"Why is it only the criminals and terrorists who get their voices heard in Washington? "

In Conservative Review, Daniel Horowitz has some suggestions worth reading.

Funding for states that prosecute violent criminals: Rather than threatening states with a carrot and stick through federal grants to make police more like social workers, how about dangling funding to states that work on prosecuting violent criminals? There is an epidemic of repeat violent offenders who continuously violate probation and are out to murder and harm people. Congress needs to condition grant funds to states meeting benchmarks in prosecuting repeat offenders and probation violators. While there has been swift justice for George Floyd, there is no justice for people like 3-year-old Mekhi James, who was killed in a drive-by shooting in Chicago this past weekend in one of over 100 shootings. Chicago has gone beyond soft on gun felons and probation violators, and now the police are standing back and taking a hands-off approach to violent criminals. Do Republicans want their federal legislation focused on incentivizing more of these shootings or disincentivizing them?

Defund states that are sanctuaries for criminal aliens and anarchists: Defund sanctuary cities and states. These are the same jurisdictions that are allowing rioters and anarchists to take over city streets. Ignoring federal law was the first step toward today’s breakdown of order. It’s time to condition any law enforcement grants, including existing programs, on cooperation with federal law. Also, Congress should focus on the forgotten victims of illegal aliens by allowing citizens to sue sanctuary officials who release criminal aliens. Congress should also create a fund for victims of illegal aliens out of the money saved from denying grant programs to sanctuaries.

Increase funding for court systems to expedite cases: The governing elites have made it clear that they will not spend another penny on enforcement and convictions. As the population grows and they throw endless funding at public education or other poplar services to keep up with the growth, a decision has been made in most states to stop building more prisons and jails and not to add funding to the court system. Doing so conveniently provides them with the talking point that prisons are overcrowded and that trials are backlogged for too long, so it’s unfair to hold people in jail either. As such, there is an epidemic of career criminals out on bond (or with no bond) who await their trial for years and commit heinous crimes intermittently and are often still not locked up. Congress should grant more funding for state court systems to expedite court cases so that the guilty will be taken off the streets.
Tough

Toughen mandatory minimums for gun felons: Felons possessing firearms is a federal crime. The courts gutted the mandatory minimums in the 2005 Booker decision. They need to be reinstated and strengthened. This will box the Left in on the issue of gun control.

A real anti-lynching bill: Republicans included in their bill an anti-lynching provision that would set the mandatory maximum sentence (not minimum) for lynching at 10 years. First, the crime must be premediated. Also, it actually lowballs the punishment for any murder, much less a horrific murder. A 10-year maximum is nothing. We have all seen horrific attacks posted on the internet in recent weeks, with entire mobs beating individuals severely. We need mandatory minimums against any serious bodily injury that results from one of these pack attacks on individuals, regardless of their race or whether it was premeditated.

Anti–gang bill: Gang violence is the elephant in the room when it comes to violent crime and is responsible for thousands of black homicides in inner cities every year. According to the FBI, “Criminal gangs commit as much as 80 percent of crimes in many communities.” We need a backstop of a federal anti-gang statute that provides federal prosecutors with a tool to prosecute someone who commits a violent crime in furtherance of gang activity. This will open an avenue for the feds to take all of the most dangerous career criminals off the streets when states let them off with a slap on the wrist.

Close court loopholes letting off violent criminals: The Armed Career Criminal Act was one of Reagan’s great legacies, which led to a generation-long decline in crime. Four years ago, in Johnson v. U.S, the Supreme Court ruled that the “crime of violence” provision in the ACCA is unconstitutionally vague. That has allowed thousands of the worst career gun felons and other violent individuals to get out of jail early or escape reasonable sentencing to begin with. Just this year, in v. Davis, Justice Gorsuch joined with the four liberals in expanding the assault on the ACCA, this time by saying that 924(c)(3), the statute that prohibits using or carrying a firearm during a federal “crime of violence,” is unconstitutional and therefore vetoed out of existence. It is simply astounding that the GOP-controlled Senate has not tried to fix this law, especially in light of Democrats supporting gun control. Now, armed robbers pointing short-barreled shotguns at store clerks avoid tougher sentencing at the same time liberals claim they want to “do something!” about gun violence.

Federalize the National Guard to protect interstates and property: When states fail to protect citizens, public monuments, and roadways, it is the responsibility of the federal government to step in. Trump should call the National Guard into federal service under Title 10 to protect people on interstates being blocked, monuments from being destroyed, and entire swaths of public areas from being violently occupied. Trump promised, “There will never be an ‘Autonomous Zone’ in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President.” But he is not the mayor of D.C.; he is the president of the United States. He must use 10 U.S.C.  253 to put down any occupied insurrection anywhere, including in places like Seattle.

