A WordPress Blog-THE CHURCH MILITANT Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse. ALL CONTENT FROM HTTPS://RATHEREXPOSETHEM.BLOGSPOT.COM MOVED TO THIS NEW BLOG, MAY 2020
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- As the saying goes, “If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again.” Democratic New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is taking the mantra to a new level by proposing “stronger gun control” in the Garden State. This time, he’s using the COVID-19 pandemic to raise taxes on law-abiding gun owners and those wishing to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
Gov. Murphy has tried his best during the crisis to penalize lawful gun owners, but now it will be up to the state legislature to approve or reject his new antigun proposals. New Jersey residents shouldn’t hold their breath as antigun Democrats control both chambers by wide margins.
Gun Control for You is Nothing New
More gun control has been a pillar for Gov. Murphy since he took office in 2018. In his first two years in office, he pushed for and signed into law 10 more-stringent gun control laws in a state already known for having some of the strictest gun laws in the country. In 2020, the spreading coronavirus pandemic gave him an opportunity to do even more, and he didn’t delay.
Nearly 5 million Americans became so concerned for their safety and that of their loved ones and property that purchased a firearm for the first time. The reasons were all around us. Reports of local law enforcement becoming stretched thin, criminals being released from jails and quickly committing violent crimes again, and now more recently violent riots and looting in cities and cries of “defund the police” have increased.
Gov. Murphy, who now wants to levy more fees and taxes to close the COVID budget gaps, actively worked to keep gun buyers out of stores. He shut down firearm retailers and related businesses, deeming them “non-essential” at a time when they were most essential. He faced immediate backlash and lawsuits, leading him to backtrack and allow retailers to open again. Gov. Murphy tried explaining his reasoning, stating “I wasn’t thinking about the Bill of Rights.”
Raising Taxes as Means for More Gun Control
New Jersey is already known as a high-taxed blue state operating in the red. Now, to address next year’s budget shortfall and seeing an opportunity to further squelch the Second Amendment, Gov. Murphy proposed massive taxes and fees on firearms and ammunition such that he’d price out thousands of law-abiding citizens from exercising their God-given rights enshrined and protected by the Second Amendment.
Murphy’s budget proposal attempts to close a $5.6 billion – with a “B” – hole in the Garden State by hiking taxes and fees on firearm services and businesses that might generate $6 million. That amounts to one-tenth of one percent. It’s antigun window dressing and the governor knows it.
Gov. Murphy’s proposed antigun increases include raising the handgun purchasing permit fee 2,400 percent from $2 to $50; the cost of a firearm ID card by 1,900 percent from $5 to $100; the price of a handgun carry permit 7,900 percent from $50 to $400; the fee for a gun retail dealer license by 9,900 percent from $50 to $500; and the fee for a firearm manufacturer 900 percent from $150 to $1,500. There are, or course, additional fee increases as well.
If it all sounds familiar, it is. Gov. Murphytried and failed at this scheme before. This time, though, he’s tying it to a pandemic.
With more New Jersey handgun applications submitted so far in 2020 than in 2018 and 2019 combined, it’s no wonder law-abiding firearm owners, as well as those considering purchasing a gun for the first time, feel threatened. In trying to persuade the Democratic-controlled New Jersey legislature to approve his budget, Gov. Murphy assured elected officials these are “judiciously” considered hikes that are needed. In other words, be thankful the punishment doesn’t go further.
Antigun Birds of a Feather
Gov. Murphy isn’t alone in using the pandemic to infringe on the constitutional rights of lawful Americans. Gov. Murphy’s northern neighbor, New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, behaved similarly as did New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. These three governors have something else in common. They all forced gun stores to close during the pandemic despite the Department of Homeland Security saying gun stores are essential business.
So far this year more than 5 million Americans felt so compelled to protect themselves and their families that for the first time they exercised their Second Amendment rights and purchased a firearm. Thousands are from states with these governors at the top.
Punishing those who exercise their rights is abhorrent. Using it as an excuse to cover for poor leadership during a health crisis is not the sort of behavior citizens should expect from their governors.
About The National Shooting Sports Foundation
NSSF is the trade association for the firearm industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of thousands of manufacturers, distributors, firearm retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations, and publishers nationwide. For more information, visit nssf.org
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
CALIFORNIA WAGING WAR ON CHURCHES
CALIFORNIA WAGING WAR ON CHURCHES (Friday Church News Notes, August 28, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@
wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - If you want to know the future of America if Democrats are ever in full control, just
take a look at California, where the Democrats control the governorship, both houses of the legislature, every
statewide office, and the leadership of major cities. (When one party controls the office of governor, the state House,
and the state Senate, that is called a trifecta. Currently, there are 21 Republican trifectas and 15 Democrat trifectas.)
For example, their mindless commitment to Green Energy has resulted in third-world type brownouts across the
state this summer. Their homosexual rights agenda has silenced free speech. Their clueless homeless policies have
trashed formerly beautiful cities. Their public schools are removing the names of the nation’s Founding Fathers and
brainwashing children in Marxist doctrine. That’s a very short list. Oh yes, and they are using the coronavirus
situation to attack churches. I believe they will back off eventually and leave the churches alone for now, but only
because (humanly speaking) they don’t have full power. The following is excerpted from “California’s All-Out War
on Church Worship Intensifies,” PJ Media, Aug. 24, 2020: “California Governor Gavin Newsom and county leaders
are escalating the state’s war on church worship services, dragging pastors into court and demanding thousands
of dollars in fines for illegally singing and holding indoor worship services. ... The state is armed with Newsom’s
no-worship order and subpoenas. ... Liberty Counsel’s Founder Mat Staver says Newsom’s worship ban is clearly
unconstitutional. ‘The same governor who encourages mass protests, bans all worship and is now fining churches
for their right to assemble and worship. The same governor who says the church can meet for secular services,
bans the church from having religious worship. This unconstitutional hostility against religious worship must end.’
Newsom has issued a rule against singing and chanting--even in worship in private homes. Then, he outlawed
church worship. ... The pastor of Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Ventura County, Rob McCoy, was in court on Friday
and fined $3,000 for holding three socially distanced worship services each Sunday on August 9th and 16th. ...
McCoy was ready to go to jail on Sunday if need be. Senator Ted Cruz sent a supportive tweet, letting California l
eaders know he’s watching. ‘Thx for standing up for the flock and We the People! The bullies won’t win. We are
with you, Pastor.’ In Santa Clara, county officers sent in agents to spy on North Valley Baptist Church, according to
documents the county gave to the court. That church has been fined $10,000 for illegally singing in two worship
services. Singing. ... In Los Angeles County on Monday, megachurch Pastor John McArthur of Grace Community
Church went to court for a fourth time to fight the governor’s ban on worship. [The county is seeking $20,000 in
damages. On August 25, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff refused the county’s request to grant
a temporary restraining order against the church’s services.] McArthur issued a declaration on Monday, saying it’s
clear that the County thinks it’s OK to let ‘congregants to gather to worship the Lord in parking lots, in parks, or
perhaps beaches--but never in any church. From Grace Community Church’s perspective, this is nonsensical, and
we view it as a direct ban on engaging in the worship which our faith requires.’” The previous report did not
mention Harvest Church of Pasadena, Calif. “Last week, Pasadena’s chief assistant city prosecutor sent Harvest
Church Pastor Che Ahn a letter, threatening fines and up to one year in jail for anyone who attends a future service
. [The letter, dated Aug. 13, reads:] ‘This letter is to remind you that violations of these orders are criminal in
nature. Each day in violation is a separate violation and carries with it a potential punishment of up to one year in
jail and a fine for each violation. ... Any violations in the future will subject your church, owners, administrators,
operators, staff, and parishioners to the above-mentioned criminal penalties as well as the potential closure of your
Church.’ ... Liberty Counsel founder and Chairman Mat Staver says, ‘These actions of the City of Pasadena and
Gov. Gavin Newsom are akin to repressive foreign regimes, not America where the First Amendment guarantees
freedom of religion’” (“Pasadena Threatens Church,” Christian Headlines, Aug. 20, 2020).
FACEBOOK CRACKS DOWN ON ANTIFA AND QANON
FACEBOOK CRACKS DOWN ON ANTIFA AND QANON (Friday Church News Notes, August 28, 2020, www.wayoflife.
org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Facebook has taken down Antifa and affiliated anarchist groups.
“Facebook explicitly sought to disrupt Antifa’s operations and said it restricted 1,400 hashtags related to the
militant leftists and tore down 520 pages and 160 ads. Facebook’s crackdown on Antifa is a harbinger of things to
come, as the company said it has begun changing its policies to more aggressively go after militia groups
supporting violent protests. ... Facebook’s policy shift takes aim at the radical organizations’ funding, their ability
to attract new followers, and the visibility of their content. ... By publicizing its actions against Antifa, Facebook
has called attention to its more aggressive content moderation approach as affecting all political ideologies”
(“Facebook cracks down,” The Washington Times, Aug. 20, 2020). At the same time, Facebook has “removed 790
QANON groups and imposed restrictions on an additional 1,950 QAnon groups on its platform and 10,000 accounts
on Instagram.” QAnon is a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories based on enigmatic reports published by an
anonymous person known as “Q” who allegedly has access to ultra top-secret information. There is no evidence
that “Q” is anyone other than some goofball with too much time on his hands having a lark, but QAnon believers
see Q’s publications as “breadcrumbs” of evidence for their enlightenment. There are fragments of truth, of course,
as in all such things, but largely it is a will-o’-the-wisp world of inscrutable poetry, numerology, secret signals, etc.
