April 19 is a busy day in US history. I get a sneaky suspicion that there will be an addition to this list for 2021. I hope that this suspicion is unfounded.
1995 Oklahoma City Bombing
1993 The Waco siege ended when the FBI burned the compound to the ground
1989- A gun turret of the USS Iowa explodes. I was nearby on another ship. Had friends on the crew. The Navy tried to make one of the dead sailors into a patsy.
1985 – Two hundred ATF and FBI agents lay siege to the compound of the white supremacist survivalist group The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord in Arkansas; the CSA surrenders two days later.
1865 Abraham Lincoln’s funeral is held
1861 First Union soldier killed by rioters in Baltimore while quelling pro-secession riot
Having lived in the shadow of the mouse for decades, I can’t tell you just how stunning it is that Disney World is relaxing grooming requirements- called “The Disney Look.” The story behind that is that Walt Disney once took his brother’s children to a carnival. He saw the unkempt workers and decided that he wanted to open a park where a family could take their children to see a wholesome, family oriented carnival. The idea of Disneyland was born, and that look remained unchained for over four decades.
Now all of that is changing. Disney says that they want to be more inclusive. One of the people in comments wasn’t happy and said so. One lefty responded:
“Cast Members” include all employees, not just those who dress up as characters. Those who clean the bathrooms, man the retail shops, the food service workers etc. ALL employees, not just the characters. So this is great, makes more opportunity for more people, If the MAGA crowd cannot stand to even LOOK at people different than they are, I suggest they go somewhere, like an island, where they can all look at each other and not be offended.
This is more projection- I am betting you that if the tattoo looks like this, the person criticizing above wouldn’t be so supportive of inclusion.
Try to find any information about the number of National Guard troops currently deployed in Washington, DC to guard the capitol. The information was there yesterday. It doesn’t seem to be available today. Almost like we are not permitted to know. The last I saw, it was 2,500 troops authorized until at least May 23. The Capitol is fenced off like this:
I also would like to know how the Vice-President was giving orders to the Army, seeing as how he isn’t in their chain of command. Doesn’t seem to me that his orders would be lawful ones.
The National Guard troops in the Capitol have formed a QRF, which they recently deployed. Note in the picture below that the QRF has no firearms, and there are no armor panels in their plate carriers. At least three of the eight members of this squad have mags in the ammo pouches. Does this mean that they are only armed with riot gear for this specific mission, but have the option of firearms?
Meanwhile, the US military is busy purging itself of anyone who is remotely Republican or has Conservative leanings. This, coupled with a push to call all police forces tools of racist oppression, makes me believe that we are seeing the pieces being put in place for a national police force. This is typical of communist takeovers- the personnel for the national police force comes from pro-Communist forces. That’s right- BLM and Antifa will likely be the core of this new police force, if history is any guide. In fact, documents leaked in 2016 show that George Soros was planning exactly that, and has been funding BLM to achieve this goal. Barak Obama himself advocated for the Federalization of the nation’s police in 2011.
The reality is exactly the opposite. It is virtually illegal for anyone to have firearms in Washington, DC. So the protesters followed the law, leaving their firearms in the nearest location where it was legal for them to be. They rented a hotel in nearby Virginia, stashed the weapons there with a person tasked to ensure they didn’t fall into the wrong hands, and proceeded into Washington for the protest.
Instead of proving some nefarious plot, it shows me that the people involved were doing what they could to comply with the law. If they were actually trying to overthrow the government, it was the worst plot ever.
As an atheist, I still believe that the right to worship whatever god you wish is a basic freedom that this government was established to protect. I also do not believe that the government should have the power to lock us in our homes, COVID or not.
To further establish a set of rules allowing people to leave for massages, dining out, or pedicures while prohibiting church services is an even larger violation. For that reason, I think that SCOTUS got it right in the Tandon decision. I also think that Roberts has been compromised. They have some kind of leverage against him.
Still, the left has GOT to demonize the Supreme Court so that they can get the kind of changes in the system that they are looking for. You see, they have discovered how to rig elections, but all of that is in jeopardy as long as there is a branch of government that can’t be replaced with rigged elections. That means that, if the Communists Democrats want to seize power, the judicial branch MUST be brought to heel.
