Birthright Citizenship Will Ultimately Be Decided By the Supreme Court

 Ever since Trump signed his executive order ending birthright citizenship for illegal aliens, the Left has been going crazy.  Several states have sued trying to stop him.  Now, COL Allen West has weighed in on the issue at Townhall.com giving us a black man's interpretation of the 14th Amendment. Naturally, West thinks the Amendment was designed to grant citizenship to recently freed slaves, not to people who illegally cross our borders and drop a baby. The heart of West's argument is this:

I find it very perplexing, and hypocritical, that the progressive socialist left, aka the Democrat party, is so interested in the 14th Amendment. Back when it was being created and debated, Democrats were staunchly against the 14th Amendment. Matter of fact, they were against the preceding 13th Amendment which ended slavery in America. These two Amendments, along with the 15th, were legislative endeavors, policies, sought out by Republicans. Yes, the same Republican Party that was established for one single issue, the abolition of slavery. I believe that we should have a strict originalist interpretation of the Constitution, not this living constitution nonsense leftists seek to impart. And they do so for a very specific reason, and that is to manipulate the Constitution to fit into their designed ideological agenda.

And such is the case with the 14th Amendment, especially Section 1.

The 14th Amendment's original intent was to grant citizenship to the Blacks in America who had just been made free by the 13th Amendment. Remember again that the Democrats did not support either of these amendments then, and according to Joe Biden, “No amendment to the Constitution is absolute.” This is the same Joe Biden who delivered the eulogy for a known Klansman, his Senate Democrat colleague Robert Byrd.

...snip...

Now we have these delusional leftists who want us to believe, and accept their “living interpretation” that anyone can just waltz across the border into our Republic and be a citizen. They want us to believe that we have no sovereign borders and citizenship in these United States is a privilege to all, and even a birthright. For me, as an American Black man who has had generations in his family serve this Nation in uniform, and in combat, this is offensive, condescending. The leftists are taking something intended to right a wrong, which they created and did not support, and now manipulating it to the advantage of those entering our Country illegally. And this is being done all to the detriment of the American Black community, hence the protest in places like Chicago.

Now, many experts agree with West, but the question will wind up in the Supreme Court. So what any of the so-called "experts" think is irrelevant. Once again the meaning of the law is being decided by 9 men in black robes. *Sigh*.

The Ultimate Goal of the "Shall Issue" Concealed Carry Movement

 Jeff Charles at Townhall.com has an article entitled Thomas Massie Introduces Measure That Would Be A Game Changer for Gun Rights. The bill introduced by Massie would allow Constitutional Carry nationwide. Given that all the Democrat/socialists/communists would vote against this on general principle, and there are a number of Republicans from anti-gun states, I suspect this is going nowhere. But one hopes that something in the way of nationwide carry can be achieved.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) announced on Thursday that he is introducing the National Constitutional Carry Act, which would protect the right to keep and bear arms in all areas of the country.

If passed, this legislation would be a tremendous win for the Second Amendment.

"Massie's legislation is composed of two major provisions. The first provision prohibits any state or political subdivision from imposing criminal or civil penalties on eligible individuals carrying firearms in public. The second provision invalidates any existing state or local laws, statutes, regulations, or local restrictions that criminalize, penalize, or otherwise dissuade the carrying of firearms in public. In addition to covering all fifty states, H.R. 645 includes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and other territories of the United States within its scope to ensure that residents of all U.S. jurisdictions enjoy consistent protection of their Second Amendment rights."

I am sure the first thing that states will object to is the potential loss of the revenue stream that concealed carry licenses provide. Sheriffs in North Carolina get $75 bucks every five years for the privilege of carrying a firearm concealed in public. Hell, the sheriffs fought tooth and nail to maintain the $5 dollar permission slip to purchase a firearm. I doubt this $5 fee represents a significant revenue stream, but they defended it as if it was all they got. So, I am sure they will fight this too.

Still, we should watch this and applaud each step the bill makes toward passage. This represents the ultimate goal of the "shall issue" concealed carry movement.  Please go read the whole article.

California Wildfires Negate All Their Supposed "Savings" of Greenhouse Gases

 I noted several days ago in a post here entitled Do Californians Deserve What They Get From Their Leaders? that the wildfires are putting out more greenhouse gases than decades of so called "savings" from the EVs. Now D. Parker at the American Thinker has just reiterated the point with additional data in a post entitled It must be climate change.

First, it was global cooling, then global warming, until they came up with the climate crisis wording that never had to change.

Sometimes, the phrasing is all they need. Back in the 1970s, the ominous threat was from global cooling until things started warming up. Then, they turned on a dine to make it global warming. And that’s still the operative propaganda phrase when the weather is going in the right direction. But then the environmental activists came up with the phrase for the crisis that made it unfalsifiable -- climate change.