An example of a Q message is this: “Think SC vote to confirm (coming). No Name action. Every dog has its day.
Enjoy the show.” It is as murky and meaningless as a Nostradamus prophecy. QAnon is an Alice Wonderland in
which nothing is solid, nothing is sure, nothing means what it seems to mean. The main theme is that presidents
before Trump were part of a cabal of “deep-state” international evil operators who control America and the world
(the media, politicians, Hollywood), operating death squads and pedophile rings and a great many other secret
things. Trump was chosen by military generals to run for president to destroy this cabal, which he will supposedly
do in a purge called “The Storm” (in which tens of thousands of deep state operatives, including Hilly Clinton, will
be arrested and subjected to military tribunals, etc.). Trump supposedly flashes secret signals to QAnon insiders.
One of the theories is that John. R. Kennedy, Jr., and his wife faked their own plane crash deaths and went
undercover to work with Trump. QAnon is associated with a hodgepodge of conspiracies pertaining to Covid-19,
9-11, UFOs, 5G technology and mind control, etc. It is as nutty as a fruitcake. While a lot of people are attracted
to such things and are true believers, a lot of the followers are doubtless just entertaining themselves like “Q” is.
To any Q followers in Bible-believing churches, we would say, you don’t need Q; you have the infallible Word of
God! Stop wasting your time chasing will-o’-the-wisp in a rabbit hole and become a serious Bible student and
disciple of Jesus Christ. And to Facebook and other social media companies, we would say, by all means ban
violent speech and pornography and pedophilia and such things, but you should not be censors of speech that is
legal under law. Allegedly nutty or not, it should be none of your business. Liberals and leftists, et al, have plenty
of their own fake news and conspiratorial nuttiness. Do you want someone censoring your free speech?
THE U.S. BILL OF RIGHTS DO NOT GRANT FREEDOM FOR SUBVERSIVE SPEECH
AND ACTION
THE U.S. BILL OF RIGHTS DO NOT GRANT FREEDOM FOR SUBVERSIVE SPEECH AND ACTION (Friday Church News
Notes, August 28, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - In 1950, the U.S. Supreme
Court, in Dennis v. United States, ruled that Eugene Dennis, General Secretary of the Communist Party USA, did
not have a First Amendment right to free speech if his goal was to overthrow the Constitution. President Dwight
Eisenhower agreed: “The Bill of Rights contains no grant of privilege for a group of people to destroy the Bill of
Rights. A group--like the Communist conspiracy--dedicated to the ultimate destruction of all civil liberties, cannot
be allowed to claim civil liberties as its privileged sanctuary from which to carry on subversion of the Government”
(“Eisenhower on Communism,” Time magazine, Oct. 13, 1952).
TRUMP THE “MOST PRO-GAY PRESIDENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY”
TRUMP THE “MOST PRO-GAY PRESIDENT IN AMERICAN HISTORY” (Friday Church News Notes, August 28, 2020,
www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Grenell: ‘Trump Is Most
Pro-Gay President,” CNSNews.com, Aug. 21, 2020: “In a video distributed by the Log Cabin Republicans, former
Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell states that Trump is the ‘most pro-gay president in
American history.’ In a Twitter response to the video, Trump declared, ‘My great honor!!!’ Grenell, who is gay,
served as the U.S. ambassador to Germany (2018-20) and as Acting Director of National Intelligence (2/20/20 -
5/26/20) under President Trump. Log Cabin Republicans ‘is the nation’s largest Republican organization dedicated
to representing LGBT conservatives and allies,’ according to its website. In the video, Grenell, among other things,
states, ‘I know firsthand that President Trump is the strongest ally that gay Americans have ever had in the White
House. Donald Trump is the first president in American history to be pro-gay marriage from his first day in office.’”
BLACK LIVES MATTER CHURCH BURNED DOWN BY BLACK LIVES MATTER RIOTERS
BLACK LIVES MATTER CHURCH BURNED DOWN BY BLACK LIVES MATTER RIOTERS(Friday Church News Notes,
August 28, 2020, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “Black
Lives Matter Church,” Reformation Charlotte, Aug. 24, 2020: “A church that celebrated the Black Lives Matter
movement has been burnt to the ground by, well, Black Lives Matter rioters. After the shooting of another black
man in Wisconsin last night--an incident that, unsurprisingly, we have very little details on at this point--rioters
took to the streets of Kenosha to receive their ‘reparations’ by looting stores, burning down buildings, and creating,
once again, complete and total chaos in the streets. And in order for them to receive justice, they have to destroy
anything and everything in their path--and that included one church that celebrated Black Lives Matter. The
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, ‘A little after 3 a.m., the fire had spread to the Bradford Community Church,
the marquee of which had read Black Lives Matter before being incinerated.’”
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
A restraining order requested by Los Angeles County against the church led by John MacArthur, who is also the chancellor emeritus for The Master’s University and Seminary, has been denied by the judge.
For a number of weeks, MacArthur’s church in Sun Valley, Grace Community Church, has been holding in-person services without social distancing.
The objective of the restraining order, county officials said in a news release distributed last week, is to prohibit the church from holding indoor services. If the court issues the order, any future indoor services could be grounds for a contempt citation and fines of up to $20,000.
However, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff ruled Monday in opposition to the county’s position, denying the restraining order for a fourth time.
“It is deeply disappointing that the court decided not to grant the county’s request for a temporary restraining order prohibiting Grace Community Church from holding indoor services, as it has done several times in recent weeks,” county officials said in their statement distributed after the Monday ruling. “We look forward to a favorable ruling when a full hearing is heard on the matter on Sept. 4.”
County officials said that the church’s meetings violate the county’s health officer order, and that the order has been put in place to “curb the transmission of COVID-19 in order to prevent serious illness and death among our residents.”
“The court correctly concluded that Los Angeles County’s renewed application for a temporary restraining order was both procedurally and substantively defective,” Paul Jonna, the church’s lawyer in the case, said Tuesday in a prepared statement. “This was their fourth unsuccessful attempt to obtain a court order prohibiting indoor worship services at Grace Community Church. We look forward to fully vindicating our clients’ constitutionally protected rights in subsequent proceedings for this important case.”
Beckleoff stated in his ruling the county’s case failed to meet statutory requirements.
The Master’s University
Despite Grace Community deciding to go against the health order, The Master’s University, of which MacArthur was a longtime president of the college, is following the guidelines set forth by the Public Health Department, they say.
“We’re bringing back to campus only students that are taking part in training for the essential workforce and need in-person instruction,” said Corey Williams, chief communications officer for TMU. “A good majority of classes are happening remotely. L.A. County said students with no feasible living options can be in our dorms.”
Events at the university have been canceled until further notice with the exception of protests and faith-based services, social distancing within those few classes that are meeting will be enforced and the university is having deep sanitation occur throughout the campus.
“Deep cleaning and masks are required,” said Williams. “We will also have grab-and-go food options and limit the number of people that can pick up food at a time. We’re a pretty small operation, compared to the vast majority of higher education institutions, so we don’t have to worry.”
The university released a plan earlier in the summer, but following changes to the health order, modified its return guidelines for staff and students. The plan had been developed by the university’s COVID-19 task force set up in March that included an epidemiologist, doctor and on-campus medical staff. They spent the summer putting together all possible reopening plans and they met every week, Williams said.
“It’s going to be strange but we’re very excited to be back,” said Williams.
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SANTA CLARA, Calif. —A Baptist church in California has been fined $10,000 for holding a morning and evening service indoors and for also including singing during those gatherings. The church has been warned that continued violations of the Santa Clara County health order will result in additional $5,000 per occurrence fines.
“North Valley Baptist is failing to prevent those attending, performing and speaking at North Valley Baptist’s services from singing,” the letter from officials read in part.
“The County understands that singing in an intimate and meaningful component of religious worship. However, public health experts have also determined that singing together in close proximity and without face coverings transmits [corona]virus particles further in the air than breathing or speaking quietly.”
Jack Trieber of North Valley Baptist Church released a video statement on Monday explaining that the church had previously complied with directives prohibiting indoor gatherings as the novel coronavirus seemed to be a serious threat.
“I didn’t want to be responsible for seeing people die,” he outlined. “Because it was going to be a hotspot, we obeyed to the letter.”
Trieber said that actual fatalities, however, were nowhere near what they were projected to be in a county of more than one million people, as 225 people died with nearly 100 of those deaths being in nursing homes. Therefore, the church decided to begin holding meetings in the auditorium again but with social distancing and other preventative measures in place.
In response, County officials taped a multiple-page “cease and desist” order to the door, outlining that Trieber was in willful violation of the prohibition on indoor gatherings, as well as singing. It also asserted that there was no social distancing protocol in place.
The church was leveled with two $5K fines for holding the indoor morning and evening services, with no grace period, and a $250 fine for a lack of a social distancing protocol was also proposed with a 48-hour grace period.