Prosecute ANTIFA/BLM violent organizers and financers under anti-terrorism statutes: 18 U.S. Code  2339A provides for federal prosecution of those who provide material support to terrorists — foreign or domestic. Subsection C provides for prosecution against those who finance terrorists. 18 U.S. Code § 2384 makes it a crime under seditious conspiracy to “prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof.” This applies to many of the rioters, especially on federal lands. It’s time to ratchet up those prosecutions and direct all intelligence agencies to work on identifying those behind the violent insurrection.

Reimburse business owners for property damage: The media is not reporting on the extent of the damage done by the rioting. Black business owners have been disproportionately harmed. Republicans should focus on law-abiding citizens rather than the looters by offering to reimburse those businesses damaged by the riots, with the exception of any businesses that donated to the organizers of these riots.

Read more here.

Some quotes and tweets June 24-2020

Elizabeth Harrington tweeted,

The former president and vice president of the United States were just implicated in a plot to sabotage and overthrow their successors

Seems newsworthy

Ed Driscoll wrote in Instapundit,

Every Republican president is Hitler, until he leaves office, and then he is magically rehabilitated by the DNC-MSM as a distinguished and wise statesman to bash the current Hitler.

Kevin McCarthy tweeted,

The President tweets that people should stop breaking the law and Twitter moves to censor him.

The left is uncomfortable that in a vibrant democracy, citizens have a right to hear directly from their President and decide for themselves what to think about it.

Marsha Blackburn tweeted,

Handwritten notes from a top FBI official show that Barack Obama and Joe Biden used the FBI to target Michael Flynn.

They devised it, managed it, and oversaw it.

Jim Jordan excoriates Chairman Nadler

Because of Governor Cuomo...

The Daily Caller has a lengthy report about criminals in New York benefiting from bail reform.

...The Empire state under the direction of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo approved sweeping bail reforms across the state in April 2019. These rules, which took effect in January, forbade judges from imposing bail on anyone not arrested for a violent felony — a broad list of over 90% of criminals walked out of a jail cell shortly after being booked, according to City and State New York.

Read about some of the criminals and their crimes here.

Reasonable measures to lower police officers' use of force

On June 10, Heather MacDonald of City Journal spoke to the House Judiciary Committee.

...No police critic has ever suggested a benchmark for evaluating the number of officer use-of-force incidents. Ideally, officers would take no one’s life in the course of their duties. But in light of the number of arrests that officers make each year—around 11 million—and the number of deadly weapons attacks on officers—27 a day in just two-thirds of the nation’s police departments—it is not clear that 1,000 civilian deaths, the vast majority occurring in the face of a potentially deadly attack, show a law enforcement profession that is out of control.

...What about unarmed victims of fatal police shootings? As of June 1, the Washington Post’s data base of fatal police shootings showed nine unarmed black victims and 19 unarmed white victims of fatal police shootings in 2019. That number of black unarmed victims is down 76 percent from 2015, when the Post began keeping its data base. The Post defines “unarmed” loosely to include suspects who have grabbed an officer’s gun or who are fleeing from a car stop with a loaded semi-automatic pistol in their vehicle. Those nine allegedly unarmed black victims represent 0.1 percent of all black homicide victims, which number about 7,500 a year—more than all white and Hispanic homicide victims combined.

...Nevertheless, there are reasonable measures to further lower officer use of force—above all, more hands-on tactical training, practice in de-escalation, and techniques to control stress. Federal support should go to such practical training, not to implicit bias sessions, which are an insult to officers’ intelligence and street knowledge. Nor should police hiring be based on race. A 2015 Justice Department analysis of the Philadelphia Police Department found that white police officers were less likely than black or Hispanic officers to shoot unarmed black suspects. Existing efforts to boost minority hiring in many departments have already resulted in the elimination of a clean criminal record requirement and in lowered standards for reading comprehension and writing. These changes risk increasing disciplinary problems, rather than reducing them.

...There are bad cops of all races who must be removed. But the overwhelming majority of officers are motivated by a desire to help the most vulnerable among us. Though many officers work under unimaginable conditions, encountering the worst consequences of pervasive family breakdown, they continue to believe fervently in the good people who support them. If this mania of cop hatred is not quelled, those good people will suffer further and the nation’s cities will become places of fear and decay.

Read more here.

Why the left wants to shut you up!

Good evening!

Third CHOP shooting in four days

Nicholas Fondacaro reports in Newsbusters,

The west was wild again. With the so-called “Capital Hill Occupy Protest” (CHOP) being the source of numerous accounts of arson, assaults, burglaries, property destruction, a rape, and three shootings, it’s no wonder that Seattle’s mayor, Jenny Durkan (D) had finally had enough of the “summer of love” and vowed to dismantle the “autonomous zone.” But all of that went unnoticed by ABC, CBS, and NBC on Tuesday, even though the latest shooting occurred before their morning shows went to air.

