out the ���assault weapons��� ban, Manglona writes, ���The Commonwealth has not shown through any evidence that its means fit its end. In fact, the evidence suggests that the banned attachments actually tend to make rifles easier to control and more accurate���making them safer to use. Because the Commonwealth's ban does not match its legitimate and important interest, the ban fails intermediate scrutiny and will be struck down.���
Manglona tossed out the aforementioned other three gun laws of CNMI on precisely-different, but thematically-similar grounds: they impede the reasonable exercise of the Second Amendment. That said, I have to share with you what, exactly, she said about the $1,000 tax, because it���s just so wonderful:
���The power to tax is not just the power to fund the government; it is the power to destroy. M���Culloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316, 327 (1819). And what the Commonwealth cannot do by ban or regulation, it cannot do by taxation. See Minneapolis Star and Tribune, 460 U.S. at 585. Here, the Commonwealth���s law would come close to destroying the right to keep and bear a handgun for self-defense���particularly for the most vulnerable members of society. See Moore, 702 F.3d at 937 (the need for self-defense is most acute in rough neighborhoods). The government need not arm the poor, but it cannot impose uncommon burdens on their ability to exercise their fundamental constitutional rights. Because SAFE���s excise tax comes close to destroying the Second Amendment right to acquire ���the quintessential self-defense weapon,��� Heller I, 554 U.S. at 629, the Court will strike it down.���
Bam!
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
October 6, 2016
Yahoo Reportedly Scanned���Secretly���Customer Emails for the NSA & FBI
Do you think when we talk about digital privacy concerns���which we���ve done a LOT in this space���that we���re being overly dramatic? Or that we���re talking about things that are simply not real?
Well, we���re not. This stuff is absolutely real.
Reuters is reporting that, last year, Yahoo willingly gave in to a classified demand - made by the government - that it scan incoming emails from hundreds of millions of its customers; this is according to former Yahoo employees.
The agencies behind the ���request��� were���surprise, surprise���the National Security Agency (NSA), as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Yahoo was tasked to scan the emails for ���specific information,��� but it is not known for what they were asked to look, precisely.
The Reuters article points out that, according to experts, Yahoo���s actions represent the first instance of a U.S.-based Internet company complying with a government request like this in such a way that they scan all of the incoming emails from customers. Additionally, the article mentions that no one at Reuters was able to figure out what information gathered from any customer emails was actually passed off by Yahoo to the feds, or even if any was transmitted.
Like I said at the outset of this article, we talk a lot about these kinds of issues, and yet there are still large numbers of people out there who shrug their shoulders, thinking we���re making mountains from molehills, or, amazingly enough, just don���t care.
However, it is clear these intrusions are taking place, all around us, and all of the time. What Reuters came to learn is merely a tiny, tiny tip of the iceberg; you can bet on that.
Proceed with caution.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
Bill Clinton Trashes Obamacare, Calls It ���Crazy���
So, Mr. President, tell us how you really feel?
Every once in a while, Bill Clinton will speak with great honesty, great clarity. I remember, not terribly along go, while stumping for the Mrs. in Philadelphia, Bill found himself in a shouting match with some Black Lives Matter protestors, effectively telling them that blacks are often responsible for killing other blacks (���you are defending the people who killed the lives you say matter���), as well as declaring that protestors who ���won't let you answer are afraid of the truth.���
Well, he did it again.
On Monday, Bill was, once more, campaigning for his wife, this time in Michigan, when he sunk his fangs into Obamacare:
���You've got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care, and then the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half and it's the craziest thing in the world.���
Are we sure he���s not running for president again, this time as a Republican?
One of the big ���helps��� that comes with the laughingly-named Affordable Care Act is that some people are eligible for subsidies that significantly lower their exorbitant monthly premiums. Unfortunately, many in the middle class find themselves making just enough money to put access to said subsidies out of reach for them, and Clinton took the plan to task on that basis, as well, saying that ���the people getting killed in this deal are the small-business people and individuals who make just a little bit too much to get any of these subsidies.���
I mean, I LOVE this guy!
Well, not really, but it is funny to hear him express, in what are obviously unguarded moments, what he really thinks about things, and how closely aligned with Republicans those expressions put him.
Unsurprisingly, on Tuesday, he was walking these comments back after undoubtedly being taken to the woodshed by his wife, but we all know there���s no such thing as walking this kind of talk back���not really.
Once again, Bill Clinton for president!