“$5,000 fine for holding an unlawful indoor gathering at 10:30 a.m. on August 23, 2020, not requiring congregants or church service attendees to wear face coverings while attending, performing or speaking at indoor worship services and permitting congregants or church service attendees to sing,” the letter read in part. “Be advised that further such violations will result in additional $5,000 fines per occurrence without a grace period.”
Trieber believes, however, that it is not the government’s jurisdiction to make laws against the Church.
“This is America,” he said in the video. “To think that a person can say, ‘You cannot sing in church. You cannot preach without a mask on …'”
The pastor explained that officials have stated that the church can meet outside with a maximum of 60 people, but he did not know how he would accommodate the thousands attending his church if he can only have 60 meet at a time.
“I’m not trying to be harsh. I’m not trying to be a smart aleck. I’m not trying to be cruel. I want to obey authority, but authority overstepped,” Trieber stated, noting that suicides, violence, drug use and alcoholism are on the increase due to the lockdown and that spiritual guidance is needed.
He has consequently pleaded with officials to be merciful and to rescind their order against houses of worship.
“I plead with you: Back off. Open up the spiritual environment of this county immediately,” Trieber said. “I saw my grandkids here yesterday and they were so worried that Papa was going to be arrested. It’s torment to our children in this church. I beg you: Please stop.”
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NY State Senator Zellnor Myrie introduced a bill last week intended to criminalize the sale and manufacture of firearms. IMG NRA-ILA
U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- A politician in Brooklyn New York thinks he has come up with a brilliant solution to the crime wave currently sweeping through the Big Apple: Criminalize the sale and manufacture of firearms. New York City (among other urban areas controlled by anti-gun politicians) is facing a return to the bad old days of rising violent crime. It doesn’t take a sociologist or criminologist to see why.
Any reasonable person paying attention to these explosive trends could have predicted the deadly outcomes, as evidenced by the overwhelming demand for defensive firearms, particularly among first-time and non-traditional gun owners. But the politicians whose jurisdictions are descending into anarchy have a different explanation: you, the law-abiding citizen, and your guns. That’s why New York State Sen. Zellnor Myrie (D-Brooklyn) introduced a bill last week intended to criminalize the sale and manufacture of firearms.
Specifically, the bill would amend New York State’s public nuisance law to allow the state to prosecute the “sale or manufacture of products” as an activity considered to illegally or unreasonably “create or maintain a condition which endangers the safety or health of a considerable number of persons.”
While the language doesn’t mention firearms specifically, Myrie made clear in comments to the New York Daily News that guns are exactly the “products” he has in mind. “Every illegal gun on the street was a legally purchased gun at one time,” he said. Myrie continued: “In the wake of a gun violence epidemic plaguing the city, state, and nation, we have a duty to hold all responsible parties accountable.”
Yet while the bill amends a criminal statute, Myrie made clear that what he really hopes to do is to create a work-around to the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) in order to empower gun control advocates to sue the American firearms industry into oblivion in civil court.
The Daily News article notes the impetus for the bill was a New York City lawsuit that sought to hold several firearms companies liable for creating a public nuisance because unaffiliated criminals were using their products to harm third parties. That theory, however, did not hold up court.
A New York Times article on the lawsuit quotes none other than Michael Bloomberg – America’s biggest spending firearm prohibitionist – as characterizing the nine-year legal assault on firearm manufacturers as “one part of our strategy to fight against illegal guns.”
The PLCAA finally put an end to New York City’s attempt to drain the lifeblood from the firearms industry through litigation costs. Yet merely imposing those costs – even with a losing case – was a victory in itself for the anti-gun activists. Congress understood the existential threat these baseless suits posed to the American arms industry and enacted the PLCAA specifically so the suits could be disposed of as early in the proceedings as possible.
That is precisely why anti-gun activists are so focused on repealing the PLCAA that this goal has even made its way into the Democratic National Committee’s official platform. Meanwhile, the trial lawyers who comprise a significant part of that party’s base and donor class are salivating at the chance to reprise these suits, which pretend that violent criminals who misuse guns have no individual agency and that the true evildoers are legitimate makers and sellers of guns.
The PLCAA does not protect anyone who knowingly violates “a State or Federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing of the product,” when “the violation was a proximate cause of the harm for which relief is sought … .” This narrow exception was meant to cover egregious violations of laws directed at firearm sales, such as deliberately falsifying firearm transfer records or selling a gun to someone who the seller knew or should have known was legally prohibited from receiving it.
Nevertheless, the game for anti-gun activists has been to try to shoehorn every questionable legal theory they can think of into this category.
As unlikely as this theory may be to prevail at trial, the mere continuation of these suits is enough to help drive some of America’s longest-lived gun makers into bankruptcy. And so it goes.
Even if Myrie’s amendments are enacted, it’s highly doubtful a plaintiff could prove that a company making or selling guns in otherwise perfect compliance with federal and state firearms laws was still somehow unlawfully or unreasonably causing third parties to commit violent crime. If that were so, then there would be essentially no way to engage in firearm-related commerce without running afoul of the law.
But just the fact that the law had changed might embolden a court to prolong a lawsuit long enough to accomplish its real aim, which is to drive the sued company out of business or force it to operate on the plaintiff’s term … for example, by refusing to sell guns to the general public.
The takeaway for gun owners could not be clearer: Firearm prohibition activists intend to weaponize the legal system against the industry that sustains their rights. And make no mistake, the same politically-motivated judges who once tried to abolish the Second Amendment’s protection for individual gun owners entirely would be only too happy to accommodate them.
About NRA-ILA:
Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Visit: www.nra.org
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The Republican National Committee (RNC) recently approved a resolution “refuting the legitimacy of the Southern Poverty Law Center to identify hate groups.”
The New American has published many articles about the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) over the years, (see “Related articles” below) variously describing the far-left organization as “an extremist anti-Christian hate group,” a “smear machine,” a “money-making scam,” and as “aggressively anti-Christian and morally bankrupt.”
The resolution adopted by the RNC supplemented The New American’s descriptions with damning charges of its own. A partial list includes:
• The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a far-left organization with an obvious bias;
• The SPLC makes a practice of incorrectly labeling persons and organizations as “hate groups”;
• The actions of the SPLC have served to mobilize persons to act in hate and violence towards those on its “hate group” list;
• The Family Research Council suffered a violent attack due to its support of the traditional family, which the SPLC has deemed as hateful;
• Legitimizing the SPLC puts conservative groups or voices at risk of attack.
The resolution concluded: “RESOLVED, That the SPLC is a radical organization, and that the federal government should not view this organization as a legitimate foundation equipped to provide actionable information to DHS or any other government agency.”
Back in 2013, the SPLC released a so-called Intelligence Report warning of an alleged surge in right-of-center organizations concerned about an out-of-control federal government. Among the groups the SPLC attacked was The John Birch Society (with which this magazine is affiliated). An entire article was devoted largely to complaining about the JBS’s supposed growing influence in the conservative movement and the Republican Party.
In a published rebuttal to the RNC resolution, the SPLC described it as “an attack on the SPLC’s definition of hate groups in order to excuse the Trump administration’s history of working with individuals and organizations that malign entire groups of people — such as Black Lives Matter advocates, immigrants, Muslims and the LGBTQ community — with dehumanizing rhetoric.”
The SPLC continued, “From the moment that Donald Trump ran for president, he welcomed the support of hate groups like the Family Research Council and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).”
As noted above, the Family Research Council (FRC) was specifically cited in the RNC’s resolution. On August 15, 2012, a man armed with a 9mm handgun, 50 rounds of ammunition, and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches arrived at FRC headquarters in Washington with the intent to “kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-Fil-A sandwiches in victims’ faces, and kill the guard.”
Later, the man told the FBI that he was targeting “anti-gay” organizations, as designated by the SPLC.
FAIR seeks a moratorium on net immigration by anyone other than refugees and the spouses and minor children of U.S. citizens because it believes that the economic and social growth in the United States are no longer sustainable at the current rate of immigration. That, according to SPLC, makes it a “hate group.”
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Ammoland News recently reported on outside the USA forces partnering with FaceBook trying to spin the truth on Kamala Harris and The Second Amendment, telling us the flat-out opposite of what the facts report. Here is your comprehensive break down of Kamala Harris and your Second Amendment rights with links so you can fact check the “fact-checkers”. Please share this all over FB and push back against the lies.
Kamala Harris & The Second Amendment, Your Comprehensive Guide…It's Not Good
U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- With her selection as the Democratic Party’s nominee for Vice President of the United States, Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) would be the proverbial heartbeat away from the presidency should Joe Biden win on November 3rd, 2020. So where does she stand on major issues surrounding the Second Amendment? This is no small matter – Harris could potentially be making decisions that would affect the rights of millions of law-abiding gun owners.
Kamala Harris and The Second Amendment – How She Went From A Career Prosecutor to the United States Senate
Senator Harris has touted her career as a prosecutor. According to the official site of California’s Office of the Attorney General, she spent eight years with the Alameda County District Attorney’s office (1990-1998) and six years with the San Francisco District Attorney (1998-2004). During her time in those offices, she also picked up two side gigs.
