AMERICANS EMBROILED IN A COUNTERREVOLUTION: THE FUTURE OF THE COUNTRY RESTS IN THE BALANCE

THE 2020 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: AN ELECTION LIKE NO OTHER IN HISTORY

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION VERSUS A MARXIST COUNTERREVOLUTION

Both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have said, repeatedly, that this election is a battle for the soul of the Nation. See, e.g., USAToday story. In all other respects they are both duplicitous liars, often contradicting themselves, positing the most ludicrous and monstrous of ideas. But they are dead-on right in their assertion that the coming election amounts to a battle for the soul of the Nation. And, if Satan wants our Nation's soul, then Biden and Harris are his agents, intent on obtaining it for him, gladly wresting it kicking and screaming, if necessary, from the Nation's psyche.At no other point in time, since the opening salvo of muskets marking the commencement of the American Revolutionary War in 1775, a war against the tyranny of King George III, a war that gave birth to the most powerful, most prosperous, and most beneficent Nation on Earth, have we Americans—the beneficiaries of the sacrifices made by those founders of our Nation, the first Patriots, and of the millions of soldiers who have fought and of the many who died to protect and preserve our Nation since—faced our truest test of faith.

WILL THE COUNTERREVOLUTION OF 2020 UNDO THE SUCCESSFUL REVOLUTION OF 1776?

A general election is rapidly approaching to choose a U.S. President. The election of a U.S. President is as much an historical tradition as a Constitutional requirement under the Twelfth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The upcoming election will determine not only which Party controls the critically important Executive Branch of Government, but which will control the all-important U.S. Senate.This is no ordinary U.S. Presidential election. For this election will determine, once and likely for all subsequent time, whether our Nation continues to exist in the form the framers of our Constitution constructed and intended for it, a free Constitutional Republic where the people themselves are sovereign and where Government exists to serve the people, not the other way around, or whether Americans capitulate to ruthless, jealous forces both here at home and abroad, who have made patently clear their desire and intention to dismantle it.This isn’t hyperbole notwithstanding that many Americans, those seemingly sensible middle and upper-middle class Americans who define themselves as socially and politically liberal—and who may, or may not, object to the antics of the Radical Marxists and Anarchists who have been rioting and causing general mayhem in our Cities for months on end—think that a Biden/Harris White House and a Democrat controlled Senate, along with a Democrat Controlled House of Representatives, doesn’t portend the end of our Republic, but simply a return to normalcy. But, in that, these ostensibly sensible, pragmatic middle and upper-middle class Americans are dead wrong.Unbeknownst to these Americans, a war is being waged against the United States. This war has been taking place for decades and it’s a war that is rapidly coming to a head. This war is being fought between two factions.One faction consists of those Americans who seek to preserve our Nation as handed down to us by the founders of it: an independent sovereign Nation-State and free Constitutional Republic grounded in a formal Constitution, governed by the American people themselves—through their elected representatives. The other faction consists of Counterrevolutionaries: those who are dead-set intent on tearing our free Constitutional Republic down, and constructing an entirely new Order—a true Marxist State—not to be seriously construed as a genuine sovereign, independent nation at all, one that is defined by geographical borders.The Counterrevolutionaries have in mind an ambitious project. They seek to create an amalgam, comprising the remains of western nation-states, where the governments of these nation-states exist are paper relics, as the real dictates of these nations—these geographical regions, emanate from Brussels. This is apparent from an analysis of the governing authority of the purported nations-states comprising the European Union. The Western titans of industry and finance are the true rulers of this new Order, governing the world through their proxies.The European Union constitutes the germ of these Counterrevolutionaries grand design. Other western nations are to be brought into the EU’s orbit, including the Commonwealth Nations. But the Counterrevolutionaries real prize, the one they covet most of all, is the United States.With its technological expertise and vast natural resources, along with its extensive and unparalleled array of military, police, and intelligence apparatuses, the forces that crush intend to bring the United States into their fold.The Chinese Communist empire has its own designs, ambitions, and objectives for the Nation, and Joe Biden is their “Manchurian” Candidate in a very real sense. China has bought and paid for him and they intend to profit handsomely from him.Communist China’s aims are primarily geopolitical and military. The aims of the Counterrevolutionary Western titans of industry and finance are, as they essentially have always been—monetary—but they cannot ignore the import of geopolitical and military dominance lest they be run over by China. The formation of an uneasy world Dyarchy appears to be on the horizon for the world.Of the mass of the commonalty in Europe, the Commonwealth Nations and of the commonalty of China, and of Russia, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, they are already doomed. It is no accident the poor, impoverished, or outright lazy, would make a mad dash for the United States.And, what of the citizenry of the United States. At the moment all that stands between them and annihilation, is their fundamental, natural, unalienable, illimitable, and immutable, right of free speech right and right to keep and bear arms—rights bestowed on man by the Divine Creator himself, as etched in stone in the Nation’s Bill of Rights. Both these crucial God-given rights are being whittled away to nothing.If sleazy, Manchurian Joe and the sordid, horrid Kamala get into Office and if the contemptible, deceitful Chuck Schumer becomes Senate Majority leader, we Americans—who have, to date, seen but a foretaste of erosion of their fundamental, illimitable, immutable, unalienable right of free speech and right to keep and bear arms— will see these rights not only sharply curtailed, but obliterated, extinguished.An armed citizenry and a citizenry that speaks its own mind cannot long remain in tyranny. Such rights are inconsistent with the objectives of the tenets of Collectivism and cannot be condoned and, so, must not, will not be tolerated. The threat posed to the rulers of the New World Order, and the uniform, exacting order they impose on the commonalty would not be possible. Their New World Order would all come crashing down.The American Heritage Dictionary defines ‘counterrevolution’ as ‘a revolution whose aim is the deposition and reversal of a political or social system set up by a previous revolution.’ That is precisely what is taking place in our Nation today.Ruthless, malicious, malevolent, antagonistic forces both inside and outside the United States are responsible for the unrest and violence emanating in our Nation’s Cities today.These extraordinarily, inordinately powerful, wealthy, devious, malignant forces have orchestrated, bankrolled, fomented, and provoked a Counterrevolution in our Nation. And this Counterrevolution, along with the Chinese Communist Coronavirus plague, is metastasizing across the Nation, encouraged by placid, weak, and favorably disposed politicians; milked by a seditious Press, supportive of, and receptive and responsive to the aims of the Destructors of our Nation.You will note that the definition of ‘counterrevolution’ doesn’t mention or even allude to the use of firearms.This present war isn’t being fought with guns and cannons—at least not yet—but that is likely to change if the forces that dare crush Americans into submission do take complete control of the reins of Government.But the absence of use of firearms at the moment is not to say or to suggest that the present Counterrevolution—the Revolt against the American Revolution—isn’t being waged with weapons. For there exist many kinds of weapons. This Counterrevolution is at the moment being fought with words, conveyed with great effect through the most potent information dissemination engine yet devised by man: The Internet.The Internet has, just in the space of a few decades, grown into a behemoth. Thousands of Petabytes of data—information—are continually disseminated around the world. It is both a new battlefield and turf to the Counterrevolutionaries intend to gain control over. But can they? Will they?It is virtually impossible for one person or one organization to gain complete, exclusive control over the internet But, a few powerful technology companies, true behemoths, have nonetheless, through the space of two or three decades, gained control over broad swaths of it. Their names are known to the public—Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter. The inner workings of these multi-layered Goliaths are tightly guarded, unfathomable, formidable.These technology goliaths are an empire unto themselves, contained by and constrained by no Nation, their tentacles large and sprawling, entangling the world in their embrace.The originators of these beasts and their chief executive officers have forged an unholy alliance with Globalist Billionaires in finance and industry both here and around the world and they have entered into pacts with China. They, together, plan to take control over the resources of our Nation, jettisoning the Nation’s institutions, its culture, its traditions, its history, the very Constitutional framework of it—leaving the Nation a dry, barren husk, an empty shell; its people subjugated, thoroughly demoralized, wholly or primarily dependent on Government largess, reduced to abject penury and servitude.And therethrough they are being assisted with the help of a massive Fifth Column in our Nation—comprising Democrats and Bush-centric Republicans in Congress; a massive federal Bureaucracy, the Administrative Deep State; rabid, radical Marxist and Anarchist groups, and the Marxist intelligentsia; and a compliant, obsequious, sympathetic Press.With unimaginable wealth and tenacity the forces that seek to crush our Nation and its people into submission can succeed, and they intend to succeed, and they will succeed if they take control of the Executive Branch of Government along with the U.S. Senate.____________________________________________________

COUNTERREVOLUTION ON THE HORIZON: CONTROL OF AMERICANS’ PSYCHE AND CONTROL OVER AMERICANS’ ARMS

The Counterrevolutionaries—the powerful, wealthy, and ruthless Neoliberal Globalists—whom the Democrats’ contender, the frail Joe Biden calls our duplicitously and disingenuously calls our allies—want to take control of the Nation’s vast land and resources, technological knowledge, and institutions of Government, but they want the physical structure of the Nation to remain, intact, not in ruins, as does the Chinese regime under the ruthless, conniving Xi Jinping that has its own designs on our Nation. But that is no easy task. It requires winning over the hearts and minds of over hundred and twenty million Americans, whom these evil, poisonous malignant forces perceive as mere fodder; riff raff; the Proletariat; the Hoi Polloi—a populace that must be contained and constrained; corralled and controlled.Americans, though, had pierced through the multivarious veils of deception, although it took fifteen years for them to do so, following the Neoliberal Globalist Presidents Bill Clinton; George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, both members of the secretive Skull and Bones Society; and Barack Obama. All of these reprobates were slowly, inexorably, through their execrable foreign and domestic policies, dismantling the very foundation of an independent sovereign Nation and free Constitutional Republic, insinuating the United States into an intricately framed and inextricable new geopolitical, social, cultural, and economic world order whose system of laws and norms would override and supersede the Constitution of the United States. The process of inclusion of the U.S. into this new world order would achieve completion through the Billionaire Neoliberal Globalist puppet, Hillary Clinton.Americans saw what was coming if Hillary Clinton succeeded Barack Obama, but the electorate—apart from the liberal, progressive, and radical Left, situated primarily in the Country’s North East, West Coast and in historically Leftist run Cities such as the Midwest’s Chicago—had had more than enough.The election of an outsider Populist and Nationalist, Donald Trump, who promised to hold firm to the dictates of the Constitution as written, consistent with the tenets of Individualism, upon which the Nation was founded, was seen as the only way to avoid the otherwise certain takeover of the Country and the certain bloodbath that would follow once the Counterrevolutionaries gained iron control over the Government and proceeded to gain similar control over the citizenry itself through massive reformation and revision of the citizenry’s fundamental rights, commencing with a firm lock on speech and association, and a complete ban on private ownership and possession of firearms.But with the defeat of the Globalists’ placeholder, Hillary Clinton, they were forced temporarily to shelve their agenda. They had to devise and carry out detailed plans to take down Donald Trump; and, in the process, they were compelled to make plain—albeit they didn’t want to until they obtained control of Government—their intention to systematically denigrate and thence to obliterate Americans’ cherished history, traditions, Judeo-Christian ethic, culture, and historical symbols.In the proceeding four years of Trump’s Presidency they utilized several mechanisms in a reprehensible attempt to frustrate Trump’s Administration, and to unseat him. These included shameless calumny; sabotage; sedition; betrayal by several of those closest to him; impeachment in the House, and trial in the Senate; even preposterous and bizarre utilization of the 25th Amendment. Everything these Billionaire Neoliberal Globalist Destructors, and their puppets in Congress and in the Federal Bureaucracy, attempted, failed, often backfiring on them. But, their insidious attempts, funded no less by the American taxpayer, cost the Country tens of millions of dollars in the process of engaging in their despicable, fruitless endeavors. All the while Democrat Party politicians and Bush Republicans cared not one whit that their incessant and insufferable ridicule of and caustic enmity directed toward Trump has caused the Country a significant loss of prestige and respect in the eyes of the world, from which the Nation may never recover. But, then, it is the desire of the Destructors of our Nation to destroy the Nation and the citizenry’s very national identity anyway, as the U.S. is to be de facto or de jure merged into the EU or whatever the EU further mutates into.But the salient weapon in the Billionaire Neoliberal Globalist Destructors’ arsenal—a slow-acting poison—had been injected into the body politic since the first days of Trump’s campaign for U.S. President and that poison has worked on many Americans; and the effects of that poison may well impact the outcome of the election. This is the Destructors’ last shot, and they know it!These Destructors of our Nation realize they need to bring Americans over to their way of thinking. But that involves use of a specific kind of military weapon: psychology; but psychology employed on an industrial scale.The utilization of Psychology as Psychological warfare is referred to as Psychological Operations, or, as it is known in the trade: PSYOPS. A principal tool of Psychological Operations, or PSYOPS, is Propaganda. Forged originally for, and actively utilized by the military, against foreign governments, and foreign nationals, Psychological Operations, PSYOPS, have been reconfigured and reprocessed for use against the American citizenry, right here at home.But propaganda isn’t something new, even if it is generally considered a modern phenomenon. It has actually been around for centuries. Through the ages, though, it has come to be a well-honed tool for controlling the thought processes of entire populations. If done correctly, it works marvelously well. But what is propaganda, really?One source, the Cambridge Dictionary, defines ‘Propaganda, ’as ‘information, ideas, opinions, or images, often only giving one part of an argument, that are broadcast, published, or in some other way spread with the intention of influencing people's opinions.’But this definition doesn’t really capture the truly diabolical nature implicit in it or give the student of propaganda a true appreciation of the enormity of it.Further explanation of propaganda is given by the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers: ilab. See also, the American Historical Association’s explanation for it, demonstrating the multivarious dimensions and facets of it. The concept is a multifaceted one; not easy to grasp when closely peered at.Perhaps the concept is best understood, in its modern incarnation, by someone, a practitioner of it, who was truly adept in its use: Reich Minister, Joseph Goebbels, an avid proponent of it, developed the modern use of it and used it to great advantage to condition and control the mindset of the German people. The Reich Minister provides, perhaps, the best explanation of it, showing the true insidiousness of it, as its impact drills deep into the mind of the target. That target comes to believe, erroneously, that his perceptions—political persuasions—are his own when in fact, they are not; they are delusions projected onto the target’s psyche by the propagandist. Joseph Goebbels has said,“It would not be impossible to prove with sufficient repetition and a psychological understanding of the people concerned that a square is in fact a circle. They are mere words, and words can be molded until they clothe ideas and disguise.”“Success is the important thing. Propaganda is not a matter for average minds, but rather a matter for practitioners. It is not supposed to be lovely or theoretically correct. I do not care if I give wonderful, aesthetically elegant speeches, or speak so that women cry. The point of a political speech is to persuade people of what we think right. I speak differently in the provinces than I do in Berlin, and when I speak in Bayreuth, I say different things than I say in the Pharus Hall. That is a matter of practice, not of theory. We do not want to be a movement of a few straw brains, but rather a movement that can conquer the broad masses. Propaganda should be popular, not intellectually pleasing. It is not the task of propaganda to discover intellectual truths.”It should not be too difficult for an American to step outside the box the seditious Press has placed him in, and consciously, candidly reflect on and assess the many instances, in the past four years, that the Press, along with the Democrat Party leadership, has attempted to poison American's attitudes toward the President Trump and to poison Americans' attitudes toward their own history, traditions, culture, and, indeed, themselves, by floating ideas that, at first glance, may seem lofty and sensical, but on even  a cursory analysis can be seen for what they really are: superficial, simplistic, trite, flawed, vacuous, even self-contradictory. Has not the Press taken a page out of Joseph Goebbels' playbook?___________________________________________________

U.S. PROPAGANDA: POINTED OUTWARD TO THE USSR AND THENCE INWARD TO THE USA

During the Cold War, our Government had used propaganda extensively, targeting both the people of the USSR and foreign nationals of the Soviet Socialist Republic, “SSR”, Baltic States. The U.S. Government did this as an application of the Government’s foreign policy objectives to weaken the Soviet Union; and the Soviet Government, for its part, targeted the American citizenry, enlisting the aid of a Fifth Column here at home, the Communist Party USA, the CPUSA.The CPUSA still exists today although Americans never hear about it. But, the Party is likely actively involved with and in league with the Press and with Democrats in Congress, albeit surreptitiously, along with the Socialist Party USA, SPUSA and all working in unison, fomenting a Marxist Revolution: their Counterrevolution to undercut the success of the American Revolution, paving way for a one-world Governmental scheme, a New World Order.And, while the Governments of Russia, Iran, and, yes, China, too, especially China, engage in covert propaganda operations against us, it would be a mistake to believe that our Government is no longer involved in the same activities against those Countries as well; as well they ought to be, even if the Press cares not to shed light on that little fact. For propaganda is a powerful tool in implementing foreign policy.Realizing the power and efficacy of propaganda in manipulating the thought patterns of populations and, therein, fully cognizant of the danger of it if turned against our own people, Congress enacted the Smith-Mundt Act, in 1946.The Smith-Mundt Act made it unlawful for the U.S. Government to target its own citizens. And it remained unlawful for the U.S. Government to target Americans for 70+ years—until, that is, recently.Something happened in the last few years. Our own Government, under the Obama Presidency, decided that it would be okay, indeed, a worthwhile endeavor, to target the American public itself.This is particularly disconcerting, as one must infer that our own Government seeks to manipulate the American psyche to serve and further its own selfish ends--which ends are often, if not invariably, at loggerheads with the beneficial needs and wishes of the the Country and its people, and inconsistent too with the dictates of the Nation’s Constitution that those Government servants took an oath to protect.“For over sixty years, the Smith -Mundt Act [1946 22 USCS § 1461] prohibited the U.S. Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) from disseminating government-produced programming within the United States over fears that these agencies would ‘propagandize’ the American people. However, in 2013, Congress abolished the domestic dissemination ban, which has led to a heated debate about the role of the federal government in free public discourse. Although the 2013 repeal of the domestic dissemination ban promotes greater government transparency and may help counter anti-American sentiment at home, it also gives the federal government great power to covertly influence public opinion.” See “Apple Pie Propaganda? The Smith—Mundt Act Before And After The Repeal Of The Domestic Dissemination Ban, (Abstract), 109 NW. U.L. Rev. 511 (Winter 2015), by Weston R. Sager, Northwestern School of Law, Fulbright Scholar.Of course the targeting of the American citizenry with overt propaganda had been occurring well before Congress gave its imprimatur on the matter, having decided it would be okay to deceive the American public. George W. Bush did it, and we then became immersed in a trillion plus dollar clusterf*ck in the Middle East. And, Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton doubled down on that mess, when they decided how nice it would be to take out Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, effectively destabilizing a region in North Africa, allowing the rabid Islamic State to further spread its cancer, and leaving it for President Donald Trump to clean up the mess, for which the seditious Press gives him no credit, as that would not serve their narrative, a narrative that requires the discrediting of Trump at every turn.Unlike the Government itself, powerful Internet Companies, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Twitter do not come under the purview of the Smith-Mundt Act, and never did. But they should because these information platforms have a decided and decisive impact on the dissemination of information and therefore on our fundamental right of free speech.Indeed, the Government itself utilizes these platforms for its own propagandizing purposes. But these Internet Companies, too, propagandize by controlling whom it is that may utilize their platforms and what information can be acquired from a search. We have seen the pernicious effect of this dominance in massive censoring of information of those deemed Conservative voices, especially in weeks leading up to the U.S. Presidential election. This is no accident. And it is especially reprehensible that Twitter and Facebook would dare inhibit President Trump himself from reaching out to the American public.That these powerful Internet Companies dare censor the President and those who support him, and do so frequently, with impunity and with bravado, and that the Press itself fails to condemn such actions of censorship, says much of the power of propaganda to sway public opinion.These Companies may claim that they seek only to filter out misinformation and so-called “hate speech.” But who is to say what constitutes false or otherwise misleading information and what constitutes “hate speech?” But, more to the point, does it and should it even matter? The U.S. Supreme Court, historically, takes a dim view—and rightly, an exceedingly dim view—of any attempt to constrain speech as to do so leads the Nation down a clearly steep slippery slope to thought control, ergo, tyranny.The so-called “free” Press has systematically—especially in the Trump years—stunted the reporting of information and slanted those stories that it does print. The NY Times is especially guilty of this false, malicious, and inflammatory reporting. The Times’ motto, “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” has more than a tinge of irony to it. The Times routinely masks Op-Ed pieces as news reports, conveying pernicious lies and false narratives to undermine not only the Trump Presidency but the very underpinnings of our free Constitutional Republic.The seditious Press attempts to mold and shape public opinion against the public’s own best interests, and worse, seeds doubt and hate in the minds of the public, turning American against American; creating political and social problems and issues where none existed, do not exist, and ought not to exist; claiming duplicitously all the while that its false and illusory constructions point to real problems and to real issues and that the cause therefor rests with Trump and with those Americans who support him.In so operating as they do these propagandists deflect attention away from the nefarious aims and goals of their benefactors. In that way they hope Americans will elect their stooges, who, at present, reside in their carefully chosen and groomed manikins; mere placeholders: Biden, and Harris.If successful, the Destructors of our Nation hope to get back on track with their original game plan: one requiring the dissolution of the Nation and its Constitution, and the systematic subjugation and degradation of the American people. But to succeed, it isn’t enough to gain control over the reins of Government alone. The Nation’s Destructors must gain control over the thought patterns of over 320 million people. And, that is not an easy task.________________________________________

MASS PSYCHOSIS AGAINST TRUMP THREATENS OUR NATION’S SOVEREIGNTY AND AMERICANS’ FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS

The Destructors and Obstructers of our Nation cannot abide and will not abide millions of Americans thinking “bad thoughts” and wielding millions of firearms. This requires attacking Americans’ natural, immutable, illimitable, unalienable fundamental rights head-on.The propagandists’ attack on the First and Second Amendments of the Bill of Rights is the most odious; an attempt to manipulate the public psyche to loathe the very rights bestowed on them by a loving Divine Creator; but in the loss of their most cherished rights, Americans will lose their sovereignty and their very soul. But this attack against on the First and Second Amendments should not come as a surprise to anyone. It has been taking place for some time. After all, the forces that seek to destroy this Nation cannot do so if the citizenry has a well-honed critical mind, capable of independent, conscious thought and reasoning, a mind that perceives well the unconscionable wresting of the Country from its grasp, and is armed and able to resist; and is able to employ those firearms effectively against its usurpers.The question becomes, then, for the Destructors and Obstructers of the Nation: how does one control the thought processes of the citizenry so that the citizenry willingly surrenders the very means by which and through which it maintains its sovereignty over Government; defending itself capably against all manner of predators and tyrants?To be embroiled in guerilla warfare is costly and time-consuming where tens of millions of Americans are well-armed. The American Revolution is a testament to that, as George III learned.The Neoliberal Globalist Destructors’ Counterrevolution against the American Revolution, that forged a free Constitutional Republic, is no more likely to succeed than did the campaign of George III against our forefathers two centuries earlier, as Americans are no less well-versed today in the use of their firearms. They are well capable of employing those firearms to good effect when necessary and are not reluctant to do so now.This is a major conundrum for the Destructors and Obstructers of the Nation: how do Tyrants achieve their objective—creating a docile citizenry out of an inherently courageous citizenry? How do tyrants avoid the use of force of arms against a citizenry loath to surrender their arms; more inclined to use those arms against those who dare impose their will on a free, indomitable people.More seductive means must be employed. To date, the most effective means—one that has worked on millions of Americans—involves “training the mind” of Americans to be fearful of and to abhor firearms.Behind the campaign to defeat Donald Trump in the coming U.S. Presidential election lies the invidious propaganda campaign to push the public to embrace the most lackluster pair of individuals to ever lead the Nation—an obviously senile and servile Joe Biden, and a craven, duplicitous, hypocritical Kamala Harris—two brazenly corrupt puppets chosen by the Globalist puppet masters who have been appointed for one major purpose: returning the Nation to the trajectory of dissolution set for it before a wrench was thrown into their plans with the advent of Donald Trump.Biden and Harris are no more than props, just as the two Bushes, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama were “front men” for the Globalists, and as Hillary Clinton had she obtained the mantle of the U.S. Presidency; a thing that was expected to be a foregone conclusion. Americans, though, had other plans. They sensed they were losing their Country. So, it was no accident, no anomaly that led to the election of Trump in 2016, even if some people otherwise believe the election of Trump to be nothing more than a troubling aberration.The Propagandists have been busy at work ever since the inauguration of Trump, to set things right as the Propagandists saw it: to return to the agenda of slow disemboweling of the Nation that had been set for it decades before, an agenda that Bill Clinton, two Bushes, and Barack Obama had dutifully followed, and which Hillary Clinton would have continued to follow had she and the Party and the Billionaire Neoliberal Globalist Destructors not miscalculated the intelligence and perspicuity of the American electorate.The Propagandists spent the last four years attempting both to destroy the Trump Presidency and to soften the public up, turning the mind of many Americans to gelatin. They attempted to get the public to reject Trump out-of-hand. And many Americans have done so, without even understanding why, as Trump has proven to be an exceptional President—which was all the more remarkable given the forces at home and abroad working strenuously against him—succeeding in the areas of both domestic policy and foreign policy. To get the majority of the electorate to reject him, given such exemplary accomplishments, would require more than even the modern tools of propaganda could muster. What was required was no less than the likely intentional unleashing of a Global pandemic by the Chinese Communist Government upon the world, which could not have been unknown to the Billionaire Neoliberal Globalists, exemplifying the extraordinarily malevolent and horrific steps that both China and the Western Establishment Globalist elites would go to to undermine Trump's achievements, to harm his chances for reelection, exemplifying, too, just how desperate the New World Order overseers and Xi Jinping's Regime had become to get Trump out of the way, and the lengths they would go to, to undercut the one man who had done his level best to accomplish one primary goal: to return Americans to its historical and sacred roots, and its former greatness. That could not be countenanced. That would not be permitted.

THE DESTRUCTORS' TWO-STEP ENDGAME TO ANNIHILATE THE NATION: FIRST, PREVENT TRUMP'S ELECTION TO A SECOND TERM; SECOND, DISMANTLE THE U.S CONSTITUTION, COMMENCING WITH FURTHER CONSTRICTION OF AND RESTRICTIONS ON THE RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH AND FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION, AND STRANGULATION OF THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS

In the next several articles, we discuss how many Americans have been slowly, inexorably, unconscionably conditioned, brainwashed—especially in the last thirty years—to develop a deep-seated, unnatural antipathy toward firearms and firearms’ ownership. As a result of this carefully cultivated psychological conditioning, more and more Americans have gravitated toward political leaders who promise to rid the Nation of the “plague of guns and gun violence.” Understand: To destroy a free Constitutional Republic—a Republic in which the people are sovereign and Government is the servant of the people—it is imperative that the Globalist Neoliberal Destructors and Obstructers of our Nation and its Constitution control the spread of information and implement a national plan designed to strongly urge Americans to surrender their firearms to Government authorities. And, for those Americans who are reluctant to do so, who have failed to be swayed by propaganda because the Bill of Rights has been deeply ingrained into their very being, then they will be forcibly compelled to do so.Recall what Kamala Harris, the mouthpiece and puppet of the Globalist Destructors said during a Town Hall in 2019: “Upon being elected, I will give the United States Congress 100 days to get their act together and have the Courage to pass reasonable gun safety laws,” Harris responded, according to a transcript of the event. “And if they fail to do it, then I will take executive action.” See weblog, noisyroom. Is this simple boasting and hyperbole? We think not.If Trump loses the upcoming election and Republicans lose control of the U.S. Senate, the loss cannot be regarded as something simply inconvenient for our Nation’s people. The loss will be catastrophic. Americans will lose their Country; their Sovereignty; their National Identity; their very Soul. What is at stake for Americans and for their Nation in the upcoming election is as simple and as straightforward as that.No American should think their vote doesn’t count; that their vote is unimportant; irrelevant. Not so. That one vote + one vote + one vote + one vote . . .  will make all the difference in the world._____________________________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

NEW YORK STATE GOVERNOR CUOMO AND NEW YORK CITY MAYOR DEBLASIO HAVE VIOLATED THE TRUST OF THE PEOPLE AND MUST BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE

MALFEASANCE IN OFFICE IS CLEAR AND UNMISTAKABLE

It’s a curious thing about upper class and upper middle-class liberals. They routinely support the most blatantly disingenuous, hypocritical, loathsomely arrogant, smugly complacent, and inherently sanctimonious politicians in our Nation.Whether on the local, State, or federal level, these high level Democrat Party functionaries, whom the liberal upper and upper-middle classes invariably vote into Office and whom they insist on retaining in Office, stubbornly holding onto the false belief that these politicians can do no wrong, have done no wrong, even as their Democratic Party run Cities and States implode in chaotic fury all around them.No matter how deceitful and dishonest, incompetent and inept, corrupt and depraved these politicians happen to be, politically liberal upper class and liberal upper-middle class Americans continue to flatter and slobber, slaver and drool all over them, continually dismissing their worst excesses even when those excesses are clearly pointed out to them. They are adamant in their support of them. They routinely vote for them. And they march in lockstep with them, dragging severe economic decline and ruin and as those Cities and States witness extraordinary increases in crime: compliments of their politicians.If these Radical Left politicians, and the fawning electorate that continually votes them into Office and keeps them there, deign to admit of serious problems, they are adept at conjuring up bugaboos: systemic racism, toxic masculinity, the police, Russia, white supremacists, and, of course, Clinton’s “Basket of Deplorables,” and, of course, President Trump—but never, ever blaming themselves. They will never at once admit that the chaos manifest in our Nation is a product of and is exemplified in their own fevered world vision.New York is a case study in the inexorable, inevitable disintegration of the State and of the lives and well-being of those Americans who happen to reside there. The calamity must be laid at the feet of Andrew Cuomo, a man who is presently serving a third term in Office, courtesy of the electorate that votes him into Office. And, given the lack of Gubernatorial term limits, that electorate can keep him there indefinitely, accumulating through the years, as is becoming disturbingly apparent, almost dictatorial powers over the lives of New Yorkers.What does a Cuomo reign, essentially for life, portend? Consider the “accomplishments” to date of the most progressive, i.e., radical, Governor in the State’s history:

• Abortion of human beings up to the moment of birth, making New York the “legal” murder capital of the Nation
• Creation of a set of the most draconian gun laws in the Nation
• Keeping gun stores closed indefinitely, leaving New York’s residents defenseless, during a time of endless rioting and mayhem; claiming, disingenuously that gun stores are non-essential businesses.
• Unparalleled corruption, graft, and scandal plaguing his Administration, leading to indictments, conviction, and incarceration of several of Cuomo’s henchmen
• Failed economic development policies
• Surge in crime throughout the State, and especially in New York City
• Illegal immigration policies costing New York’s taxpayers over five billion dollars a year
• Moving toward making New York a “Sanctuary State” and a haven for murderous illegal alien gang members and drug cartels to operate with abandon
• Failed Chinese Communist Coronavirus policies that have led to more deaths than in any other State

The main takeaway is that Governor Andrew Cuomo demonstrates little regard for human life. That is all the more remarkable since Cuomo was born and raised a Roman Catholic. One would therefore expect Cuomo to support and implement policies that would place a premium on the value of human life. Yet, the Governor's negative stance on abortion, on armed self-defense, and, most recently, on his handling of the Chinese Communist Coronavirus plague stand in marked contrast to what one would reasonably expect from a practicing Roman Catholic.