View video and read more here.

"Why the silence?"

Dennis Prager writes in American Greatness,

So, why the silence? Why aren’t all rabbis, priests and pastors telling their congregations and telling America—in tweets, on Facebook, in letters to the editor, on television and radio, in opinion pieces—that there is one race, the human race, and that the only antidote to racism is to deny that race determines our worth, not to affirm its significance?

...So, how are we to explain this tragic failure of religious Jews and Christians—and their clergy—to speak up against looting (aka stealing) and for freedom, for America, for Western civilization and for being colorblind?

The answer to this question also goes to the core of what it means to be religious. At the center of our two religions is the notion of fear of God: “Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). But what is now apparent is that most Jews and Christians fear the left, fear The New York Times, fear being shunned by “friends” on Facebook and mobbed on Twitter more than they fear God.

That’s what this moment comes down to. Jews and Christians who fail this test will not only lose their freedom, lose the great American hope for mankind and lose the West; they will have also lost their souls.

Read more here.

Who is the angriest?

In the Daily Caller, Victor Davis Hanson writes in part,

...The people’s energy, tranquilized by a two-month national quarantine and terror of the coronavirus, has suddenly exploded in both massive protests and silent seething at the lawlessness.

...The angry and the demonstrating are loud and visible; their opponents are angry and quiet.

The election will reveal not just who is more numerous — but sadly also who is the angriest.

Read more here.

Quotes and tweets 6-24-20

Lori Hendry tweeted,

Racism was almost dead before Obama.

President Trump tweeted,

I have authorized the Federal Government to arrest anyone who vandalizes or destroys any monument, statue or other such Federal property in the U.S. with up to 10 years in prison, per the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act, or such other laws that may be pertinent.....

Trump also tweeted,

There will never be an “Autonomous Zone” in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!

Ace of Spades headline 6-24-20:

DC Circuit Court of Appeals Rules in Favor of Flynn, Directing Rogue #Resistance Judge Sullivan to Grant the Government's Motion to Dismss the Charges

John Adams wrote,

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Jim Jordan tweeted,

May 2020: Joe Biden says he knows “nothing” about the Flynn investigation.

June 2020: Peter Strzok’s notes reveal it was BIDEN’s idea to invoke the Logan Act against Flynn.

Biden lied!

The courage to be sane

Human beings are very keyed into the moment. These moments of madness we are experiencing will pass. The economy is starting to look good. The Chinese flu seems to be losing some of its mojo as we come out of lockdown. What the press cares about is defeating Donald Trump. Trump seems to be coming around to the reality that he has got to talk to the people. When he tells the truth there is nothing the media can do to stop people from hearing it. Twenty million people watched his Tulsa speech.

Biden is a dishonest person. Trump has been slack. Andrew Jackson was the founder of the Democratic Party. Why should we have this conversation with Marxists?

Jesus may come back a little faster than Shaun King can imagine. King is the guy who wants to tear down all statues of Jesus.

When the madness clears, people will start asking what happened. Don't sign on to cancel culture. This madness is induced psychopathology! When the madness passes we will remember who said what. Who stood up for whom. Klavan praises Matt Gaetz, Tom Cotton, Kayleigh McEnenany and others who have stood up during this mayhem. I would include Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens.

You want to talk with Andrew Klavan? You have to "love freedom, love democracy, love America, love republicanism, then we can talk."

More bad news for the Obama gang

In the Federalist, Mollie Hemingway and Sean Davis report,

Newly released notes confirm President Barack Obama’s key role in surveillance and leak operation against Michael Flynn, the incoming Trump administration national security adviser. The handwritten notes, which were first disclosed in a federal court filing made by the Department of Justice on Tuesday, show President Obama himself personally directed former FBI Director James Comey and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates to investigate Flynn for having routine phone calls with a Russian counterpart. He also suggests they withhold information from President Trump and his key national security figures.

...Following an appeal by Flynn, the top federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday ordered the judge to dismiss all charges against Flynn. That court also vacated his appointment of a shadow prosecutor to target Flynn.

Read more here.

A warning

Why you should care about statues coming down. Sound advice from a Venezuelan who lived through a socialist revolution. pic.twitter.com/GCTgIcrryd

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) June 23, 2020

"These are not protests. This is a totalitarian political movement and someone needs to save the country from it!"

I, for one, would vote for Tucker Carlson in a heartbeat!

"Big tech poked the bear, and has now learned just how big his claw is."