The Daily Mail noted that she was appointed to the California Medical Assistance Commission and the Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board. The two jobs had a combined salary of $169,088. At the time of those appointments, Harris was dating then-California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. By the time she ran for District Attorney, she and Brown had split
From 2004 to 2010, she was the District Attorney in San Francisco, and used that as a launching pad to become attorney general of California. In 2016, she won the election to replace Barbara Boxer as California’s junior Senator.
On Interpreting the Second Amendment
There has been some recent controversy over Facebook proclaiming AmmoLand’s coverage of Senator Harris’s positions on the Second Amendment as fake news. The social media giant cited reporting from Agence France Presse, per AmmoLand Author John Crump’s reporting here.
Here’s the straight scoop: As the landmark Heller case, in which Washington D.C.’s handgun ban was challenged on Second Amendment grounds, was being heard by the Supreme Court, Harris, as District Attorney of San Francisco, sought to have the court uphold the ban.
In a brief filed by a number of district attorneys from big cities across the country, Harris was among those who stated, “the three D.C. Code provisions at issue in this appeal do not violate the Second Amendment, thus necessitating a reversal of the lower court’s decision.”The Supreme Court did not agree, striking down D.C.’s onerous laws in a 5-4 ruling.
Amici Curiae Brief by Kamal Harris
In the McDonald case, which resulted in the Supreme Court invalidating Chicago’s handgun ban when it held the Second Amendment applied to the states under the terms of the 14th Amendment, Harris was not among the district attorneys who urged the high court to invalidate the onerous provision. Again, the Supreme Court’s decision came by a 5-4 margin.
On her campaign website for President, Harris boasted about how “she stood up to the gun lobby and successfully defended California’s gun violence prevention laws to legal challenge.”
Background Checks and Waiting Periods
Harris has supported more onerous burdens on those seeking to purchase firearms. During her time as Attorney General, she defended the state’s 10-day waiting period in the Silvester case. The Ninth Circuit upheld the limits, while the Supreme Court refused to review that decision.
As a Senator, Harris has co-sponsored a number of bills that sought either “universal” background checks, to extend the amount of time someone could potentially have to wait, or to retain records.
This included the Background Check Completion Act in 2017 and 2020, which would have eliminated any deadline to transfer a firearm when the National Instant Check System called for a delay. She also backed the Background Check Expansion Act in 2017 and 2019, which would have mandated background checks on all firearms transfers.
On her campaign site, Harris stated that one of the executive actions she would take if Congress didn’t pass new gun laws in 100 days would center on background checks.
Microstamping and Other “Back-Door” Gun Bans
During her time as Attorney General, Harris did take an action that points to her threats of using executive action to ban firearms. According to Reason magazine, in 2013, she triggered provisions of California’s microstamping law that in effect, banned new models of semi-automatic pistols.
The Truth About Guns also reported that on Harris’s watch, the Handgun Roster was also used to effectively ban new models of handguns, turning the state into “a testbed for the forces of civilian disarmament.”
“Assault Weapons” and Standard-Capacity Magazines
Harris has long pursued bans on modern multi-purpose semiautomatic firearms, which she and other anti-Second Amendment politicians have labeled as “assault weapons.” These efforts date back to at least 2004, when she supported efforts to keep the 1994 legislation from expiring.
After Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced a new ban on modern semiautomatic firearms in the wake of the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Harris released a statement saying:
“Senator Feinstein's renewed call to reactivate the federal assault weapons ban and to ban high-capacity magazines is in the best interest of public safety. These weapons of war are too often used to take innocent lives and do not belong on our streets. I was proud to stand with Senator Feinstein when she fought to restore the ban in 2004, and I am proud to stand with her again today.”
In 2016, while in the midst of her run for the United States Senate, she teamed up with Assemblyman David Chiu on a tightening of California’s already onerous semiauto ban. According to a release from the California attorney general’s office, the legislation would have banned so-called “bullet button” modifications.
When elected to the Senate, Harris has co-sponsored Feinstein’s legislation to create a stricter version of the 1994 semiauto ban in 2017 and 2019. She also co-sponsored legislation by Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) to ban many standard-capacity magazines in 2017 and 2019.
Harris has also not been above the use of emotional blackmail to overcome logic, at one point saying that Senators should have to view autopsy photos of the victims of school shootings like Newtown and Parkland before voting on semiauto bans.
Firearms Accessories
In addition to magazine bans, Harris has also targeted other firearms accessories. In 2017, she signed on to Feinstein’s legislation targeting certain stocks and trigger modifications. The “assault weapons” legislation she has co-sponsored also would ban firearms based on the use of certain accessories.
Concealed Carry
As California’s top lawyer, Harris defended its “may issue” laws in court – even as those laws became “non-issue” in several jurisdictions. In 2014, she condemned the district court’s ruling in Peruta v. California.
“Local law enforcement must be able to use their discretion to determine who can carry a concealed weapon,” she said in the statement. “I will do everything possible to restore law enforcement's authority to protect public safety, and so today am calling on the court to review and reverse its decision.”
Upon the Ninth Circuit’s ruling in 2016, she called the preservation of California’s “may issue” law “a victory for public safety and sensible gun safety laws” that “ensures that local law enforcement leaders have the tools they need to protect public safety by determining who can carry loaded, concealed weapons in our communities.”
Gun Owner Privacy
Harris has also deemed those who wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights as not deserving privacy. In 2020, she co-sponsored the Senate version of the Tiahrt Restrictions Repeal Act. In a press release issued by her office, she claimed, “Access to gun data is vital to law enforcement’s ability to solve gun crimes and keep our communities safe.”
Targeting Firearms Manufacturers and Dealers
Harris’s assaults on the Second Amendment have not been limited to those law-abiding citizens who wish to own firearms. She has also targeted firearms manufacturers and dealers.
Kamala Harris and the Second Amendment, Harris supported legislation to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in 2017 and 2019. This would enable big cities to file lawsuits against firearms manufacturers over the criminal misuse of firearms – and open them up to blackmail in the form of being bankrupted by legal expenses unless they agree to an anti-Second Amendment agenda that has been rejected by voters numerous times. She also laid out repeal of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act as part of her agenda should she become president.
In 2018 and 2019, Harris also backed legislation that would increase red tape for firearms dealers.
Targeting Firearms Hobbyists
Hobbyists who like to build their own firearms for personal use have also been targeted by Senator Harris over her career. She co-sponsored the 3D Printed Gun Safety Act in 2018and 2019, which not only affected those who wish to manufacture their own guns or parts, but which also carries significant First Amendment implications as well.
Harris also co-sponsored the Senate version of the Untraceable Firearms Act in 2020, which targeted other home manufacturers of firearms for their personal use.
First Amendment
Senator Harris has also backed legislation that would restrict the ability of those who support the Second Amendment to make their voices heard. In 2019, she signed on to the “For the People Act,” which seeks, among other things, a constitutional amendment to overturn some of the free speech protections reaffirmed in the Citizens United ruling. During her presidential campaign, she vowed to appoint federal judges who would overturn the Citizens United ruling.
Her efforts when granted power to enforce laws were aimed at political opponents. During her tenure as attorney general in California, she also targeted a prominent conservative group, seeking information on its donors according to Breitbart News. The court battle is currently pending.
Senator Harris also co-sponsored the Senate version of legislation to punish some criminal actions more harshly based on the views of the offender in 2019.
Harris has also supported efforts to resume taxpayer-funded anti-Second Amendment propaganda, co-sponsoring bills in 2019 and 2017 to allow the Centers for Disease Control to push flawed and biased research.
Due Process
Senator Harris has also favored legislation that would seize firearms while trampling all overdue process protections for those who would be subjected to a loss of their rights. In 2017 and 2019, she co-sponsored a “red flag” law that denied basic protections to those who would be ordered to give up their firearms. A number of other bills she co-sponsored like 2017’s Protecting Domestic Violence and Stalking Victims Act (also introduced in 2019), would add penalties to people who were convicted of crimes prior to the date of the law’s enactment.
It should be noted that Senator Harris has co-sponsored a number of other bills with similar provisions, including the 2019 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act.
Summary
In short on the subject of Kamala Harris and The Second Amendment, when Senator Harris claims to support the Second Amendment, she is not telling the truth. The facts show that she has been an avowed enemy of the rights of law-abiding gun owners. Whether it is supporting bans on firearms, denying people the ability to carry firearms for personal protection, depriving gun owners of privacy and due process, or targeting manufacturers and dealers, she has not been on the side of freedom.
Quite frankly, Harris has one of the most anti-Second Amendment track records we at AmmoLand News have ever seen for a person on a major party’s presidential ticket. She will be a heartbeat away from the presidency should Joe Biden win. Second Amendment supporters should cast their votes accordingly.
About Harold Hutchison
Writer Harold Hutchison has more than a dozen years of experience covering military affairs, international events, U.S. politics, and Second Amendment issues. Harold was consulting senior editor at Soldier of Fortune magazine and is the author of the novel Strike Group Reagan. He has also written for the Daily Caller, National Review, Patriot Post, Strategypage.com, and other national websites.