HOW IS IT THAT THE NEW YORK ELECTORATE CONTINUES TO VOTE FOR PEOPLE LIKE ANDREW CUOMO AND NEW YORK CITY MAYOR, BILL DE BLASIO?

This can be attributed, in part, at least, to a prevailing myth. It is one rarely mentioned but tacitly accepted as self-evident true among those who adhere to the liberal social and political mindset.Those Americans who espouse liberal social and political views consider themselves to be morally—and, no less, intellectually—superior to those Americans who espouse conservative social and political views.Liberals, as adherents of the tenets of Collectivism, claim to place a premium on the value of human life. They assume, erroneously, that Conservatives, adherents of the tenets of Individualism, upon which our Nation is grounded and through which our Nation has thrived, do not.Liberals qua Collectivists assume wrongly that those who adhere to the tenets of Individualism, as Conservatives do, are inherently selfish. That idea is false on its face. But it is a manifestation of the notion that Collectivists do not accept. It is that the responsibility for one’s life and well-being rests first and foremost on one’s self, and that the Country prospers from this inescapable, immutable fact. This idea is incompatible with their core tenets.Collectivists hold that the well-being of the individual derives from the well-being of the Collective and that the ultimate responsibility for the well-being of the Collective rests upon and is the primary function of the State, of Government. But history demonstrates both the falsity of and the futility of this idea. A Nation grounded on this idea is doomed to failure; the populace reduced to penury, subjugation, and abject misery; misery wrought by Government continually tinkering with the lives of the populace, ever suspicious of the populace. Such a society is marked by mediocrity and sameness. The populace becomes ever more dependent on the largess of Government. But where does that largess come from? It has to come from the people themselves, in the form of taxes. And it is a largess that must constantly dwindle; and a vicious cycle of dependency and ever dwindling largess comes into being.Still, adherents of Collectivism—and there are, unfortunately many of them in our Nation—continue to vote for and to support those politicians who hold to a vision of the Country and of the world consistent with that worldview of Collectivism.It is plain to the adherents of Individualism—upon which our Nation was founded, and upon which our Nation has prospered—that Collectivism leads down a blind alley, to degradation of the community, as well as to the Self and to the Soul; to physical, emotional, and spiritual deprivation.One need only look to Countries grounded on the principles of Collectivism—China, Russia, Cuba, and Venezuela to name a few—to see that Collectivism is bankrupt notion: one that places little regard on the life and well-being of their people.Rather than acceding to the obvious, the bankruptcy of Collectivism, the Liberal-minded Collectivist, “doubles down,” adopting ever more radical beliefs.An Op-Ed, appearing in the Wall Street Journal, in February 2020, explains this tendency of liberals to move toward the radical Left:“George Orwell noted the nervousness of people on the left when confronted by those even further to the left. This nervousness stems from leftists’ fear that they will be taken for impure in their own leftism, that their thought and actions don’t go far enough, that they are, finally, not really on the bus. In America during the 1930s, Communists mocked liberals for their weakness, and liberals worried about not measuring up. Hence the phenomenon of the ‘fellow traveler,’ someone who sympathized with the Communist Party but couldn’t bring himself to join it.”Ever apologetic, concentrating on the Nation’s past sins rather than extolling its virtues, feigning remorse for purported transgressions, these liberals are drawn to and allow themselves to be led by radical Left extremists. And so it is that Americans see Democrat politicians drawn inexorably closer to Radical Left extremism, shaped and molded by their dangerous philosophy. And many liberals, who consider themselves well-cultured and well-educated, jump, unthinkingly, on board the bandwagon; and, just as unthinkingly, dare to drag the rest of us, by rope—together with our Nation's Constitution, and our Nation's Flag, and our free Constitutional Republic—along with them on the ground behind them, leaving us all scraped and battered, in tatters and in ruin.______________________________________________________

AMERICANS MUST NOT GROW TOLERANT OF CORRUPTION AND INCOMPETENCE OF RADICAL LEFT POLITICIANS

CAN ANYTHING BE DONE TO STOP AND REVERSE AMERICA’S INEXORABLE MARCH TO DESTRUCTION?

It is much too late for many liberals who have, with exuberance, jumped on the Radical Left bandwagon. They are lost and beyond redemption. But other Americans who countenance themselves as political and social liberals, yet do not accept the excesses of the Radical Left, must rid themselves of the illusion that, were Biden to be voted into Office, America will return to normalcy and that the Radical Left agenda will be cast aside.The fact of the matter is that the electorate voted Trump into Office precisely because it understood that twenty years of Clinton, Bush, and Obama had slowly pushed the Nation dangerously toward the abyss of Radical Left Marxism. The Trump Presidency—far from moving us toward fascism—was actually a move toward normalcy: a return to our Nation’s sacred roots and to Republicanism. This is something liberals refuse to acknowledge. And, so, they feel that a course correction is necessary: a return to normalcy, when it was Trump who was returning America to normalcy. Liberals fail that a Biden-Harris (or, more likely, a Harris-Biden) Presidency is turning us back toward the trajectory that marks our doom; a jump off the cliff; driving a free Constitutional Republic head over heels into Radical Communism.

WHAT CAN AMERICANS DO TO CONSTRAIN AND REVERSE THE TENDENCY OF OUR NATION TOWARD COMMUNISM?

At the National level, Biden and Harris must be defeated in the coming election. At the State and local levels, Americans must get rid of Radical Left politicians, either through recall efforts, if that mechanism is available, or through Court action, if not.The Arbalest Quarrel has already explained the vehicle for holding New York politicians accountable.Recall efforts are not possible as the State Constitution and State Statutes do not provide for that. But State law does provide a mechanism for dealing with recalcitrant Mayors and Governors. We wrote about this in a comprehensive article posted on our website on August 22, 2020.  Ammoland Shooting Sports News reposted our article on its site, on September 3, 2020.Whether a lawsuits against Mayor de Blasio  for incompetence in Office is successful or not is beside the point. The important point of a lawsuit against these horrible politicians is to demonstrate that Radical Left politicians are not above the law. Clearly, a lawsuit against de Blasio would come as a shock to the Radical Left, just as defeat of Biden, on the National level, would shock the Liberal Left and the Radical Left, as occurred back in 2016 with the defeat of the corrupt Hillary Clinton.Similarly, New Yorkers should bring suit against Governor Cuomo. A specific charge of incompetence can be reasonably lodged against Cuomo for his responsibility in the mishandling of the Chinese Coronavirus, specifically apropos of his directives concerning New York’s nursing homes.The website KHN says Cuomo’s complicity in the deaths of thousands of frail senior citizens isn’t clear-cut. Still, Cuomo isn’t given a pass:“As the virus tore through nursing homes, killing dozens at some of them, Cuomo came under withering censure. His administration’s policy, implemented with an eye toward freeing up hospital beds for an onslaught of COVID patients, seemed to disregard the risks to frail and elderly nursing home residents who were especially vulnerable to the disease.According to the COVID Tracking Project, 6,624 people have died of COVID-19 in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities in New York, accounting for 26% of the state’s 25,275 COVID deaths. Some say the true number of deaths is much higher because, unlike many states, New York does not count the deaths of former nursing home residents who are transferred to hospitals and die there as nursing home deaths.Cuomo’s explanation for the policy — that he was simply following guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — didn’t cut it. A recent PolitiFact piece examining his claim rated it ‘Mostly False.’In May, the governor amended the March order, prohibiting hospitals from discharging patients to nursing homes unless they tested negative for COVID-19.A Misguided ApproachIn the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when New York was the epicenter and more than a thousand people were being hospitalized daily, there was a genuine fear that hospitals would not be able to accommodate the influx of desperately ill patients.Moving people out of the hospitals and into nursing homes was one strategy to help hospitals meet these needs.According to the CDC guidance cited in the earlier PolitiFact story, there were two factors to consider when deciding whether to discharge a patient with COVID-19 to a long-term care facility: whether the patient was medically ready, and whether the facility could implement the recommended infection-control procedures to safely care for a patient recovering from the virus.A document from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said nursing homes should accept only patients they were able to care for.Long-standing state guidance is based on the same condition.Still, nursing homes didn’t believe turning away patients with COVID-19 was an option.‘On its face, it looked like a requirement,’ said Christopher Laxton, executive director of the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine, which represents medical professionals in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. ‘The nursing homes we spoke to felt it was a mandate, and a number of them felt they had no choice but to take COVID patients.’” Cuomo certainly has some explaining to do. The AP writes,“New York’s coronavirus death toll in nursing homes, already among the highest in the nation, could actually be a significant undercount. Unlike every other state with major outbreaks, New York only counts residents who died on nursing home property and not those who were transported to hospitals and died there.That statistic could add thousands to the state’s official care home death toll of just over 6,600. But so far the administration of Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has refused to divulge the number, leading to speculation the state is manipulating the figures to make it appear it is doing better than other states and to make a tragic situation less dire.”Enough facts to support a claim of incompetence, sufficient to remove Cuomo from Office. At the very least a lawsuit will demonstrate to the Radical Left that their leaders aren’t above the law.As the public awaits the results of the Durham probe that would hopefully lead to indictments of high-level functionaries in the Federal Government, Americans should not be remiss in bringing suit against local and State politicians who deserve a day of reckoning, themselves.Americans have been much too passive and accepting of Radical Left criminal conduct. If the Republic is to weather the storm of internal disruption and ultimate dissolution, Americans must take a stand. Now is the time. Tomorrow will be much too late for that.We stand to lose everything of consequence, everything Americans down through the ages fought to protect and preserve: the right of armed self-defense, and the ability to prevent the intrusion of tyranny through the existence of an armed citizenry; the right to speak one’s mind without fear of censor and retribution; our history, traditions, and core Judeo-Christian values. We are at risk of losing our Nation’s very Soul.Our Nation is on a cusp. We, as a Nation, can either keep our sanity which requires maintaining the course correction that President Trump has set for us these past four years. Or we, as a Nation, can lose our grip on sanity by adopting the trajectory that Biden, Harris, and the Radical Left have set for us.We can either preserve a free Constitutional Republic and an independent Nation-State or we can enter uncharted waters—one that bodes ill for us: the loss of our free Republic and the disintegration of our Nation-State. Americans can have one future or the other. In a few short weeks we will know which future that shall be._____________________________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.  

TRUMP EXPECTED TO QUICKLY NOMINATE AND THE SENATE TO QUICKLY CONFIRM NEW SCOTUS JUSTICE

RADICAL LEFT DEMOCRATS AND MARXISTS IN PANIC MODE

Note to our readers: This is substantive update, September 24, 2020, of article posted on September 22, 2020.“ ‘As worrisome as this conservative court is for progressives right now, it can get a whole lot worse if Trump gets the chance to nominate another justice,’ said Brian Fallon, the head of Demand Justice, a liberal group. ‘Justice Ginsburg’s resilience is utterly remarkable, but hoping for her continued good health is not a sufficient strategy for Democrats. We need to rally around the Supreme Court as an issue and win this election.’”Demand Justice, in concert with several other leading liberal groups, recently began a $2 million advertising campaign in key presidential election states trying to persuade voters that the direction of the court will be set for decades in the coming election.” Citation from a New York Times article, published on July 17, 2020, titled, “Ginsburg Says Her Cancer Has Returned, but She’s ‘Fully Able’ to Remain on Court.”  

JUSTICE GINSBURG'S DEATH, SEVERAL WEEKS BEFORE THE MOST IMPORTANT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN OVER ONE HUNDRED YEARS, IS AT ONCE TRAGIC AND PROPITIOUS BUT SHOULD COME AS A SURPRISE TO NO ONE

A BIT OF RECENT HISTORY CONCERNING THE LATE JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG

Back in May 2020, the Leftist weblog Politico reported on activist Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dire health and what it would mean if anything untoward happened to her before the General election in November:“Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s hospitalization this week and the looming end of the Supreme Court’s term raise the prospect of yet another prized vacancy for President Donald Trump. And if there is a surprise opening or retirement in the months before the presidential election, GOP senators plan to act on it, despite denying President Barack Obama a Supreme Court seat in an election year.Republicans say they wish Ginsburg a swift recovery and have no inside knowledge of a retirement but are prepared to move if a vacancy presents itself.So in what’s already been the most consequential year for politics in a generation, with a presidential impeachment and a rampaging pandemic, Capitol Hill could get significantly crazier.‘If you thought the Kavanaugh hearing was contentious this would probably be that on steroids,’ said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). ‘Nevertheless, if the president makes a nomination then it’s our responsibility to take it up.’In 2016, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said voters should decide in the election which president should choose the next Supreme Court justice because the Senate and White House were controlled by different parties. And in the Trump era, he’s repeatedly asserted that he would fill a vacancy in 2020.McConnell and his allies argue the situation is different because Republicans control both the White House and the Senate. They say that makes the situation far different than when Obama was president and McConnell refused to even hold a hearing for Merrick Garland.Democrats acknowledge they could get run over in the next eight months. Supreme Court nominees can now be confirmed by a bare majority after McConnell changed the rules in 2017 to overcome a Democratic filibuster of Neil Gorsuch, Antonin Scalia’s successor.”Subsequently, in July of 2020, the public learned that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had been battling aggressive cancer for years, had a flare-up. CNBC reported,“ ‘Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was admitted to the hospital early Tuesday morning,’ the Supreme Court said. ‘She is being treated for a possible infection.‘The Justice is resting comfortably and will stay in the hospital for a few days to receive intravenous antibiotic treatment,’ said court spokesperson Kathleen Arberg in a statement Tuesday. . . .’ Ginsburg has survived colon cancer in 1999 and pancreatic cancer 10 years after that. She was treated for a tumor on her pancreas in August 2019. And in December 2018, she had two cancerous nodules removed from her lungs.”  Recall that, in January, 2020 Ginsburg announced, as reported in health line, referring to an interview she gave to CNN, that she is “cancer-free.” Eight months later Ruth Bader Ginsburg was dead,* as reported by numerous news sources. And, with the death of Justice Ginsburg, one and a half months before the most important U.S. Presidential election in recent decades—and conceivably the most important election since the founding of the Nation—the worst fears of the malevolent, malignant, ruthless, powerful, immoral, repressive forces both here and abroad that seek to upend our independent sovereign Nation and a free Constitutional Republic have come to fruition.In the next several days Trump will nominate Ginsburg’s replacement—his third nomination since he took Office. That he will do so isn’t guesswork. It's a foregone conclusion. It is also a foregone conclusion that, whatever the Democrat Party leadership and Administrative State saboteurs and Radical Left George Soros financed destructors of our Nation have concocted to disrupt and waylay confirmation of Trump’s nominee—and have no doubt, they had made contingency plans in the event of Ginsburg’s death prior to the November election—there isn’t a damn thing these Anti-Constitutional, Anti-American forces can lawfully do to prevent a confirmation hearing and vote on Trump’s nominee, other than do what they have been doing for months: rioting, looting, ransacking, firebombing, threatening the populace, and destroying, killing, and maiming. And, there will be a backlash; no doubt about it. The public has had more than enough of this dangerous nonsense, and will not be placated by claims that all will be well once the senile Biden and the crass opportunist, Harris, take control of the Executive Branch of Government. Extortion doesn't work against Americans. It doesn't sit well in the American psyche or in their blood.

WHY GETTING A STRICT CONSTITUTIONALIST ON THE  U.S. SUPREME COURT BEFORE THE NOVEMBER 3, 2020 ELECTION IS CRITICAL

Unless the election results in a landslide for Donald Trump or for the Democrat Party nominee, Joe Biden, assuming Biden doesn't suffer a stroke or other health-related calamity at the Eleventh Hour, in which case Harris will step in as Biden's replacement, the coming U.S. Presidential  election will be contested. That isn't mere conjecture. It is certain.In fact, even if President Trump does win the election by a landslide, the American public can expect Democrats will contest the election results anyway. The obnoxious, repugnant, disgruntled, arrogant, smug Democrat Party nominee for U.S. President in 2016, Hillary Clinton—ever harboring a personal grudge against Donald Trump for dashing her hopes to be the first female U.S. President, a thing she literally lusted over—made that point quite recently, as reported by several news sources. Fox News, for one, reported that,

“Hillary Clinton issued a warning for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in a new interview released Tuesday, urging the former vice president to not concede defeat on the night of the Nov. 3 election — no matter the circumstances.

“Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances,’ Clinton said. ‘Because I think this is going to drag out, and eventually, I do believe he will win, if we don't give an inch and if we are as focused and relentless as the other side is.’” But, by the same token, President Trump, should not concede the election results either. His loss of the U.S. Presidency, and the loss of the U.S. Senate in November, will mark the end of a Free Constitutional Republic; will doom the Nation's Bill of Rights, will doom the sovereignty of the American citizenry, and will result in the inexorable loss of an independent Nation State.But make no mistake, the ruthless, rapacious, scheming internationalist Marxists and Billionaire Neoliberal transnationalist elites, both here and abroad, through their well-positioned puppet, the Democrat Party Leadership—have pulled out all the stops to take over the Executive Branch along with the U.S. Senate. The Billionaire Globalist elites, including ex-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the secretive, mysterious, pathological Billionaire George Soros, have spent tens of millions of dollars, and continue to spend untold millions of dollars, to buy this election. Their intention is clear: a return to the Globalist agenda, one commenced decades ago—and one that has gathered steam ever since through the administrations of Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush (George Senior), George W. Bush (George Junior), and Barack Obama—an agenda that came to an abrupt, screeching halt, with the surprising election of a Populist, Donald Trump, to the Office of U.S. President in 2016. For Globalists who have championed the continued erosion of the very concept of independent, sovereign nation-states, the worst thing imaginable for them would be the election of a man who supports strengthening the U.S. as an independent, sovereign Nation-State; who supports the wresting of control of foreign and domestic policy-making from unelected bureaucrats; who has worked tirelessly to halt the erosion of our Civil liberties and fundamental, immutable, illimitable, natural rights; who has emphasized the singular importance of our Nation's Judeo-Christian ethics; who seeks to preserve the foundational juridical, cultural, historical and economic precepts of our Nation, and the sanctity of the Individual soul over recent Collectivist impulses that have denigrated individual thought and expression and that have sought to sow disharmony and dissension throughout America; a man who cherishes our sacred National symbols, and who seeks to preserve and protect them from those scurrilous elements that denigrate them and discourage their continued use; a Nation's leader who demonstrates his singular love and devotion and duty first and foremost to our Nation, to our Nation's Constitution, and to our Nation's people.All that President Trump has accomplished and has sought further to accomplish to benefit our Nation and our people that are encapsulated in his campaign slogans, “Make America Great,” and “Keep America Great”—slogans that are routinely treated like obscenities by the disloyal Marxists and neoliberal transnationalist elites—will likely be lost forever, if Trump loses the U.S. Presidency and if Republicans lose control of the U.S. Senate, in November. In the immediate aftermath of a Trump loss, this Country may very well devolve into Civil War—a clash between Americans who seek to retain the Nation's culture, history, legal, social, political, religious, and economic precepts, consistent with and as embodied both literally and tacitly in our Nation's enduring Constitution, and those Anti-American forces both here and abroad that seek to erase all of it.Ultimately, this election will likely be decided—must needs be decided—in the U.S. Supreme Court. A fair assessment of the General Election results will require fair and impartial U.S. Supreme Court Justices. The public may anticipate a fair assessment from Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and from President Trump's new nominee, once confirmed—certainly someone who fervently respects our Constitution as written, and whose loyalty and interest exists in preserving our Nation's Constitutional foundational framework. Americans may not likely expect a fair assessment of the General Election results from the liberal-wing of the Court, as their goal is to rewrite the U.S. Constitution as the liberal-wing, having taken its cue from their late leader, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, does not perceive the U.S. Constitution as a document beyond reproach, but something that can and should be tinkered with, thereby acknowledging less than a firm conviction in the sanctity and inviolability and immutability of our Nation's Constitution.Recall the late Associate Justice's words in a 2012  2012 interview with Egypt’s Al Hayat TV,  as reported by Real Clear: “ ‘You [referring to the Post-Mubarak Egyptian Government that was looking to the U.S. Constitution as a possible framework for its Nation's governance] should certainly be aided by all the constitution-writing that has gone one since the end of World War II. I would not look to the US constitution, if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012. I might look at the constitution of South Africa. That was a deliberate attempt to have a fundamental instrument of government that embraced basic human rights, had an independent judiciary. . . . It really is, I think, a great piece of work that was done. Much more recent than the US constitution - Canada has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It dates from 1982. You would almost certainly look at the European Convention on Human Rights. Yes, why not take advantage of what there is elsewhere in the world?,’  Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in an interview with Al Hayat TV in Egypt. ’ ” One might well have asked Justice Ginsburg, how human rights are to be guaranteed from the tyranny of Government, the inevitable danger of which our Nation's founders knew first-hand, in the absence of a well-armed citizenry?So, then, as the late Justice Ginsburg obviously emulated and found the Constitution of South Africa superior to ours, the incongruity of her remarks emerges eight years later as a manifestation of unholy and horrific, crushing events transpiring in America today—courtesy of rabid Marxists, whose brutal and incessant rioting and mayhem are all lovingly financed by Billionaire Neoliberal Globalists, like the cold-blooded, cold-hearted George Soros. Since these Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists see the foundational tenets of a free Constitutional Republic incompatible with their goal of a one-world social, political, economic, cultural, and juridical scheme, they intend to cut the legs out from under the Constitution that the framers fashioned and concoct a completely new fabric upon which to dress up the vestiges of the United States that they deign, perhaps, to keep.The integrity of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election is disturbingly very much in doubt, given the recent vote-buying antics of Michael Bloomberg and widespread vote-tampering possible through the vehicle of vote-harvesting fraud among other instances of election fraud, all likely to be compounded exponentially through the mechanism of millions of unverified mail-in votes. Even Progressive National Public Radio, NPR, has acknowledged that an extraordinarily high number, 550,000 mail-in votes have already been rejected so far, even as NPR chooses to discount the significance of that fact. It cannot be reasonably denied that ruthless Marxist and Neoliberal Globalist forces are determined to prevent Donald Trump from serving a second term in Office. It is, therefore imperative that President Trump do everything in his power to ensure the integrity of the upcoming election. Sitting a Ninth U.S. Supreme Court Justice on the Bench, prior to and not subsequent to the election, will definitely help to ensure a fair election, as a majority decision, whether 9-0 (most improbable) or 5-4 (most likely) will decide whom the public will see as U.S. President on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2021.Without an odd number of U.S. Supreme Court Justices serving on the Bench on the day of the election, the High Court will likely not be able to decide the election when the issue of who actually won the election comes to the High Court, which it will, if the election is a contested one, as it most likely will be, unless Americans witness a landslide for one Party candidate or the other. A 4-4 result will get us nowhere, and may lead to all out civil war, as each side claims victory. We anticipate that, once Trump has made his selection, Lindsey Graham, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee will quickly convene and vote to send Trump’s nominee to the full Senate for a confirmation hearing. We anticipate that the Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, will run the confirmation hearing expeditiously and, with a Senate Republican Majority, the Senate will confirm Trump’s nominee  posthaste. Those Senate Republicans who vote against confirmation of Trump’s nominee to sit on the High Court be damned!_____________________________________________

AMY CONEY BARRETT: A PROVEN PRO-SECOND AMENDMENT JURIST

BOTH PRO 2A AND PRO-LIFE, JUDGE BARRETT WOULD STRENGTHEN OUR BILL OF RIGHTS, PRESERVE OUR FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC, AND KEEP AMERICA GREAT