Don Surber writes in his blog,

All I know about bears is you don't poke them.

That puts me ahead of Jack Dorsey and Zuckerberg. They run Twitter and Facebook, respectively, and they have been poking at Donald John Trump throughout his presidency.

Monday, he didn't poke them back. He sucker-punched them in the gut.

The New York Times reported, "President Trump on Monday temporarily suspended new work visas and barred hundreds of thousands of foreigners from seeking employment in the United States, part of a broad effort to limit the entry of immigrants into the country.

"In a sweeping order, which will be in place at least until the end of the year, Mr. Trump blocked visas for a wide variety of jobs, including those for computer programmers and other skilled workers who enter the country under the H-1B visa, as well as those for seasonal workers in the hospitality industry, students on work-study summer programs and au pairs who arrive under other auspices."

Read more here.

A Turning Point!

Trump introduces two North Carolina State students. The first one talks about the lack of support for conservative students at North Carolina State and other colleges. Trump responds and suggests defunding the university. He goes on to praise them for their toughness, honor, and dignity.

Then he brings forward a young woman graduate from Northwestern State University in Louisiana who was fired from her job after standing up for Christianity. Trump praises her for not submitting to the left.

Then he brings forth a young black woman from Minnesota who tells about her college's discrimination against conservative students. She tells the truth about #Black Lives Matter. She praises Trump for not pandering but achieving real results. He tells her and the audience that he appreciates their spirit.

I was glad to see him speak to this audience of young patriots.
Links found here.

Trump speech to young people at the Turning Point Action Convention in Arizona

President Trump is live right now speaking to young people at the Turning Point Action Convention in Phoenix, AZ. Very enthusiastic and responsive crowd. Louder than the one in Tulsa. Link available here.

Textualism versus originalism

Many conservatives are upset with a recent Supreme Court ruling authored by Neil Gorsuch. In American Thinker, Selwyn Duke explains,

...Now, the contrast between textual tomfoolery and sound judicial theory can be illustrated with a simple analogy: 10-year-old twins Timmy and Oliver and five-year-old Malcolm are siblings. One day mom hears Malcolm crying wretchedly, investigates, and learns that the two older boys had been punching him.

After scolding the twins, the mother warns, “Now, stop hitting Malcolm! If you hit him again and I come in here and find him bawling, you’re gonna’ be in big trouble!”

Yet an hour later Malcolm is crying his eyes out, again. The mother learns that Oliver understood not to hurt his kid brother and that Timmy is the culprit. Instead of being contrite, however, Timmy says, “Mommy, you said not to hit Malcolm; you didn’t say anything about not choking him and twisting his arm…and that’s all I did!”

Then too-clever-by-half Timmy adds, “The limits of your imagination, mommy, are no reason to ignore your rule’s demands. Only what you said matters — and I’m entitled to the rule’s benefits!”

In the above analogy, Oliver is the originalist, understanding and accepting his mother’s command’s spirit. Timmy is the textualist, doing things not expressly forbidden by her rule’s language even while knowing it contravenes her intent.

The problem with this “philosophy” is that insofar as you don’t consider what was intended, you increase the chances of experiencing the unintended. Gorsuch’s approach is every bit as maddening as Timmy’s (because it’s the same), as it places an unrealistic burden on legislators. If their laws are to meet Gorsuch’s textualist standard for being applied as intended, the legislators must have godlike capabilities: They must see into the future so they can craft language covering every social innovation, bizarre fashion or collective insanity that may eventually, one day, manifest itself.

So, it’s bad enough we have the “law of unintended consequences.” Now we have textualists turning the law of unintended consequences into a legal philosophy and legislating it from the bench.

Read more here.

The only part of this controversy that I understand is that the Gorsuch side was legislating, which is what Congress is supposed to be doing.

Legacy Conservatism: Surrender Cons

In American Greatness, Julie Kelly writes harsh criticism of establishment conservatives at National Review, the Heritage Foundation, and the American Enterprise Institute. She refers to them as Surrender Conservatives.

...Surrender Cons will do what they always do: Pretend a debate about Confederate statues is actually about Confederate statues and not about the inexorable destruction of our country’s history that eventually leads straight to the Founders and the Constitution. Placate the Left with meaningless canards about race and social justice that feed the flames of racial division the Left has been seeking to stoke in order to burn down the country. Bend the rhetorical knee before Black Lives Matter for fear of being called a racist while hanging your own supporters out to dry. Assign weakness to Donald Trump rather than own up to their own failures.

...if legacy conservatism had its own statue, it would be one big slippery slope curving left and capped with a white flag.

The careerists in the establishment Right can surrender if they want; that’s their prerogative. Just don’t expect the rest of us to join in bending the knee.

Read more here.