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A leftist teacher has complained that ‘virtual classrooms’ as a result of coronavirus will allow parents to witness the ‘woke’ indoctrination their child is receiving and that this is a bad thing.
If there was one silver lining to coronavirus, it’s that many more parents are now becoming familiar with what their child is actually being taught.
That worries Matthew R. Kay , “educator” and author of Not Light, But Fire: How to Lead Meaningful Race Conversations in the Classroom.
According to Kay, having parents overhear what politically correct, self-hating drivel their children are being subjected to means, God forbid, that it might be challenged.
“So, this fall, virtual class discussions will have many potential spectators — parents, siblings, etc. — in the same room. We’ll never be quite sure who is overhearing the discourse. What does this do for our equity/inclusion work?” asks Kay.
“How much have students depended on the (somewhat) secure barriers of our physical classrooms to encourage vulnerability? How many of us have installed some version of “what happens here stays here” to help this?”
“While conversations about race are in my wheelhouse, and remain a concern in this no-walls environment — I am most intrigued by the damage that “helicopter/snowplow” parents can do in honest conversations about gender/sexuality,” he concludes.
The “damage” actually being done is kids being exposed to the kind of extremist, anti-American, white-hating Black Lives Matter racism espoused by Kay and his ilk.
“Teaching children to hate themselves for being Caucasian and to embrace harmful alternative sexualities becomes more challenging with someone who means the child well scowling in the background,” comments Dave Blount.
Maybe schooling never returning to “normal” thanks to COVID-19 will end up being a good thing.
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It is becoming increasingly obvious that the COVID-19 pandemic is being used as a propaganda ploy to empower government to seize control of the most elemental life choices of the American people.
First, the lockdowns let governors, mostly Democrats and RINOs, determine who was “essential” and who wasn’t, and gave them the opportunity to force the latter to stay in their homes and close their businesses, among other tyrannies large and small.
Next came the madness of masking mandates that force people to wear masks whenever they need to conduct business. Neither lockdowns nor masks do anything to stop the spread of a virus, but they do psychologically condition Americans to be controlled and subjected to heightened tyranny over nothing less than the most fundamental activity necessary for life itself: breathing.
It seems clear that these two examples of deranged despotism were only to set precedents that would allow our “leaders” to impose mandatory vaccinations with whatever half-baked and dangerous concoction the FDA is so eager to approve.
Virginia has now become the first state to openly begin preparations to force the needle, at the point of gun, into the bodies of what used to be free American citizens.
Speaking to the ABC news affiliate channel in Richmond, Dr. Norman Oliver, the state’s health commissioner, promised he would mandate the jab.
“Dr. Oliver says that, as long as he is still the Health Commissioner, he intends to mandate the coronavirus vaccine,” Richmond’s 8News reported.
Commenting on his coercive plan, the megalomaniacal “doctor” said: “It is killing people now, we don’t have a treatment for it and if we develop a vaccine that can prevent it from spreading in the community we will save hundreds and hundreds of lives,” Oliver said.
Of course, much of what Oliver says isn’t completely true. There are treatments for COVID-19, not the least the inexpensive hydroxychloroquine based treatment. There are others besides. As for COVID killing people — it’s mostly not doing that either. In Virginia, so far 2,443 COVID deaths are listed on the state’s dashboard. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are 8,535,519 residents of Virginia. This means that 0.028 percent of the population of Virginia has died of COVID-19. That’s considerably less than one percent. And, of course, those numbers may be inflated. As Dr. Deborah Birx admitted in April: “The intent is ... if someone dies with COVID-19 we are counting that.”
Compared to COVID, other health problems are far more dangerous to Virginians. According to the CDC, in 2017 cancer, the leading cause of death in the state, claimed 15,064 lives. Heart disease caused 14,861 deaths that year. Other causes of death:
Accidents: 3,922
Stroke: 3,555
Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease: 3,363
Alzheimer’s Disease: 2,549
Diabetes: 1,967
Kidney Disease: 1,618
Drug Overdose: 1,507
Septicemia: 1,249
Flu and pneumonia: 1,245
COVID is less deadly than many other causes of mortality in Virginia, and about the same as some others. Yet there are no full-blown statist overreactions to these other conditions. French fries and cheeseburgers have not been banned (yet). Moreover, one wonders how big the increase in death and suffering from these other conditions might be as a result of patients suffering these other diseases foregoing doctors’ visits over COVID fear, or outright being restricted from accessing healthcare during the lockdowns?
Regardless of whether mandatory vaccinations can be justified on some abstract public-health basis, where the needle meets the skin it becomes a matter of fundamental personal freedom. No person may make a claim to another person’s body or life. Doing so is the very definition of tyranny, and it was foundational to such monstrosities as Mengele’s “experiments” and the Holocaust — not to mention all the other state-run socialist/communist genocides of the last 150 years or so. This pernicious philosophy has rivaled war as a direct cause of bloodshed (though this is not to give a pass to war, as that is usually a statist project also).
Speaking of Mengele, read this short summary of the public health “work” done by this devil’s spawn and weep.
Perhaps we’re not quite to Mengele yet with mandatory vaccination. But we are standing on the philosophical precipice looking down at a very slippery slope.
Meanwhile, the very idea that the vaccine must be mandated tells you all you need to know about the expected desirability, safety, and effectiveness of the coming vaccines. In the face of disease, a safe and effective vaccine would hardly even need to be advertised. It would be, indeed, a “better mousetrap,” and the world would beat on big pharma’s doors to get access — much like the world beats today on the doors of the world’s papermakers in an attempt to purchase paper towels.
A purely voluntary vaccination program does not destroy freedom and, if based on a vaccine of proven safety and usefulness, would lead to rapid and widespread adoption — and would be much more effective than a mandatory campaign that amounts to a war on the citizenry.
Of course, bleats the chorus of pathetic quisling sheeple now overrunning the nation, Virginia’s Norman Oliver and his public health colleagues and their largely Democrat enablers just have our best interests at heart. They know best and we pitiful, dimwitted Americans should just let them run our lives. It’s for the best, after all.
On this point, Americans should turn to C.S. Lewis.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” Lewis wrote in God in the Dock. “It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.”
What Lewis here describes fits some of our present overlords quite precisely, among them Virginia’s Norman Oliver.
He and his ilk must be opposed, or any semblance of freedom Americans think they have remaining will wind up in the trash heap of history.
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It was another “don’t start nuthin’, won’t be nuthin'” clash in Portland on Saturday. Antifa and Black Lives Matter protesters crashed a pro-police Back the Blue rally downtown. True to form, antifa and BLM went from counter-“protesting” to violently attacking people.
We’ve seen it before.
The Back the Blue rally included members of Proud Boys, a multi-racial (yes) group of America-loving and antifa-hating tough guys and gals, who will fight back if the Leftist mob starts something. They come prepared to do battle.
And guess what? That’s exactly what happened. If antifa doesn’t start the violence then no violence happens.
Proud Boys are defined by the mainstream media and the Left (but I repeat myself) as “white supremacists,” but they appear to be a much more ethnically diverse group than antifa is. The local leader is Hispanic.
One black woman demonstrating with Back the Blue had a jar of urine poured on her by antifa.
As they often do, the Portland Police watched while the melee ensued.
A black bloc-outfitted antifa member hit a guy walking away from the mob and got instant retaliation from the guy she hit. Listen to the antifa woman “press” screech while the cops do nothing about it.
Antifa complained that the riot was declared after Proud Boys and the Back the Blue rallygoers left.
You can count on Mayor Ted Wheeler to denounce the violence against antifa by the right-leaning group.
Mayor Ted Wheeler Raises Alert that Rally Supporting Cops Is Planned
He announced the free-speech Back the Blue rally on his Twitter feed.
Newly installed Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt has already announced that he will not prosecute most charges against antifa – even for rioting.
The same is not the case for a member of Patriot Prayer, which is a Portland-area Proud Boys offshoot.
Joey Gibson was assaulted by antifa and was later arrested and charged with felony riot for an incident at a now-defunct cider bar, “Cider Riot!” It’s known as an antifa hangout.
Portland’s Two-Tiered System of Justice
Gibson’s attorney, James Buchal (who is also the Multnomah County GOP Chair) says the DA refuses to drop charges against his client, though he has let hundreds of antifa rioters go free.
Buchal told me in an email that it’s clear Multnomah County has a two-tiered system of jurisprudence and those who defend themselves against antifa are treated as the criminals.
Those who would dare to use force or display weapons to defend themselves against Antifa violence will face the full force of Portland law enforcement, but outside extreme cases, the District Attorney deems Antifa’s victims to be second-class citizens not worthy of protection.
Mr. Gibson suffered repeated assaults from Antifa on May 1st at Cider Riot, but responded only by livestreaming and calling out the Antifa misconduct, and even prevented an all-out brawl by discouraging violence among anti-Antifa demonstrators.
The Circuit Court of Multnomah County has already confirmed that Mr. Gibson did not personally engage in conduct that “went beyond Constitutionally protected speech or demonstration.”
Videographer Mike Strickland can attest to the two-tiered justice system in Portland. In 2016, antifa protesters chased him out of a Black Lives Matter rally and roughed him up. When they noticed he was still covering the event, a large group came back to inflict more punishment. Strickland pulled his legally-possessed gun and held back the crowd. No shots were fired and Strickland was the only one hurt that day.