So, when there’s a cold snap -- it’s climate change. A heat wave -- climate change. Snow -- well, you get the picture. The funny thing is that for most normal folks, this is becoming a joke, to the point that people started referring to the arsonists accused of starting some of the LA wildfires as ‘climate change.’

...snip...

The state’s record-breaking 2020 fire season, which saw more than 4 million acres burn, spewed almost twice the tonnage of greenhouse gases as the total amount of carbon dioxide reductions made since 2003, according to a study published recently in the journal Environmental Pollution.

Not to mention the fact that others around the globe are failing to curb their emissions, negating the point of all the steps demanded by the environmental activists that only served to destroy our economic future.

Please go and read Parker's post. He packs a lot of information into his post with excellent use of the hyperlink function. Indeed, the use of hyperlink was what attracted me to the internet in the first place. Rather than footnoting articles, one could connect directly to the article in question whether it be a new article or a scientific paper.

On a personal note, I was appalled to learn that the fires are now in Ventura County as well.  We lived in Camarillo for several years, while working at the Pacific Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, California.  Mrs PolyKahr was born and raised in Oceanside, California.

Journalist Insults the Gun Culture

 Tom Knighton has it right at Bearing Arms when he notes with respect to a recnt story out of Chicago that This Is Not Gun Culture. It is actually the opposite of gun culture. It is in fact gun barbarism.

The actual "gun culture" includes things like the Appleseed Project, the International Practical Shooting Confederation, the International Defensive Pistol Association, along with the National Rifle Association and many state organizations like Grass Roots North Carolina. It includes the many responsible hunters, concealed carriers, and sport shooters who constantly train to maintain the skills required to be responsible gun owners. And of course, it includes the many trainers and writers for various publications. The gun culture is NOT the problem with violence in Chicago, or anywhere else.

Speaking of violence committed with guns, the WBBM News Radio article embedded in the above article calls this "gun violence." The use of "gun violence" is a deceptive way to turn the reader's attention to the tool used rather than the true cause of the violence, the miscreant himself. Journalists don't use "fist violence" when writing about someone beating another with fists. They don't write about "knife violence" when discussing a stabbing. For all of these other crimes the writers place the blame where it belongs, on the criminal. It is only when the criminal uses a gun that they then write or talk about "gun violence." But the use of the term "gun violence" is a illegitimate as the use of any other tool to commit violence.

We here at Bearing Arms, as well as the other gun-related sites, are part of the gun culture of the United States, along with our readers. We value the Second Amendment and the freedoms that come from having the right to keep and bear arms and a nation that more or less respects that right.

We are the gun culture.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don't seem to understand what is and what isn't "gun culture."

This was made painfully obvious in a recent story out of Chicago.

Cherie Animashaun, 20, says her first memory of the danger of guns was when her mother wouldn't let her go to her favorite park anymore.

"I remember in kindergarten, I used to go to the park behind my house in Evanston, and, one day, my mom told me we couldn't go to the park anymore. She said it wasn't safe,” says Animashaun.

The Cornell University student and Evanston Township High School graduate didn't even know what a gun was, but she remembers being afraid.

"In first grade, you don't know the depth of the issue, but you can feel it,” Animashaun tells WBBM. “ I remember being terrified. For the most people I know, seeing guns growing up is almost a prerequisite to this generation."

For her and her peers, guns and gun violence have become the norm, something Nina Vinik soon realized.

"I've been working to reduce gun violence for the last 20 years,” Vinik says. “I was a young housing lawyer in the 90s, and a lot of my clients lived on the West and South Sides of the city. Gun violence was at its peak in the city, and West and South Side neighborhoods are the hardest hit by gun violence. I was tired of reading about violence happening on the blocks where my clients lived. It led me to see the ability to feel safe in our homes and communities as just a threshold issue for the ability for kids and families to thrive."

Project Unloaded, a 501(c)(3) organization, was born in 2022 after the rise of school shootings. One in particular sparked Vinik's activism.

...

“That can make a difference in connecting with their peers in sending the message that gun violence is preventable, guns do not make us safer, and that little by little, by sharing those messages far and wide, we can chip away at the gun culture that is driving so much violence."

Please read all of Knighton's article. I don't know if these people intend to be insulting, or if it is just ignorance, but they insult everyone who is legitimately a part of the gun culture.

Not "Trust But Verify" But Instead "Verify Before Trusting"

 Many of my friends were excited yesterday at the inauguration of President Trump.  Now, I have to admit to voting for Trump not only because he did advance conservative causes during his first term, but because no sane person wanted Kamala as president.  But I have to also remain cautious about trusting the Trump administration to do the right things.  One of the things I think needs careful scrutiny is the reaction of the various "BIGs," business, tech, banks, pharmaceuticals, food etc.