The seditious Press has devoted substantial time analyzing and ruminating on Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court list of potential candidates and will continue to do so up to the point of his selecting someone.Almost certainly, Trump will nominate a woman to replace the late vexatious liberal-wing Associate Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And, that nomination is imminent.The current consensus is that Amy Coney Barrett, who presently serves as a Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, will be that person, as she is the front-runner.Judge Barrett is young, personable, and extremely bright. When analyzing and deciding cases, Judge Barrett applies the methodology of the late eminent Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom she clerked after graduating from Notre Dame Law School, fist in her class, Summa Cum Laude.President Trump nominated Barrett, on May 8, 2017, to serve as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.Consistent with the methodology employed by the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, her brilliant mentor, Judge Barrett construes the Constitution in strict accordance with its original meaning. In that respect Barrett is Ginsburg’s polar opposite.Justice Ginsburg, unlike Judge Barrett, unabashedly and unashamedly interposed her own personal predilections into case analysis. Those predilections invariably informed her decisions, eroding the fundamental rights and liberties upon which a free Constitutional Republic and a sovereign people rest.The attacks against Barrett coming from the Radical Left seditious Press have just started. Indeed, they have been ongoing for some time.The seditious Press has constantly slammed Barrett’s stance on abortion. That remains its main concern and that, too, of the Radical Left. They haven't attacked her yet on her jurisprudential approach to deciding Second Amendment cases, but that is almost certainly coming. The Arbalest Quarrel has wondered about that: What is Barrett’s stance on the Second Amendment? Fortunately, we have more than a mere clue, we have verified proof of her position, and that proof is consistent with her jurisprudential, methodological approach to case analysis. Judge Barrett is a firm Constitutional originalist and textualist, in the mold of her mentor, the late eminent Associate Justice, Antonin Scalia.A fairly recent Second Amendment case, Kanter vs. Barr, 919 F.3d 437 (7th Cir. 2019), in which Judge Barrett took part, provides us with a definitive answer.The Plaintiff in Kanter had pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud, a non-violent crime.“Due to his felony conviction, he is prohibited from possessing a firearm under both federal and Wisconsin law. At issue in this case is whether the felon dispossession statutes—18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) and Wis. Stat. § 941.29(1m)—violate the Second Amendment as applied to Kanter.” Upon his release from Prison, and payment of restitution, Plaintiff applied to the Attorney General for relief from disability so that he could exercise his Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.The 7th Circuit Court Majority pointed out that, “. . . the Attorney General may remove the prohibition on a case-by-case basis if an applicant sufficiently establishes ‘that the circumstances regarding the disability, and the applicant's record and reputation, are such that the applicant will not be likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety and that the granting of the relief would not be contrary to the public interest.’” The particulars of Kanter’s felony conviction, as set forth by the Court Majority that decided against Kanter, are as follows:“On May 24, 2011, Kanter pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1341 based on a shipment of the noncompliant inserts to a podiatrist in Florida. Section 1341 carries a maximum penalty of twenty years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Kanter was sentenced to one year and one day in prison and two years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay a criminal penalty of $50,000, and he reimbursed Medicare over $27 million in a related civil settlement. On May 24, 2011, Kanter pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1341 based on a shipment of the noncompliant inserts to a podiatrist in Florida. Section 1341 carries a maximum penalty of twenty years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Kanter was sentenced to one year and one day in prison and two years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay a criminal penalty of $50,000, and he reimbursed Medicare over $27 million in a related civil settlement.Kanter has since served his time and paid his criminal penalty, and he has not been charged with any additional criminal activity. However, because of his felony conviction, he is permanently prohibited from owning a firearm under federal and Wisconsin law.Kanter has since served his time and paid his criminal penalty, and he has not been charged with any additional criminal activity. However, because of his felony conviction, he is permanently prohibited from owning a firearm under federal and Wisconsin law.”The Constitutionality of the Wisconsin law was placed squarely in question. The lower District Court found against the Plaintiff because of his felony conviction and irrespective of the fact that he had served out his sentence and paid full restitution.Two of three of the Appellate Court Judges, the majority, who ruled against the Plaintiff Petitioner, Kanter, framed the issue as a question whether individuals who have been convicted of non-violent felonies, no less than those who have been convicted of violent felonies, fall within a class of individuals who can never enjoy their Second Amendment right to own and possess firearms.Why the Court majority framed the issue in this way is perplexing since the majority never bothered to formulate an answer to it or a resolution of it. This suggests that the Court had tacitly accepted as a given that citizens should never, can never, be absolved of their past misdeeds, regardless of the nature of their crimes, grounded, therefor, on the mere assumption that a convicted felon can never and must never be perceived as rehabilitated or capable of rehabilitation, at least, as to matters apropos of the Second Amendment, namely, matters pertaining to firearms ownership and possession. The Majority, thereupon concludes that felons remain, forever, a threat to public safety.Having tacitly decided that the Plaintiff Petitioner cannot lawfully own and possess firearms even though, as the Court Majority was compelled to acknowledge, Kanter had paid his full debt to society, the Court pretended to employ a balancing test as between non-violent convicted felons who had paid their debt to society and who subsequently wish to exercise the unalienable right of the people to keep and bear arms, on the one hand, and the State’s  desire to promote public safety by keeping guns from the hands of Americans whom the State deems to be—by the very fact of a prior felony conviction—violent felony or non-violent felony notwithstanding—a perpetual threat to society, essentially, then, wholly beyond redemption, at least in the eyes of the Court.Applying that bald, unsupported assumption to Kanter, the Court said, “Categorical prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons are ‘presumptively lawful,’ even in disqualifying nonviolent felons like Kanter.” The Court thereupon determined that the government had met its burden in denying Kanter the right to own and possess firearms, even though the government really had not, asserting, nonetheless, that the government has shown that prohibiting even nonviolent felons like the Plaintiff Petitioner, Kanter from possessing firearms, is substantially related to its interest in preventing gun violence. The reader should note that the expression, ‘substantially related to an important Government purpose,’ is a court created intermediate scrutiny means balancing test. The Heller Court, in 2008, had considered the tenability of means balancing of interests between a fundamental right a person's interest in exercising a fundamental right, and the State's interest in precluding a person from exercising that fundamental  right on the basis of some presumed State desire to protect theHow so? The Court majority didn’t say. Obviously the Court Majority didn’t care. The Majority simply determined before the fact that a man convicted of a violent crime can never be permitted to exercise the fundamental right to keep and bear arms, after the fact and the Court constructed its argument to cohere with its predetermined decision.The dissenting Judge, Amy Barrett, though, did care. She began her dissent with the following perceptive remarks, which demonstrate her erudition, laser-like legal and logical reasoning, and profound respect for the fundamental, natural, immutable, illimitable, unalienable right of the people to keep and bear arms:“History is consistent with common sense: it demonstrates that legislatures have the power to prohibit dangerous people from possessing guns. But that power extends only to people who are dangerous. Founding-era legislatures did not strip felons of the right to bear arms simply because of their status as felons. Nor have the parties introduced any evidence that founding-era legislature imposed virtue-based restrictions on the right; such restrictions applied to civic rights like voting and jury service, not to individual rights like the right to possess a gun. In 1791—and for well more than a century afterward—legislatures disqualified categories of people from the right to bear arms only when they judged that doing so was necessary to protect the public safety.” Judge Barrett added that Federal law and Wisconsin State Statute “would stand on solid footing if their categorical bans were tailored to serve the governments' undeniably compelling interest in protecting the public from gun violence. But their dispossession of all felons—both violent and nonviolent—is unconstitutional as applied to Kanter, who was convicted of mail fraud for falsely representing that his company's therapeutic shoe inserts were Medicare-approved and billing Medicare accordingly. Neither Wisconsin nor the United States has introduced data sufficient to show that disarming all nonviolent felons substantially advances its interest in keeping the public safe. Nor have they otherwise demonstrated that Kanter himself shows a proclivity for violence. Absent evidence that he either belongs to a dangerous category or bears individual markers of risk, permanently disqualifying Kanter from possessing a gun violates the Second Amendment. . . .At this point, however, neither Wisconsin nor the United States has presented any evidence that Kanter would be dangerous if armed. Instead, as the majority notes, ‘Kanter is a first-time, non-violent offender with no history of violence, firearm misuses, or subsequent convictions,’ and he is ‘employed, married, and does not use illicit drugs, all of which correspond with lower rates of recidivism.’”In her concluding remarks, Judge Barrett, citing the seminal Second Amendment Heller case, made the pertinent points that,“If the Second Amendment were subject to a virtue limitation, there would be no need for the government to produce—or for the court to assess—evidence that nonviolent felons have a propensity for dangerous behavior. But Heller forecloses the ‘civic right’ argument on which a virtue limitation depends. And while both Wisconsin and the United States have an unquestionably strong interest in protecting the public from gun violence, they have failed to show, by either logic or data, that disarming Kanter substantially advances that interest. On this record, holding that the ban is constitutional as applied to Kanter does not ‘put the government through its paces,’ but instead treats the Second Amendment as a ‘second-class right’ [a point articulated by Associate Justice Clarence Thomas] subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees. I therefore dissent.” Incidentally, in her dissent, Judge Barrett cited, with approval, to Judge Thomas Hardiman's Second Amendment analysis in the oft cited Second Amendment case, Binderup v. AG of United States, 836 F.3d 336, 357 (3d Cir. 2016) (en banc) (Hardiman, J., concurring in part and concurring in the judgments). Judge Hardiman is at present a U.S. Appellate Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Judge Hardiman is also on President Trump’s short list to sit on the High Court, as he was when President Trump ultimately decided to go with Judge Neil Gorsuch, in 2016, just weeks into President Trump's first term in Office. Judge Hardiman was the first runner-up. President Trump recognizes the importance of the U.S. Supreme Court in preserving the structure of our Nation in the form the founders conceived for it. Nominating a jurist to sit on the High Court was one of President Trump's first acts as President, and one that he had promised the electorate; a promise he kept. As a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, Judge Hardiman would, as with Judge Barrett, make an outstanding Justice, and he would be the ideal replacement for Associate Justice Stephen Breyer, a Bill Clinton nominee, who is 82 years old, the oldest Justice on the Court, in the event that President Trump nominates Judge Barrett to take the seat on the High Court, vacated by Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, upon the Associate Justice's recent death.Both Judge Hardiman and Judge Barrett utilize the jurisprudential methodology of the late Associate Justice Antonin Scalia when analyzing and deciding cases, and they share the same reverence for the U.S. Constitution and for the Bill of Rights, as conceived by the framers of the Constitution.Of course, the Radical Left Democrats and other Soros funded Marxists don’t give a damn about fundamental rights or logic. They are inherently nihilistic, stubborn, irascible, irrational, obtuse, smugly self-righteous, and abjectly hateful. And they have other plans for our Nation, for our Nation's Constitution, and for our Nation's citizenry. And, in the near future, their aim is to do their damnedest to thwart confirmation of any further Trump nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court followed by attempts, by hook or by crook to defeat a Trump victory in November. If successful in that endeavor, they plan to resurrect Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the form of another liberal-wing activist jurist—perhaps, Merrick Garland, whom Barack Obama sought to sit on the High Court to replace Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, after the late Associate Justice's untimely and mysterious death. The Radical Left Marxists feel cheated out of the appointment of a liberal-wing activist jurist to the High Court. They feel disgruntled on two scores: the first, because Hillary Clinton failed to secure the U.S. Presidency, and, the second, because, as a result of her defeat, she could not nominate a liberal-wing successor to the High Court to replace the seat vacated by Justice Scalia after his death—a death, by the way, that has never been adequately explained—which should anger all Americans. Concerning Judge Garland, the Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively about the danger  Garland poses to the preservation of the Second Amendment and to a free Republic.Judge Garland has demonstrated nothing but contempt for the Second Amendment. The danger he poses to our fundamental right to keep and bear arms is so obvious and so egregious that we felt the need to write to Senator Grassley, who, at the time, was Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. We argued strenuously against voting for a confirmation hearing for Judge Garland, lest a vote by the full Senate serve to confirm him. Fortunately, there was no Hearing. See our open letter to Senator Grassley, posted on April 26, 2016.The Democrats were so incensed at the perceived rebuff by Senate Republicans that they scheduled their own pseudo-hearing, ostensibly to demonstrate their anger toward and disdain for Republicans failure to schedule a confirmation hearing for Judge Garland. Senator Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat Party member of the Senate Judiciary Committee presided over the pseudo-hearing that, while doing much, perhaps, to highlight Judge Garland's ostensibly finer qualities, namely his extensive experience as a judge, his intellectual acumen, and his judicial and personal temperament, did nothing to expose the serious flaws in Judge Garland's juridical, jurisprudential, and philosophical approach to the law, the latter of which are equally important for that person who would serve on the Highest Court in the Land. Those severe failings make abundantly clear that, however well-suited Merrick Garland might be to preside as a U.S. Circuit Court judge, the impact of his rulings on the fundamental rights of the American people, namely and particularly, on Second Amendment matters, through which the very sovereignty of the American people over Government is secured, would be in jeopardy, thereby endangering the continued survival of a free Constitutional Republic, as envisioned by the founders of our Nation. Politico reported, back in May of 2016:“Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland won’t be appearing before senators anytime soon for his confirmation hearing. So Senate Democrats are trying for the next best thing.Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee will host a forum Wednesday featuring former top legal and government officials who know Garland personally and who will testify on behalf of the veteran jurist’s legal acumen and personal character.Among the names who’ll appear at the event: Abner Mikva, the former Democratic congressman and Clinton White House counsel who, like Garland, served as the chief judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.‘The public discussion we are convening this week allows senators, the press, and the public to learn more about this highly qualified nominee and the importance of a fully functioning Supreme Court,” said Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, who will formally announce the event later Monday. “I hope all senators will join us for this public meeting.’ ” They didn't. And Senator Leahy and those Democrats that appeared for the “forum” (really a mock-hearing that Senator Leahy refused to countenance as a mock hearing) only succeeded in making utter fools of themselves. Democrats and their Marxist and neoliberal Globalist fellow travelers continue to lash out like petulant children. They have unleashed and continue to unleash incessant unprovoked, senseless chaos on President Trump, on the American people, and on our Nation. They have pointedly said that they intend to tear down the Nation if they don't get their way. But, then, they intend to tear down the Nation, if they do get their way, anyway, So, then, what's the point of their threat? Let them continue to make jackasses of themselves. Once Trump emerges victorious in November, he will take appropriate action against those elements in society that have made clear their intention to tear our Nation down. That isn't going to happen.U.S. Senate Republicans now have an opportunity to set matters right and, in doing so, render, as well, something in the way of a little payback, which will undoubtedly result in yet more churlish, childish, clownish antics and unseemly behavior.But, nothing the Radical Left Democrats and their mob of malcontents drum up will prevent President Trump from naming a jurist to sit on the High Court seat vacated by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, upon her death; and nothing these Radical Left Democrats and their rabid, horde of troublemakers orchestrate to hamper the confirmation process will prevent Republicans from accomplishing their goal, thereby securing a free Constitutional Republic and preserving our Nation's fundamental rights and liberties for generations of Americans to come.The Arbalest Quarrel encourages President Trump to nominate Amy Coney Barrett, or, in the alternative, to nominate Judge Thomas Hardiman, as a replacement for the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, to sit on the high Court. And we encourage Senators Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell to speed the confirmation process through to completion before the coming momentous U.S. Presidential election.And——Woe to those Senate Republicans who fail to vote for confirmation of Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.___________________________*Months ago, when word came down that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had suffered a recurrence of her pancreatic cancer, first diagnosed eleven years ago, the Arbalest Quarrel was skeptical of news accounts suggesting that Justice Ginsburg’s cancer was under control.We therefore were not taken off guard when we heard that Ginsburg was readmitted to a hospital in July.NPR reported that “Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is back in the hospital, this time to treat a possible infection. She spiked a fever Monday night, according to a press release from the Supreme Court, and on Tuesday underwent an endoscopic procedure to clean out a bile duct stent that was inserted in August [2019?] The procedure was done at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore after Ginsburg was first evaluated at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. . . . According to a press release from the court's press officer, the justice is ‘resting comfortably and will stay in the hospital for a few days to receive intravenous antibiotic treatment.’It marks the second time Ginsburg has been hospitalized recently. In May, the justice underwent nonsurgical treatment for a benign gallbladder condition at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and she participated in oral arguments from her hospital bed.”On July 30, 2020, the New York Post reported that Ginsburg revealed “she was undergoing chemotherapy for a recurrence of cancer –but insisted she had no plans to retire,” reiterating the point made, as reported in The New York Times, on July 17, 2020: “Justice Ginsburg was typically optimistic in her statement. ‘I have often said I would remain a member of the court as long as I can do the job full steam,’ she said. ‘I remain fully able to do that.’”  In that article, The New York Times pointed to Ginsburg’s Doctors who said that Ginsburg was doing remarkably well, even as they admitted she had advanced pancreatic cancer.Like Chief Justice Rehnquist, Ginsburg refused to step down from the Bench even as Democrats encouraged her to do so. If Democrats are up in arms over the decision of President Trump to nominate a successor to the late Associate Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and if they are in a blood-thirsty rage over Senate Republicans intent to hold a confirmation hearing on that nomination, prior to the U.S. Presidential election, they should blame both fate and themselves for the turn of events, and blame, no less, the late Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, herself, as Justice Ginsburg must have had some understanding, eleven years ago, when Barack Obama was President, that her life expectancy was short, and that resigning at a time when Barack Obama could have named, as her successor, another Leftist activist Associate Justice to the High Court, several years before the next general election would have cemented liberal-wing control of the Court for generations, as the liberal-wing could count on Chief Justice Roberts to sit in their corner on many if not most cases that came before the Court. Certainly one Obama nominee or another would have been confirmed. That nominee, back in 2011, could very well have been Judge Merrick Garland, who had been sitting as a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 1995 when then President Bill Clinton nominated him to serve on the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Senate voted to confirm that nomination. The Democrats had, for several years, considered Judge Garland to be a strong contender for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. In fact, had he received a hearing by the full Senate, he would undoubtedly have been confirmed. Past U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch made that point crystal clear. Hatch, a Republican no less, hailing from Utah, said he supported Garland's confirmation, and would work to see that Garland was confirmed as an Associate Justice to sit on the High Court. Reuters reported, at the time, back in 2010, that,“A Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee said on Thursday he would help moderate jurist Merrick Garland win Senate confirmation if President Barack Obama nominated him to the U.S. Supreme Court.Senator Orrin Hatch said he had known the federal appeals court judge, seen as a leading contender for the Supreme Court, for years and that he would be ‘a consensus nominee.”Asked if Garland would win Senate confirmation with bipartisan support, Hatch told Reuters, ‘No question.’‘I have no doubts that Garland would get a lot of (Senate) votes. And I will do my best to help him get them,’  added Hatch, a former Judiciary Committee chairman. ’”That happenstance should not be lost on anyone who cherishes preservation of the Bill of Rights and the continuation of a Free Constitutional Republic. To prevent such a calamity is reason enough for Senator Grassley, who then presided over the Senate Judiciary Committee, and for Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, to prevent a confirmation hearing for Garland, as his nomination would endanger the Second Amendment. And if the Second Amendment fell, so, eventually, would fall all the other sacred Rights and Liberties of the American people, an apocalyptic eventuality. Just imagine the turnabout in the Heller case, if Garland had sat in Justice Scalia's seat on the High Court in 2008 when Heller was decided. Let there be no mistake, the Republican controlled U.S. Senate fulfilled its obligation under the Advice and Consent clause of Article 2, Section 2, Clause 2 of the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Senate did consider Barack Obama's nominee to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Merrick Garland, and thereupon advised the Obama that the Senate does not consent to confirmation. Judge Garland's methodological approach to case analysis, and his jurisprudential leanings make him ill-suited to sit on the High Court. And his experience as a jurist and intellect and legal acumen do not compensate for his errant philosophical bent; one wholly inconsistent with the tenets of Individualism upon which our Constitution rests. Moreover, the fact that the Senate's refusal to permit a confirmation hearing from taking place does not mean that the Senate failed to fulfill its Constitutional requirement of Advice and Consent. The Senate Majority, did fulfill its duty, in Committee. That a confirmation hearing before the full Senate, did not occur, is irrelevant. The decision of the Senate Republican Majority was in keeping with the Constitutional Advice and Consent requirement and consistent with the will of the electorate whom that Republican Majority represents.There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that expressly states or tacitly suggests that the Senate, in its entirety, must hold a confirmation hearing, as the full Senate establishes its own rules of conduct and the full Senate had previously declared the process through which the Advice and Consent requirement of Senate is to be fulfilled. That process is laid bare for all to see at the website law2.umkc.edu: “Judicial nominations are forwarded to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which conducts its own review (using its staff and those of its members) of the merits of the nominee.  Hearings are held in which the nominee, as well as other persons knowledgeable about the nominee's qualifications, offer statements and answer questions posed by Committee members.  After the hearing, the Judiciary Committee votes on whether to recommend confirmation of the nominee by the full Senate.  A nominee who fails to win a majority of Committee votes usually sees his prospects die, unless the Committee chooses to forward the nomination to the full Senate without recommendation. The full Senate, once a nomination is sent to it, will debate the merits of the nominee and schedule a final vote on confirmation.  On rare occasions, as happened when charges of sexual harassment surfaced at the last minute against Clarence Thomas, a nomination might be sent back to the Judiciary Committee for further hearings. A simple majority is required for confirmation.  The average time in recent decades between a presidential nomination of a Supreme Court justice and a final vote by the Senate has been a bit over two months.”So, let the Democrat leadership and Marxists and Transnationalists lament and bemoan their failure to destroy our free Constitutional Republic. The Good Lord Above has ordained our Nation, a free and independent and sovereign Nation, must continue to exist as such; that it should not suffer the fate of Marxist Dictatorships like Venezuela or Cuba, that have fallen into abject ruin, or the fate of such repressive Communist Dictatorships as China that keeps its population under strict surveillance and control, clamping down vigorously on any dissent.If the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg were truly concerned about securing liberal-wing control of the High Court, then she might have acted more pragmatically, voluntarily, if reluctantly, stepping down from the Court when Obama was President, rather than defiantly, stubbornly resisting resignation, perhaps presuming, wrongly, as so many had, that the Executive Branch would remain in Democrat hands; that a smooth transition from Obama to Hillary Clinton, would take place, and that a Democrat in the White House would be making nominations to the U.S. Supreme Court and to the lower federal courts. Ginsburg may have regretted having failed to step down, years earlier. CNN reports that, “Shortly before dying Friday, Ginsburg dictated a statement to her granddaughter: ‘My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.’ ”Perhaps Ginsburg did make that deathbed statement; perhaps not. In any event, that utterance, if, in fact, made, must remain, at best, as wish fulfillment, grounded, perhaps, in regret for failing to see that maybe, just maybe, Hillary Clinton would not succeed Barack Obama as U.S. President after all. And, the fact that Hillary Clinton failed to realize her ultimate ambition and the fact that Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists failed to realize their vision for a unified one-world system of governance, amount to an intolerable loss for them as that loss has made all the difference in the world that exists—a world where the United States, and many other independent, sovereign nation states that seek to remain so, have found reprieve—a world that Marxists and Neoliberal Globalists find intolerable and have made clear they will not abide.“The chief of staff to Vice President Pence on Sunday defended the administration's decision to ignore the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's deathbed request not to fill her seat until after the election, telling CNN that it was not Ginsburg's choice to make. ” The choice Ginsburg could have made and should have made if her intent was to maintain a liberal-wing activist majority or, at least, to maintain some semblance of ideological, jurisprudential, and methodological counter-balance to the conservative-wing, the latter of which is loath to tinker with the Constitution, was to resign, back in 2011, when she was first diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She dismissed out-of-hand any suggestion that she do so.Recall Steve Jobs death from pancreatic cancer on October 06, 2011. Steve Jobs was substantially younger that Ginsburg and therefore, presumably, stronger. No matter; he still died, after battling cancer for seven years. VOA News reported,“Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' death at the age of 56 followed a seven-year battle with a rare form of pancreatic cancer - the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. The disease is hard to treat because it is difficult to diagnose. The pancreas is embedded deep in the abdomen, and often, symptoms of cancer become evident at a very late, advanced stage of the disease.” Given the ominous signs of Ginsburg’s rapidly deteriorating health, in the last several months notwithstanding mainstream media attempts to sugarcoat the prescient signs of Ginsburg’s imminent demise and the penchant of the seditious Press to incessantly and blatantly and unapologetically lie to the American public, the Arbalest Quarrel penned an article in July that we had not gotten around to publish, but feel it still apropos to post here, albeit, after the fact of Ginsburg’s death, as it is an appropriate lead-in to the pressing matter confronting the Nation, now, as Ginsburg's death, coming when it has, is a godsend of a kind, even as it is a personal tragedy for Ginsburg's family nonetheless, for her death truly forces the American public to consider what is at stake. The Nation is able now to cut through the smoke and mirrors of the Chinese Communist Coronavirus plague and the gloomy economy wrought by the plague that the Radical Left have attempted to use to their advantage. The public has a choice and it is a clearly demarcated one: either to retain a free Constitutional Republic where the people are sovereign and Government exists to serve the people; where independence of thought and action is encouraged; and where an American spirit and a Judeo-Christian ethos exists; all of which have benefitted our Country and our people since the Nation's inception; or we can toss it all out the window, and see our Nation merged into a one-world system of governance, one demanding the loss of personal freedom and liberty, the loss of independent thought and action; a world where people exist to serve a grandiose, bloated State and are dependent on Government largess for their needs, a Collectivist nightmare. It is this or that; one or the other; not both, and not an amalgam of the two as they are inherently incompatible. A U.S. Supreme Court comprising multiple copies of Ruth Bader Ginsburg will ensure the existence of the latter. A U.S. Supreme Court comprising jurists in the mold of the late eminent Justice, Antonin Scalia will help ensure the continued existence of the former, one predicated on the tenets of Individualism, not Collectivism.In our unpublished article, drafted in late July, titled, “Is It Too Soon to Consider Another Trump Nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court,”  which we feel appropriate to post here, even though after the fact, we wrote,“One year ago, Associate Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, then 86 years old, underwent cancer surgery. ABC News reported, at the time, July 25, 2019, that,“Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg reflected on her health amid concerns for the 86-year-old, who underwent cancer surgery in December that caused her to miss oral arguments for the first time in 25 years.The progressive justice, who has become a pop culture icon dubbed ‘the Notorious RBG’ and a hero for young activists, dismissed concerns over her health in an interview with NPR published Tuesday, saying she is ‘very much alive.’”Well, Ginsberg’s assertion that she is ‘very much alive’ is, on one level, certainly true, but trivially so, because, as a matter of elementary logic, one is alive, or one is not. And, apparently, at that moment, Ruth Bader Ginsberg wasn’t dead; ergo, she was very much alive.But, given the nuances of language, the assertion goes to the issue of Ginsberg’s current state of health. Obviously, Ginsberg was, at that time, not in the pink of health. Were she not a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, the concern over Ginsberg’s health or, indeed, whether she was alive or not, would be of little concern to anyone outside of her network of family and friends. But, the fact that Ginsberg is an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, her life and well-being is and should be the subject of intense focus to Americans since, she is one of a select few people who wields substantial power over the life and well-being of the rest of us.On July 14, 2020, news outlets uniformly reported that Ginsberg was in the hospital due to an infection. The irrepressible, CNN, for one, reported that,“Ruth Bader Ginsberg has been taken to the hospital and treated for a possible infection, according to a court spokeswoman.‘Justice Ginsburg was admitted to The Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland early this morning for treatment of a possible infection,’ spokeswoman Kathleen Arberg said Tuesday.‘She was initially evaluated at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C. last night after experiencing fever and chills. She underwent an endoscopic procedure at Johns Hopkins this afternoon to clean out a bile duct stent that was placed last August. The Justice is resting comfortably and will stay in the hospital for a few days to receive intravenous antibiotic treatment.’It's the latest development in Ginsburg's lengthy history of medical issues while serving on the high court—though she's proven adept at continuing her job without interruption.”One might have pondered if, given the era of the Chinese Coronavirus in which we live, Ginsberg might have contracted the disease, not an unheard-of possibility. But the lack of any acknowledgment of that sort of infection, one could not help but wonder if the news report was a deliberate attempt at obfuscation to mask another malady. And, then, on July 17, it comes to light that Ginsberg is in the hospital because of a flare up of her cancer and that she is undergoing chemotherapy. In bullet points, Business Insider reported that,“Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg announced Friday that she was undergoing chemotherapy treatments to combat a ‘reoccurrence of cancer.’

• The 87-year-old had recently been hospitalized for an infection stemming from a medical procedure on a tumor found on her pancreas.
• ‘I am tolerating chemotherapy well and am encouraged by the success of my current treatment,’ Ginsburg said in a statement.
• ‘I will continue bi-weekly chemotherapy to keep my cancer at bay, and am able to maintain an active daily routine,’ the statement said. ‘Throughout, I have kept up with opinion writing and all other Court work.’

Following another recent heath scare, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg announced Friday that she was undergoing chemotherapy to treat a ‘reoccurrence of cancer.’Ginsburg, 87, has survived cancer four times before.”The Daily Mail reported, on July 17, 2020, Ginsberg’s remark that, although she revealed that her cancer has returned, she “will not quit Supreme Court while she can work ‘full steam.’. . . ‘I have often said I would remain a member of the court as long as I can do the job full steam. I remain fully able to do that.’” Ginsberg’s remarks are all well and good, but one is reminded of Rehnquist’s intention to remain on the Court even as CNN remarked, on June 22, 2005 that, at that time, the Chief Justice looked “frail” and that, “He has been on a physically demanding pace since October, when he had an emergency tracheotomy after being diagnosed with thyroid cancer, for which he later endured weeks of chemotherapy and radiation.The chief justice has released no information about the seriousness of his condition, but his treatment regimen led cancer specialists to conclude he had a serious, invasive form of cancer, with a possibly dire prognosis.”Less than two and a half months later the Chief Justice was dead, as reported by fox news.This brings us back to the question of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s health. She is 7 years older than the Chief Justice, and she is most certainly unwell.Imagine for a moment that Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s health neither improves nor remains at a plateau but declines precipitously between now and the fall.There is an election looming—certainly most critical in the last one hundred and fifty years. When Justice Scalia died—by natural means or not—in 2016, Trump made poignantly clear his intention to name a successor, quickly. And he did so, fulfilling a critical campaign promise. The New York Times reported, “Pledging to move quickly to fulfill what he has called the most important promise of his campaign, President-elect Donald J. Trump said on Wednesday that he would name a nominee to the Supreme Court ‘within about two weeks’ of his inauguration on Jan. 20.At a news conference in Trump Tower, he thanked the leaders of two prominent conservative groups for their help in vetting candidates, a strong indication that his main priority remains choosing an unwavering conservative to fill the seat of Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last February.Democrats are promising a furious fight over any nominee they consider to be out of the legal mainstream, saying that Republicans effectively stole a Supreme Court seat from President Obama by refusing for almost a year to consider his nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland, a respected appeals court judge with a moderate record.”And furious fight the Democrats waged when Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch for U.S. Supreme Court Justice. But even that nomination fight paled in comparison to the gladiatorial circus on display during the Kavanaugh Senate confirmation hearing. Imagine the battle that will loom if Ruth Bader Ginsberg dies a month or so before the election.And, that that has in fact transpired. As Ruth Bader Ginsburg is now dead, we will soon see just how calamitous the aftereffects of that event will be on our people and on our Nation._______________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

A LACKLUSTER NYC MAYOR AND NYPD’S BRASS THAT WON’T SHINE

PART ONE

NYC MAYOR DE BLASIO’S RECIPE FOR DISASTER

Crime is rampant in New York City today. A rational person would expect the Mayor of the City, Bill de Blasio, to work diligently with the Commissioner of Public Safety to develop and implement a comprehensive, concrete plan to deal expeditiously and effectively with this public disorder. Instead, the Mayor remonstrates against the police and essentially orders the police to stand down. This suggests either that the Mayor doesn’t comprehend the severity of the problem affecting the City and is incompetent or he is intentionally inviting anarchy to reign in the City, and the man is insane.In a City as large as NYC the Mayor’s failure to take charge and deal with the mounting violence and chaos amounts, at the very least, to a serious dereliction of duty. Perhaps the Mayor thinks violence and chaos will sort itself out by itself. It won’t; it never does. A person must be dull-witted to think otherwise. Something must be done. Consider——New York City, with a population of over 8.7 million people, is the largest City in the Country,  and among the largest in the world.Moreover, NYC has the highest density of any major U.S. City, with over 27,000 people per square mile. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/planning/planning-level/nyc-population/population-facts.page.But does population density itself have an impact on crime? If so, does population density tend to increase the crime rate, or reduce it?In 2011, the Radical Left publication “The Atlantic,” writing about population density and crime rates,said this:“To offer a policy observation, higher density helps reduce street crime in an urban environment in two ways. One is that in a higher density city, any given street is less likely to be empty of passersby at any given time. The other is that if a given patch of land has more citizens, that means it can also support a larger base of police officers. And for policing efficacy both the ratio of cops to citizens and of cops to land matters. Therefore, all else being equal a denser city will be a better policed city.” The Atlantic’s first observation, that higher population density reduces street crime in an urban environment, is false.Professor Keith Harries, Department of Geography and Environmental Systems at the University of Maryland, posted, in an academic publication—“International Journal of Criminal Justice”—his study that deals with the issue of population density and crime rates and refutes the Atlantic’s conclusion. The Professor’s article serves as a well-reasoned, scientifically supported counterpoint to the Atlantic’s assertion.In the opening abstract to the study, published in July 2006, Harries states that——“The role of population density in the generation or suppression of crime has been the subject of debate for decades. The classic argument is that high density offers opportunities for property crimes, given that it is a surrogate for the distribution of private property, much of which offers attractive targets to thieves. On the other hand, densely populated areas offer natural surveillance that has the effect of inhibiting violent crimes in so far as witnesses are more abundant and events are more likely to be reported to police. In this analysis, property and violent crimes were selected from a database of over 100,000 crimes reported in Baltimore County, Maryland, U.S.A., in the year 2000. Densities of population and of property and violent crimes were calculated for city blocks. Blocks with population densities above the mean of all blocks were then retained for further consideration.” Professor Harries concludes—— Analysis demonstrated that both property and violent crimes were moderately correlated with population density, and these crimes largely affected the same blocks. It was concluded that at the block level of geography, no evidence of a differential between property and violent crimes based on population density could be detected.” So, contrary to The Atlantic’s naked, unsupported remarks, the size of population and density do correlate with both property crime and violent crime; and they do so directly, not inversely, which means that, as population density increases in a given “block level of geography,” both property crime and violent crime increase as well.The Atlantic’s second observation is that, as the size of a community grows, a community’s police force also grows and, concomitant with a larger police force, “all else being equal a denser city will be a better policed city.”That observation, true once, perhaps, in all jurisdictions, is true no longer—not today—and certainly not in the jurisdictions comprising the Radical Left’s bizarro world.

DESTRUCTION OF A FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC IS THE END GOAL OF THE RADICAL LEFT

Radical Left mayors, taking their cue from domestic terrorist organizations like Black Lives Matter and Antifa, have defunded their police or are seriously considering doing so. They have substantially reduced the number of police—despite or, perhaps, in arrogant defiance of the continuous, rampant violence afflicting their cities, and notwithstanding the absence of a corresponding decrease in population size—or have seriously considered doing so.These Mayors have also hamstrung those police remaining in their community—those who have not been summarily let go or who have otherwise voluntarily, and certainly understandably, resigned or who have taken early retirement—and in droves.After all why should police officers, honorable citizens, subject to the same feelings and emotions of any other law-abiding American citizen, wish to remain in service to a community when a city’s leadership prevents those officers from effectively performing their duties to preserve and protect the residents of their community and to maintain public order, civility, and decorum; when a city’s leadership refuses to prosecute crime; when a city’s leadership establishes policies that do nothing to constrain or curtail crime, and actually endanger the lives and well-being of police officers; and when a city’s leadership castigates and demoralizes the police, by continually railing and remonstrating against them, and, at once, extolling as virtuous the very rabble that seeks to tear down a community—a community that is the home of the police officers themselves.In fact, some Radical Left mayors have even considered eliminating police departments from their communities. The result is, as any reasonable person would expect, utter chaos, wanton destruction of public and private property, contempt for both the police and the criminal justice system; and willful and horrific violence directed against both police and innocent people.Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Chicago represent,  for the political and social scientist, pertinent case studies of what happens when a City is rudderless and law and order break down; when politicians and the Press, too, deny the fact of and the scale of the horror that besets a nation; when public leaders act like irresponsible children, falling in line with a seemingly popular but misguided clique of sanctimonious, pretentious do-gooders who have nothing beneficial to offer the American people except venom, vitriol, and spite.The police are not society’s enemies. America’s police departments are the guardians of society. The Radical Left knows this. Anarchy reigns if the police are not permitted to function. They know this too. That is why they attack the very concept of  the ‘community police department.’ They know that, once the police go, society goes with it—down the drain. That is what they want: The United States, a free Constitutional Republic eradicated; erased; the vision of the founders forgotten. That is the aim of the Neoliberal Globalists and of the Radical Left of all stripes: A Counter-Revolution to reconstitute America into a thing utterly alien: a hideous, despondent, depleted mutant creature.New York City—as with Portland, Seattle, Chicago, and Minneapolis—is metastasizing into just such an abhorrent creature; and, if uncontained and unconstrained, it can bring down the rest of the Country with it.The burning question: With a huge and heterogenous population, the City requires an equally massive police force—one capable of quelling riots, suppressing crime, and maintaining peace and public order. But is New York up to the task? It is possible, but not with a Marxist Nihilist City Mayor like Bill de Blasio at the helm.___________________________________________________

MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO STANDS IN THE WAY OF A SAFER NEW YORK

PART TWO

AN AMERICAN CITY REQUIRES BOTH A COMMUNITY POLICE FORCE TO MAINTAIN THE PEACE AND TO PROMOTE PUBLIC ORDER, AND A WELL ARMED CITIZENRY TO PROTECT PERSONAL LIFE AND PROPERTY AND TO GUARD AGAINST TYRANNY. UNDER DE BLASIO NYC HAS NEITHER ONE

America’s cities, as components of the Nation—a free Constitutional Republic—require both a community police force to maintain peace and to promote public order, and a well-armed citizenry to protect personal life and property and to guard against tyranny. Each component lends to peace, prosperity, and liberty. They each work in tandem, for the benefit of all Americans.Through time, how well has New York City faired in the matter of maintaining a capable, efficient, effective police force and in recognizing the right of the people to keep and bear arms? Let us see.