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Patriot groups such as the Proud Boys and Troops for Trump came together to back law enforcement in front of the Portland Justice Center. ANTIFA and BLM groups were there to counter protest and the day descended into violence as fed up Americans pushed back against the domestic terrorist ANTIFA and BLM groups.
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John MacArthur has been almost single-handedly taking the heat from both the right and the left for his stand for religious liberty. As the California government has unleashed its wrath upon MacArthur, he and his congregation have stood strong in the midst of what is clearly a power grab by tyrants.
To be fair, MacArthur is not the only pastor who has stood up against the tyranny — there are countless others. But, because of his notoriety, his stance has received the most attention and has been targeted for the most attacks — even from other Evangelical leaders.
MacArthur discusses how Donald Trump called him to thank him for his stand and then talks about how no Christian should ever vote Democrat. It should be noted that Donald Trump has been much more supportive of the Christian community than most of our Evangelical leaders have been. For more on MacArthur and this situation, see this link.
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(August 24, 2020 – Sun Valley, California) Los Angeles County is returning to court this morning, August 24, 2020, attempting – for the fourth time – to get a court order to shut down indoor worship services at Grace Community Church.
As the judge noted last week, the County simply refuses to accept the reasoned decisions of the California court. Judge Mitchell L. Beckloff, who will preside over today’s hearing, told Los Angeles County attorneys from the bench on August 20, “As I see it, Judge Chalfant said ‘No’ to you and the Court of Appeal declined to make the order that you requested.”
MacArthur’s declaration to the court states in part:
“Worship-bans appear to take the position that we should lock our doors and force our congregants to gather to worship the Lord in parking lots, in parks, or perhaps beaches—but never in any church. From Grace Community Church’s perspective, this is nonsensical, and we view it as a direct ban on engaging in the worship which our faith requires. The size of our congregation means that there is no place for it to meet outdoors; the summer heat makes meeting outdoors unhealthy and even dangerous; our experts have refuted that meeting indoors significantly aids in the spread of the coronavirus; and most principally, Grace Community Church’s sanctuary itself is a spiritual refuge for our congregants—a refuge of which the county has no right to deprive them.”
“Thus, the county’s and state’s July 13 and 14 worship-bans burden my and Grace Community Church’s free exercise of religion by criminalizing activity directly required by our faith. As a church, we have a moral and religious obligation to continue allowing our congregants to gather in our sanctuary to worship the Lord.
“This church is the core of life for thousands from nursery to seniors. Our church is not an event center. It is a family of lives who love and care for each other in very intensely personal ways. So essential to personal well-being that people rushed back as soon as they could. The utter unnecessary deprivation of all our people by completely shutting down the mutual love and care that sustains our people in all the exigencies, pressures and challenges of life, was cruel. And after 63 years of sacrificial, kindness to our city, to be repeatedly threatened with court-ordered efforts to shut Grace Community Church down when no one is sick, reveals an inexplicable preference for a mostly harmless virus over the life-enriching and necessary fellowship of the church. Our leaders and congregation see no real health threat to warrant such restraint. We see this action against us as an illegitimate misuse of power.”
Read the full Declaration of Pastor John MacArthur, filed on his behalf by Thomas More Society attorneys on August 23, 2020, in Superior Court of the State of California – County of Los Angeles – Central District in County of Los Angeles et al. v. Grace Community Church et al.here.
About the Thomas More Society
The Thomas More Society is a national not-for-profit law firm dedicated to restoring respect in law for life, family, and religious liberty. Headquartered in Chicago, Omaha, and Fairfield, NJ, the Thomas More Society fosters support for these causes by providing high quality pro bono legal services from local trial courts all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. For more information, visit thomasmoresociety.org.
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If Biden and Harris win, history will require each of us as gun owners to make a terrible choice.(Giffords/Facebook)
U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Democrats [are showing an] unprecedented embrace of gun control,” The Atlantic noted Thursday. “The party is betting that support for restrictions is more likely to attract moderate voters than turn them off.”
If nothing else, this shows the goalposts are continuously being moved to the left. If the “centrists” of the party are all in for eviscerating a keystone right and ignoring the crystal clear mandate of “shall not be infringed,” you know what those pulling sentiment in that direction intend to end up with. That also allows those previously considered “moderate” to now be smeared as “extremists,” with accusations of being haters not far behind.
It wasn’t always this way, of course – at one point within the lifetimes of many of us, even Democrat “liberals” were on record expressing belief in the Second Amendment and demonstrating that they understood founding intent in a way that today would have them condemned as insurrectionist traitors.
Two cases in point:
“By calling attention to ‘a well regulated militia,' the ‘security' of the nation, and the right of each citizen ‘to keep and bear arms,' our founding fathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy,” John F. Kennedy responded to GUNS Magazine’s inquiries in the April 1960 issue’s “Know Your Lawmakers” feature. “Although it is extremely unlikely that the fears of governmental tyranny which gave rise to the Second Amendment will ever be a major danger to our nation, the Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason I believe the Second Amendment will always be important.”
“Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms,” then-senator, soon-to-be vice president, future presidential candidate and “liberal” icon Hubert Humphrey had asserted in the February issue. “This is not to say that firearms should not be very carefully used, and that definite safety rules of precaution should not be taught and enforced. But the right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against a tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.”
“While conventional wisdom suggests that an individual’s right to bear arms is enshrined in the Second Amendment of the Constitution, it is, in fact, a relatively recent interpretation, according to New Yorker writer and legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.”
It’s fair to wonder what it was Toobin “analyzed.” It certainly wasn’t the clear record left by the Framers or prior Supreme Court cases including Scott v. Sanford, Cruikshank, and Miller. Then again. Perhaps he’s just an apparatchik advancing an agenda regardless of the truth, which my looking into past asinine assertions he has made appears to corroborate.
Meanwhile, back at The Atlantic, meet the new exemplar of “moderation”:
“He’s laid out an assault-weapons ban for new purchases,” a man named Bill, a managing partner at a small investment firm and a former intelligence officer, told me excitedly, when I asked why he backed Bloomberg for president. (Bill declined to give his last name for privacy reasons.) “And there absolutely should be universal background checks,” he continued. “It’s like, that’s a no-brainer—come on.”
“This is the new normal in the Democratic Party: Moderate voters not only support gun-control legislation, but have begun to use the issue as a litmus test,” The Atlantic advises.
So “Bill” is a Democrat? Having an intelligence background, I don’t suppose he actually did any pertinent data collection before deciding that trying to force millions of his armed countrymen to surrender their rights and bend to the will of the collectivists was a “no-brainer”?
Threatening infringements on the right to keep and bear arms did not work for Al Gore (who ended up losing his home state) or Hillary Clinton. Now the Democrats are betting the electorate has changed enough for denial of rights to be a winning issue. That makes fair the question: Has it? Virginia gives us some clues:
“Gun control was indeed a core campaign message for Spanberger, the Democratic representative who defeated the Republican incumbent Dave Brat two years ago in a suburban district near Richmond, Virginia, that had long been represented by the GOP. It was also central to the campaign platform of Jennifer Wexton, Spanberger’s fellow Virginian and fellow freshman, who flipped her D.C.-adjacent district from red to blue. By 2019, polling showed that gun control was the top issue for voters in their home state; that fall, Democrats managed to gain control of the state legislature and immediately passed a huge slate of gun reforms.”
“Unlike three decades ago, the residents are often from other places, like India and Korea. And when they vote, it is often for Democrats.
“’Guns, that is the most pressing issue for me,’ said Vijay Katkuri, 38, a software engineer from southern India, explaining why he voted for a Democratic challenger in Tuesday’s elections.”
We will see in November if the demographics have changed enough nationally to give the House-holding Democrats the win for the White House and Senate, and for upcoming federal/Supreme Court appointments. If it is, that “history” the above feature photo predicts, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris leading the charge against our guns, will prove catastrophic.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
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Fox 2 Detroit claims, without evidence, that “some of the past opposition” was “sparked by islamophobia.” But in reality, “some residents previously cited zoning rules and the residential nature of the neighborhood.” However, Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American News, said: “I do not buy that, I think they were using it as an excuse.” For “Islamophobia,” that is.
Well, maybe they were using it as an excuse, and maybe there weren’t. But now the precedent has been set, with the help of the Justice Department: Muslims can build a mosque absolutely anywhere they want, including in quiet residential neighborhoods, and obliterate all concerns about zoning and parking and the character of the neighborhood by charging that all such concerns are just cover for “Islamophobia.”
Also, it wasn’t the racist, redneck, “Islamophobic” yahoos of Leftist media myth who were opposing this mosque. It was Iraqi Christian refugees, who know very well from bitter experience what a mosque in the neighborhood means for non-Muslims. But their concerns were also brushed aside. It was all “Islamophobia,” you see. The Justice Department said so.
“After years of roadblocks, ground finally broken on mosque in Sterling Heights,” FOX 2 Detroit, August 20, 2020:
STERLING HEIGHTS, Mich. (FOX 2) – It has been a point of contention for years, but now a new mosque is under construction in Sterling Heights.