At Townhall.com today, Seton Motley expresses my concerns in an article entitled please Don't Inaugurate Big Biz's Sudden Political Switch.

The Big Banks, Big Investment, Big Tech…ALL the Bigs? Are all of a sudden Donald Trump’s bestest buddies. And we’re supposed to pretend they didn’t spend the last decade doing EVERYTHING they could to ruin him.

Big Biz has for DECADES had a REALLY good thing going in DC. For the last half-century-plus, they’ve made tens of billions of dollars in political contributions. And received tens of trillions of dollars in government cronyism. It’s undoubtedly the greatest Return On Investment (ROI) in human history.

Trump again threatens to threaten all that. Well, Big Biz tried being his enemy last time. And it got them nowhere. But they now know even better Trump is keenly susceptible to flattery. So they’re now, SUDDENLY, trying to kill him with kindness.

These are the guys who sold us gay and lesbian products, who sold us transgender products, who are busy buying up Americans houses and then renting them back to us, who tried to sell us on eating bugs, and on and on. These are the guys who outsourced American jobs to our enemy China.  These are the men and women who tried to sell the idea that Bud Light buyers were interested in having a man dressed as a woman to advertise their product while insulting actual men.  These are the guys who gave us mRNA "vaccines" that didn't actually vaccinate anybody.

These people should not be trusted for one minute.

I hope that Trump sees these "BIGs" for what they are. I certainly think Trump's agenda items are what will make America stronger, and I certainly applaud Trump's newly expressed belief in God. What I think mostly is that we must remain eternally vigilant. We cannot, as conservatives and Christians just turn it over to someone who says the right things. As we have seen, even the Pope can be corrupt. Please read the whole article and remember to verify before you trust.

Do Californians Deserve What They Get from Their Leaders

 Mike McDaniel has a post today entitled California: electric vehicles are on fire! that discusses the impracticality of EVs when one most needs a vehicle.

Gavin Newsom, possibly the soon-to-be recalled Governor of California, banned internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles in California by 20235, ostensibly to reduce pollution. That pipe dream went up in smoke with the wildfires that are still consuming much of the LA area. Whatever pollution reduction that lunatic law might have achieved was lost with Newsom’s equally deranged refusal to do anything to prevent wildfires, including ensuring enough water to fight them.

Something no one has mentioned yet is that the Los Angeles fires have put far more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere than decades of supposed savings by using EVs. Once one factors in disasters like wildfires and volcanos one realizes that man's tiny addition to the greenhouse gases is insignificant. Moreover, if man disappeared from the face of the earth, it would make no difference to the earth's climate, and it is the height of hubris to believe otherwise.

McDaniel points out a number of problems with EVs that make them impractical for the average American. They are expensive to purchase and expensive to repair. Their tires wear out quickly because of the extra weight of the vehicles. Replacing the batteries is also expensive, effectively rendering a vehicle which needs a replacement battery a total loss. Because our electrical grid is already marginal at best, when you most need to charge an EV, you won't be able to do so. And then there are the fires. We have long known that lithium batteries are prone to fire, but the size of vehicle batteries make for spectacular fires.

Even better, EV batteries tend to burst into flame because they contain substances that must be kept separate. Pinholes cause instant flames and even explosions. Once ignited, they produce their own oxygen to fuel the flames, are prone to reignite and all firefighters can do is pour thousands of gallons of water on them to keep the flames from spreading elsewhere as unquenchable flames melt the vehicles into the pavement.

McDaniel points out that if all, or even if most of the cars in Los Angeles were EVs, when the fires broke out, that it would have made the disaster even worse. The power companies would shut down the power at a time when people needed to flee the fires quickly. How many people might have been caught in the conflagration and died? McDaniel asks an important question:

A pertinent question is will the wildfires provoke the spread of sanity among Californians who keep voting worse and worse D/S/C politicians into office? If they keep EV mandates, the answer to that question is obvious.

We do live in interesting times

 J. B Shurk, at the American Thinker today has a very interesting piece entitled, appropriately enough, What an Interesting Time to Be Alive. In it, he writes about Western so called "democracies" that are supposed to be promoting the freedom, liberty, and opportunity of their people, but instead are censoring free speech and in some cases scuttling democratic elections. What he paints is a picture of governments offering "democracy" while behind the scenes controlling the outcomes to favor themselves.

At the same time, he notes that there seems to be a new revival of Christianity taking place among both old and new alike. Personally, I have been concerned about the neopaganism that seems to be flourishing in the United States. But of course there is little I can do about it. The Lord sends his Spirit out into the World, and finds those He wishes. We can only help by providing pastors to minister to those the Spirit brings in.