IS THE NYPD UP TO THE TASK TO PERFORM ITS DUTIES IN A MAMMOTH, HIGHLY CONCENTRATED AND DIVERSE POPULATION?

On its website, this is what the NYPD tells us—“The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is the largest and one of the oldest municipal police departments in the United States. . . . The NYPD was established in 1845, and today, is responsible for policing an 8.5-million-person city, by performing a wide variety of public safety, law enforcement, traffic management, counterterror, and emergency response roles.” The NYPD adds this comment on its website: “In the past 25 years, the department has achieved spectacular declines in both violent and property crime, ensuring that New York City has the lowest overall rate of major crimes in the 25 largest cities in the country.” Does this statement ring true? Well, it was once true.Under former City Mayors, Rudolf Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, crime was in fact brought under control. And it in fact took 25 years to do so—to repair the carnage wrought to the City under the stewardship of David Dinkins, a Democrat, who served as Mayor for one term: from January 1, 1990 through December 31, 1993.The public had had enough of Dinkins. He was defeated by a Republican, Giuliani, in 1994.We compliment Giuliani and Bloomberg on what they did right, improving the City’s economy and taking a hard stance on crime. But their consistent attack on the fundamental, natural right of armed self-defense is indefensible.A WELL-EQUIPPED, WELL ORGANIZED, WELL-FUNDED, COMMUNITY POLICE DEPARTMENT IS NECESSARY TO FIGHT CRIME, TO MAINTAIN ORDER, AND TO KEEP THE PEACE IN INDIVIDUAL COMMUNITIES; BUT A POLICE DEPARTMENT DOES NOT STAND AS, AND CANNOT STAND AS, A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE ARMED CITIZENRY, AS ONLY AN ARMED CITIZENRY CAN ADEQUATELY PROVIDE FOR, AND HAS THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROVIDE FOR ITS OWN DEFENSE AND TO SERVE AS THE BEST DETERRENT OF AND THE FINAL FAIL-SAFE TO THWART THE ONSET OF TYRANNY; THEREFORE IT IS WELL SAID AND HAS BEEN ETCHED IN STONE THAT “A WELL-REGULATED MILITIA BEING NECESSARY FOR THE SECURITY OF A FREE STATE, THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.”The maintenance of public safety and order, to preserve and protect a community, is, and always has been, the frontline duty of a community’s police force. That is why the modern police department exists and has existed in our cities since at least the first third of the 20th Century, although the institution of policing existed much earlier, going back to the colonial days.But the duty to preserve and protect one’s own life and that of one’s family is personal, and the duty to ensure the security of and continuity of a free state and the immutable, illimitable sovereignty of the American people over Government remains forever in the hands of the people themselves; never in a standing army; nor in a federal or state or local police force; nor in the Nation’s massive intelligence apparatus, nor even in the Nation’s system of laws, which are, as has been disturbingly, depressingly shown, especially in the matter of the right of the people to keep and bear arms, susceptible to flagrant abuse; nor, as it has come to pass, in a Press that has misused its freedom, selling out our Country and our Nation’s people. And, of late, the Press has done so with wild abandon: officiously, audaciously: sermonizing endlessly, and sanctimoniously, and condescendingly to the American citizenry, as if the citizenry were merely an ignorant flock of sheep that must be constantly herded lest it go astray.Only through force of arms does the raw and awesome power of the American citizenry ring true. Only through force of arms can the American citizenry maintain the security and continuity of a free State as against those—be they inside or outside the Nation—who would dare usurp ultimate authority from the citizenry in whom that authority and sovereignty rightfully belong. Only through the force of arms can those who would dare hobble the American spirit be effectively constrained and contained and learn well that Americans are not to be toyed with.Apparently, neither New York City mayors nor New York State governors have gotten the message. Or, if they have, they have failed to heed it, and must be reminded of it.And it isn’t the duty of the police to provide for one’s personal safety; nor is it the duty of the police to guarantee the security of a free State, and never was. That duty rests solely, as it always has, as it always must, and as it was always meant to rest, in the people themselves.Yet, the City’s mayors have invariably, and grievously, and notoriously mistaken the duties, and functions, and responsibilities of the one with the duties, and functions, and responsibilities of the other; ultimately conflating the two; inferring, whether erroneously or disingenuously, that the police are fully capable of and should alone be tasked with the duties, functions, and responsibilities that the founders, in their wisdom recognized, and mandated must rest, as the Divine Creator intended, in full accord with the natural order of things, solely on the individual.The founders codified that natural law in the U.S. Constitution. More than two centuries have past since ratification of the U.S. Constitution. The Nation has adhered to natural law. Natural law is the foundational strength upon which the Constitution, the blueprint of our Nation, rests: the Nation's Bill of Rights. And through no accident, our Country has become the happiest, most productive, most  prosperous, most powerful, and most beneficent Nation on Earth.Now, though, we see cracks, deep fissures forming in our beautiful, wondrous blueprint. Why is that? How did that come about? There are sinister, ruthless, and jealous forces at work who are hell-bent on destroying the foundational principles of our Nation. Although these forces have actually been at work to tear down our Nation since the moment it came to fruition, in 1788, with the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. But only recently has the full nature of and fury of these malevolent, malignant forces come to light. Americans are seeing unnatural, loathsome elements taking control of many major urban centers. And the Democrat Party—or, rather, what the Democrat Party, controlled by their own Globalist puppet-masters, has devolved into—is using these abhorrent hordes in a bid to take complete control over the reins of Government. These rabid, mindless hordes are operating with near complete abandon in several major urban centers. If the Democrats take control of Government in November, this rancid mob of malcontents will be unleashed, infecting all Cities, townships, and villages. Armageddon will ensue across the Nation.

THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS WAS CODIFIED IN THE SECOND AMENDMENT TO PREVENT THE NATION’S ANNIHILATION: THE VERY THREAT PRESENTED TODAY

Most States recognize the transcendent soundness of the Nation’s Bill of Rights and have adopted its language in their own State Constitutions, mirroring the Nation’s Constitution, including, most importantly, the language of the Second Amendment. But seven States have demurred, thinking they know better. One of those seven States is New York.THE SECOND AMENDMENT PRESERVES THE COUNTRY’S STABILITY; ITS LACK WILL END ITThe language of the Second Amendment appears nowhere in the State’s Constitution. Rather, the Second Amendment language, taken verbatim from the U.S. Constitution, but for the substitution of the  word 'shall' for 'cannot'—“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed,”—appears in the Consolidated laws of New York, Article 2 (Bill of Rights) of the Civil Rights Law, along with certain other “Rights” but notably, not in THE Bill of Rights, Article 1 of the State Constitution itself.This means New York considers the right of the people to keep and bear arms to be statutory, not fundamental, and, hence, debased to the status of a privilege, not a true right, subject, then, to constant modification and tinkering, which of course it has been.The 2008 U.S. Supreme Court Heller case made clear what sensible Americans always knew; that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is an individual right, not tied to one’s service in a militia, and the subsequent 2010 U.S. Supreme Court McDonald case held that the right of the people to keep and bear arms applies to the States as well as to the Federal Government. No matter: New York, and several other jurisdictions routinely and contemptuously ignore those clear, adamant U.S. Supreme Court holdings. And New York’s residents pay the price for the New York judiciary’s insolence and contentiousness. Rampant destruction, understandable fear among the polity, and needless, senseless loss of life follow where armed self-defense ceases to exist.

NEW YORK CITY, A MAJOR URBAN CENTER, PROVIDES AN OBJECT LESSON IN THE TRAPS AND SNARES OF WRONGHEADED, PIGHEADED MAYORAL LEADERSHIP, COMMENCING WITH THE LUDICROUS IDEA THAT AN ARMED CITIZENRY ENDANGERS THE SAFETY AND SECURITY OF THE CITY, RATHER THAN ENHANCING THE CITY’S SAFETY AND SECURITY

The NYPD doesn’t comprise legions of personal bodyguards to serve millions of New York City residents. It has neither the resources nor, under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, the legal responsibility to do so. And, pretending that the NYPD can fulfill that function—a function, duty, and responsibility of the average citizen residing in New York—has had disastrous consequences for the City.Truth to tell, the constant danger posed to average, innocent citizens residing in New York requires both a massive police presence to provide public order and safety and an armed citizenry to promote armed vigilance and safeguard one’s personal life and well-being. It isn’t an either/or consideration. See Arbalest Quarrel article, posted on November 21, 2019, titled, “Can We, As Individuals, Rely On The Police To Protect Us?” 

THE IMPLOSION OF NEW YORK CITY OCCURRED ONCE, TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, UNDER DAVID DINKINS; UNDER DE BLASIO IT IS HAPPENING AGAIN, ONLY WORSE!

The Former New York City Commissioner of Public Safety (Police Commissioner), Bernard Kerik, recently and accurately pointed out, in newsmax, that,“Twenty-five years ago, New York City was about to implode.Violent crime and murder rates were the worst in the United States, tourism was declining, real estate values were plummeting, and economic development was in regression.There were close to 1.6 million people on welfare, and neighborhoods of color looked like the remnants of war-torn Beirut.City streets and highways were cluttered with stolen and abandoned cars.As Rudolph W. Giuliani focused on his second attempt to become New York’s mayor, most New Yorkers believed that New York City was just too filthy, corrupt, and violent to manage.Giuliani possessed a different view: He was adamant that no one wants to live, work, visit, or go to school in a place where they're not safe.For every percentage point he reduced violent crime, we witnessed increases in economic development, rising real estate values; and all-time highs in tourism. As he walked out of City Hall on his last day, there was close to 800,000 less people on welfare.New York City had become the safest large city in America.Over the next 12 years, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly carried on Giuliani’s anti-crime strategies, both achieving continued reductions in violent crime and murder.Mayor Bloomberg used that success to trumpet New York City as America’s economic and business capital of the world, which opened the floodgates for thousands of new companies and jobs.By 2014, New York City was one of the cleanest, safest, and fastest growing cities globally.Then came Mayor Bill de Blasio.” What happened next?Bill de Blasio single-handedly undid all the positive work of Giuliani and Bloomberg in rebuilding the City and making the City a safe place to live and to work. This hasn’t gone unnoticed; not least of all by police officers themselves. Retired NYPD sergeant, Joseph Giacalone, points out:“There have been more shootings so far this year in New York City than in all of 2019. . . . ‘“It only gets worse from here,” warned Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.’”The NYPD would do well to update its website to reflect the stratospheric rise in crime under the stewardship of Mayor Bill de Blasio. The Mayor, taking his cue from the domestic terrorist organization, Black Lives Matter, has completely hobbled the police, but, at one and the same time continues to resist recognition of the citizen’s right of “armed self-defense.”The right of the people to keep and bear arms continues to be a persistent bugaboo of all New York mayors. It is all the worse, today, in the topsy-turvy City of New York where a Marxist Mayor treats gang bangers, common criminals, dangerous lunatics, and Marxist rioters with kid gloves while at one and the same time castigates the police and spurns the public safety needs of ordinary citizens. The result——Bill de Blasio has single-handedly turned a once safe and thriving City into utter chaos, giving the green light to criminals and rioters and endangering the lives of average, law-abiding people.Quite an accomplishment! And de Blasio seems pleased with himself. His continuous obsequious behavior toward and grotesque relationship with Black Lives Matter demonstrates the toxic brew this creates, and the danger that such a coupling of Radical Left political leaders and domestic terrorist organizations poses to the stability of our Nation.The New York Post recently reported de Blasio as saying,“It was exactly the right thing to do to paint that mural and we’re going to keep sending that message constantly that Black Lives Matter in New York City, . . .”Marxist organizations—like Black Lives Matter—only matter to de Blasio. It is the organization, after all, that matters, and not actual Black lives.And, of course, de Blasio regularly denounces the NYPD. He has disbanded successful anticrime units; has demoralized the rank and file; has placed police officers in personal danger with his new policies; and he has advocated for the defunding of the entire Department.In having aligned himself with a domestic terrorist organization, Mayor de Blasio had apparently forgotten how he had not that long ago heralded the NYPD. Once, a little over a year ago, when Bill de Blasio hoped to secure his Party’s nomination for U.S. President, to take on Donald Trump—a long-shot bid if ever there was one—he realized that, to make headway, against a large field, he would have to take a major risk. He agreed to appear on Fox News, to be interviewed by Sean Hannity. The question of “gun control” came up.“Bill de Blasio defended his stance on gun control during an exclusive interview with Sean Hannity.De Blasio, the mayor of New York City, claimed New York is the safest large American city and that the police are the best outlet to keep people safe, on Wednesday’s ‘Hannity.’‘You’re in the safest big city in America. . . with the finest police force in America,’ he said.‘We keep people safe. Crime’s gone down for the last six years on my watch.’‘I believe right now what’s wrong in this country is not that people have rights around guns, it’s there are no gun safety measures like background checks.’” Of course, this exchange took place well before de Blasio hopped into the sack with Black Lives Matter. He has since forsaken the NYPD. Like many politicians, de Blasio is routinely dismissive of his audience, surmising wrongly, that the public is either too stupid or too gullible to notice the inherent inconsistencies and hypocrisies manifested in his bombastic utterings. See Arbalest Quarrel article, “NYC: The New Badlands,” posted on July 27, 2020.But, even if some Americans are oblivious to the pompous and vacuous assertions of this Mayor, they certainly cannot ignore what they see taking place; changes occurring at lightning speed; emphatic, insistent, and none of it pleasant: a City in turmoil; declining property values; the City’s economy shot-to-hell; skyrocketing crime; people leaving in droves; a Paradise to some—masochists and nihilists, likely—a vision of Hell to most; New York transformed into Venezuela.Governor Cuomo and Bill de Blasio continually bicker and snipe at each other, and blame their own failings on racism, Trump, Russia, or on anything or anyone else but for themselves. But they are of one mind when it comes to their Collectivist Dystopian vision. A Biden-Harris Presidency will see that Nihilist vision come true for the entire Nation.______________________________________________________

NYC MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO MUST BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE NOW

PART THREE

New York City cannot tolerate Bill de Blasio for the duration of his term. He must be removed before the City turns into the New Badlands. See, supra, Arbalest Quarrel article, titled, “NYC: The New Badlands,” posted on July 27, 2020.

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH THIS MAYOR?

Most New York City residents desire stability and cherish the free Constitutional Republic our founders placed their life on the line to give us. These New Yorkers do not much appreciate or accept the Mayor’s policies. They reflect his Marxist principles and philosophy, antithetical to their own. And the negative impact is plain: a once safe, secure, vibrant, and economically thriving City drained of all vitality.Can the Mayor do whatever the hell he wants and get away with it? No!Mayor de Blasio may think his policies are a step in the right direction even as peace and public order have been shot to hell. Any normal, rational person, though, would say the Mayor has utterly failed at his job.This brings up a pressing question: what are the Mayor’s duties, after all? New York law spells this out.

A MATTER OF LAW AND THE RULE OF LAW IN NEW YORK

In the reign of Bill de Blasio, Mayor of New York City, the City’s residents would do well to peruse New York law. It says much regarding the duties and responsibilities of the Mayor who is supposed to serve them, but isn’t.NY CLS Sec Cl Cities § 54 (Duties of the Mayor) sets forth that,“It shall be the duty of the mayor to see that the city officers and departments faithfully perform their duties; to maintain peace and good order within the city; to take care that the laws of the state and the ordinances of the common council are executed and enforced within the city. . . .”Further, NY CLS Sec Cl Cities § 57 (Additional powers and duties) sets forth:“The mayor shall have such other powers and perform such other duties as may be prescribed in this chapter or by other laws of the state or by ordinance of the common council, not inconsistent with law. In case of riot, conflagration or other public emergency requiring it, the mayor shall have power to call out the police and firefighters; he or she shall also have power to appoint such number of special police officers as he or she may deem necessary to preserve the public peace. Such special police officers shall be under the sole control of the regularly appointed and constituted officers of the police department. They have shall have power to make arrests only for disorderly conduct or other offenses against peace or good order. In case of riot or insurrection, he or she may take command of the whole police force, including the chief executive officer thereof.”Do you think the Mayor is complying with NY CLS Sec Cl Cities § 54? Clearly not!Mayor de Blasio has done nothing to end riot, conflagration, and public emergency. To the contrary, he has stoked it. He should be removed from Office. But can he be?The short answer is, “yes;” the Mayor can be removed from Office, prior to election. The process in New York isn’t quick and it isn’t easy, but it can be done.Unfortunately, New York doesn’t have a recall procedure, unlike other cities. Removing the Mayor from Office through the electoral process, prior to the general election, isn’t open to New York City’s citizens. And the next regular election won’t take place until November 2021. So, removing de Blasio, sooner, barring death, must be done, if at all, through the Courts.But can the Mayor be taken to Court? He can if he is considered an “officer” under New York State law, who has committed crimes under color of law.Under New York law, the Mayor is an officer of the City: an ‘elected officer,’NY CLS Sec Cl Cities § 11 (Elected officers) provides that:“There shall be elected by the qualified electors of the city, a mayor, comptroller, treasurer, president of the common council and four assessors. There shall be elected by the qualified electors of each ward of the city an alderman and a supervisor. There shall also be elected by the qualified electors of the city and of the wards thereof such other officers as may be provided by law.”State law sets forth the grounds for removal of city officers. The mayor comes under the purview of NY CLS Sec Cl Cities § 20 (Charges against city officers): “An officer of the city . . . shall be removed only upon charges, such charges shall be for disability for service or neglect or dereliction of official duty or incompetency or incapacity to perform his official duties or some delinquency materially affecting his general character or fitness for the office unless otherwise specifically provided by law.” The follow-up question is this: Has there been “disability for service or neglect or dereliction of official duty, or incompetency or incapacity to perform his official duties” sufficient to support a legal basis to remove de Blasio from Office?As an avowed and devoted Marxist, de Blasio operates in accord with the tenets and strictures of Marxist Collectivism. His supporters might argue he’s faithfully carrying out official duties, consistent with his ideological bent, namely, to promote Marxism. And many City residents seem satisfied with that, having voted him into Office in the first place.But there is a specific act de Blasio has undertaken that is inconsistent with his duties as Mayor, rendering the matter of his political and social philosophy and posture irrelevant.The Mayor is a trustee of the public’s property. Under NY CLS Sec Cl Cities § 22, the Mayor, no less than any other officer of the City, whether elected or appointed, including members of the common council,“are hereby declared trustees of the property, funds and effects of said city respectively, so far as such property, funds and effects are or may be committed to their management or control, and every taxpayer residing in said city is hereby declared to be a cestui que trust in respect to the said property, funds and effects respectively; and any co-trustee or any cestui que trust shall be entitled as against said trustees and in regard to said property, funds and effects to all the rules, remedies and privileges provided by law for any co-trustee or cestui que trust; to prosecute and maintain an action to prevent waste and injury to any property, funds and estate held in trust; and such trustees are hereby made subject to all the duties and responsibilities imposed by law on trustees, and such duties and responsibilities may be enforced by the city or by any co-trustee or cestui que trust aforesaid. The remedies herein provided shall be in addition to those now provided by law.”Bill de Blasio has made clear his intention to defund the police to the tune of one billion dollars. But those funds are police funds, part of the budget necessary to maintain public order. His intention to take money away from the police is prima facie inconsistent with the Mayor’s principal duty “to maintain peace and good order within the City.” Doing so, during a period of rising crime—indeed, a stratospheric increase in crime—amounts to an act in flagrante delicto.The Mayor’s dislocation of valuable police resources, including disbanding anticrime units, hamstringing police operations, rewriting police policy to cohere with Marxist objectives that are wholly inconsistent with traditional and accepted police practice, destroying cohesion within the ranks of the police, and misappropriation of public funds necessary to the proper functioning police operations, demonstrate clear evidence of massive dereliction of official duties and incompetency, demanding de Blasio’s immediate removal from office.Of course, a lawsuit against de Blasio might not, and probably would not, succeed—as Radical Left forces along with a seditious Press would be marshalled against such a lawsuit—but it would send a clear and stark message, to both de Blasio and to those who support a Radical Left insurgency, nonetheless; a message that reverberates throughout the Country, that, yes, Radical Left political leaders can be prosecuted for their crimes, too.

WHAT OTHER ACTION MIGHT BE TAKEN TO CONSTRAIN A RENEGADE MAYOR?

Lawsuits against public officers are an expensive and time-consuming process. Can something expeditiously be done to curb de Blasio’s actions?As a stopgap, the present Police Commissioner, Dermot F. Shea, can try, at least, to keep the Mayor’s power in check, refusing to implement policies that endanger public order and safety. But would Shea even want to?Remember, Mayor de Blasio appointed Shea. He did so obviously because they share a similar political and social philosophy. In fact, The New York Times quoted de Blasio as saying he selected Shea “because he is a ‘proven agent’ of change.”And we know what kind of change de Blasio has in mind for the City: Marxist Collectivism.But even Shea realizes de Blasio is operating erratically, as the Times pointed out in that same August 3 article. “[Shea’s] criticism of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s law enforcement policies was stinging.” Apart from publicly criticizing the Mayor, Shea seems reluctant to go any further than that; he is unlikely to take action to countermand the Mayor’s policies concerning police operations. If he were to do that, Shea would jeopardize his own position because de Blasio would likely fire him. It is the Mayor’s prerogative to do so since the Police Commissioner is appointed by the Mayor. Shea knows that.In New York, as in many jurisdictions, the Police Commissioner, i.e., the “Commissioner of Public Safety,” isn’t elected by the people, so he isn’t directly answerable to the people. He is answerable to the Mayor who appointed him.NY CLS Sec Cl Cities § 12 (Appointive officers) provides that,“There shall be appointed by the mayor a corporation counsel, city engineer, commissioner of public works, commissioner of public safety, commissioner of public welfare and sealer of weights and measures.”Perhaps New York law should be changed to enable the residents to elect their police commissioner directly, as they do their mayor. If so, the police commissioner wouldn’t be answerable to the mayor, but directly to the people who elected him. That might help.But, in the interim, unless a party with standing—who also has the time, money, the moral fiber and strength of spirit—to file a lawsuit to remove a recalcitrant, intransigent de Blasio from Office, the public is stuck with him until the next mayoral election in November 2021.What kind of shape do you suppose the City will be in fifteen months from now with de Blasio still in office? Can the residents of New York City afford to wait that long? The prognosis isn’t good.Representative Lee Zeldin (R-NY) told Fox News, bluntly:“ ‘I don’t believe New York City is going to survive the remainder of Mayor de Blasio’s term in office,’ he told Fox News. ‘Certainly there are individuals who live in New York City who will not literally survive without any type of a change in the way New York City approaches policing, law and order, safety and security.’” _______________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE SAVAGING OF AMERICA: FORGET ABOUT BIDEN; IT’S GOING TO BE TRUMP VERSUS HARRIS

MOBOCRACY VERSUS REPUBLICAN DEMOCRACY

PART ONE

Marcus Antonius spoke, thus, “And Caesar’s spirit, raging for revenge,With Hate by his side come hot from hell,Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voiceCry, “Havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war, That this this foul deed shall smell above the earth With Carrion men, groaning for burial. Citation from Shakespeare’s historical play, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1War is upon us. Make no mistake about it. Be prepared to arm up. The survival of our Republic is at stake!The sad thing is very few people will acknowledge this, even as some do embrace it, want it, even demand it. Many deny it, scoff at the idea of it, but most everyone, at some level, feels it.All that we Americans have seen and heard in the last few months compels our acceptance of it, the hard, cold realization of it; and what it means for us.But is this a modern American “civil war”—a race war—a clash between purported do-gooders demanding an accounting for people of color and privileged white oppressors, as the hordes of mindless Radicals endlessly shout and as a seditious Press echoes?No! this is not a “race war” and never was, and calling it so, doesn’t make it so.This is mere artifice, a stratagem concocted by the Nation’s Destructor Antagonists—the discontented Marxists, Socialists, Communists, Anarchists, Neoliberal Billionaire Globalists who have lost patience with the American electorate—an electorate that threw a wrench in their plans for world domination; an electorate that audaciously voted into Office an outsider, a businessman, who sought merely to return the Country to its rightful heirs: the American citizenry.The Antagonist Destructors of our Nation see this and won’t allow it; won’t permit President Trump to serve a second term in Office. They plan to defeat Trump in the coming election by chicanery and unlawful acts if they can; by brute force if they cannot. They haven’t disguised their intentions. They really cannot. This is their last chance and they know it.They have brainwashed many; hoodwinked many others. The Nation is in their grasp: November 3, 2020 is the date set for the Governmental coup d’état.These ruthless forces both here and abroad have embraced a strategy to destroy the U.S. Constitution itself, the very fabric of our Nation. Once accomplished they will go to work immediately to disassemble a free Constitutional Republic.They will do so by executive fiat. They will rewrite our Constitution; eradicate our God-given sacred rights and liberties; open our borders to tens of millions of the world’s dregs; bankrupt our Nation; subject our citizenry to conformity in thought and uniformity in behavior; reduce the populace to dependency on Government largess for its existence. They will erase our Nation’s history, heritage, culture, and Judeo-Christian Ethic: all of it must go. Our Nation, in the form the founders bequeathed to us, will effectively cease to exist.And these Antagonists, these would-be Destructors, will proceed forthwith, with blinding speed once they have taken over the reins of Government. They have legions of stooges and toadies to assist them—those who have assisted them since Day One of the Trump Presidency.

A ONE-DAY CIVIL WAR-(COUNTER-REVOLUTION): NOVEMBER 3, 2020

The nature of the present major conflict facing Americans has aspects of both a civil war and revolution, creating a unique hybrid.

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CIVIL WAR AND A REVOLUTION?

There is a distinction to be drawn between the expression, 'civil war,' and the expression, 'revolution.'“The word revolution is derived from the Latin ‘revolutio’, meaning ‘a turn-around’. Revolution results in a mutational change in organizational structure quite amazingly in a short period of time. Revolution brings about a change in the power too.Revolutions took place through history. It is interesting to note that apart from the change in power, revolution brings about change in cultural and economical situations as well of a country or a region. Socio-political scenario gets completely changed by a revolution.It is interesting to note that the term revolution is used to indicate changes that take place outside the political arena. Culture, philosophy, society and technology have undergone marked transformations by these revolutions.A civil war is defined as a war that takes place between two organized groups within the same nation state. In short it can be described as a war between factions in the same country. One of the best examples of a civil war is the American Civil War (1861-1865). It is otherwise called the War Between the States that took place as a civil war in the United States of America.It is important to know that the two organized groups that take part in the civil war are normally bent upon creating their own governments and having organized military. The most important difference between a revolution and a civil war is that civilians directly revolt against the government in a revolution whereas factions wage a war against each other in a civil war.”The American Revolution established freedom from tyranny and the creation of a new Nation-State.The founders of this Nation-State, the framers of the U.S. Constitution determined that the Nation would exist as a free Constitutional Republic. Theirs was no easy task. But they accomplished it. The founders of the new Nation designed a central, “Federal” Government of three co-equal Branches; each Branch keeping the other in check through carefully delineated, demarcated, limited powers.The people would retain sovereignty over Government, not by dint of faith that the servants of the people would not usurp power, but through the realization that these servants of the people would, as is human nature, attempt to do so. To prevent that from happening the founders incorporated into the U.S. Constitution, a Bill of Rights—a codification of fundamental, God-given, natural, unalienable, immutable, illimitable rights, including, first and foremost, the right of the people to speak their own mind and the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Thus, would unlawful usurpation of power by the servant of the people be kept in check. Our Nation is founded on the tenets of Individualism: a recognition of the sanctity and inviolability of the individual and the import of the integrity of Self.Even during the horror of the American Civil War, neither side, not the Union nor Confederacy, questioned the tenets of Individualism; never questioned the veracity and venerableness of the Bill of Rights. It was never in doubt.But, today, though, there are forces that do not accept the tenets of Individualism and forsake the primacy of the Bill of Rights. These are the proponents of the tenets of Collectivism; those who will not suffer individual expression nor abide a sovereign, well-armed citizenry. They believe in uniformity of thought, conformity in behavior. Their model of societal perfection is that of the beehive or the ant colony; order maintained through the destruction of the human spirit. The Arbalest Quarrel has written extensively about the differences between Individualism and Collectivism. See, e.g., our article, posted October 6, 2018, titled, “A Modern American Civil War: A Clash of Ideologies.”Today, forces both inside the Nation and outside it, utilizing the vehicle of the Democratic Party, along with the acquiescence of many within the Republican Party, have engineered a counter-revolution.They envision a greatly expanded and expansive Federal Government with vast, virtually unlimited powers. To keep Americans in check they have been outspoken in their call for substantial constraints on free speech and the elimination of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. These counter revolutionaries intend to use our Constitution against us. Once in power the Constitution will be erased.Although not carefully distinguished between two military camps—the Blue and the Gray—of the American Civil War, the clash of ideas is very much a bright line: Individualists versus Collectivists, and a mighty physical confrontation may yet emerge.The Collectivists have, to date, failed to unseat the Individualists’ candidate, Donald Trump. Americans elected Donald Trump to preserve a free Constitutional Republic, thereby securing the Nation the founders bequeathed to us through the difficult war they fought and won: the American Revolution. And President Donald Trump has done a commendable job, despite unimaginable obstacles to preserve the Nation in the form the founders gave to us.The Collectivists have one last card to play: one which they had hoped to avoid: the U.S. Presidential election of 2020. The outcome may be the endgame for one side or the other. Or it may very well be the opening salvo of a Modern American Civil War qua Counter-Revolution to undercut the American Revolution.­­­­­­­­­­­­______________________________________________________

BIDEN WILL NEVER DEBATE TRUMP, HARRIS WILL

PART TWO

TRYING TO PLAY AMERICANS FOR FOOLS FAILED ONCE; DEMOCRATS WILL NOT PERMIT THAT TO HAPPEN AGAIN

“ ‘Clinton’s dream also includes a Western Hemispheric common market, like the European common market that is dissolving in chaos, fear and debt. . . .’ ‘If that is indeed her dream, then she dreams the internationalist dream that would end America.In a 2013 speech to the National Multi-Housing Council [Clinton] said, ‘I mean, politics is like sausage being made. If everybody’s watching, you know, all of the backroom discussions and the deals, you know, then people get a little nervous, to say the least. So you need both a public and a private position.’Which is an excellent example of hypocrisy — a Hillary Clinton trait.American voters don’t want open borders or anything akin to a European Union common market. But Hillary Clinton does.Hillary Clinton would tear America down. She is totally unfit to be president.Donald Trump is the anti-establishment candidate. He’s not politically correct, and he’s not running for saint. He’s running to Make America Great Again. Elect him and he will.”~Pastiche from a story, titled, “Playing us for Fools,” published in the Carteret County News Times, one month before the 2016 Trump versus Clinton U.S. Presidential electionThe forces that seek to crush Americans into submission failed had a wrench thrown into their well-oiled machine. They thought Hillary Clinton could hold her own against Trump in a match-up against him. They were wrong, dead wrong.Do you honestly think these sinister, ruthless forces will make that mistake a second time by allowing Biden—infinitely less mentally sharp than Clinton—to debate Trump? Not a chance!The doddering, confused, senile Cardboard character, Joe Biden, has played his role for these Antagonist Disruptor Destructors of our Nation. He is no longer needed and will soon be dispensed with.Biden has previously stated a desire to serve one-term only, exemplifying his lack of desire in the Presidency. In some dim part of his addled brain, he must have known he is wholly unqualified to lead the Nation.As reported in The Hill, back in December 2019,“Former Vice President Joe Biden has reportedly signaled that he would only serve one term in the White House if elected in 2020 as the top-tier Democratic candidate faces questions about his age. Four people who regularly speak with the 77-year-old Biden told Politico that it is unlikely he would run for reelection in 2024, when he would be in his 80s.‘If Biden is elected,’ an adviser to the campaign told the news outlet, ‘he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection.’‘He’s going into this thinking, “I want to find a running mate I can turn things over to after four years, but if that’s not possible or doesn’t happen then I’ll run for reelection.” But he’s not going to publicly make a one-term pledge,’ another adviser reportedly said.”