“My mother, her father is a World War I veteran and we love this country and everyone is entitled to freedom of religion,” said Faye Hashem. “As long as there is peace and love – that is all that matters.”…
Erecting a place of worship isn’t necessarily something you would gather media together for, but in this case controversy has surrounded building a mosque for years wiht [sic] some of the past opposition sparked by islamophobia….
“This is not about an Islamic center or a mosque it’s about our freedom of religion,” said Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American News.
Some community members have used every legal tool at their disposal to block the building. They were upset that Sterling Heights struck a deal with the US Justice Department to allow the mosque after the DOJ sued the city for not allowing the plan to proceed.
Some residents previously cited zoning rules and the residential nature of the neighborhood.
“I do not buy that, I think they were using it as an excuse and the federal government intervened and the victory here today, is that we’re building a mosque,” Siblani said.
The city manager, police chief, some city council members and Congressman Andy Levin (D-9th Congressional District) were in attendance.
“The story of AICC, is no different than my Jewish family’s story,” said Levin. “Sometimes there was controversy and sometimes we were not welcome, but in the end we all came together as Americans.”
The book-burning culture of the Left is continuing its march.
As everyone knows, Amazon has achieved a virtual monopoly on the book industry. It has vast powers to decide what books people can read – and what they can’t read.
After 3½ years of publishing our groundbreaking 600-page book, The Health Hazards of Homosexuality: What the Medical and Psychological Research Reveals, Amazon has suddenly notified us that it has banned it from being printed or sold on its site. Amazon is also refusing to allow us to print any more copies for our own use and has even blocked us from accessing our account records. The book was printed (and also posted as an eBook) through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing subsidiary.
Why this book is important
The mainstreaming and normalization of homosexuality has created a public health crisis affecting us all. This book documents in detail the enormous public health problems – both medical and psychological – associated with homosexual behavior.
The book took several years to compile. It brought together information from the federal Centers for Disease Control, major medical professional groups, and other mainstream medical sources, as well as LGBT medical and advocacy groups – all documented in 1,800 endnotes with up-to-date links. In today’s society, this is critical information everyone should know, especially given what’s being pushed on young children in schools across the country. Read more about it here, including reviews and excerpts from the book.
Although the scourge of political correctness has taken over much of the medical establishment, the book has gotten rave reviews from the conservative medical community. Some of those include:
Michelle A. Cretella, MD, Executive Director of the American College of Pediatricians, called the book a "tour de force" and added: “This book is the single most comprehensive collection of scientific data from authoritative scientific sources on this topic. Our youth have the distinction of being among the most lied-to generation. For this reason alone, this book should be required reading for all health professionals, educators, legislators, graduate students, and parents."
Paul A. Church, MD, urologist, former Assistant Clinical Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School: “It is an excellent go-to reference for those seeking accurate, truthful information on the health risks of certain sexual behaviors. I recommend this book highly."
Dr. Paul Church holds up a copy of the book.
A prominent cardiologist: “I think this book should be on the shelves of medical school bookstores as it is one of the most comprehensive tomes on the subject that I have seen.”
The book has sold throughout the United States, Canada, the UK, and around the world. We have been approached by people in Hong Kong who want to re-publish it in Chinese and in Egypt who want to re-publish it in Arabic.
Mainstream media linked the book to Pres. Trump!
Of course, the national LGBT movement and their allies in the media despise this book – though they have never been able to claim that the information is incorrect.
In 2017, when we sold the book at our table at the Family Research Council’s national Values Voter Summit in Washington, DC (where President Trump spoke), the liberal mainstream media went ballistic. NBC News linked the book to Trump. USA Today, Yahoo News, and the Huffington Postfumed about it. In the UK, The Independent and The Guardian newspapers covered our book’s appearance! But at the Values Voter event itself, the book was a big hit!
The Health Hazards of Homosexuality got the attention of conservative media at the Values Voter Summit. Above, Dr. Robert Oscar Lopez (left) is being interviewed by radio host Kenneth McClenton who is holding the book.
Former presidential advisor Dr. Sebastian Gorka has his copy of "The Health Hazards of Homosexuality" with him as he does a radio interview at the Values Voter Summit.
Last year the book even made an appearance on Laura Ingraham's show on the Fox News channel!
Suddenly Amazon claims the book is “against our content guidelines”
Putting together and marketing a 600-page book with 1,800 footnotes on Amazon was not easy. In 2017, we worked with the Amazon staff that helped independent publishers (then named “Create Space”). For over three years they unquestionably knew what the book was about and what it contained. They had no problem with its content – until a month ago.
Then suddenly the book disappeared from the Amazon site. On July 17, we were notified that they have determined that the book violates their “content guidelines” and they have thus taken it down completely. They closed our account and will not allow us to open another account.
We wrote them back asking specifically what “content guidelines” the book violates, since it is a compilation of medical information from mainstream sources. They answered us that the book contains “content that is considered offensive.” That’s all there was to their answer!
Here’s what Amazon does NOT consider “offensive”
Thus, Amazon has determined that a book documenting the health hazards of homosexual behavior is “offensive” and must not be allowed to be published. But in fact, Amazon is a cesspool of pornography and perversion.
Here are just a few of the books that Amazon does NOT consider to be offensive – and are sold on the Amazon site:
Take Action: Fight back against Amazon’s ban of The Health Hazards of Homosexuality
Since Amazon is a virtual monopoly of the book business, they have the unprecedented power to remove any book they disagree with politically from the public forum of ideas. And Amazon has decided to silence the information in our book.
You can take action with these four steps:
Contact Amazon Customer Service. Tell them: “You have banned an important medical reference book, 'The Health Hazards of Homosexuality.' But Amazon still offers disgusting homosexual pornography and 'how-to' manuals targeting children. I demand you bring back the Health Hazards book so the public can get the truth!”
Recently Congress has been holding hearings on how Big Tech has a monopoly on information and discriminates against conservative material. Contact US Senator Mike Lee (R-UT). Sen. Lee is Chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. Select the topic: "Internet/Telecommunications." Tell him: "Amazon is using its monopoly power in the book industry to squelch free speech. It is banning important medical reference books and other books that disagree with Amazon's leftist agenda. This is high-tech book-burning. Anti-trust legislation is desperately needed!"
Big Tech's monopoly power to silence the facts and opinions it doesn't like is finally getting the attention of Congress.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
California Senator Kamala Harris image NRA-ILA
MENLO PARK, CALIF-(Ammoland.com)- In the past, politicians accused Facebook of allowing foreign intervention in the Presidential elections. Democrats claimed that in 2016, Russia ran advertisements and shared fake news on Facebook to help Donald Trump get elected to the Oval Office.
To combat these accusations, Facebook introduced a “trusted fact-checkers” program to rid the platform of the spread of fake news. This new program leads to the question of the identity of these so-called “unbiased” fact-checkers.
Who is fact-checking the fact-checkers, and could foreign media outlets use their trusted status with Facebook to block information damning to the Biden campaign from seeing the light of day?
These fact-checkers include American news media sources such as the Associated Press and websites like factcheck.org. While most of the fact-checkers partnered with Facebook to prevent false information from being disseminated are US based, that doesn’t mean all of them are American companies or groups. These non-American media organizations are allowed to “fact check” posts about the election and the candidates running for office.
One of the non-American fact-checkers that is part of the Facebook program is the Agence France-Presse (AFP). The AFP is the world’s oldest news service, but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have an anti-gun agenda. The AFP tends to fact-check articles about guns and gun laws, and have quickly gained a reputation of marking post about Second Amendment as false even though they are decidely accurate. It could be that the foreign press agency doesn’t understand firearms, or that they have ulterior motives.
Recently writers such as Rachel Malone and Cam Edwards had articles marked as “fake news” by the AFP on the Facebook platform even though the reports were accurate and provided undeniable evidence.
The articles in question dealt with Vice Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris’s history of opposing the individual’s right to bear arms. The AFP marked the articles as “fake” any time anyone shared either article to their timeline. The Facebook block would then redirect readers to Agence France-Presse (AFP)'s own article, stating that Harris believes in the Second Amendment and an individual’s right to bear arms. Stealing legitimate viewer traffic from American news organizations.
The issue with this statement is that it is easily verifiable as false. With only a few minutes spent on Google, I was able to turn up an amicus brief that Harris filed with The US Supreme Court in support of DC’s handgun ban during the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller case.
Amici Curiae Brief by Kamala D. Harris in District of Columbia v. Heller
At the time, Harris was the Attorney General of California. She and several other AGs from around the country wrote a brief arguing that the Second Amendment did not apply to the average citizen, but only to “the militia.” The AGs wrote that DC could ban handguns in the city if they saw fit. SCOTUS sided with Dick Heller in the case and confirmed that the Second Amendment did indeed apply to the full citizenship.
The AFP has been silent about the misinformation. AmmoLand News reached out to the AFP to point out their obvious mistake in marking the articles as false. The AFP did not respond to our request for corrections. The AFP still has it listed as “false” on their fact check site.
Foreign Interference In The Presidential Election
Does this rise to the level of foreign interference in the presidential election? Only the FEC can decide that, but AmmoLand News encourages Congress to look into international news organization’s powers to sway votes by preventing the factual decimation of information about a candidate’s past. More to come on the FEC's involvement.