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
October 5, 2016
Planned Parenthood Celebrated by Dem Senators; Say Country is ���Healthier��� Because of Group
According to an article over at the Washington Examiner, a group of Senate Democrats got together last week to introduce a resolution that recognizes all of the wonderful things Planned Parenthood has accomplished over the years, because Planned Parenthood, is, well, awesome.
Right.
The last part of the first paragraph was intended to be sarcasm, but the sad fact is that this group of 19 senators very clearly believes Planned Parenthood is awesome, or else why would they have gone to the trouble of putting together the resolution?
Actually, we don���t have to guess at any of this; just read the resolution for yourself, which ���affirms that Planned Parenthood remains an essential thread in the fabric of society, and it will be key in the next century to assisting millions of women, men and young people in accessing the healthcare they need and deserve, no matter who they are or where they live.���
Planned Parenthood is ���an essential thread in the fabric of society?��� They���re kidding, right?
The ���ringleader��� of the resolution, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said, ���From Portland, Ore., to Portland, Maine, this country is healthier because of Planned Parenthood. My Democratic colleagues and I are going to keep working to make sure this bedrock health provider can keep serving people for the next 100 years.���
If Wyden thinks this country is ���healthier��� because of all the good work done by Planned Parenthood, it can only be because he���s never had a chance to ask the unfathomable number of unborn babies given a one-way ticket to abortion clinics���just what their thoughts are on the subject.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
License Plates of AMERICANS Attending Gun Show Reportedly Scanned By Feds
More good news about our intrusive government.
You know how gun owners are constantly griping that they���re treated like criminals, even though not only is gun ownership not a crime, but the right to keep���and bear���firearms is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution?
Well, this story, courtesy of McClatchyDC, sure isn���t going to do anything to assuage their feelings on the subject.
McClatchy is reporting on a Wall Street Journal story that says agents from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) drove around the parking lot of a 2010 gun show in Del Mar, California and scanned the license plates of the cars, even though there was no evidence that any of the attendees had done anything illegal at the event.
Here is an excerpt from an email, one of many reviewed by the Journal, sent by an ICE investigator to another area agency:
���We would like to see if you can support an outbound guns/ammo operation on (redacted) at the Crossroads (Del Mar) Gun Show. We would like to deploy license plate readers.���
Well, that sure seems straightforward.
The Journal reported that staff members there have seen emails that confirm cops cruised the gun show parking lot, scanning attendee license plates. When pursued on this, an ICE spokeswoman admitted, yes, ���vehicle data��� was grabbed at the show.
The paper further said that nothing they reviewed indicates that anything illegal was going on at the gun show.
Although law enforcement agencies have the legal right to gather information on cars, the sort of ���mass��� collection of data that was evidently taking place here violates the Constitution, according to some privacy experts.
In addition to the fact it���s just wrong.
Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
October 4, 2016
Fired Staff Members Say ���Paranormal Activity��� to Blame for Abuse of Disabled Patients
Pueblo Regional Center in Pueblo West, Colorado provides patient services for up to 88 individuals with developmental disabilities. In that kind of environment, it is, sadly, not out of the ordinary for patients to hurt themselves, either accidentally or on purpose, and carry signs of their injuries with them for days, weeks, and even longer.
However, several of the injuries to Center residents last year, and in to 2016, were not, it appears, the product of any sort of self-injury, incidental accident, or anything like that.
In fact, it began to look an awful lot, after an investigation was initiated by the Colorado Department of Human Services last year on the basis of a report filed by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), like staff members at the facility were engaging in patient mistreatment at the hospital. That���s not what some of them said happened, however. Some staff members who found themselves on the wrong end of a pink slip after their behavior was uncovered had another explanation for the injuries found on Center patients: paranormal activity.
Yes, indeed. It appears that when some facility patients began showing signs of such abuse as having words like ���Die,��� ���Kill,��� and ���I���m Back��� scratched into their skin, a few of the accused reportedly blamed the supernatural as being the cause of the bizarre, cruel injuries.
Making matters even worse, the report filed indicates that staff members actually took photos of the words scratched into the patients��� skin, and posted those on social media.
Additionally, the reports of alleged abuse at Pueblo include such disturbing acts as patients being burned with blow dryers and, in one case, a resident being coerced by a staff member into sex in exchange for the promise of a soda.
According to KKTV, eight Pueblo employees have been terminated thus far.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr Editor At Large
Billionaire Internet Businessman Has Two Questions for Budding Entrepreneurs
There���s an old saw lingering out there that goes something like this:
���Everybody wants to go to heaven���but nobody wants to die.���
It���s been around for a long time, and has made its way into song lyrics and book titles, but it speaks to a fundamental truth: while we all want to prevail at the most extraordinary of things, it seems that few among us is really inclined to do what it takes to succeed at them.