IS IT JUST AGE THAT HAS INFORMED BIDEN’S DECISION TO SERVE JUST ONE TERM, OR IS IT WEAKNESS IN MIND AND BODY?

Consider: Bernie Sanders is one year older than Biden. The old Socialist is as sharp as a tack and never asserted or even suggested he would serve only one term in Office if elected.Donald Trump, too, was 70 years old when he assumed Office, the oldest person to serve as President on the day of his inauguration as reported by Business Insider. But age has never impacted his physical strength or mental alertness. He has always demonstrated boundless energy and keen mental acuity; a sharp understanding of policy and what it is he wishes to accomplish, in accordance with his duties as President and consistent with his promises to the American people. He never so much as intimated a desire to serve only one term in Office.Trump has weathered a withering stream of vile, vicious, vindictive personal attacks against him, against his staff, even against his family. Through it all he has remained steadfast, never doubting himself, never wilting. To the contrary, he has become stronger, frustrating those who have attempted to aggrieve him, turning their arrows back on them. He has shown his mettle; the true mark of a leader.Can one imagine Biden standing up against the same ceaseless, remorseless violent onslaught? Would Biden not have crumpled years ago; drained, emotionally and physically. Indeed, can one imagine any other politician able to repel the violent personal attacks that President Trump has ably withstood for the past four years and, through it all, still manage to accomplish many of his policy objectives?Biden, in comparison, stands alone as the single figure in American history, coming up with lame excuses to mask his obvious mental and physical infirmities, all the while boasting that he can lead this great Nation. And there is the Press, for example, the Washington Post, always at the ready, to give Biden an assist, writing specious reports to cover his blaring inane remarks, or to attempt to counter justifiable concerns pertaining to his health. See, e.g., a U.S. News.com report The Press says Biden would give Kamala Harris substantial power as his VP if elected President. That is all the more surprising since, as also reported FP Insider Access, the two have had a rocky relationship, which raises the question whether Biden did choose Harris as his running mate or if, more likely, the DNC foisted Harris on him.But don’t be surprised to find Biden stepping down a few weeks before the election, not a few days, or weeks or months into a first term in Office, let alone upon completing one full term. He must. Why? It isn’t that his handlers can’t control Biden. They can. They already have. That is plain, and Biden doesn’t have a problem with that. Still, there is a problem. Biden’s handlers cannot be certain he can defeat Trump, regardless of what the polls say. Certainly not if a dimwit’s obvious dimwittedness becomes apparent as it would during a U.S. Presidential debate, were he to debate. After all, who would be on hand to lend Biden a hand if he were to become befuddled over a moderator’s question or shows his ineptitude in parrying a death-dealing verbal thrust to the heart?So, the Destructors of our Nation are faced with a conundrum. And that dilemma rests with the nature of our Presidential Debates.The public expects them. But only the U.S. Presidential candidate of one Party can debate the candidate, or incumbent, of the other Party.It would look awfully strange to see Biden’s VP, Harris, debating Trump, as Biden’s VP, instead of Biden, himself. It would be unprecedented.Of course, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t require Presidential debates. Americans, though, would be annoyed and suspicious, even outraged if denied a debate, especially given the present deeply polarized Nation. A match-up is highly anticipated.In the recent Arbalest Quarrel article, “Debate This,” published on August 6, 2020, we said,“U.S. Presidential elections are never small matters. But, this coming Presidential election, less than three months away, takes on inordinate importance—more so than any other Presidential election in our Nation’s history. For, depending on the outcome, Americans will either preserve their history, along with their sacred heritage, culture, and Christian ethos, or they will lose all of it. Recent events bear this out.The continuation of our Nation in the form our founders established for the American people, a free Constitutional Republic, and a sovereign people rests in the fundamental, unalienable, immutable, illimitable rights bestowed on them and in them by the loving Divine Creator—rights codified in the Nation’s Bill of Rights: most importantly, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and the right of free speech.”Biden has shown, during the few times his handlers have allowed him to speak at all, that he has trouble expressing a coherent thought. He would collapse if he had to face Trump one-on-one in a debate.Even with assistance from friendly debate moderators, Trump would eviscerate him, and Biden’s handlers know this. The bottom line: Biden will not debate Trump.

HARRIS WILL RUN AGAINST TRUMP, NOT BIDEN. SO, IT IS HARRIS WHO MUST DEBATE TRUMP, NOT BIDEN.

If only one Presidential debate is held, Harris will debate Trump. That means Harris will be the Democrat’s nominee for U.S. President, not Biden.The puppet masters will not risk losing an election by allowing Biden on the National and, hence, world stage, making a jackass of himself, for all to see, and, thereby making a true, not merely symbolic “jackass” of the Party. That helps to explain why the puppet masters have scheduled the first debate at the end of September, not the beginning, contrary to what Trump and many Americans wanted and expected.Having a debate scheduled one month prior to the election buys the DNC time for the media image makers to shape the image of Harris they expect the public to buy: an impression that Harris is indeed the pragmatic moderate the script calls for and not the selfish, shallow, callow, opportunist she in fact is: simply a simulacrum of Hillary Clinton. They have only a few weeks to prop this stick figure up, allowing it to take hold on the public, to gel in the public psyche. Harris is giddy with expectation and delight, barely able to contain herself.So, as the days march on, Americans will see less and less of Biden and more and more of Harris, but precious little of both. Little will come out of either one’s mouth; and a sympathetic Press won’t “press” them to discuss their policy prescriptions.And then something untoward will happen to Biden. Expect this.The Democrats and the Billionaire Globalist puppet masters would trust the public won’t be shocked—if a trifle dismayed, and the Radical left positively gleeful—when Harris steps into Biden’s shoes at the last moment even as that moment is unprecedented.But neither one, Biden nor Harris, will do much talking to the Press before the Presidential debates, when it comes to pass that Harris faces off against Trump.It is either that or the DNC will have to conjure up a plausible explanation why there won’t be a Presidential debate at all. That scenario is unlikely. The public would feel cheated, and rightfully so.

HOW WILL THE BIDEN-HARRIS SWITCHEROO TAKE PLACE?

Prior to the debates, the DNC will declare, through the Press, that Biden has suffered a heart attack or a stroke; something or other, health-wise, not altogether implausible. After all Biden has had medical problems beyond incipient dementia and that isn’t a secret. There will be little explanation, and a sympathetic Press won’t probe. But obviously his lack of mental acuity will be the reason for it. Even the Washington Post, the Radical Left newspaper of the centi-billionaire Jeff Bezos speculated that Biden suffers from dementia.It is highly unlikely that a major supporter of the Democrats, and a man obviously “in the know,” Jeff Bezos, would allow his editorial staff to so much as intimate Biden’s unsuitability for the highest public Office in the Land, unless something major was afoot. So, quietly, surreptitiously, his tabloid, the Washington Post, has alerted the public to the possibility of the big switch.The DNC will have to scramble to appoint a VP for Harris. Likely, the DNC already has a VP in the wings: another woman no doubt, and conceivably another woman of color.So, the public will be fed a lie and that lie will suffice, must suffice, to get Biden out of the way before the first scheduled debate lest he make a fool of himself in front of the Nation and the world, and therein scotch the entire scheme of the Globalists and Marxists to take over the Government and the Country—just a few weeks prior to the most important election in modern times.________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

NYC: THE NEW BADLANDS

THE NEW BADLANDS OF THE EAST SPRINGS UP FROM THE OLD BADLANDS OF THE WEST

PART ONE

“Back in the days of the old West, there were these stretches of territory that I think God and nature just plain forgot about. . . dark and parched and empty as the moons of Mars. Places where sensible men never ventured. . . where only dreams and phantoms walked. Kind of a way station between civilization and the Ninth Circle of Hell—The Badlands.” ~Quotation from the 1991 film, “Into the Badlands,” starring Bruce Dern as a Bounty Hunter, T.L. Barston Has New York City become a new Badlands where even “angels fear to tread?” It would seem so.No reasonable, rational person would venture into New York City unless he or she has to. This isn’t conjecture and it wasn’t always this way, but today it is exactly so, and that statement is true of police officers from neighboring jurisdictions as well.In fact, police officers in hot pursuit of criminals who committed crimes in some New York jurisdictions are now prohibited from entering New York City to continue the pursuit of criminals who make it across jurisdictional lines into the City—a City that has become a safe harbor for vermin. The first New York jurisdiction to ban its officers from chasing criminals into the City is Westchester County.On July 14, 2020, the New York Post reported,“Westchester County is banning cops from the Big Apple, saying the city’s new restriction on chokeholds and other restraints makes it too easy for officers to get jammed up.The new decree, laid out Thursday in an internal memo obtained by The Post, comes on the heels of legislation approved last month by the New York City Council that bans chokeholds and prohibits officers from sitting, kneeling or standing on a suspect’s chest and back.Mayor Bill de Blasio signed the bills this week.‘Given the likelihood that the restraint of a non-compliant individual during the course of making a lawful arrest often requires kneeling on the torso of the suspect for at least a brief period of time,’ the Westchester memo said, ‘this order is intended to protect sworn members from criminal prosecution for actions consistent with their training and department policy.’‘Effective immediately and until further notice sworn members shall not conduct any enforcement activity within the confines of the City of New York,’ it said. Officials from three police departments overseeing a region that neighbors New York City have ordered their officers to halt any enforcement activity in the city out of concern over a recently enacted chokehold ban that places limitations on the ways in which arrests can be made.The new limitations prompted one New York Police Department-linked executive to slam Mayor Bill de Blasio for turning the Big Apple into “the new Rikers Island PRISON without walls[a containment center of unarmed citizens].Westchester County Police told its members on Thursday that they ‘shall not conduct any enforcement activity within the confines of the City of New York,’ including ‘pursuing subjects into the City of New York for offenses committed in Westchester County,’ according to the interim order, which was shared online by Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association for the NYPD.‘All 5 Boroughs of NYC soon to be the new Rikers Island PRISON without walls,’ Mullins wrote in the tweet late Thursday. ‘NYC Alienated by law enforcement agency as a result of horrific law sign by [Mayor Bill de Blasio].’‘Administrative Code section 10-18, makes it a misdemeanor crime for an arresting officer to restrain someone in a manner that restricts the flow of air or blood by compressing the windpipe or the carotid arteries on each side of the neck, or sitting, kneeling, or standing on the chest or back in a manner that compresses the diaphragm, in the course of effecting or attempting to effect an arrest,’ according to the bill.”Two days later, the New York Post reported that neighboring Nassau County followed Westchester County’s lead, reporting,“Nassau County police brass this week ordered on-duty cops to avoid the Big Apple unless accompanied or approved by a supervisor, according to a memo issued days after Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a bill making it a criminal offense for officers to use a chokehold on a suspect.The memo, issued Friday, outlines the city’s new ‘unlawful methods of restraint’ law and notes violators could end up with a year in jail.‘In light of the above law, members shall not conduct police business in New York City unless it has been approved by their Commanding Officer,’ according to the document.Nassau cops now must be accompanied by a supervisor, notify the local precinct of their activities ‘unless doing so would cause danger’ to the officers, and officers ‘should have clearly identifiable police insignia when taking police action,’ the memo reads.” These policies aren’t anomalies. They arise from a new sober reality, and as we write this article, other New York counties have followed or are likely soon to follow suit.These unprecedented police policies are obviously and justifiably designed to protect officers from facing criminal charges themselves if they happen to utilize a martial arts maneuver meant certainly not to maim or kill an arrestee but to subdue and secure him, quickly, effectively, and safely, to protect both the arrestee and the officer and to bring an aggressive assault to an end, allowing the officer to effectuate the arrest.Moreover, if police officers are denied the ability to utilize a proven martial arts technique that may at times be necessary, as police training dictates, dangerous individuals may escape police custody, thus endangering the community at large and requiring further expenditures of time, money, and additional police resources to hunt down a perpetrator of a crime, anew, that would not and should not have been necessary.And this all comes about because of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio acquiescing to the demands of domestic terrorist groups like Black Lives Matter. Neither de Blasio nor domestic terrorist groups like Black Lives Matter have any true understanding of the nature of, demands of, exigencies pertaining to, or real life dangers involved in police work.On July 8, 2020, the New York Post reported,“NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan on Wednesday doubled down on his criticism of the City Council’s police anti-chokehold bill, calling a portion of it ‘dangerous.’Monahan, speaking during a PIX11 interview, said he does not have a problem with the bill that will make it a criminal offense for cops to use chokeholds but takes issue with its ban on maneuvers that would press a suspect’s diaphragm.‘The idea of the diaphragm bill — and I call it a diaphragm bill — because we have no objection to the chokehold portion of it, but any cop who’s ever fought with someone on the street, trying to get him into cuffs, there’s a great possibility that your knee is going to end up on that individual’s back, and now this new law is criminalizing it,’ Monahan said.‘We try to avoid that, but in the midst of a fight, it’s pretty hard to make sure that doesn’t happen,’ said Monahan. ‘When you have to worry that someone who may have taken a shot at you that you are now arresting, if your knee hits their back, you become the criminal.’Monahan said the department is ‘absolutely’ lobbying against the diaphragm portion of the anti-chokehold bill.‘It is a dangerous, dangerous portion of that bill,’ he said.”On July 15, 2020, The New York Post wrote,“Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a suite of six NYPD reform bills Wednesday, including a ban on chokeholds, while acknowledging concerns that the new laws will make it harder for cops to do their jobs.‘People want to be safe. They need to be safe. They want to work with the NYPD and they want respect in turn,’ de Blasio said while signing the legislation package in the Bronx after joining activists to paint ‘Black Lives Matter’ on Morris Avenue between 161st and 162nd streets.‘I also want to be honest when there are concerns out there. It makes sense to talk about it, not to run away from it,’ de Blasio said.On the bill that will make it a criminal offense for cops to use chokeholds, de Blasio said, ‘I know many in the police department including many I truly respect are concerned.’‘Because although they agree 100 percent and it’s been the policy of the police department, we cannot have chokeholds, there’s concern around some of the additional language around diaphragms.’In addition to criminalizing chokeholds, the bill includes a prohibition on other restraints of a person’s diaphragm or ability to breathe such as sitting, kneeling or standing on someone’s chest or back. Last week NYPD Chief of Department Terence Monahan called the diaphragm portion of the legislation ‘dangerous’ [to police officer safety].‘The idea of the diaphragm bill — and I call it a diaphragm bill — because we have no objection to the chokehold portion of it, but any cop who’s ever fought with someone on the street, trying to get him into cuffs, there’s a great possibility that your knee is going to end up on that individual’s back, and now this new law is criminalizing it,’ Monahan said during a PIX11 interview.‘We try to avoid that, but in the midst of a fight, it’s pretty hard to make sure that doesn’t happen,’ said Monahan. ‘When you have to worry that someone who may have taken a shot at you that you are now arresting, if your knee hits their back, you become the criminal.’But Monahan’s warnings didn’t prevent the mayor from making the bill law.‘I am signing this bill because I believe we can make it work,’ the mayor said Wednesday.De Blasio made no mention of an earlier incident on the Brooklyn Bridge where Monahan’s finger was broken when he was attacked by a group of people who were at a George Floyd protest. {As reported by a local ABC affiliate news station, abc7, “Protesters at the ‘ encampment clashed with police and at least seven NYPD officers suffered injuries—Monahan suffered a hand injury, a lieutenant was struck in the head, a sergeant was struck in the head and a lieutenant suffered an eye socket fracture. The other three officers suffered minor injuries.”} The last thing the police, the community, and any reasonable, sensible person would want is to have the police embroiled in a physical confrontation with an anxious, temporarily irrational, deranged or inherently dangerous arrestee itching for a fight that devolves into a lengthy street brawl. Apparently, de Blasio hasn’t considered the real possibility of this scenario or otherwise simply doesn’t care because he has political points to rack up with the Radical Left contingents that support him, along with well-to-do uninformed New York City residents who have the luxury of residing above the fray of dangerous street encounters and live securely ensconced in extravagant, luxurious abodes, but for the latter group that is really just illusion.Yet, this is all welcome news to the common criminals, lunatics, and murderous gang members, and dangerous Marxist and Anarchist group members, and other assorted riff-raff who now enjoy an extended “field day” in New York.Is it any wonder, then, that neighboring New York State jurisdictions have implemented their own policy, precluding their own lawenforcement officers from pursuing criminals into the City, once those criminals have crossed into the jurisdiction of New York City?_______________________________________________________________

PART TWO

WHAT IS GOOD FOR THE GOOSE ISN’T ALWAYS GOOD FOR THE GANDER

What is good for the worst elements of society, though, is bad for everyone else who happens to call New York City their home, including those relatively well-to-do liberal, progressive New York City residents who believe they are above the fray but really aren’t.Bill de Blasio, though, as New York City Mayor, doesn’t have to worry about NYPD police protection. The Mayor enjoys, for himself and for his family, all the comfort and peace of mind that comes from obtaining the very security that he denies the community at large, and from the very Police Department that he publicly excoriates. And he means to keep that special police protection both for himself and his family.This specialized modern day Praetorian Guard who protects its Emperor, Bill De Blasio is called the “Executive Protection Unit.” In April 2019, Daily News reported,“The embattled head of Mayor de Blasio’s NYPD bodyguard unit remains in his prestigious post — and sources inside the department believe it’s all thanks to the man he’s supposed to protect.Sources tell the Daily News that Inspector Howard Redmond was going to be removed from his role as commanding officer of the Executive Protection Unit — that is, until the mayor stepped in.The decision to reassign Redmond was made by Intelligence Division Chief Thomas Galati and Commissioner James O’Neill in the summer, sources said, as The News ran a series of stories about turmoil within the EPU.But sources close to the troubled unit believe de Blasio then intervened and saved Redmond’s job. Only de Blasio would have the authority to override Galati and O’Neill’s decision.When people get to the point where they think they are untouchable, it’s not surprising,’ a police source said. ‘None of this would have happened at any other level in the NYPD or any other department. It was a ground ball they let go into the outfield.’”And, Back in October 2019, the Daily News reported that,“Mayor de Blasio ordered his NYPD security detail to repeatedly take his son back and forth from Yale University during his first years at school, the Daily News has learned.Executive Protection Unit detectives drove Dante de Blasio to or from New Haven, Conn., at least seven or eight times, the sources with direct knowledge said. Members of the detail also took Dante to visit his uncle, who lives nearby, sources said. Dante faced no security risks at the time, the sources said.”Well, the public doesn’t have available to it the special Executive Police Protection that Bill de Blasio demands for himself and his immediate family. Nor do the very wealthy in New York City need to be unduly concerned for their own physical safety and well-being as they reside in extravagant and highly secured fortresses in the City and retain a retinue of highly paid private bodyguards to protect them when they venture into the jungle outside, and a very dangerous jungle New York City has indeed become, courtesy of that very Mayor, Bill de Blasio, whose policies have transformed the City into a cesspool of violence.What can the average, rational, responsible law-abiding, New York City resident rely on for self-defense? The answer is obvious. The best security for the average New York City resident is a handgun for protection in the home and when venturing outside. But try to obtain a license, necessary to protect one’s own life if you are a New York City resident!A restricted New York City Premises handgun license is difficult enough to obtain. A highly coveted unrestricted concealed handgun carry license is next to impossible. Good luck in getting that!

WHERE DOES ALL THIS LEAVE THE AVERAGE NEW YORK CITY RESIDENT?

First, the average City resident cannot rely on the police to provide them with even a modicum of community security and this comes at a time when the City suffers heightened unease and tension due to mob violence. Second, because New York traditionally frowns on civilian ownership and possession of firearms, the average New York City resident is denied effective means of self-defense. Third, the news media refuses to acknowledge that the City is facing the worst violence in years.In this constant state of paroxysms of violence devastating urban centers across America, it is remarkable that the mainstream media invariably refrains from use of accurate descriptors such as ‘assailant,’ or ‘attacker’ or ‘law breaker,’ or ‘agitator,’ or ‘provocateur,’ to refer to the agents of this violence; invariably resorting to or falling back on innocuous and general expressions ‘protestors’ or ‘demonstrators’ when referring to everyone taking part in this carnage.And, you never hear the mainstream media referring to the weeks of wanton, numerous, endless, and horrendous acts of vandalism, and looting, and of the defacing, defiling, and destroying of monuments, statues and artwork and of the incessant rioting, assaults, and muggings, and even of acts of murder—and all of it on a massive scale and all of it occurring in major cities across the Country for weeks on end—as ‘civil disturbances,’ or ‘civil unrest,’ or’ ‘civil upheavals,’ or ‘mob violence,’ or ‘lawlessness,’ or ‘violent disorder,’ which is what these acts are.The Press is careful not to employ any of the many available and more accurate descriptive words and phrases and nomenclature to describe those who individuals who are engaged in a large number of clearly serious criminal acts. The mainstream media insists on utilizing the expression ‘protest’ or ‘peaceful protest’—sometimes even resorting to using the illusive and evasive and absurd phrase, ‘mostly peaceful protest,’ abjuring the cardinal journalistic rule to avoid use of adverbs in news accounts, and avoid use of ambiguity and vagueness.The seditious New York Times, on those occasions when it deigns to recite acts of violence occurring in cities across the Country, still resorts to prefacing those acts as protests and even denying that physical confrontations are anything other than lawful acts of civil disobedience, insisting on employing the generic expression, ‘protest,’ or the deliberately vague expression, ‘unrest,’ even though whatever may have commenced weeks ago as a ‘peaceful protest,’ ostensibly triggered by the police killing of a petty criminal and drug addict, George Floyd, has long transcended anything that can remotely be reasonably categorized as a ‘protest,’ peaceful or otherwise.Cities have devolved into essentially free fire zones. Nothing occurring in our major urban centers today can reasonably be described as a “lawful peaceful protest,” guaranteed under the First Amendment of the Constitution. In fact the mainstream media continues to denounce the police, referring to any action that might have resulted directly or indirectly to harm against an agitator, as the fault of the police. Apparently, it never occurred to any of these newspaper reporters to consider that it wasn’t the police that rounded up people, placed them on a street, and told them to stir up trouble. It was the looters, and rioters, and agitators that brought the police out, in an attempt to maintain some semblance of law and order as required of them.Since Radical Left City and State political leaders have essentially handcuffed their police officers, preventing them from even attempting to maintain a modicum of law and order, these “peaceful protestors” realize they have carte blanc to physically assault the police, and they are going at it with relish. New York City is a prime example of what happens when a Radical Left mayor, such as Bill de Blasio allows people to act like animals; many of them will do so.If perchance, a NYPD police officer should arrest these “peaceful protestors,’ they know the Courts will immediately release them, sans bail. And this is exactly what New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio wants. This is what his policies dictate. And innocent New York resident bear the sad consequences.______________________________________________________

HOW DID NEW YORK CITY GET TO THIS POINT: ATTACKS ON POLICE AND THE ARMED CITIZENRY, LEAVING BOTH DEFENSELESS?

PART THREE

We postulate: the desire to protect health and hearth, life and well-being, self-identity and personal autonomy is encoded into a person’s very being at the very point of conception, when the child is imbued with an immortal soul by a morally perfect, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Divine Creator.This desire of man is manifested in Divine Law, grounded on the sacred principal of the sanctity and inviolability of the individual. These assertions are axiomatic, self-evident, a priori true. For, it is said that our God is a Creative God, and we, human beings, exist as an important part of his Divine Creation.We as finite beings, yet created in the image of God, given free will, are created to be creators ourselves; free to express our own individuality; free to do so as long as we allow other human beings to freely express their individuality as well.Equally self-evident, a priori true is the raw desire of Government—a man-made institution—to enfeeble man; to crush man into submission.Governments exist, after all, as a collective of men who, wielding power over others, and given the gift of “freedom of choice” as the Divine Being gifts to all human beings, choose unwisely, attempting to exert their will on others, and often, as we have seen throughout history, succeed.The very institution of Government evolves. Eventually, inexorably, inevitably it becomes an unholy creature, one that cannot help but dominate, subjugate, and destroy personal individuality, independence, initiative. Government attempts to destroy the very integrity of Self. In a sudden paroxysm of violence, like the cataclysmic death of a star, the Government destroys itself and everything and everyone else along with it.