SCOTUS will be eliminated in practice, if not in name. Expect to see the likes of Justice Obama, Justice Clinton, and justices who are even more extreme. For that reason, stories like this need to be written by the left.
In honor of our loss of one of the greatest speakers of my lifetime, I present to you Rush Limbaugh’s quote of the week:
What about feeling sorry for those who pay the taxes? Those are the people NO ONE ever feels sorry for. They are asked to give and give until they have no more to give. And when they say ‘Enough!’ they are called selfish.
If you watch the SNL open about the Chauvin trial, they are setting the stage for riots to follow the acquittal of Chauvin. They are already laying the groundwork to permit the riots that we all know would follow a not guilty verdict.
You see, all right thinking people are supposed to know that Chauvin is guilty, and the only reason for an acquittal is that the entire system is corrupt. It couldn’t be because the jury saw all of the evidence and decided that the state had not met its burden of proof. Nope, it has to be racism.
Make no mistake- Chauvin will eventually go to jail, even if the Feds have to get him for some charge that dodges double jeopardy, but that will be after the politicians get the riots that they are looking for.
It seems that a cop in Minnesota couldn’t tell the difference between her Taser and a pistol. Says CNBC contributor and attorney David Henderson: “I think that if officers can’t tell the difference between firearms and tasers, we need to re-evaluate whether or not they need to be carrying tasers.”
I disagree. If police officers can’t tell the difference between firearms and tasers, I don’t think that they should carry firearms. They are supposed to know the difference. Perhaps we could try Sheriff Taylor’s solution:
The “can’t yell fire in a crowded theater” trope is worn out bullshit. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote what is perhaps the most well-known — yet misquoted and misused — phrase in Supreme Court history: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”
Whenever a free speech controversy hits, someone will drag this phrase out as proof of limits on the First Amendment before using that limit as an excuse to violate other rights. Holmes’ quote has become a crutch for every censor in America, yet the quote is misunderstood. Those who quote Holmes might want to actually read the case where the phrase originated before using it as their main defense. If they did, they’d realize it was never binding law, and the case it comes from, U.S. v. Schenck, was overturned over 40 years ago.
U.S. v. Schenck had nothing to do with fires, theaters, or false statements. Instead, the Court was deciding whether Charles Schenck, the Secretary of the Socialist Party of America, could be convicted under the Espionage Act for writing and distributing a pamphlet that expressed his opposition to the draft during World War I. The pamphlet did not call for violence. It did not even call for civil disobedience. All it did was express opposition to the draft.
The Court’s description of the pamphlet proves it to be milder than any of the dozens of protests currently going on around this country every day:
It said, “Do not submit to intimidation,” but in form, at least, confined itself to peaceful measures such as a petition for the repeal of the act. The other and later printed side of the sheet was headed “Assert Your Rights.”
The crowded theater remark that everyone remembers was an analogy Holmes made before issuing the court’s holding. He was explaining that the First Amendment is not absolute. It is what lawyers call dictum, a justice’s ancillary opinion that doesn’t directly involve the facts of the case and has no binding authority. In fact, the statement was The actual ruling, that the pamphlet posed a “clear and present danger” to a nation at war, landed Schenk in prison and continued to haunt the court for years to come.
Two similar Supreme Court cases decided later the same year–Debs v. U.S. and Frohwerk v. U.S.–also sent anti-war activists to jail under the Espionage Act for the mildest of government criticism. Together, the three cases did more damage to First Amendment than any other set of cases in the 20th century.
It wasn’t until Brandenburg v. Ohio in 1969 that Schenck and any authority it carried was overturned. There, the Court held that inflammatory speech–and even speech advocating violence by members of the Ku Klux Klan–is protected under the First Amendment, unless the speech is directed to incite or produce imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. (Note that this is the same reason why Trump can’t be prosecuted for what he said in his speech on January 6)
Today, despite the “crowded theater” quote’s legal irrelevance, advocates of government overreach have not stopped trotting it out as the final word on the lawful limits of the First Amendment. That quote is worse than useless in defining the boundaries of the limits on speech or on government tyranny. When used metaphorically, it can be deployed against any constitutional right. This is intellectually lazy and is outright dishonest.
Like the original case, this statement is being used by a tyrannical government that is using it to violate the rights of people who are on the wrong side of the political debate.