The AFP is also using search engine optimization techniques to push their false story about Harris supporting the individual’s right to firearms to the top search result when searching for “Kamala Harris heller.” This discovery leads one to wonder if they are aware that their fact check site is pushing out false information.
Journalists Banned
I reached out to Facebook for a comment on the story on behalf of AmmoLand News. Instead of responding, Facebook banned me for life from the Social Media platform and deleted my public page. Rachel Malone’s article, as of this writing, is no longer marked false.
Readers who followed me previously on Facebook are now encouraged to follow my webpage at crumpy.com, which will be my portfolio hub and my YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/johncrump2.
About John Crump
John is an NRA instructor and a constitutional activist. John has written extensively on the patriot movement including 3%'ers, Oath Keepers, and Militias In addition to the Patriot movement, John has written about firearms, interviewed people of all walks of life, and on the Constitution. He can be followed on Twitter at @crumpyss, on YouTube at johncrump2, or at www.crumpy.com.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
Dr. Bill Lile, board certified in obstetrics and gynecology, talks with Duke about Kamala Harris's position on abortion. Basically, everything you can think of that's bad about abortion, Kamala is in favor of; abortion being paid for by the state, available without parental notification or consent, having an abortion at any gestational age. "She's the most pro-abortion, anti-life candidate that we've ever seen seeking the office of president or vice president." Dr. Lile stated.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
In June, a Chinese-American student at Fordham University, Austin Tong, posted a photo of retired St. Louis police officer David Dorn, who was killed after defending a friend’s store from looters. The photo was accompanied by a note citing the “nonchalant social reaction” to Dorn’s murder. In addition, Tong posted another photo of himself holding a Smith & Wesson rifle pointed toward the ground with the photo captioned “Don’t tread on me #198964,” in reference to the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989. That photo included emojis of the American and Chinese flags.
Tong had also posted statements including, “freedom comes from a strong and armed populace” and “Violence against any citizen should not be tolerated, and The Second Amendment protects us from that.”
The photos triggered the university to put Tong on probation.
Now the Trump administration’s Department of Education has launched an investigation into Fordham University. One department official told Campus Reform, “Of course, this raises questions about the influence of the Chinese government on American colleges and universities.”
The Department of Education sent a letter to Fordham University, which stated in part:
On the night of June 4, 2020, allegedly due to “multiple student complaints related to [Mr. Tong’s] social media posts,” including the claim that his posts were “grotesque” and “racist,” Fordham dispatched two uniformed public safety officers to visit Mr. Tong at his parent’s home in Long Island, New York. … Mr. Tong allegedly told the officers he purchased the rifle so his family would have protection from the threat posed by ongoing riots and social disorder in New York City …
Fordham deemed Mr. Tong’s constitutionally protected speech “a security threat” (emphasis added). Fordham apparently was concerned because “in referring to Black Lives Matter protests, [Mr. Tong] stated that he was ‘aware of the chaotic situation that needs me to keep (sic) family safe.’”
On July 24, the Dean of Students informed Tong that he was on probation because his social media posts violated university policy. He would need permission from the dean of students to enter the campus; he would need to undergo “bias training,” and he would need to compose an apology.
The university informed Tong he would have to complete his courses online. The university added that the sanctions were non-appealable.
Those actions prompted Tong to sue the school, claiming his First Amendment rights had been violated.
In its letter, the Department of Education noted:
In its Demonstration Policy, Fordham promises prospective students, their parents, and other potential consumers in the market for education certificates ‘[e]ach member of the University has a right to freely express their positions and to work for their acceptance whether they assent to or dissent from existing situations in the University or society. Fordham further promises not to infringe on students’ right “to express [their] positions” and engage in “other legitimate activities.”
However, Fordham fails to warn prospective students, their parents, and other potential consumers in the market for education certificates of their liability to potential discipline for the lawful off-campus expression of thoughts and constitutionally protected conduct that happens to be disfavored by Fordham’s education bureaucrats.
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republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
Pastor John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, isn’t the only mega-church defying Governor Gavin Newsom’s COVID-inspired edicts and mandates against worship services being held indoors.
Following Newsom’s edict on July 13 moving most of the state back to Phase 1 — a complete ban on businesses and churches from operating indoors — Greg Fairrington, pastor of Destiny Church in Rocklin, video-taped his response. He said, “We will not be shutting down our church.… I believe my mandate as pastor is to obey the word of God, and worship is a part of what we do together as a church corporately, and we need to do this. It’s important that we do this.”
He added, “We are not going to allow the government to use data that is not supported factually to shut [our] church down. Do not let the fear the media is driving, do not let the fear that is out there, affect us as a church.”
Tim Thompson, the founder and current pastor of 412 Church Murrieta in Riverside County, opened his church for in-person services before Newsom’s July 13 announcement and has stayed open ever since. Thompson told the Western Journal: “Why is anyone allowing a government leader … why are we allowing the government to tell the church what to do, ever? That is what men and women fought and died for during the Revolutionary War: that we wouldn’t have the church being mandated by the state on how we worship God, where we worship God … what time, what manner.”
Thousands took to the beaches to circumvent Newsom’s orders. “Let Us Worship” events from Redding to San Diego drew believers to the beaches and other public places to worship.
Other churches filed suit against Newsom, including Harvest Rock Church and more than 160 other churches. The suit was filed four days after Newsom declared a reversion back to Phase 1, claiming that his order violated nearly every right guaranteed in the First Amendment — free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble — and the 14th Amendment — equal rights for all citizens. It also charged Newsom with discrimination, as he was not enforcing his mandate against protestors but, in fact, was encouraging them.
Meanwhile, Harvest and its affiliated churches continued to hold in-person worship services.
A month after Newsom’s updated decree, the City of Pasadena sent a letter to Harvest Church’s Pastor, Che Ahn:
This letter is to remind you that violations of these Orders are criminal in nature. Each day in violation is a separate violation and carries with it a potential punishment of up to one year in jail and a fine for each violation….
Your compliance with these Orders is not discretionary, it is mandatory. Any violations in the future will subject your Church, owners, administrators, operators, staff, and parishioners to the above-mentioned criminal penalties as well as the potential closure of your Church.
Mat Staver, the founder of Liberty Counsel, which filed the Harvest Rock Church’s lawsuit, said:
The City of Pasadena, like Gov. Gavin Newsom, encourages thousands of people to gather for protests, but now considers in-person worship to be a criminal offense.
These actions of the City of Pasadena and Gov. Newsom are akin to repressive foreign regimes, not America where the First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion.
The First Amendment erects a wall which the state may not breach to close churches and incarcerate pastors and parishioners.
In earlier coverage of the confrontation brewing between Pastor John MacArthur of Grace Community Church and Los Angeles County here, we asked: “Are [the authorities] going to enforce their ruling? If so, how? With police, with guns and badges? Will they seal off the entrance to the church so that no one can enter? Will they arrest Pastor MacArthur?”
Now the question is: Will law enforcement also come into ongoing church services and arrest the worshippers exercising their First Amendment-protected rights?
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
The Governor of Maine has ordered restaurant staff to wear anti-COVID visors upside down so they resemble dog cones in order to direct breath upwards.
Yes, really.
Governor Janet Mills’ decree states that “front-of-house staff in restaurants who choose to wear face shields must now wear them upside down so that they are attached at the collar instead of the forehead, so that their breath is directed up, not down,” reports Maine Public Radio.
Given that air conditioning units can facilitate the spread of coronavirus, Mills’ order looks like another ridiculous and pointless measure.
“As a symbol of submission, forcing us to obliterate our individuality by wearing masks was not explicit enough,” writes Dave Blount. “So they pushed the envelope even further. No one can miss the significance of making people wear dog cones.”
Gov Janet Mills says – servers must now wear face shields upside down so that their breath is directed up, not down. Yes she wants you to wear a dog cone… peak insanity. I wish this was a joke.. its real #facecovering#faceshieldpic.twitter.com/cnyojzTd3c
Last week, the CDC announced that masks with valves, which millions of people around the world have been wearing for months, do “not prevent the person wearing the mask from transmitting COVID-19 to others.”
As we highlighted earlier, Sweden’s top expert on the coronavirus, Anders Tengell, warned that encouraging people to wear face masks is “very dangerous” because it gives a false sense of security but does not effectively stem the spread of the virus.
As we explain in the video below, the issue of masks has become both a logistical and political minefield.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
(Fox News)— Los Angeles County is moving to hold a prominent megachurch pastor in contempt of court after he hosted three indoor services Sunday — effectively defying a late-night court order that his church must comply with California’s coronavirus restrictions.
The county is claiming that Grace Community Church and Pastor John MacArthur should each face $4,000 in fines — or $1,000 for every act of contempt they’re alleging. The county also seeks an additional $6,000 in fines from both defendants for violations of court orders, bringing the total to $20,000.
“Defendants’ actions this past Sunday likewise constitute four separate violations of the TRO and Court of Appeal Order by each Defendant. Therefore, the Court should sanction each Defendant $1,500 per violation, for a total of $6,000 per Defendant,” the request reads. Both MacArthur and his church are named as defendants.
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