NEW YORK MAYOR DE BLASIO BARKS THAT PEOPLE DON’T NEED HANDGUNS; THEY HAVE THE POLICE

Bill de Blasio argues that average New York City residents don’t need a handgun license at all because the NYPD provides them with all the safety anyone would need.And, Didn’t de Blasio make that very remark and continue to reiterate if when pressed by evening Fox News Host Sean Hannity, one evening, many moons and ten thousand years ago, as reported by Fox News in an exchange between de Blasio and Hannity, when de Blasio—then running for the Democratic Party nomination—attempted, albeit unconvincingly, to explain, to Hannity’s listeners why he, de Blasio, would be the best candidate to take on Trump in November; that the Country needs a man like him to lead our Country?“Bill de Blasio defended his stance on gun control during an exclusive interview with Sean Hannity.De Blasio, the mayor of New York City, claimed New York is the safest large American city and that the police are the best outlet to keep people safe, on Wednesday's ‘Hannity.’‘You're in the safest big city in America. . . with the finest police force in America,’ he said.‘We keep people safe. Crime's gone down for the last six years on my watch.’‘I believe right now what's wrong in this country is not that people have rights around guns, it's there are no gun safety measures like background checks.’In response, Hannity said he had to submit to a background check to obtain his gun permit in the state of New York.De Blasio said the background checks should nonetheless be more ‘sufficient.’‘Ask the NYPD and they'll tell you they believe in strong gun laws to keep officers and civilians safe,’ he added.‘Everyone deserves to be safe. The answer is not for everyone to have a firearm—any more than the answer is not for every teacher to have a firearm.’‘I believe we should have background checks. We need an assault weapons ban.’Responding to the mayor, Hannity said the presidential hopeful was dodging the question of personal firearm ownership.‘All the guns that are out there, that are threatening our officers and our civilians alike. . . I believe people have rights, I believe in gun safety laws,’ he responded.‘I believe we should have background checks. We need an assault weapons ban.’Responding to the mayor, Hannity said the presidential hopeful was dodging the question of personal firearm ownership.‘All the guns that are out there, that are threatening our officers and our civilians alike. . . I believe people have rights, I believe in gun safety laws,’ he responded.‘We have a police department. . . that is making it safer all the time—that's the best way to protect people.’When Hannity pressed further, de Blasio quipped, ‘I ain't buying what you're selling.’”Needless to say Hannity was having none of that. He remained, unconvinced; incredulous, even baffled by the nonsense that kept coming out of de Blasio’s maw.Now jump ahead ten thousand years, to the present day. Juxtapose de Blasio’s earlier remarks to Hannity:‘We have a police department. . . that is making it [the public] safer all the time—that's the best way to protect people’ ———with de Blasio’s recent and massive Police budget cut to the tune of $1 Billion—coming at a time when, reasonably, rationally, de Blasio ought to be adding $1 Billion to the Police budget, not slashing the budget, in a time of massive violence across the length and breadth of the City.About that $1 Billion budget cut, the New York Post recently reported:“The latest evidence comes with his agreement to cut police spending by about 17 percent, including the cancellation of a new class of rookies. With retirements soaring, that guarantees fewer cops on the street just as murder and mayhem are turning much of the city into the Wild West.Murders are up 25 percent this year and the police counted 63 shootings last week, compared with 26 for the same week last year.The violent tide suggests the bad guys have no fear of being ­arrested. Why should they? And if they are, the new bail law requires judges to release most of them ­immediately anyway.Meanwhile, the domino effect will add to the city’s misery. The crime spurt, including the tragic murder of 17-year-old Brandon Hendricks, while the police force is facing reductions means the NYPD will have little or no resources for less serious but still important quality-of-life issues.The illegal fireworks exploding all over the city with impunity are but a loud foreshadowing of the disorder to come. Consider, too, that it took the city more than a month to move a homeless man, often naked, out of the dry fountain at Washington Square Park.For de Blasio, the police budget episode has been Exhibit A of how he is both hapless and unscrupulous.At first, he tried to dance around the far-left pressure to defund cops, but after he was booed and heckled off the stage at a June 4 ­memorial for ­George Floyd in Brooklyn, he instantly embraced the national madness.Within days, de Blasio was throwing the mob a bone, saying that while he didn’t agree with calls for $1 billion in cuts to the NYPD’s nearly $6 billion in spending, he would propose ‘something substantial.’Given the backdrop of protests, riots and looting, even that was reckless pandering. These ‘mostly peaceful protests,’ as much of the media still insist on calling them, destroyed hundreds of businesses and scared sensible people out of their wits — and sent many of them to the exits.A good, courageous mayor would have stood up to the anti-cop crowds and reminded them that the NYPD had saved thousands of black lives by taking illegal handguns off the street, and that a declining prison rate was another consequence. It was the police, not the protesters and rioters, who had made New York the safest big city in America.Such a mayor also would have reminded all New Yorkers that a continuing exodus of taxpayers will leave the city with even less money to spend on anything and everything.But expecting de Blasio to be a good, courageous mayor is a fool’s errand. He caved into the demands and instead of nibbling at police spending, agreed to slash it.”How does de Blasio respond to reality? Simple; like all Radical Left Marxist and Anarchist crazies he denies reality, and huffs and puffs in rage that millions of rational New York City residents would question his judgment, obsequiously bowing to the Mob that is as crazy and as obsessed as he is with tearing down a Nation that the founders placed their life on the line to create and that millions of Americans thereafter placed their life on the line to sustain.Sean Hannity’s media room reports,“Embattled Big Apple Mayor Bill de Blasio enraged millions of angry residents Thursday; saying New York City is “safer and better” with “fewer people in our jails.”‘We now have fewer people in our jails than any time since WW2 and we are safer for it and better for it!’ yelled De Blasio.”The Mayor then goes after the police union. Sean Hannity’s media room again reports:“Big Apple Mayor Bill de Blasio publicly attacked one of the city’s biggest police unions during his daily press briefing Thursday; saying they “foment hatred” and have no interest in ‘moving forward.’“The Sergeants Benevolent Association has only practiced division. They foment hatred. . . . They do not try to help us move forward,’ de Blasio said during a press conference Thursday. ‘They don’t try to create anything good. I have no respect for the leadership of the SBA.’”So much for both public safety in New York and personal safety in New York.We have to ask: Who the hell votes for dangerous jackasses like Bill de Blasio, anyway, and for all the other flotsam and jetsam peppered throughout our Nation, destroying it with all the rapidity, mercilessness, horror, anguish, and mindless terror of the ‘Bubonic Plague?’ Apparently a lot of people once did, at least, support de Blasio, back in 2017, as reported by City & State, at any rate, which suggests that a lot of New York City residents must be into masochism Big-Time. PJ Media writes, anecdotally, and somewhat tongue-in-cheek,“After a couple of conversations with comedian friends of mine from New York this week I am more mystified than ever as to how Bill de Blasio got re-elected. One of my friends is conservative, the other liberal, and both hate de Blasio with a white-hot passion.When Mayor Moron was first elected almost everyone I know who is well-versed in New York City politics was convinced that he would be a one-term wonder. As he went about dismantling twenty years of progress in the city it seemed almost certain that he would be shown the door, Apparently, everyone in New York was drunk in 2017, and de Blasio was given another shot at screwing everything up.”And what does the run-up to the 2021 NYC Mayoral race portend at the moment? The Gotham Gazette writes,“But one year from now, New Yorkers will cast their ballots in another primary election, one that will likely determine the slate of leadership of New York City for the next four years, including the next mayor. With Mayor Bill de Blasio term-limited, the stage is set for a fierce competition, which may not really take off until just after this year’s presidential election but has already begun.With the economy in shambles and the streets echoing with the exasperated cries of a city disillusioned with current leadership, political analysts say New Yorkers will look for a steady hand to guide them through the city’s many crises, whether it’s the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, structural and systemic racism, economic devastation, perennial unaffordability, entrenched homelessness, crumbling public housing, and more.”The entire race will hardly matter to anyone if the Radical Left Democrats take over the Federal Goverment. It will be the end of the Republic. That much is certain.But assuming, hopefully, Trump does win a second term in Office and Republicans manage to hold onto the Senate, the dire situation affecting NYC then and now will be of concern primarily to New York City residents and less of concern to the rest of the Nation. Still, it should be remembered that New York City hadn't always suffered fools for mayors and crime had been brought into some semblance of control.Under the leadership of Mayor Rudolf Giuliani, the extraordinarily effective “Broken Windows” policing policy significantly reduced criminal activity in the City. Even under the leadership of Radical Left virulent Anti-Second Amendment hater, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, criminal activity in New York City remained significantly lower than had existed under the leadership of Radical Leftist Mayor David Dinkins. Bloomberg implemented a highly effective “stop and frisk” policy that took firearms out of the hands of criminals.Bloomberg later, of course, and, unsurprisingly, disavowed the City’s “stop and frisk” policy when he, late in the game, joined the race—semi-seriously, it seems—for the Democrat Party’s nomination for U.S. President in the upcoming 2020 General Election.Now, though, under the pseudo-leadership of the Radical Left fanatic, moronic and abjectly hopeless, helpless, and thoroughly contemptible, Bill De Blasio, the City has once again reverted into a sordid, fetid, festering, extraordinarily dangerous hellhole.To hardened serial criminals, raving lunatics, illegal alien drug cartel gangs, murderous drug lords, dangerous psychopaths of all types, along with home-grown domestic Marxist, Socialist, Communist, and Anarchist terrorist groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa and other sociopathic organizations, New York City is looked upon and, in fact, has become a shelter, a haven, a safe harbor, a playground sanctuary where the creatures of the night may rant and rave, shout and scream, rampage and pillage, and assault and murder with total abandon, preying mercilessly on innocent, bewildered, forlorn disarmed citizens.Better, then, for normal, sane, law-abiding residents to remain in secured buildings—apartments, lofts, cooperatives, condominium units—as they have more to fear from the viral flotsam and jetsam of society than from the ravages wrought to our society by the Chinese Coronavirus.To normal, rational, responsible, hard-working people who do not call New York City their home, the City has become a veritable containment center, a quarantined area, a contaminated zone, where no one in their right mind would willingly venture into if that can be avoided, and that now includes police officers from neighboring jurisdictions.Unfortunately, New York City isn’t alone. The Radical Left mob has infected other jurisdictions, resulting in pandemonium, across the Nation. Crime and mayhem are the abnormal norm in major Cities around the Country—those led by Radical Left mayors and Radical Left State Governors, and the Radical Left Democrats in Congress are all too busy whipping their whirling Dervishes up to a fever pitch, and the Republicans are all too lame to oppose them, leaving the President himself, as always, to take up the slack.Where does this leave innocent, rational, law-abiding citizens? Best for them to be well-armed with substantial ammunition. And, if average, responsible, rational law-abiding citizens do not have a firearm in their possession, they ought now to seriously consider acquiring one for their own peace of mind and self-defense because the police will have enough on their mind to secure their own safety. But, if you happen to reside in New York City, your chance for acquiring a firearm for home defense is perhaps 50/50. And, if you wish to carry a handgun on your person for self-defense at all times, you will need to acquire an unrestricted concealed handgun carry license to do so lawfully. And your odds of obtaining one is, if we were to hazard a guess, about .00001%, and that is being optimistic.And, if Biden becomes U.S. President, most of us will be in the same boat as your average New Yorker. Expect to see civil unrest, disorder, and destruction expanding, spreading throughout the Country down to the smallest rural village.The first order of business of the Radical Left will be to implement a large-scale plan to collect firearms from the citizenry. Expect to see life in the U.S. taking on the look, and quality, and feel of Venezuela, Cuba, and Mexico, not the picturesque seeming quaint serenity of such quasi-Socialist Nordic States like Sweden and Denmark.______________________________________________

DE BLASIO’S THREE-PART RECIPE FOR DISASTER: DEFUND AND DISMEMBER THE POLICE; DISMANTLE CRIMINAL JUSTICE; AND DISARM THE CITIZEN

PART FOUR

NEW YORK CITY: ON THE VERGE OF MELTDOWN

How has the jabbering, Bill De Blasio, single-handedly turned the safest Big City in America into a snake pit? Consider what this present New York City Mayor has done——1) He has welcomed criminals with open arms, releasing hardened dangerous, sociopathic and psychopathic inmates from prison; tolerates or actively encourages unruly protests, riots, arson, vandalism, and looting; and has implemented a no-bail policy requiring Courts to release countless more dangerous criminals onto the City’s Streets.2) He has hand-cuffed the City’s own police, the NYPD, preventing law enforcement from providing even minimal protection for the community at large, and has effectively alienated them; treating the New York City Police Department like pariahs as if the police were the enemy of the community rather than the community’s protectors, even as he welcomes private police protection for his own personal security.3) As an anti-Second Amendment fanatic, he, along with the Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo, continues to discourage civilian ownership of firearms.Unfortunately, de Blasio isn’t a one-of-a-kind loon. There are many others. The dangerous, ruthless, inordinately wealthy and secretive Marxist Globalist, George Soros, has quietly seeded a plethora of Radical Left Marxists leaders throughout the Country, down to the local level of Government, and the results of his well-organized plan to destroy our Nation from within are in evidence.These Radical Leftists are dutifully operating, as Soros expects them to. We see them working either in concert with or otherwise as passive sympathetic observers of virulent Marxist and Anarchist groups that have been deliberately fomenting violence in Cities across America; engaging in continuous, massive seditious acts of unbridled destruction to property and deliberate, unprovoked assaults on civilians, police, and military—goading and baiting the police and President Trump, daring them to try to stop the rampaging plague of violence.And the seditious Press and Radical Leftist Democrat Party leadership and its members blatantly, chillingly, caustically ignore the carnage and ravaging and rampaging rioters; refusing even to acknowledge their existence; continuing to refer to them peaceful protestors and not agitators, rioters, looters, arsonists, and assailants, even murderers, which is what they are; incongruously blaming the existence of and continuation of violence on President Trump.Community Law enforcement officers, in particular, are ordered by the radical Left local and State governmental leaders either to stand down, or have become wary of doing their job lest they place their own life in danger or face criminal charges themselves, given new police policy directives, designed to constrain them from effectively and quickly and safely restraining vicious predators and rioters. The result is that they have become the target of violent attacks.New police policies are often deliberately vague, ambiguous, or altogether incoherent. And they are clearly inane.NYPD Police Officers, for example, face recriminations or criminal charges themselves for simply attempting to perform their duty: promoting at least a modicum of safety for the community.Not surprisingly, police from neighboring jurisdictions are loath to venture into New York City to apprehend criminals fleeing their own jurisdictions.keep in mind that, under the laws of New York, and around the Country, police do not have a duty to protect the life and safety of individual members of the community, except in very narrow, carefully defined circumstances.The duty of ensuring one’s own life and safety and that of one’s family rests on the individual. See the November 21, 2019 Arbalest Quarrel Article, titled, “Can We, As Individuals, Rely On The Police To Protect Us?” But, as the recent situation with the McCloskey couple of St. Louis, Missouri, makes manifestly and disturbingly clear, the Radical Left intends to handcuff the police, preventing the police from, at the very least, protecting communities at large and; but, at one and the same time, the Radical left has precluded law-abiding, rational, responsible, American citizens from defending their own life and property. See the website, law enforcement todayThus, with their hands effectively tied, NYPD police officers—and those police officers of other communities whose departments have faced defunding and downsizing, disassembling or dismantling—have left their communities in a precarious situation, as those communities do not have even a modicum of protection from the worst elements of society. Residents of these communities cannot now rely on armed police to provide them with even general community-wide protection. And, as if this state of affairs weren’t outrageous enough—brought about by the apathetic and pathetic and totally irresponsible and useless Radical Left State and local governments, innocent, law-abiding, rational, and Americans of these communities once mercilessly denied their God-given right to defend their own life and well-being utilizing the best means available to do so, the firearm. This state of affairs is truly mind-boggling and it is continuing non-stop and likely will continue in the run-up to the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.If a Government denies a person the means to protect his or her own life and safety, Government generally covers the gap, bestowing substantial power to the police to maintain law and order and to provide for the safety, security, and well-being of the community at large. This also means that Government would not suffer criminals gladly or kindly but would enforce criminal laws quickly and stringently. Convictions rates would be high and recidivism low.Countries such as Singapore that fashions itself as a Constitutional Republic but, in practice, operates as a “benign” Dictatorship, and China that, curiously, also calls itself a Republic operates as an oppressive, repressive Communist Dictatorship. Both Countries have relatively low violent crime rates. Private ownership of firearms is prohibited in both Nations. The Governments of these Countries don’t tolerate crime. Crime is stamped down fast and it is stamped down hard.  See, e.g., crimes rates by Country, 2020.Other Nations, Switzerland and Luxemburg, may best be described as Democratic Republics. Luxembourg, though, has a strict policy against private firearms ownership. Switzerland’s policy encourages private ownership of firearms. Both Nations have extremely low crimes rates. The populations of both Countries are small and homogenous. See, e.g., crimes rates by Country, 2020.And Venezuela and Mexico both have extremely strict gun control policies but Venezuala, in particular, has exceedingly high crimes rates. And, extremely strict gun control policies in Mexico belie the claim by antigun zealots that Mexico's high rates of gun violence that high gun rates and lax gun laws are directly related, albeit, antigun zealots argue that guns in Mexico emanate from the U.S., as Newsweek reported last year. But, then, who, in Mexico is responsible for all the shootings and killings? Newsweek would rather not say, but the photo accompanying the story more than suggests that it isn't your average law-abiding Mexican citizen who is responsible for the carnage. Dollars to Donuts, we would wager the violence in Mexico is concomitant with rampant criminal activity. In our Nation, companies settle their differences in Court. In Mexico, drug cartels settle business differences through other means.Both Venezuela and Mexico refer to themselves as Republics. They aren’t. The former is an oppressive Marxist Dictatorship. The latter is more accurately described as a Narco-State—that is to say, a Country essentially controlled by criminal gangs. Neither Country is politically, socially, economically, or jurisprudentially functional in any practical sense. The term ‘Republic’ is ubiquitous as a descriptor for governments of Countries around the world; curiously, even among those Countries in which the term is clearly a misnomer.The most oppressive dictatorships invariably refer to themselves as “republics,” ostensibly to convey the idea both to their populations and to the outside world that—however obviously false the nomenclature is to reality—these Countries are responsive to the needs of the people and operate through the consent of the governed.Despite the strenuous and strident arguments generated by those governments and organizations that are vehemently opposed to private ownership of firearms, there is no demonstrable causal connection, nor even a correlation, between high rates of violent crime in a Nation and liberal policies pertaining to private ownership of firearms. This becomes obvious when size of a nation’s population and ethnic and racial composition of that population—whether homogenous or heterogeneous—are factored into the equation, as they should be but rarely are. Nations that historically encourage, even strongly encourage, the private ownership of firearms, such as Switzerland and the U.S., have a relatively low violent crime rate. Nonetheless, Anti-Second Amendment groups and other Radical Left and Progressive political groups proclaim endlessly and vociferously, but erroneously, that the U.S. suffers from a brutally high violent crime rate and that this is due predominately if not exclusively to the notion of too many firearms in the hands of too many people. The conclusion is false. It is predicated on a calculated and deliberate failure of anti-Second Amendment groups to consider critical factors, such as population size and population density in urban areas, the diversity of the ethnic and racial makeup of the population, and lax enforcement of criminal laws, which has grown noticeably ever more lax in recent weeks. _____________________________________________

PART FIVE

THE RADICAL LEFT’S AGENDA AGAINST TRUMP: IGNORE ACHIEVEMENTS; MAGNIFY PERCEIVED FAILURES

The U.S. has the third-largest population of all nations.The Nation's urban centers have dense concentrations of people. And the ethnic and racial composition of the U.S. is extremely diverse. Yet, despite all these factors that contribute to crime, the violent crime rates have, in the last few decades have been falling in the U.S., and the most dramatic decline in violent crime has come during the last few years. This comes to the consternation of the Radical Left in this Nation as President Trump can take credit for that. On October 10, 2019, Forbes reported that:“The FBI released its annual crime report a few days ago, showing the violent crime rate has dropped 4.6% since President Trump took office. Had the violent crime rate in 2018 remained at 2016 levels [that is, during the Obama era], almost 58,000 additional murders, rapes, robberies and aggravated assaults would have occurred.The major property crime rate has also continued its steady national decline, with the rate of motor vehicle theft resuming its downward rate in 2018.” This is no accident. President Trump has focused his energy to reducing crime in our Country, not in constraining and restricting private ownership of firearms. The Pew Research fact tank reports:“Donald Trump made fighting crime a central focus of his campaign for president, and he cited it again during his January 2017 inaugural address. His administration has since taken steps intended to address crime in American communities, such as instructing federal prosecutors to pursue the strongest possible charges against criminal suspects. Here are five facts about crime in the United States.Violent crime in the U.S. has fallen sharply over the past quarter century. The two most commonly cited sources of crime statistics in the U.S. both show a substantial decline in the violent crime rate since it peaked in the early 1990s. One is an annual report by the FBI of serious crimes reported to police in more than 18,500 jurisdictions around the country. The other is a nationally representative annual survey by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which asks approximately 160,000 Americans ages 12 and older whether they were victims of crime, regardless of whether they reported those crimes to the police.Using the FBI numbers, the violent crime rate fell 51% between 1993 and 2018. Using the BJS data, the rate fell 71% during that span. The long-term decline in violent crime hasn’t been uninterrupted, though. The FBI, for instance, reported increases in the violent crime rate between 2004 and 2006 and again between 2014 and 2016. Violent crime includes offenses such as rape, robbery and assault.”Consider: According to the worldometer, there are at present 235 Countries and dependent territories. Of those 235 Countries and dependent and territories, the three largest, by population, include China, India, and the United States: China has over 1.4 billion people; India has almost 1.4 billion people; and the United States has 331 million people.But, despite the size of the U.S. population, the third largest of all Nations and dependent territories in the world, as of 2020, the U.S. doesn’t even rank in the top 20 nations in violent crime, as pointed out by the UK news source, the Independent. Obviously, the Radical Left Democrat Party leadership, along with their wealthy powerful and secretive benefactors, are desirous of destroying Trump’s singular achievements: a fall in crime rates and a rise in economic activity and growth.But one year before the election the Radical Left Democrats, along with the transnationalist Globalists, realized they had to turn these positive indices of Trump’s effectiveness as U.S. President, around. And, with a few short months remaining before the most important U.S. Presidential election in the last several decades, they have grown desperate. But, in recent months, given two recent events, they are now succeeding: a global pandemic brought about by the Chinese Coronavirus, and by one event horrific caught on video, there has been a marked turnaround.The economy has crumbled and societal breakdown is occurring. But neither one of these two, events, one continuous, one incidental, can reasonably be attributed to President Trump, nor should they be. Yet, the forces at home and abroad that desire to destroy the Trump Presidency have milked these events—a global pandemic and the evident murder of a petty criminal and drug addict by a sociopathic police officer—for all they are worth. None of this is by accident. All of it is by design.The inception of the Chinese Coronavirus pandemic has served the Disruptors and Destroyers of a Free Constitutional Republic well even as the illegal coups to bring down the Trump Presidency through the reprehensible Mueller probe, the ludicrous House impeachment proceeding, the half-hearted and ridiculous effort to utilize the 25^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the insertion of spies and saboteurs into Trump’s inner circle—all this, in a cold, callous, concerted, and calculated effort to undermine and bring to a halt Trump’s policy initiatives and goals—have failed.That Trump has been able to accomplish any policy goal at all in the face of constant, concerted, well-organized attacks directed against him, coming from numerous and diversified forces—including the Democrat Party leadership and rank and file members, Bush Republicans, the massive Deep State Bureaucracy, the mainstream Press, Big Tech, and even the Courts—says a great deal about Trump’s fortitude, his stamina, his tenacity, and his capacity for leadership.For the last three-plus years, Trump has in fact faced more adversity from forces within the Nation than from anything emanating from outside the Country.The Democrat Party has consistently and rapaciously attacked him, refusing to work with him; the bloated Bureaucracy covertly and systematically machinated against him, sabotaging the President’s policies, having the audacity, no less, to admit this and gloat over it; the mainstream media scurrilously and scandalously denigrates him, refusing to credit his many successes, magnifying his perceived failures, even manufacturing lies and attributing all sorts of misdeeds against him; and the large technology companies utilize their power over information dissemination to control messaging, often censoring the President and censoring those Americans who support them.Progressive and Radical Left Marxist and Anarchist groups—unable to get close enough to the President to endanger his life and that of his family—do what they can to physically threaten and assault members of his Administration: his advisors, and administrative staff, attempting to discourage Americans from working for him. And FBI, CIA, and DOJ leadership, for their part, working within the Bureaucratic Deep State, have unlawfully used the awesome power and authority they wield to conspire against those who have assisted the Trump campaign.The misdeeds of those forces at home that have orchestrated and implemented campaigns against Trump to disrupt and disable his Administration, as shameful and disgraceful as those misdeeds are, such misdeeds must be understood, as well, as direct and ignominious attacks on the Nation itself.Those forces aligned against Trump that have worked unceasingly to destroy his Presidency, have, as well, harmed the Nation. They have insulted the American people. They have undermined our system of laws and jurisprudence and have demeaned the very sanctity of our Constitution. They have trampled our sacred symbols and monuments and have made the Nation look ridiculous in the eyes of the world. Their misdeeds are unprecedented in number, wide in scope, and audacious beyond anything previously seen in the annals of history.But, in all this, the forces aligned against Trump have failed to prevent him from attempting to accomplish his goals. They have failed to weaken his resolve or to weaken the resolve of the many Americans who support him.But, in all that these malevolent, malignant forces have attempted to defeat the President and to destroy the Nation—and it is now clearly evident the would-be Destroyers of the Trump Presidency have in mind, have always had in mind a goal beyond even that of disrupting the Trump Presidency, as they truly do wish to destroy a free Constitutional Republic and the sovereignty of the American people—they have not yet succeeded and would not succeed. But, with the onset of a Global pandemic, they might yet succeed.The Global pandemic wrought by the Chinese Coronavirus has devastated our Nation’s economy: quickly and effectively just a few months before the U.S. Presidential election. The pandemic has left millions of Americans out of work, and has left thousands of small companies, and large companies, too, in serious financial straits.And the killing of a small-time criminal and drug addict, George Floyd, has provided the pretext to undermine the safety and security of our communities and of the well-being of our citizenry, thereby undercutting the achievements of a President who, having unerringly focused his energies on having successfully and substantially reduced violent crime in our Country—a singular achievement that none of his predecessors had effectively accomplished or for that matter had even tried to accomplish as they had not seriously focused their energies on trying to reduce the rate of crime in our Country.The plan to secure a Radical Left Marxist victory in November 2020 is actually straightforward. It is grounded on an amalgamation of enticement, fear, and guilt:  Entice the American people into accepting the false belief that the violence impacting our Nation is a result of two centuries of pent-up rage of Black victims at the hands of White oppressors, caused by systemic racism infecting all American institutions; that it is reflected in White supremacism that resulted in the election of Trump as U.S. President; that, if Trump is re-elected, violence will continue; and that such violence will only recede if the electorate repudiates Trump and elects a Democrat in his stead.The Marxists, now controlling the Democrat Party, have a solution. Once they get into Office, they suggest that they will do what, they say, Trump cannot do: restrain the violence infecting our Nation because, after all, they control the mob. This of course amounts to naked extortion. And what will these Radical Left Democrats do, if they take control of the reins of Government?Revamp all political, social, legal, and educational, and cultural institutions in America through stringent, uniform norms that are designed and administered by the Federal Government; disarm the citizenry; control all manner of speech and association; flood the Nation with a new class of indentured servants, namely cheap labor from Third World Countries; reduce or keep the mass of citizenry in a state of penury; convert the Nation into a massive Welfare State; and accept the lion’s share of the burden in arms, manpower, and money, for Europe’s military defense.How will this massive federal Government stay afloat, as we see it?Through increased taxation of what remains of middle America and, conceivably, through private and secret bankrolling and funding by a close, tight-knit, transnational oligarchical world order that controls major economic sectors including finance; technology; agriculture; health; energy; construction; telecommunications; raw materials production; defense; consumer staples; and manufacturing._______________________________________________

AMNESIA AND DISTURBANCE IN THE AMERICAN PSYCHE

PART SIX

The Destructors of our Nation have created a dangerous illusion, and, through the force of propaganda have force-fed this illusion to the Nation’s people. It is one of systemic racism, endemic in our Nation and, particularly, endemic in the entirety of community police forces.The Destructors of our Nation have created this illusion to divide our Nation; to sow suspicion and enmity, division and divisiveness, confusion and discord between races; and even between the sexes. All of it is fabricated; none of it true. The Destructors of our Nation have orchestrated a strategy that is nothing more than an elaborate hoax; a fairy tale will-o’-the-wisp; an artificial construct crafted and implemented to cement, for these Destructors, a coalition of diverse elements to ensure a victory for them in November 2020.Ever since Donald Trump won the Republican Party nomination and the U.S. Presidential election, the Destructors of our Nation, the Radical Left and Globalist transnationalist “elites,” have worked methodically, unceasingly to engineer Trump’s downfall, thereby allowing them to continue where they had left off—where they were so rudely interrupted after the shocking and humbling defeat of their carefully groomed stooge, Hillary Clinton.These malevolent, malignant forces are now anxious to complete their agenda, an agenda that mandates the dismantling of a free Constitutional Republic; the erosion of the very concepts of ‘nation-state’ and ‘citizen;’ the eradication of our Nation’s history, heritage, and culture; the deliberate and disgraceful denigration of our Nation’s founders; the wholesale destruction of our Nation’s sacred symbols; all in a reprehensible and transparent attempt to loosen the ties that bind Americans to one another and bind all Americans to their wondrous Constitution; the foundation of a great Nation, comprising the world’s only truly free and sovereign people.Much more than a mere document, the United States Constitution is a blueprint providing the functional framework of our Nation. It establishes the structure of a central, “Federal” Government, the relationship of this central, Federal Government to the American people, the authority of the American people over Government, and the inherent sovereignty of the American people. The Constitution is the very force that binds Americans to each other.The subversion of a Constitution upon which the reality of our Nation exists and that has served this Nation and its people well for 240 plus years would not only entail the destruction of our free Republic, it would entail the utter annihilation of the very thought of natural God-given fundamental, unalienable, immutable, illimitable rights and liberties, that exist intrinsically in man, well beyond the lawful power of Government to modify, abrogate, or ignore.The import of the twin-goals of denying to the citizenry the general security the police provide and in denying to Americans their God-given right of self-defense with the best means available, a firearm, is by design, not accident. It is all part of a deviously, diabolically clever plan. Through a severely weakened economy and a physically defenseless, and demoralized people, the Nation’s Destructors see a path forward.If the Destructors of our Nation do achieve their goals, it means unraveling the very fabric of our society, leaving the public defenseless during an extensive and intensifying period of chaos.If successful, the Radical Left will have created a Collectivist dystopian morass, forcing Americans to bend to the will of and to rely solely on a massive, strong centralized government to meet all their basic needs: from food, to shelter, to safety; that they may need their basic survival needs. What we are seeing today is no less than a wholesale ransacking of our Nation; the theft of our birthright; the attempt—no longer disguised—to transform a free Constitutional Republic and a free sovereign people to a state of abject servitude.Nothing portrays  the sheer rage and desperation and even depravity of the Radical Left Destructors of our Nation and of our Constitution than in their callous disregard for human life even as they claim to assert concern for it.The inanity is reflected in the duplicitous, hypocritical, erroneous, and even incongruous remarks that these Radical Left Destructors of our Nation and its Constitution constantly make and reiterate. In recent days, the messaging has become even at once more strident and even more incoherent, to wit:“American civilians do not need to be armed because they would likely just harm themselves with firearms and the police provide Americans with all the physical safety and protection they need, but that, since the police are a danger to Americans, too, they must be defunded or disbanded. So, social services will be expanded to provide Americans with physical safety and security.”What this really means is that the Nation’s Destructors trust neither the American people nor, at present, the local and State police because they perceive both as standing outside their control. Thus, they wish to disarm American citizenry and drastically revise the nature of community policing.The Radical Left Destructors of society have shown, of late, where their true sympathies rest, if anyone has had any doubt about that.Those sympathies don’t rest with the people or with the police.The surrogate representative for the common people is now Black Lives Matter which really has nothing to do with the sanctity of human life, be it a “Black” life or that of anyone else. It has everything to do with erasing a Constitutional free Republic and the sovereignty of the American people.Black Lives Matter members have called for defunding the police. And Mayor de Blasio has obliged them, defunding the NYPD to the tune of one billion dollars. The Mayor should be increasing funding to the police, not cutting funding, but de Blasio would rather listen to the demands of domestic terrorists whose agenda has nothing whatsoever to do with promoting safety and security and the well-being of residents of a community and has everything to do with tearing down our nation’s institutions, rewriting history, controlling the habits, thoughts and actions of Americans, thoroughly disrupting the lives of us all; transforming America into a nightmarish Dystopia Collective.The fact that Mayor de Blasio expressly endorses the activities of this domestic terrorist group, Black Lives Matter, demonstrates the extent to which he and other radical Leftists intend to remake society, commencing with a massive reorganization of the Nation’s community and State police forces.Indeed, this domestic terrorist group, Black Lives Matter—that news outlets often refer to by the shorthand seemingly innocuous-sounding and charming acronym “BLM,” ludicrously claims,“We know that police don’t keep us safe — and as long as we continue to pump money into our corrupt criminal justice system at the expense of housing, health, and education investments — we will never be truly safe.”Who is this “we” that this terrorist group is referring to? In what way is the criminal justice system in New York City and around the Country corrupt?Does “BLM” see the criminal justice system as corrupt because “BLM” sees it failing to incarcerate criminals who do in fact deserve to be incarcerated for the crimes they commit? Or does “BLM” see the criminal justice system as corrupt precisely because the system is doing what it should be doing, namely incarcerating criminals for the crimes they commit, and “BLM” doesn’t like this scenario and prefers to “reimagine” the criminal justice system as it “reimagines” policing: doing away with both. If it is the latter, Black Lives Matter utilizes an odd definition for the word, ‘corruption.’And is the incidence of crime really a function of a lack of money poured into public housing, health, and education? Or is that merely a false presumption, and an excuse for destroying a free Constitutional Republic in order to create a Marxist world order, where everyone, Black and White, alike, can live happily ever after in a Stateless State of perpetual penury, strife, and subjugation.?Bill de Blasio ought to be asking this small “BLM” domestic terrorist group—that the Press outsize importance to and that Corporations and Soros-funded Marxist organizations flood with money, explain itself. Instead, the Nation sees this jackass helping Marxist Nihilists paint huge and ugly “BLM” graffiti on the City Streets, in front of Trump Tower.And where did this upstart “BLM” movement come from him? If we are to believe the website, three women started it because, as the website says,“Black Lives Matter is an ideological and political intervention in a world where Black lives are systematically and intentionally targeted for demise. It is an affirmation of Black folks’ humanity, our contributions to this society, and our resilience in the face of deadly oppression.” That is the myth at any rate. But, how has this organization happen to emerge so quickly into such prominence? Why does it dominate the news? How has it grown into a world-wide organization if in fact it is truly a world-wide organization? From whom is this organization receiving such vast sums of money, and why? How is BLM spending that money if it is spending it? And who, really, is behind this organization and managing it? Might not BLM be a “front” for something else; something secret, something much more powerful, and something much more sinister? And why do the mainstream media and so many political leaders blindly, reverentially kowtow to this group? Is this organization, BLM, being deliberately used as a vehicle or catalyst to destroy community policing?Understandably, the morale among NYPD police officers, as among police officers across the Country, is at an all-time low and fear and anxiety of New York City residents and those of residents in many other communities, is at an all-time high.The New York City Mayor, Bill de Blasio, treats the NYPD like pariahs, and, concomitantly, he forbids the average law-abiding citizen to arm him or herself.The NYPD has become a passive observer of crimes committed rather than assertive crime preventive actors, and many NYPD officers have not unreasonably, opted for early retirement.New York City residents who have the means to relocate elsewhere are moving away from the City in droves. That leaves the poor—Black and White residents of the City alike—to suffer the consequences of what has metastasized into a complete breakdown of law and order, leaving the wealthier residents who remain in the City to spend exorbitant sums of money to retain well-armed bodyguards or; leaving the less well-to-do to attempt to obtain, and very rarely succeeding, a highly coveted unrestricted concealed handgun carry license.Since it is next to impossible for the average person and business owner to obtain an unrestricted concealed handgun carry license for protection in New York City and as it has become increasingly more difficult for those who presently have one of a very few of these licenses to renew it when the license comes up for renewal, the law-abiding public is essentially denied even the basic right of self-defense.In point of fact, Bill de Blasio has single-handedly turned what had become the safest large City in the Country into a cesspool of rampant violence, confusion, disorder, and fear. Why would anyone wish to relocate to New York City or, for that matter, to any other major City that has become a sanctuary for the worst elements of society.Marxist, Anarchist Radical Left Governors and Mayors are encouraging civil unrest rather than discouraging it; emboldening those who seek to tear down our society to indulge themselves rather than attempting to restrain them.And life in this Nation is only going to get worse, much worse, if the Radical Left Democrats take control of this Nation’s Government in November.____________________________________________________