My guess is that Todd Wagner is a big believer in the idea that ���everybody wants to go to heaven���but nobody wants to die.���
Wagner is an Internet business success of the first order. Back in the 1990���s, he ran AudioNet, which would later become Broadcast.com, with Mark Cuban. When the company went public in 1998, it made Wagner and Cuban billionaires, and still loads more money was made when Yahoo acquired the company in 1999 for the princely sum of $5.7 billion.
In a terrific, easy-to-read article over at CNBC.com, Wagner says that there are two questions that aspiring entrepreneurs should ask themselves to see if they really have what it takes to become genuine successes at their chosen ventures.
Question #1: Are you prepared to quit your day job?
To clarify, the question isn���t asking if you���re prepared to quit your day job after you have spent time testing your venture as a ���nights and weekends��� kind of thing; what���s being asked is, once you decide what it is you want to do as an entrepreneur, are you prepared to quit your job there and then, and apply yourself fully to your endeavor.
To Wagner, if the answer to that question is ���No,��� then you don���t have what it takes to succeed.
Question #2: Are you willing to invest substantial sums of your own money to get the new business off the ground?
If your answer to this question is ���No,��� as well, then, again, you don���t have what it takes, according to Wagner. In order to get AudioNet going, Wagner cashed in his savings and 401(k), and dumped all the dough into his startup.
To be clear, Todd Wagner is not saying that there���s no such thing as a successful part-time business. He���s just saying that, in his learned opinion, a part-time income is all that will be realized if a person is not willing to make the tough choices necessary to see his or her venture through in a way that gives it the best chance of achieving bona fide success.
I heartily encourage you to check out the article.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
October 3, 2016
The Clinton Foundation Is An Illegal Money Laundering Operation - Jerome Corsi
Dr. Jerome Corsi discusses at length his book Partners In Crime, a shocking expose on the Clinton Foundation. Corsi says that of the billions raised for Haiti earthquake relief, only 5 cents on the dollar actually went to the Hatiain people, how he located the offices of the Clinton Health initiative virtually hidden in a run down warehouse district in south Boston. Corsi says that the financial statements of the foundation are fraudulent and that the Clintons have built their net worth of more than $200 million dollars by using their foundation as a money laundering operation.
Trump's Tax Returns Illegally Published By New York Times?
Was it legal for the New York Times to publish Donald Trump's tax returns? They seemed to have been trumped by their own headline as they used the same tax strategy as Trump to avoid paying any taxes in 2014. Julian Assange delays his big announcement and upcoming document dump due to 'security concerns.' Monster hurricane Matthew is shaping up to be the storm of the century, Congress overrides Obama's veto giving 9/11 families the right to sue the Saudis, Trump was right about problems with his microphone in last debate, Las Vegas comic works to pay off IRS debt, and Craigslist rental scam leaves two families homeless.
Well-Known New York Times SCOTUS Reporter: Yay, Justice Scalia is Dead!
Voter identification laws are not as controversial among the broad electorate as leftist activists would have you believe. Results of a recent Gallup survey found majority support across both racial and party lines, with 80 percent of Americans, overall, in support of them.
However, whenever a state attempts to implement such laws, the progressive fanatics start shouting like crazy, claiming that the statutes discriminate against society���s most marginal citizens, and thus obstruct the application of democracy in spirit as well as in actual function.
On that note, Heat Street���s Emily Zanotti informs us that well-known, and now retired, New York Times legal reporter Linda Greenhouse penned a recent op-ed in that paper in which she expressed her belief that the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a highly-respected jurist who obviously viewed the Constitution with great reverence, essentially did the country a great service because of the beneficial effect said death had on suspending implementation of North Carolina���s voter ID law.
As Greenhouse expresses it, the recent Supreme Court ruling that put the law on the shelf for now would surely not have come to pass if Justice Scalia was still with us and a member of the Court. Greenhouse points out that with Scalia still around, the 4-4 vote would have been 5-4 against suspending the new law, and it would therefore have been fully implemented on time, something that screaming leftists like Greenhouse see as an impediment to democracy.
���Would it be unseemly to suggest that only Justice Scalia���s death has preserved democracy in North Carolina? There, I just did,��� wrote Greenhouse in the Times.
And all this time, we thought that steps taken to ensure each person has one vote, and that people don���t have an opportunity to ���game��� the all-important voting system and election processes in this country, was for the benefit of democracy.
Well, not, apparently, to people like Linda Greenhouse, who evidently can���t walk over the bodies fast enough to see her collectivist ideals come to pass.
By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large