A lot of people are anxious these days. They are worried about nuclear war, mass government surveillance, artificial intelligence, lab-created disease, central bank digital currencies — you name it! I’m worried about those issues, too. However, there is a part of me that relishes the opportunities we have to shape the future. This is an interesting time to be alive.

This is not the age of tranquility. There have been epochs for which that description might be apt — when people were born and died without experiencing much change during the course of their lives. The technologies that existed never advanced. The universe of human knowledge never expanded. Time stood more or less still, as if humanity were stuck in amber.

We’re not stuck in anything. The technological revolutions from the late nineteenth century forward have remade the world time and again. We’ve gone from telegraphs to telephones to cellular phones to smartphones. Mass communication has evolved from printed newspapers to radio broadcasts to television news to internet chatrooms, email, and social media. In the last twenty years, individuals have seized control over the instruments of mass communication — becoming self-created news reporters, entertainers, influencers, and celebrities. In the last ten years, governments and their corporate allies have tried desperately to claw back control over the mass media monopoly they once had.

Part of the reason so many are anxious is because news stories are designed as click bait to bring eyes in for advertisers. Whole narratives are built on speculation about things that might be or could happen. But most of the things speculated about never do happen, and in the meantime, people have spent money on things that were not needed. One such hoax is the "climate change" narrative. Of course, the climate is always in a state of flux. It has been much warmer in times past, and somewhat cooler as well. I prefer warmer, myself. But the climate scam is designed to stampede people into asking for the governments of the World to "do something," and that something takes away your freedom and your liberty and tax you into poverty. You will, as they so aptly put it, own nothing. But they assure us you will be happy - or else.

The “greenies” rejected Jesus Christ but told us that we’re all going to die for our “fossil fuel” sins. The central bankers and globalist oligarchs joined this self-hating bandwagon because the “climate change” religion offered them a chance to maximize wealth and power. For years, they have elevated a line of “global warming” popes — Al Gore, Klaus Schwab, John Kerry — all claiming to have influence with planetary gods that might be willing to save us from Armageddon if we do exactly what the rich people vacationing in Davos, Switzerland say.

The World Economic Forum updates its globalist bible every year so that laypeople know what to believe and what to worship. The “climate change” clergy even promote young know-nothings such as Greta Thunberg, who play-acts as a modern, “truth”-telling “green” Jesus. Global “elites” love the “net zero” religion because they can make up new commandments as needed, condemn naysayers as selfish apostates, and rebrand totalitarianism as philanthropic virtue. “Global warming” pseudoscience allows the U.N., the WEF, and other religious denominations to tell everyone else how much to pay in taxes, how much freedom to give up, and how to behave.

And yet, Shurk sees a new Christian revival coming. From Shurk's pen to God's ear:

And yet there is substantial evidence that a very real Christian revival is gaining energy. Older people who have perhaps lost their way are picking up dusty Bibles to see just what truths lie within. Well known commentators — including Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, and Russell Brand — are doing something that few could have predicted even five years ago: they are publicly discussing the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Young people, too, are finding their way to Christ. What would have seemed quite unusual last decade is becoming almost commonplace: athletes, musicians, actors, and academics are bearing witness to Christ’s purposeful influence upon their lives. Even politicians who forgot Jesus’s name as they became worshipful converts to the “green” religion are slowly recovering from decades of amnesia and remembering the King of kings.

I don't listen to Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan or Russell Brand for theological wisdom, but I suppose lots of people do. They wouldn't be talking about such things publically unless it attracted audiences. So, I see Shurk's point. Even more, Shurk thinks we are winning, based on the old idea that when you are taking flak you know you are over the target.

Yet they are afraid. They are losing. We are winning. How do I know? Their absolute abandonment of even the pretense of supporting free speech is a dead giveaway. Western leaders are so fearful of losing power that they have become overtly pro-censorship.

Former European commissioner Thierry Breton openly brags that Europe and U.S.-NATO scuttled the recent Romanian election because voters chose the “wrong” leader. He promises that Eurocrats will do the same in Germany if German citizens vote “incorrectly” this year. How can a prominent European statesman defend such brazenly anti-democratic tyranny? He blames free speech. Voters, he alleges, are reading and listening to the wrong voices.

Breton’s authoritarianism echoes placeholder-president Joe Biden’s denunciation of Mark Zuckerberg’s “shameful” decision to purge left-wing “fact-checkers” from their years-long role as professional censors who monitor and delete public debate on Facebook and other Meta platforms. Biden called the move away from government-directed censorship “completely contrary to everything America is about.” The so-called “leader of the free world” and a man constitutionally duty-bound to defend the Bill of Rights thinks it’s “un-American” to protect the First Amendment.

We do indeed live in interesting times