AMERICA’S CHOICE: PRESERVATION OF A FREE REPUBLIC OR ANNIHILATION

PART SEVEN

“The deliberations of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 were held in strict secrecy. Consequently, anxious citizens gathered outside Independence Hall when the proceedings ended in order to learn what had been produced behind closed doors. The answer was provided immediately. A Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, ‘Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?’ With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, ‘A republic, if you can keep it.’” Anecdotal account, cited from the New AmericanThere is a constant push-pull tension between the natural desire of man to be left alone, to create a world for him or herself, within him or herself, free from Government interference. And there is Government that attempts to create conformity and uniformity; destroying all vestiges of individuality; demanding subservience.The founders of our free Constitutional Republic knew all this of course, and wrestled with it; no easy task at all: How to create a centralized, Federal Government sufficiently strong to withstand external pressures from outside a new Nation to be but at once able to resist the tidal forces within it that strive to corral the independent spirit of its own citizens that is grounded on the sacred right to be left alone, turning the Nation into a despotic, totalitarian nightmare: monarchy, autocracy, oligarchy, and, absolute democracy (majoritarian mob rule). The founders pondered how man might live in harmony in a society with other men, free to go their own way, walk their own path, free from interference by a strong centralized Government that strives to defeat the desire of one to be left alone. And the founders came up with an ingenious solution.The founders realized the need to codify God-given rights existent in the American citizenry upon which Government must not, cannot, ever transgress.The First Amendment right of free speech—free expression—is a codification of Divine Law that tells man to be creative. The right of free speech is a codification of Divine imperative that each individual soul is sacrosanct and inviolate. Government is to let each American alone to realize his or her own potential and attain his or her own goals.The Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms is a codification of the Divine law that recognizes the cardinal right of defense of self, whether that threat comes from beast, from another man, or from a tyrannical government.The blueprint for such a Nation, a free Constitutional Republic, explicitly established a centralized, “federal” government but with limited powers. These nature of and extent of these powers was set forth in the Articles. But, to contain the urge of those wielding power to amass more power unto themselves as the expense of the public to whom they are sworn to serve, the framers of the Constitution included a Bill of Rights, codifications of God-given fundamental rights and liberties of the people, beyond the lawful power of Government to modify, abrogate, or ignore. This  Constitution has served the American people well through decades and centuries. Our Constitution has successfully resisted all attempts to undermine it. Having allowed the free expression of Americans to flourish unimpeded by Government, Our Nation has become the greatest, most powerful, and wealthiest Nation on Earth.Thus, through a free Constitutional Republic, the framers had developed a political system most beneficial to the individual, and one where man is able to live in a society with other men, in harmony, and through a free Constitutional Republic a society can grow and has grown into a great Nation. This, the framers of the Constitution, the founders of our Republic, had accomplished, but it was no easy task.Yes, our Nation has had its setbacks; a major civil war and economic strife and hardships, but our Nation remained strong; the greatest, most prosperous Nation on Earth; a natural magnet for many people across the Globe.As with the power and might of the Roman Empire that lasted for over a thousand years, our own Nation has, through time, absorbed many different ethnicities, but America was and is perceived as a “great melting pot,” as a unique American ethos was born. This notion of a “great melting pot” is more than metaphor. It says that each American citizen has imbued within him or her a unique American spirit that binds each of us.But something has changed in recent years. A virus has been seeded in the population. This virus is invisible both to the naked eye and to the most powerful microscope because it is non-physical. Yet, it is intensely noxious, highly infective, and extremely tenacious. It affects the psyche of the polity. It has been lying essentially dormant for years in the body politic but has now emerged full-blown, mutating the Nation into a hideous beast.We know the carriers of this plague. We see them. The sources of this plague are New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. In Congress Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Adam Schiff are the “Typhoid Mary” source of this plague. Billionaire sources of this plague include George Soros and the tech moguls. And, they have infected others: political leaders of States and towns, who in turn have infected millions of others; many of them among the younger population, turning them into unthinking, raging, ravaging and rampaging zombies; mindlessly attacking people; destroying and defacing monuments; defiling places of worship; demanding obeisance to false gods.To create a transnational world order devoid of sovereign independent nation-state, it is first necessary to destroy the notion of national identity as tied to the individual nation-state. As Americans have their own individual unique identity, the transnational Globalists must somehow dislodge what they perceive to be an inconvenient conceit from the psyche of each American, no easy task.It is necessary to replace or redefine concepts that are ingrained in the American psyche. One such concept, deeply ingrained in the mind of each American is that of  America perceived as a “melting pot”—the idea that Americans are diverse ethnically, but they all come to inculcate a unified American spirit.The Radical Left and the transnationalist Globalists understand that this idea must be challenged and reshaped or replaced with another concept; something quite different. And the Nation’s Destructors have devised the concept of diversity in America, but diversity divorced from the concept of ‘melting pot;’ diversity divorced from the notion that Americans do have or even that they can have such a thing as a uniquely American identity. And the propagandists in the mainstream media are conveying that new message: that America isn’t a melting pot at all and never was, and never should be considered a melting pot. According to the new State religion, America consists of diverse, distinct people who happen to reside in a particular geographical region that at the moment happens to be referred to as the United States. Diversity, absent assimilation, breeds hostility, antagonism, suspicion, contempt, between and among people and this is playing out in America today as the Radical Left demagogues and Globalist elite puppet masters intended. It is a plague they have sowed; meant to elicit ill-will. And they pin the division, and divisiveness, the confusion and despair, the violence and travails all on President Trump. It is a lie. It is a  False Flag operation, meticulously planned, and orchestrated.Division, Divisiveness, the plague of Diversity has been created by and is being nurtured and spread by the seditious Press, at the behest of their puppet masters, in a deliberate attempt at spreading enmity and suspicion and hatred among Americans, to turn us against each other—the better to control all of us.How many Americans have already fallen victim to this plague: Any of your friends, family, perhaps? Will you fall victim to this plague of diversity, yourself?The virus is suggestive, highly seductive to many. But you can resist. Be prepared to arm yourself. The zombies are coming for you. They are coming for all of us.___________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

A MARXIST COUNTER-REVOLUTION THREATENS THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE THREATENED ON INDEPENDENCE DAY

PART ONE

WHO SHALL SECURE THE RIGHT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS?

We begin with one simple basic, indisputable, but melancholy truth: No Branch of our Government cares deeply about preserving and strengthening the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; neither Congress; nor the U.S. Supreme Court; nor, for that matter, the Chief Executive of our Nation, President Donald Trump.Sure, there are outliers in Congress and on the High Court who seek to preserve, protect, and strengthen the sacred right of the people to keep and bear arms, but they are few in number; pathetically few in number; and President Trump’s own stand on the Second Amendment has been lukewarm at best. Yes, the President claims to support the Second Amendment. Like all politicians, he knows how to pontificate, and he does so better than most. But what has he done to set his lofty, grandiose words to action? The only concrete Second Amendment action he has taken that we can recall was one decidedly against buttressing our sacred, inviolate right.Do you remember what President Trump did? He ordered the DOJ to revise the definition of ‘machine gun’ to include bump stocks in the legal definition. The resulting change distorts decades of industry and military usage and understanding of the expression, ‘machine gun.’ Regardless, Trump ordered the DOJ to follow through with this change. He did this ostensibly to placate those folks who don’t want the American citizenry to own and possess firearms at all; to mollify those maniacal ideologues who have a visceral abhorrence of firearms; who harbor ill will toward those who wish to exercise their God-given right to own and possess firearms; and who will not rest until they have: one, banned civilian ownership and possession of firearms; and two, have collected all firearms and ammunition from American civilian citizens; and three, have destroyed all civilian caches of firearms and ammunition, imprisoning those who they deem hoarders of firearms and ammunition; and, four, have erased the language of the Second Amendment from the U.S. Constitution and from all lexicons.The appetite of those Destroyers of our Nation who would crush the American people into submission will never be sated until all thought and action have been brought under complete control through massive indoctrination and confiscation of all firearms from the commonalty.In an Arbalest Quarrel article posted on December 31, 2018, we cited President Trump’s memorandum directed to the Attorney General, who, at the time, was the useless, milquetoast, Jeff Sessions. President Trump wrote, in part:“ ‘After the deadly mass murder in Las Vegas, Nevada, on October 1, 2017, I asked my Administration to fully review how the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regulates bump fire stocks and similar devices. Although the Obama Administration repeatedly concluded that particular bump stock type devices were lawful to purchase and possess, I sought further clarification of the law restricting fully automatic machine guns. Accordingly, following established legal protocols, the Department of Justice started the process of promulgating a Federal regulation interpreting the definition of ‘machine gun’ under Federal law to clarify whether certain bump stock type devices should be illegal.’”And, what became of national concealed handgun carry reciprocity?On February 18, 2018, the Arbalest Quarrel wrote,“The ‘Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017’ (115 H.R. 38) amends the federal criminal code to allow a qualified individual to carry a concealed handgun into or possess a concealed handgun in another state that allows individuals to carry concealed firearms. Representative Richard Hudson (R-NC), introduced the bill on January 3, 2017. The bill passed the House by Roll Call Vote of 231-198, on December 6, 2017. It was sent to the Senate one day later, where it was read twice and then referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. President Trump supports it. The NRA supports it. And rank and file law enforcement officers support it too. But there has been to date no further action on it. The bill sits in limbo. Its prospect of passage is, at present, low. Why is that?” Did Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, harbor doubts about a national concealed handgun carry reciprocity law? We know McConnell can get things done when he wants to. But apparently McConnell didn’t want this.Perhaps, the Senate Majority Leader was waiting for a signal from President Trump to proceed, grounded on Trump’s stated policy position on the Second Amendment. Do you remember what President Trump originally had told the American public about the fundamental right of self-defense, and, particularly, what the President had to say concerning his position on national concealed handgun carry?The Arbalest Quarrel remembers well what Trump said.In our December 31, 2018 post, we cited Trump’s imperious words that,“ ‘The right of self-defense doesn’t stop at the end of your driveway. That’s why I have a concealed carry permit and why tens of millions of Americans do too. That permit should be valid in all 50 states. A driver’s license works in every state, so it’s common sense that a concealed carry permit should work in every state. If we can do that for driving – which is a privilege, not a right – then, surely, we can do that for concealed carry, which is a right, not a privilege.’ ~ Donald J. Trump on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms”Sadly, these were just the pompous, pretentious, empty, disingenuous words of a politician. In that same Arbalest Quarrel post, we cited to an article appearing in the Washington Examiner that reported: “ ‘President Trump told Republicans on Wednesday they should not include a measure that allows people with concealed carry permits in one state to carry across state lines in a comprehensive gun bill.‘ ‘I think that maybe that bill will one day pass, but it should pass separate,’ Trump said during a bipartisan meeting at the White House. ‘If you’re going to put concealed carry between states into this bill, we’re talking about a whole new ball game. I’m with you, but let it be a separate bill.’ ’” The President weaseled, giving, at best, only lukewarm support for national concealed handgun carry reciprocity legislation.Mitch McConnell likely interpreted Trump’s words to mean the President wasn’t behind national concealed handgun carry legislation, and, so, McConnell wouldn’t support this measure either. McConnell thereupon allowed the bill to die in Committee; And die it did, and that is the last anyone has seen of national concealed handgun carry reciprocity up to this very moment in time.What does this tell you? A Republican U.S. President and a Republican Senate—with both House and Senate in Republican Party majorities at that time—cared little, if at all, about preserving and strengthening the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms.Recall that in the 2018 Midterm elections the Radical Left Democrats took control of the House. National concealed handgun carry legislation became a dead letter and will remain so. Republicans had their chance and squandered it. Obviously they do not hold the fundamental right of the people to keep and bear arms in high regard.And the failure of the U.S. Supreme Court to defend its own Heller and McDonald case precedents demonstrates that, apart from a few Justices, the High Court has little or no desire to preserve and protect the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.In the upcoming General Election, the Radical Left Democrats intend to keep control of the House, gain control of the Senate—which will escalate New York Senator Chuck Schumer to the Senate Majority leader position—and regain the White House. If all this should transpire, the safety and well-being of the entire citizenry will be at substantial risk. The American public is getting a foretaste of this now as fanatical, rabid, dangerous Marxist and Anarchist protestors, rioters, arsonists, and looters run amok, given a free hand to destroy the very fabric of a free Constitutional Republic, and, in the process, jeopardizing the safety, security, and well-being of us all.What this means is that, despite a timorous, timid Republican-controlled Senate, and an irresolute President, this is the best we can hope for at the moment.Neither Senator Mitch McConnell nor President Trump will take affirmative steps to preserve and strengthen the right of the people to keep and bear arms. But, fortunately, they seem reluctant, at the moment at least, to take steps to severely weaken the Second Amendment.A neutral stance is the best we can expect from either of them. That will have to suffice given the appalling prospect for Americans if the Marxists prevail in the upcoming General election.

AS PUBLIC ORDER DEVOLVES INTO MASS DISORDER, EXPECT CALLS FOR TOTAL CIVILIAN DISARMAMENT

What does the present “summer of love,” as the Mayor of Seattle refers to the violence happening in Seattle and throughout the Country, portend? We are seeing it: a Marxist Counter-Revolution, long-simmering, now boiling over into a full-on Civil War.If ever the right of the people to keep and bear arms had critical import, it does so now; today, at this very moment. But the ruthless Globalist forces fomenting violence do not want to have to contend with an armed citizenry dead-set on preserving a Free Constitutional Republic.So, don’t be surprised to see a concerted attempt by Marxist State leaders calling for suspension of fundamental rights, especially the right embodied in the Second Amendment, in a Marxist led Government.We expect that Radical Left State and local Governments, sympathetic to the destruction of a free Republic, will call for a total ban on civilian ownership of firearms, citing a public emergency, as thousands of rioters, looters, arsonists, vandals, muggers, and murderers cause disruption across the Nation—destruction that these Marxist Governments not only allow to happen but actively encourage.So, then, the answer to the question posed at the beginning of the article, as set forth in the title of the article, is this:It falls to the American people, themselves, to secure their fundamental, unalienable, immutable, and illimitable right to keep and bear arms, thereby preserving and protecting the autonomy of the individual, and the integrity of selfhood, and maintaining the sovereignty of the American people over those serving in Government who would dare usurp power for themselves.The sanctity and inviolability of our Nation’s history and heritage are outrageously attacked from those within our midst. And all this occurs on the eve of our July 4, 1776, Independence Day Holiday. There is much irony in this._____________________________________________________

A NATION LOST: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION OF THE 18^TH CENTURY DEVOLVES INTO A COUNTER MARXIST REVOLUTION OF THE 21^ST

PART TWO

The germination of a powerful Nation and a free Constitutional Republic took hold on July 4, 1776, with the signing of the Declaration of Independence. A tremendous conflict ensued for control of the American colonies.King George III of England was the visible face of the threat to a Nation yet to be. But the true power behind the throne of King George III was invisible. The true power rested with the secretive, powerful Rothschild clan that provided the financial resources for the English monarchy.In the clash that followed, King George III and the Rothschilds lost. It was a bitter loss. But King George III and the Rothschild international bankers lost much more than control over the colonies. They lost control over both the untapped mineral resources available to the colonies and the massive, fertile geographical region that extended from the Atlantic Ocean on the East Coast to the Pacific Ocean on the West Coast, and that extended northward to Canada and southward to the Gulf of Mexico; and they lost control over the colonies whom they sought to integrate into a unified Global empire. But now, that ambitious goal would lie, not dead, but dormant.King George III would rant, and rage, and fume and he would die and be forgotten. And the power of the English monarchy would wane, as would the might and power of the British empire.But the Rothschild clan would not die, and the Rothschilds could not be forgotten since few ever knew they existed—a hidden den of vipers at the center of every European Country. And, through the centuries they would amass ever greater power, draining the wealth of European Nations for themselves. But the loss of the American colonies would never be far from their mind. And, they machinated and plotted and waited, seeking an opportune time to have their revenge.The American Revolutionary War ended in 1783. The United States became viable, taking its first breath with ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1789. And, at that moment, the United States of American became an independent, sovereign nation and a free Constitutional Republic. The ratification of the Bill of Rights followed in 1791.Ratification of the Bill of Rights not only confirmed the inherent power of the American people over the three Branch Federal Government system the founders created, but cemented the Sovereignty of the American people over that Federal Government.It was understood among the founders that the government they sought to construct would be one of limited powers, operating only by the grace and consent of the American people, as all other powers and authority, not exercised by a central “Federal” Government, would reside in the States and in the people.In the next 200 years the United States became a mighty Nation; the most powerful on Earth, made possible through the drive, ingenuity, and resourcefulness of the citizenry, and through the Nation’s access to abundant natural resources, waiting to be tapped.During the intervening years, decades and centuries, as the power of the United States would wax, the English monarchy would wane and the once-mighty British empire would diminish and wither.But unbeknownst to most populations comprising Western Civilization, the power of the satanic offspring of the Rothschilds would also wax; their power and wealth increasing exponentially through the vehicle of and their singular control over the central banking system, as conceived and implemented through their founder, Mayer Amschel Rothschild.The Rothschilds would extend their global financial reach throughout the world with one goal ever in mind: the creation of a one-world political, social, cultural, and financial system of governance over which they would reign supreme.And, as the age of monarchical empires came to an end, and as the age of independent nation-states is drawing to a close, the one-world Government scheme envisioned by the Rothschilds began to take shape; sharpening to crystal clarity through the creation of a new artificial construct: the European Union. The EU had its origins in 1945, at the conclusion of the Second World War, and would become concrete with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, on November 1, 1993. And the commonalty of Europe had no idea that a noose was slowly tightening around their neck, through the secretive machinations of a few men, all of them controlled by the Rothschilds.The Rothschild clan intends to merge more and more nation-states into the EU, on the road to their creation of a one-world governmental construct.Had the colonies lost the American Revolution, America’s resources would now be a prized asset, bound up in the Rothschild portfolio; and the entire geographical region would be merged into the EU; and the American people would be subjugated. But that would be no easy task; after all, the Rothschild clan lost the American Revolution. Yet they never accepted that loss.They were patient; and, through the centuries, they engineered their plan to regain access to America’s resources, and to gain control over the apparatus of America’s Government, and to gain control over America’s institutions and people. But their plan for conquest would not involve an external military invasion. Not this time. It would be accomplished through stealth, subterfuge. An elaborate plan took shape but it would take a couple of centuries to execute. The Rothschilds, through their toadies, would insinuate themselves into every major organ and institution of our Nation.Yes, the Rothschilds had failed to destroy a budding nation, that, at the time of the American Revolution, existed only as a germinating seed, two-plus centuries ago, but the Rothschilds could still emerge victor, and have their revenge.The Rothschilds have waged a quiet, but no less tangible war to destroy the United States, from within. The Rothchild clan’s scheme was all going according to plan, but the election of Trump threw a temporary wrench into that complex scheme, as the Rothschilds did not expect Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton. Very few expected this. Trump might not be as amenable to their control as were the Bushes, and the Clintons, and Barack Obama.After two centuries, dealing with the festering loss of control over “the colonies,” these excruciatingly secretive, fantastically wealthy, extraordinarily powerful, and abjectly ruthless, wily, and cunning Rothschilds, along with their Generals, a cadre of Billionaire Neoliberal Globalist companions, were growing impatient, and angry. They had all demonstrated infinite patience, but their patience had worn thin. They would wait no longer. They have had enough from these unmanageable, intractable Americans.Recently they unleashed their agents: the dead souls and carrion beasts of the underworld to wreak havoc across our Nation—ravaging and pillaging and laying waste to our Land; destroying with complete abandon and with alarming speed our irreplaceable National treasures, the wondrous monuments to our glorious past; desirous even of destroying the icons of our Nation’s Christian heritage; threatening the lives of innocent Americans; erasing all traces and vestiges of our history and culture, anything and everything that might remind Americans of their ancestral past; of their founding fathers’ vision of a Nation as a free Constitutional Republic where the American people are sovereign. But those American people must now be corralled, brought to heel.With the U.S. economy sorely weakened by a Global Pandemic, courtesy of the Xi Jinping of China, it is no longer certain that Trump can secure a second Term in Office. But it was the killing of a black petty criminal by a white psychopathic police officer, caught on video, that could yet more assuredly turn the tide in the Rothschilds’ favor. That killing, caught on video, would be the pretext for fomenting violence across America, bringing the Nation literally to its knees.What would commence as a protest, predicated on the ridiculous charge of systemic police violence targeting blacks, metastasizing into an imbecilic claim of systemic race hatred existent throughout the Nation since the Nation’s inception, has devolved into an explicit call for a Marxist counter-revolution, the purpose of which is to destroy the very underpinnings of the United States as a free Constitutional Republic and independent Nation-State under the sovereign control of the American people, themselves.There is no getting around the danger facing our Nation today. Its very survival as a free Constitutional Republic is at stake.The smug insufferable Globalist Rothschilds—through their captains and lieutenants in Government, industry, media, and academia—are no longer even pretending to mask their intentions. They aim to annihilate every vestige of our free Republic, including the very memory of it: our historical record.Those doing the bidding of the Rothschilds, who have ingratiated themselves with the Rothschilds will be richly rewarded with money and power. But those Americans who have been duped into believing the need for radical change in our Country will learn too late, that they have bought more than mere “change” to this Country, in having acquiesced to the mob. They have ensured subjugation and penury for every American.And no one in Government is truly lifting a finger to stop this; not Republicans in Congress, nor the President. Are they resigned to the Nation’s dire fate? The response to the social and political crisis unfolding throughout our Nation has been limp, at best.Perhaps nothing can be done to stem the overthrow of a free Republic, because the Government, so riddled with saboteurs, is reduced to impotency. Our one and last fail-safe? The armed citizenry!­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_________________________________________________________

INDEPENDENCE DAY HERALDS IN A MARXIST COUNTER-REVOLUTION

PART THREE

With Independence Day only days away, this Country can hardly be in a celebratory spirit, as the very words, ‘nationalism’ and ‘patriotism’ are treated like obscenities.We witness two-legged predators laying waste the Land, destroying property, intimidating innocent Americans, causing bedlam and mayhem. The police, under fire, are ordered to stand down. Government cowers. Law and Order break down everywhere. The seditious Press and Radical Left members of Congress, along with Radical Left State Governors and City Mayors give their blessing to the perpetrators of this violence.In this topsy-turvy climate, we see New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo telling Americans that attacks on monuments are merely an example of “healthy expression.” Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan blathers, “We could have the summer of love;” and Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf bellows, the city will investigate “nooses found on trees” as hate crimes. Yet the police, having investigated Mayor Schaaf's ridiculous assertions found those “nooses” to be merely ropes placed on tree limbs by an individual, several months ago. That individual, a local Black man, no less, intended these ropes to be utilized merely “as exercise equipment,” as reported by PJ Media. One can only wonder whether this radical Marxist Mayor was relieved at this news, or annoyed by it. She should be ashamed. But, these Marxists never are ashamed or embarrassed by being found out and called out for making absurd and dangerous remarks, that serve only to provoke more violence and civil unrest. But, then, that is their aim, isn't it? They just go about making further outrageous remarks to foment yet more division and divisiveness among Americans, and audaciously, irresponsibly, and unconscionably blame President Trump for the injuries to innocent people and damage to property they, themselves, cause.What is manifesting before our very eyes cannot reasonably, rationally be deemed to amount to mere peaceable assembly protected under the First Amendment. It is anything but that; and it is at once disturbing and absurd to behold. Is the control of the Globalist Rothschilds over the machinery of our Federal, State, and local Governments that complete that they can orchestrate wholesale upheaval to our Nation?Americans are witnessing the methodical, inexorable overthrow of their Government in real-time. It is all by design and all orchestrated by the trillionaire Rothschild clan and its legions of toadies that have, through the decades, infiltrated our Government at every level; have infiltrated the academia; have infiltrated the corporate sphere, and have infiltrated the Press.Instead of stopping this outrage—stopping it fast, and stopping it hard—our Government sits idle, committing suicide. And the seditious Press, under the control of the Rothschilds through the clan’s captains and lieutenants actively, avidly encourages the overthrow of our Nation.Serious crimes against the Nation are occurring before our very eyes and the Government does nothing to bring these criminals to justice. The crimes occurring openly, contemptuously, defiantly against us, the American people, are numerous. And among those crimes, we see the most serious of felonies imaginable, yet committed with aplomb and abandon. They include——18 USCS § 2381 (Treason) Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.Note: the crime of Treason appears prominently in Article 3, Section 3, Clause 1 of the U.S. Constitution, as well. The Founders viewed the crime—treachery to one’s Nation—as the most serious crime, and so, one crime, and the only crime, that is set forth expressly in the U.S. Constitution.18 USCS § 2384 (Seditious Conspiracy) “If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force 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, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”18 USCS § 2383 (Rebellion or Insurrection) “Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”

THE COLD AMERICAN CIVIL WAR BREWING SILENTLY IN THE 20^THCENTURY IS BURSTING INTO THE HOT CIVIL WAR OF THE 21^TH

The silent and secretive, malignant, and malevolent Destructors of our Country, the Rothschild family of international bankers Rothschild family still reside in the shadows but we see their agents all around us.These agents of destruction and terror include Marxist, Communist, Socialist, and Anarchist groups, most prominently of late: Black Lives Matter and Antifa, along with their sympathizers and various similar and affiliate organizations. These agents also include members of Congress and the people in State legislatures and State Governments. And they include employees of the federal Bureaucracy, the “Administrative Deep State;” along with legions of Radical Left individuals in the academia, and in the Press. And they include several Billionaire Chiefs of companies in the technology sector.We see the intelligence and internal police apparatuses’ M.O. in this, too, as the moles hidden within these organizations have employed tools and techniques to enlist tens of thousands of otherwise decent, but uninformed Americans, to join mindlessly in the destruction of their own Country, as a powerful nation cannot be undone without enlisting the aid or acquiescence of a majority of Americans.The Rothschild clan has built up its forces over time—a massive, intricate interweaving, interlocking network of governmental and multinational corporate groups, including media organizations and the academia. And the horrific colossus they have nourished is bearing its poisonous fruit, causing violence and fear across the Nation.National Guard forces are nowhere to be seen; and State and local police forces have been ordered by their Radical Left Governments to stand down or are being disbanded altogether.What more can occur before this Nation topples into ruin?We are awaiting an order from State and local officials that, for the sake of  “public order” and “ public safety,” it is necessary for those Americans who possess firearms, to surrender them to the local authorities.Expect to hear that order coming down sooner or later. As with Governmental orders pertaining to the Chinese Coronavirus Pandemic—a mere dress rehearsal—expect that this one, too, a far more audacious one will be attempted through executive fiat.After all, with criminals and terrorists running amok, and the police neutralized, the last thing any of these Marxists would want or need are armed citizens banding together to protect self and family; to bring some semblance of order back to American society.The Second Amendment remains the quintessential “fail-safe” to preserve a free Constitutional Republic from encroaching tyranny; and we may very well need to exercise it.The armed colonists, the Minutemen of the American Revolution, gave us our independence from tyranny. We, the Minutemen of the 21st Century, may well be called upon to gather our arms to preserve that independence.___________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE ROBERTS’ COURT WILL NOT DEFEND THE SECOND AMENDMENT, EVER!

IMPACT OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT NEW YORK CITY GUN TRANSPORT CASE DECISION ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT

PART SEVEN

These last few weeks, the Arbalest Quarrel has been working steadfastly on analyzing the NYC gun transport case. We felt a detailed analysis necessary as we had serious doubts the Court would grant cert in any of the ten pending Second Amendment cases.The NYC case provided our best chance for a serious Court review of 2A, ten years after the McDonald decision, clarifying and cementing the import and purport of Heller and McDonald in Supreme Court case law. The opportunity provided the Court is gone. And, that lost opportunity is rightfully placed at the feet of the Chief Justice, himself. We intended to lay out what could have been gained and what was invariably lost from the failure of the High Court to consider the case on the merits; and we had hoped to post a comprehensive analysis of the NYC case prior to a final High Court determination, whether to grant or deny cert on any of the ten pending 2A cases.We expected the Court would once again relist all ten pending 2A cases, denying cert on each at them at the Court’s last conference for the Term. But the Court made its final determination on June 11, 2020.No surprise to us as to the denial of cert, but the final determination came earlier than we expected. Even so, it means something more than, and something other than, most Americans realize. The cryptic, “something other than,” pertains to Roberts.So, then, what went wrong? Actually, for Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing of the High Court, nothing went wrong. Everything went according to plan.Some proponents of 2A, including some readers of Ammoland, believe the NYC case mootness issue was properly decided. It wasn’t. And, we will be continuing our comprehensive analysis, as our multi-series essay—on the New York City transport gun case, and the ramifications of that decision on the exercise of the elemental, primordial, God-Given sacred and inviolate right of the people to keep and bear arms—continues; all in the context of the singularly critical seminal Second Amendment Heller case, that is constantly under fire.But the mootness issue is and was nothing more than a red herring. In fact, Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing anticipated that the City would amend its Rules and that the State would amend its laws to avoid a consideration of and a decision on the merits, which would have necessitated consideration of Heller. And that possibility was not be countenanced. It was something that the liberal wing of the Court and Chief Justice Roberts, as well as the City of New York and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, intended to avoid at all costs.Cuomo and the City of New York did what was expected of them. And Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing of the Court did what both they, and both the City and Cuomo, wanted: no review of New York City gun laws.The 2A Heller issue would not be heard.But, why did Kavanaugh side with Roberts and the liberal wing, and why did he write a puzzling and limp concurring opinion, basically telling Americans, albeit in an oblique manner, that he really does support the Second Amendment, and that the Court will have another chance to hear another case and, so, Americans should not worry?Kavanaugh is, at best, a weak supporter of the Second Amendment and of the Bill of Rights of generally but he does appear to adhere to Supreme Court precedent. His learned and reasoned dissent in Heller II is a testament to that.Kavanaugh likely did not wish to side with the liberal wing. We believe Chief Justice Roberts cajoled Kavanaugh into doing so. Why? It couldn’t be because a sixth vote was needed. It wasn’t. Robert’s fifth vote gave the liberal wing the majority it needed to find the case moot.But we are dealing with appearances here: smoke and mirrors. We believe that Roberts may have tried to get another Trump nominee, Neil Gorsuch, to join the majority, too; but Gorsuch would not do so.A 7-2 majority decision would give Roberts even more cover, and cover is what Roberts wants. It is what he needs.Clearly Roberts did not wish to appear alone, siding with the liberal wing of a Court, especially on a 2A matter. So, Kavanaugh reluctantly agreed to give cover Roberts cover, but insisted on drafting a concurring, to suggest: one that he does support 2A, if only half-heartedly; and, two that the Court “should” take up another 2A case soon, even as he knew full well that it wouldn’t—hence his use of the weak obligation word, ‘should,’ in the concurring, rather than the strong obligation word, ‘will.’But, if Roberts holds such antipathy toward the Second Amendment, why did he sign on with the majority in Heller?Roberts did, after all, side with the conservative wing in Heller and McDonald.The Press tells us Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy was the sole hold-out in Heller for the critical fifth vote needed and that the late eminent Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who penned the Heller majority opinion, had to include language in that opinion to soften the rulings.The Press paints a picture of Justice Anthony Kennedy as the moderate swing vote on the Court. In doing so, the Press is engaging in just another deception.The truth of the matter is that Roberts, no less than Kennedy, and, conceivably, more so, compelled Scalia to add language to the opinion that, despite the rulings, provided Anti-Second Amendment proponents with a safe harbor; allowing Anti-Second Amendment governments to continue to do what they have been doing all along: to whittle away at the import of the Second Amendment.So, then, what does that say about Chief Justice Roberts?Roberts has, for a time, come across as a defender of our Bill of Rights. It was all ruse. He isn’t a defender of our Bill of Rights nor, more specifically, is he a defender of our Second Amendment; and he never has been.Roberts is as much a trickster as the man who nominated him: the “Skull and Bones” President, George W. Bush.Even as the Radical Left tabloid, The New York Times, refers to Roberts as a member of the conservative wing of the Court, he is no such thing, and the Times knows it. Nor is he to be perceived as a judicial, “moderate”—the proverbial swing vote, carrying the mantle of retired Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy.Roberts has no more desire to see our Second Amendment strengthened than do the Associate Justices of the liberal wing of the High Court, predominately, long "tenants" on the Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.Why, then, did Roberts and Kennedy agree to join the majority in Heller? We think that this says something about the force and indomitability of Scalia’s personality and intellect: something lost when Justice Scalia met with a deeply tragic and clearly puzzling death. And Roberts has no intention ever again to lock horns with another Justice who has the indomitability of spirit of Scalia.It is now Justice Roberts’ Court in fact not merely in name. It is no longer Justice Scalia’s Court.Recall that George Bush nominated John Roberts to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court as the Chief Justice, not merely as an Associate Justice. This was no accident.As Chief Justice of the High Court, John Roberts sets the tone of the Court and wields considerable leverage over the Court, as we deduce from Robert’s obvious success in cajoling Kavanaugh to side with him, to join the liberal wing on the mootness issue.The High Court is said to grant writs in four circumstances, as set forth in detail in the Peter Blair weblog:

• Conflict of law: The Supreme Court may elect to step in and make a ruling when different courts reach different conclusions about federal or constitutional law. With 13 federal circuits and 50 state supreme courts, the U.S. Supreme Court may want to step in and clarify certain legal issues so every court operates under the same law going forward.
• National importance: If a case has national significance and is important to the public as a whole, the Supreme Court may decide to take it on. The Supreme Court has discretion when it comes to taking these cases, such as Bush v. Gore after the contested 2000 election, Roe v. Wade, or US v. Nixon concerning the Watergate tapes.
• Lower courts disregarding Supreme Court decisions: If a case has arisen because lower courts are disregarding past Supreme Court decisions, the Supreme Court may decide to hear the case to correct the lower court or overrule the case without a full trial.
• Justices’ interest: In certain cases, a justice may want to hear a certain case because it addresses an issue in their personal favorite area of law.

In every case that has been brought to the Court’s attention since Heller and McDonald, all four of the above factors are satisfied.Yet, in all instances, the High Court has either denied cert or has side-stepped the Second Amendment issue altogether, as it had done in Voisine and in the recent New York City case.So what does that tell you? It tells you that the Court will take up a case when it wants to. And that’s that!In the instant case, Roberts and the liberal wing of the Court do not want to take up a 2A case, but then, the conservative wing won’t do so either, unless it can be assured that Roberts is on board with them. He isn’t and won’t be, ever.The Roberts’ Court will not take up another Second Amendment case unless the Court is able to sidestep the core 2A issue as in the Voisine case, or in the recent NYC gun transport case, or when or if the liberal wing knows it has a decisive majority. That would be calamitous. It would sound the death knell for Heller and McDonald. Once our right to keep and bear arms is lost, our Nation is undone.Thus, the conservative wing won’t wish to hear a Second Amendment case unless it knows that Roberts is on board, and Roberts will never be on board.Understand, each Justice knows how each of the others would resolve a case before any vote is cast to grant cert or to deny cert on a case.Justice Thomas’s scathing dissents reflect his knowledge—which obviously, he cannot express openly—that Roberts will not support the Second Amendment. It is as simple as that.So, forget further support from the High Court apropos of the preservation of and strengthening of our Bill of Rights, given the Court's current composition with five Justices clearly antithetical to preservation and strengthening of our fundamental, unalienable, immutable, illimitable rights and liberties. Those five Justices antithetical to the preservation and strengthening of our sacred rights and liberties include: Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Chief Justice John Roberts, whom the seditious, tabloid, New York Times continually, invariably, and deceptively includes in the roster of the conservative-wing of the High Court. Of the conservative-wing, only Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito adhere, most consistently, to the import of the text of the Constitution as originally ratified and to the import of Statutes as written.The Globalist puppet masters have been utilizing, of late, Radical Left Anarchist groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa, along with the common criminal class, to rain havoc on our Nation—to soften the Country up—encouraging rebellion and insurrection, even attempting to destroy public faith in the police. And it is all by design.The last thing these Globalist puppet masters want to have to deal with is internal police forces and an armed citizenry, in the midst of a civil war these puppet masters have, themselves, fomented. They are neutralizing the police, but they cannot so easily neutralize an armed citizenry; and if they cannot do that, they cannot win this civil war.____________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

JUST OUT: SUPREME COURT DENIES WRITS ON ALL PENDING SECOND AMENDMENT CASES

IMPACT OF U.S. SUPREME COURT NEW YORK CITY GUN TRANSPORT CASE DECISION ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT

PART SEVEN

The U.S. Supreme Court released its orders from the June 11, 2020 conference.  No Second Amendment cases were relisted for consideration. Worse, there will be no Second Amendment cases reviewed this term; all were rejected. The High Court denied certiorari in all of them.This comes as no surprise to the Arbalest Quarrel. We expected this and were making this very point in a comprehensive analysis of the New York City transport gun case we’ve been working feverishly on these last two weeks. Word came down from SCOTUS before we could get our series to print, but we intimated as much in numerous other articles.We realized how important the New York City gun transport case was to the preservation of our sacred Second Amendment right, even if many did not. We knew what a loss meant; and we did lose much, contrary to what some proponents of the Second Amendment may otherwise think. How much we lost is apparent from what just transpired in today’s SCOTUS morning conference.We held little expectation that the High Court would take up any new Second Amendment case, contrary to Justice Kavanaugh’s wimpish suggestion that the Court “should.” And, unfortunately, we were correct.In one of the cases the Court denied cert on, Thomas Rogers, et al. v. Gurbir Grewal, Attorney General of New Jersey, et al. on Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, decided June 15, 2020, Justice Thomas wrote another justified blistering dissenting opinion. Justice Kavanaugh joined Justice Thomas except for Part II of the dissent. We will analyze the dissenting opinion in a forthcoming article. But——

WHY DID KAVANAUGH JOIN THOMAS IN THE GREWAL DISSENT?

Recall Justice Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion in the New York City case. Kavanaugh intimated the High Court would be taking up one of the new Second Amendment cases soon. That was nonsense and we suspect Kavanaugh knew it.The tactics and strategy of U.S. Supreme Court review of Second Amendment cases must not be underestimated. It defines what Second Amendment case is heard and when. As of now, it is clear that the liberal wing of the High Court, along with Chief Justice Roberts, intend to block review of any further Second Amendment case that comes before the Court in which the Heller and McDonald rulings come into play. This is no longer theoretical speculation. This is ice-cold fact.We suspect that had Kavanaugh voted to deny the mootness claim in the New York City case, joining the conservative wing—Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch—then Chief Justice Roberts would have joined Kavanaugh. He would have been forced to, if for no other reason than for the fact that Roberts did, after all, join the majority in the seminal Second Amendment Heller case.If Chief Justice Roberts were to stand with the liberal wing of the Court, alone, wholly apart from the conservative wing, in the first and only Second Amendment case—where the Second Amendment issue had not been altogether side-stepped as the issue was side-stepped in the Voisine case, to the justified frustration and righteous and virtuous indignation of Justice Thomas—would be untoward, unseemly, awkward. Appearances are, after all, important to the Justices. But when appearances become more important than intellectual honesty and logical consistency, then a Justice should not expect to garner and retain the respect of Americans.Chief Justice Roberts, as the Chief Justice, wishes to give the impression of his “supreme” impartiality and conviviality. But, at what cost to his the principles of intellectual honesty and logical consistency, and at what cost to our Bill of Rights?Each Justice votes to grant or deny a writ of certiorari predicated on his jurisprudential and ideological predilections; and those jurisprudential and ideological predilections reside as much on a visceral level as on an intellectual one. They inform a Justice's decisions—influenced, on occasion, by the internal give and take of political maneuvering and jockeying; but that political maneuvering and jockeying should come by sacrificing one's duty toward preserving and strengthening our Bill of Rights. Yes, Chief Justice Roberts sided with the Conservative wing of the Court in Heller and McDonald, but he would go no further—ever. He has made clear his visceral disdain for the Second Amendment, known.The progressive website, Politicus, made known Writing, today, on the results of the SCOTUS morning conference, Politicus reporters said, in an article with a title meant to “sock it to Trump” and to all Americans who happen to venerate our Bill of Rights. Politicus says, “Supreme Court Rejects 10 2nd Amendment Cases As Trump’s Bad Day Gets Worse”: “Chief Justice John Roberts doesn’t have an expansive view of the Second Amendment, which means that the odds of the Second Amendment being expanded or local and state gun laws being reversed by the high court is practically zero.”Roberts would prefer not to appear like a liberal wing, Anti-Second Amendment, Anti-Bill of Rights Justice, in the vein of the liberal wing, even if he is one. He would not like to be seen standing alone with the liberal wing on a Second Amendment case. The jig would be up if he were to join the liberal wing of the Court, finding the New York City gun transport case moot, and no non-liberal wing Justice stood with him.Did Roberts pressure Kavanaugh to go along with him? It is not improbable. Perhaps, that explains why Kavanaugh’s really did file his singularly odd concurring opinion in the New York City case after all. It may be that Kavanaugh did agree with the Associate Justices, Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch—wanted to join them—but was strongly urged by the Chief Justice not to; was cajoled to side with the liberal wing. Perhaps, as the newest member of the Court, Kavanaugh was reluctant to draw the ire of Chief Justice Roberts.Clearly the liberal wing of the Court did not need Kavanaugh’s vote. Robert’s vote gave the liberal wing the fifth vote needed—a majority—sufficient to prevent the substantive merits of the case from being heard. But, Roberts, standing with the liberal wing of the Court on the mootness issue would make patently clear the Chief Justice’s negative views toward the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and would also make clear the Chief Justice’s jurisprudential leanings and tendencies in matters concerning the Second Amendment: those in line with the liberal wing of the Court, comprising: Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan. Justice Roberts obviously sought to prevent that perception.By voting with the liberal wing of the Court in the New York City case that ruled the case moot, Kavanaugh gave cover to Roberts, and Roberts also gave cover to Kavanaugh. Who loses? We do, the American people.The New York City gun transport case took a page out of the Heller case playbook, albeit to obtain a negative rather than positive result: weakening the Second Amendment; not strengthening it.We surmise that Chief Justice Roberts, no less than retired Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, had an understanding with the conservative wing. They would agree, both of them, to join the conservative wing or neither of them would. Both of them would join the conservative wing or neither of them would. And if they couldn't both get on board, Heller would have failed and we all know how much worse off we would be now for it.The late eminent Justice Antonin Scalia, who penned the Heller majority, was compelled to mute what otherwise would have been a stronger opinion that he, and Alito, and Thomas had much preferred to write, making a one-point crystal clear.The point is this: Government action infringing the core of the right of the people to keep and bear arms must be struck down. Courts are forbidden to engage in interest-balancing, which is nothing more than a ruse anyway; a ruse created to rationalize and legitimize unconstitutional, unconscionable government action infringing the fundamental, unalienable right of the people to keep and bear arms. That point was muddied, obfuscated, diluted. It was a concession that Justice Scalia, Justice Alito, and Justice Thomas were forced to make to obtain Chief Justice Roberts acquiescence and Justice Kennedy's acquiescence. To obtain the acquiescence of those two Justices, necessary to obtain a slim, but critical majority, Justice Scalia wrote,“. . . nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” This assertion has nothing whatsoever to do with the Heller rulings and the majority's reasoning. But it had to be made to appease Kennedy and Roberts. The result was to undermine the efficacy of Heller. We have seen in the years since how Anti-Second Amendment governments rely on the softening of Heller to enact laws that directly and contemptuously attack the right of the people to keep and bear arms; and we see courts using interest-balancing to defend these unconstitutional laws. Heller was meant to rein in both government and courts. But, the language that Justice Scalia was compelled to include in Heller gave Anti-Second Amendment State governments and Anti-Second Amendment courts a way to deviously slither around the impact of the Heller rulings and holdings, even if it is clear to everyone what these governments and courts were doing. In fact, to provide a safe harbor for Anti-Second Amendment State governments and Anti-Second Amendment courts, Justice Scalia had to reiterate the point that these governments may do whatever the hell they want to eviscerate the Second Amendment, notwithstanding the dictates of the Second Amendment. The point was made in the last paragraph of the majority opinion. Compelled to humble themselves before the anti-Second Amendment crowd, Justice Scalia, joined by the conservative wing, wrote:“We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by the many amici who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution. The Constitution leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns.” The sickening concession to anti-Second Amendment amici and Anti-Second Amendment governments and Anti-State Courts that the majority was forced to make and which we, Americans are forced to endure has served the Anti-Second Amendment zealots well. Heller and McDonald are routinely ignored.Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing of the High Court will make damn sure that the rulings of those two seminal Second Amendment cases will never be clarified. That is where we are now and where we will remain unless or until another Justice sits on the High Court who actually honors the oath he takes to the Constitution.

WHAT IS TAKING PLACE IN OUR NATION TODAY IS NOT A PRETTY PICTURE

We are seeing a massive campaign of brainwashing taking place in our Nation at this very moment, and we are getting much more than a foretaste. We are getting a choking mouthful of what the Marxists, Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, and billionaire Neoliberal Globalists have in store for each of us.We are holding onto our Nation by a thread. Make no mistake about that. The puppet masters have brainwashed the mass of Lemmings, and they intend to destroy those of us who are immune to the nonsense spouted.Today we see every monument to our glorious past—our ancestral memory—being wiped out; erased. Tomorrow, we will see the absolute destruction of our Bill of Rights. No question about it.If Trump fails reelection and if the Senate is lost, we will lose everything irreplaceable: but likely not before the “cold” War at home turns “hot.”I know what my next purchase will be; and it won’t be a toy.____________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT AND THE SECOND AMENDMENT: OUR BEST HOPE OR OUR WORST NIGHTMARE?

IMPACT OF U.S. SUPREME COURT NEW YORK CITY GUN TRANSPORT CASE DECISION ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT

PART SIX

CAN AMERICANS TRUST THEIR U.S. SUPREME COURT TO DEFEND OUR SACRED BILL OF RIGHTS?

Of the three Branches of the Federal Government in our federal system, the U.S. Supreme Court is either our best hope for preserving the U.S. Constitution and strengthening the Bill of Rights, or it’s our worst fear realized, if the High Court endangers the Constitution and weakens the Bill of Rights, abandoning the American citizenry to an awful fate.In his concurring opinion in the New York City gun transport case (New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. vs. City of New York, New York, 590 U.S ____ (2020)) Justice Kavanaugh asserts, inter alia, “I share Justice Alito’s concern that some federal and state courts may not be properly applying Heller and McDonald. The Court should address that issue soon, perhaps in one of the several Second Amendment cases with petitions for certiorari now pending before the Court.”If Justice Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion is meant to give Americans a modicum of hope, he failed miserably. He has merely raised suspicion as to his true motivations and jurisprudential leanings apropos of the Bill of Rights generally, and of the Second Amendment, particularly.The word, ‘should,’ that Kavanaugh uses, in his concurring, doesn’t mean ‘shall,’ nor does it even mean ‘may.’ U.S. Supreme Court Justices are extremely careful in their choice of words, as every word has legal import and significance as Supreme Court cases carry a substantial impact on the lives of all Americans, even as it comes to pass how many lower Court jurists blithely, and more, unconscionably ignore U.S. Supreme Court precedent, as we see over and over again, in the way that all too many lower courts, especially federal courts, namely the United States District Courts and United States Circuit Courts of Appeal, routinely render opinions that contradict the rulings and reasoning of the seminal U.S. Supreme Court Second Amendment Heller and McDonald cases, and these lower federal courts do so with crass impunity. It is little wonder, then, that Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and a recent member of the High Court, Neil Gorsuch, are furious over these actions of the lower Courts that constitute no less than mutiny, as serious an offense in the judicial sphere as it is in the military sphere. If one peruses the dissenting comments of these Justices, in those cases infringing the core of the Second Amendment the High Court fails to garner four votes necessary to secure review on, one can detect, also, the conservative wing's frustration with the liberal wing of the Court that routinely votes against hearing Second Amendment cases because the liberal wing does not recognize the right of the people to keep and bear arms as a fundamental right that accrues to the individual, but only to the militia, i.e., the Collective, and doesn't wish to be placed in the position, a predicament for them, to overturn a lower Court Second Amendment case that fails to adhere to U.S. Supreme Court precedent.So, then, what does the word, 'should,' mean? A short English lesson is in order. As one grammar website explains: “After English students learn the four types of conditionals with if-clauses and figure out when to use each one, they are told that there are other words and patterns to indicate the conditional mood, such as unless, even if, and should.” “Students often struggle with the conditional should (also called should-inversion) for a few reasons. First, the pattern differs from other conditional patterns, and second, the meaning is unrelated to should as a modal of advice. It is also quite formal, so students don’t come across it all that often.But much like any grammar target in English, the conditional should can be explained and learned fairly painlessly using patterns and examples.Conditional should and modal should have very different meanings.Students first learn that should is a modal of advice. The meaning of modal should is a suggestion.

• You should pay attention in class.(I suggest that you pay attention in class.)

Conditional should means if and is used for hypothetical situations.

• Should you need anything else, please call this number.(If you need anything else, please call this number.)” 

Justice Kavanaugh's use of the word, 'should,' in his concurring opinion, in the New York City gun transport case, rather than his use of the word, 'shall' or 'will,' or 'must,' or 'may,' is no accident. The use of the word, 'should,' operates, then, as a mere gesture of hope, nothing more. But, by that token, the U.S. Supreme Court should have taken up any of the two dozen cases that came up for review, in the ten years since the McDonald case decision came down. The Court didn't. Kavanaugh seems to be saying that "I would really like for another Second Amendment case to be heard by the Supreme Court." But, Kavanaugh's personal feelings are irrelevant to case analysis. What is relevant is a jurist's decision in a case, and the reasoning the jurist uses to reach a decision--even if such reasoning amounts to simple rationalization--but Kavanaugh doesn't provide any analysis in his concurring in the New York City case. If he were to provide analysis, we would like to see that analysis for deciding to vote with Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing of the Court in finding the gun transport matter moot.  Justice Alito, in his dissenting opinion (joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch), explained in depth why, specifically, the New York City gun transport case is NOT moot. One would expect that a Justice who troubles himself to write a concurring opinion at all would have realized the necessity of responding to Justice Alito's highly detailed, precise, unequivocal, unambiguous objections to the Court majority's decision on the mootness issue.  Justice Alito's criticisms of the majority's position of the mootness issue in the New York City gun transport case cry out for a response. There is nothing in the Majority opinion to suggest Justice Alito's objections are incorrect and there is everything in Justice Alito's dissenting opinion that establishes why the majority decision is incorrect. Having specifically responded to the majority's argument, the majority, in turn, should have responded to the Justice Alito's criticism of their decision. There is everything in Justice Alito's meticulous dissent that begs for a reply. But, the majority is silent. And, Associate Justice Kavanaugh who writes a concurring opinion is silent as well. Why bother to write a concurring opinion merely to assert that he agrees with the majority. Having drafted a concurring, why didn't Justice Alito tackle the issue of mootness head-on, if for no other reason than to clarify why he decided to cast his lot with the majority rather than with the dissent? That he failed to address Alito's objections at all is itself revealing. Justice Kavanaugh's concurring opinion bespeaks a man who appears desperately desirous of having Americans believe he unabashedly, resolutely supports the exercise of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, even as he defers to Respondent City. But that does not justify the writing of a concurring opinion. Having done so, Justice Kavanaugh clearly demonstrates a willingness to toy with the Second Amendment, to play with it--going along with a liberal wing that detests the Second Amendment and signing up with the Chief Justice whose own jurisprudential leanings, apropos of the Second Amendment, is muddled or neutral at best, and, at worst, manifestly diverges from the jurisprudential leanings of Associate Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch who strongly adhere to the Founders' adoration of our God-given natural, elemental, immutable, unalienable rights--rights that these Founders lovingly, and with clear conscience and conviction codified in our Bill of Rights, lest Government ever dare attempt to deny or ignore such sacred rights of the American people.Justice Kavanaugh's concurring opinion is not to be taken lightly. No opinion of a United States Supreme Court Justice is to be taken lightly. Nothing a United States Supreme Court Justice asserts in opinion is to be taken lightly. All High Court opinions, be they majority opinions, or concurring opinions, or dissenting opinions are to be taken lightly. All high Court opinions carry weight and they exist in our body of law forever. Sometimes silence is the better avenue to pursue. Chief Justice Roberts realized that. Justice Kavanaugh did not. And, his absurd and vacuous concurring will now remain, forever, as a testament to one Justice's sheepish attempt to shore up support from, and the trust of, the American people. The American people will now remain justifiably in doubt over Associate Justice Kavanaugh's jurisprudential leanings toward the Second Amendment of our Bill of Rights, and, in doubt, indeed, toward the entirety of our Bill of Rights and toward the very sanctity of such things as natural, fundamental, unalienable, immutable rights, bestowed in the very soul of man by the loving, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Divine Creator.Given the reluctance of the High Court to hear any Second Amendment case, even, and especially, those infringing the very core of it, the prospect of the Court actually taking up another Second Amendment case in the near future is more improbable than likely. Why is that, really?

THE U.S. SUPREME COURT REVIEWS VERY FEW CASES

First, the Court has limited time, given the number of cases that come before it during any term. As set forth in the SCOTUS Blog: “In most circumstances, the Supreme Court has discretion whether or not to grant review of a particular case. Of the 7,000 to 8,000 cert petitions filed each term, the court grants certiorari and hears oral argument in only about 80. Granting a cert petition requires the votes of four justices.” Since the High Court reviews only a fraction of the cases brought to it in any given term, and, since the High Court is averse to hearing Second Amendment cases, it will only be on a wing and a prayer that the Supreme Court is likely to take up any Second Amendment case, given the Court’s present composition. And, if it does so at all, it will likely deny review on the heels of the New York City gun transport case, any further Second Amendment case this Term because the Supreme Court Term is effectively over in late June, hardly more than one month from now as of the posting of this article.Note, “A Term of the Supreme Court begins, by statute, on the first Monday in October. . . . The Term is divided between ‘sittings,’ when the Justices hear cases and deliver opinions, and intervening ‘recesses,’ when they consider the business before the Court and write opinions. Sittings and recesses alternate at approximately two-week intervals.” Moreover, as the site, U.S. Courts.gov points out: “The Court is, typically, in recess from late June/early July until the first Monday in October. . . . The Court hears oral arguments in cases from October through April [and] All opinions of the Court are, typically, handed down by the last day of the Court’s term (the day in late June/early July when the Court recesses for the summer). With the exception of this deadline, there are no rules concerning when decisions must be released. Typically, decisions that are unanimous are released sooner than those that have concurring and dissenting opinions. While some unanimous decisions are handed down as early as December, some controversial opinions, even if heard in October, may not be handed down until the last day of the term.  

SUPPOSE THE HIGH COURT DOES SECURE FOUR VOTES NECESSARY TO REVIEW A SECOND AMENDMENT CASE, WHAT THEN?

Second, even if, by some strange happenstance the Supreme Court does grant review in one of the pending Second Amendment cases, in the next few weeks, especially given the impact of the Communist Chinese Coronavirus, one may justifiably ask when will that case be briefed; when will it be argued in oral hearing before the Court; and when might the case be decided? And, most significantly: how will that case be decided?Given that Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Kavanaugh both sided with the liberal wing of the High Court on the New York City gun transport case, that fact alone is a matter for deep concern.In any event, all of this—from voting to hear a case, to the releasing of a decision in that case—takes an inordinate amount of time and, with a General U.S. Presidential election coming up in November 2020, an election just around the corner, both the liberal wing and conservative wing of the High Court may have their own good reasons for not taking up another Second Amendment case this Term. Consider the ramifications of the results of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, both on the eventual composition of the Supreme Court and on the manner in which a Second Amendment case would be decided.Supreme Court Justices, no less than average citizens, do surely manifest deep concern over the outcome of the upcoming U.S. Presidential election. And whom it is that wins the election will be able to actuate one or the other of two alternate, incompatible, radically distinct visions for the Nation.One vision is grounded on the political and social philosophy of Individualism, championed by the Founders of our Free Republic, and actualized in the Constitution that the States, in existence at the time, had ratified. That Constitution is the blueprint of the structure of our Nation, where the people themselves are sovereign: a notion manifest in no other nation in the world despite talk, for example, by the rulers of the EU, holed up in Brussels, who govern the nations comprising the EU. These so-called “elites” talk endlessly, and disingenuously, and deceptively of the EU’s liberal democratic values. But that is nothing more than flimflam and flummery. The second vision is grounded on the political and social philosophy of Collectivism—a term that is wending its way more frequently into political discourse, as the Radical Left talks carefully, non-critically, and often glowingly, about the benefits of life in both the EU and in the Autocratic, Communist Collectivist regime of Xi Jinping of China. See Arbalest Quarrel Article, titled, “The Modern Civil War: A Clash of Ideologies, posted October 6, 2018.” Note: In that article, we point to Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, which, at the time of the posting of the article, had just occurred. Would that we knew then what we know now, having seen Justice Kavanaugh’s insipid, seemingly groveling, duplicitous Concurring Opinion in the New York City Gun Transport case. We said, at the time:“With Brett Kavanaugh now on the High Court, the Individualists’ vision for this Country is now more likely to prevail in the decades ahead than is the vision of the Collectivists. Had Hillary Clinton prevailed in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, and thereupon nominated individuals to the High Court who view the Constitution of the United States as a “Living Document,” susceptible to massive judicial and legislative revision, the direction of this Country would have continued along the path created for it by the Bush and Clinton clans, and by Barack Obama. Americans would have seen the eventual loss of this Country’s independence and sovereignty, and, concomitantly, Americans would have seen the loss of the fundamental, unalienable rights guaranteed to them, as codified in the Nation’s Bill of Rights. The losses would have been drastic, and those losses would have been assured. Thankfully, a dire future for this nation and its people is less likely to happen now, as the election of Trump has enabled the Nation to pivot back to the path laid out for us by the founders of the Nation. But there is still much work ahead for the American people. We must remain ever vigilant.”

THE MOST IMPORTANT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF THE LAST TWO CENTURIES IS UPON US

The principles of Collectivism were anathema to the founders of our Nation; and those principles are wholly incompatible with the Constitution the framers designed, predicated on the tenets of Individualism, the foundation of our Nation. The two political and social philosophies, Individualism and Collectivism, cannot be reconciled. And those who wish to implement the principles of Collectivism in our Nation know this. That is why they talk openly of major amendments to the Constitution.Indeed, some Collectivists talk of doing away with the U.S. Constitution altogether, as it would be far easier to draft a new constitution grounded on the principles of Collectivism than to try to reconfigure the original Constitution, grounded as it is on a completely different set of precepts: those of Individualism. And we will be headed in a very disturbing direction if the Collectivists do succeed in taking firm control over the reins of Government._____________________________________________

WITHOUT AN ARMED CITIZENRY EVERY CITIZEN REMAINS AT THE MERCY OF THE STATE

Since an armed citizenry operates as the one true signifier and test of the sovereignty of the people over Government, and the only effective vehicle through which the sovereignty of the people over illegal Government usurpation and accumulation of power is contained, the armed citizenry is truly the sine qua non of a Nation founded on the tenets of Individualism. And in only one such Nation are the people truly sovereign: the United States. Consider: For all the lofty talk of human rights and with all the “rights” delineated in the EU’s “Charter of Fundamental Rights,” as one prime example—and there are over six dozen of them at last count—you would be hard-pressed to find any assertion of the right of the people of the EU to keep and bear arms. There isn’t one. Do you think the omission was an accident? 

THE LIBERAL WING OF THE HIGH COURT EXTOLS THE POLITICAL AND LEGAL FRAMEWORK OF THE EU, NOT THE U.S.

Several U.S. Supreme Court Justices such as, and particularly, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, have little regard for the U.S. Constitution, as they consider it to be as she says, “rather old” and, therefore, archaic, reminiscent of an earlier time and earlier values that they also perceive as archaic, mutable, irrelevant, and even counter to the Collectivist political and social orientation they support or sympathize with. Their vision of this Country does not include the presence of an armed citizenry. Thus, they, understandably, would express reservation, hesitation in voting to grant review of another Second Amendment case at this time: one that truly impacts the very core of it. These liberal wing U.S. Supreme Court Justices are awaiting the installation of a Collectivist as U.S. President, as are all those who espouse the principles and tenets of Collectivism.If the Radical Left Democrats defeat Trump in the upcoming November 2020 general election, might not that embolden Roberts to join the liberal wing of the Court, to take up another Second Amendment case for the express purpose to weaken the central holdings of Heller and McDonald, if not to overturn the central holdings of those cases outright?After all, it only takes one Justice, say, John Roberts, to join the liberal wing, to defeat a Second Amendment case. And, what  Justice Kavanaugh would do with it is anyone’s guess, given his awkward, almost servile, and definitely odd concurring opinion in the recent New York City gun transport case.The liberal wing of the U.S. Supreme Court Court has made their deep animosity toward the Second Amendment known. The Liberal wing of the High Court therefore fervently relishes the opportunity to overturn Heller and McDonald. Make no mistake about that. The liberal wing of the High Court has made clear its deep hostility toward and its visceral loathing of the right of the people to keep and bear arms. That isn’t a secret.This is predicated on the temperament of Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan—a psychological temperament that informs their methodological approach to High Court case analysis; a methodological approach and jurisprudential philosophy that predisposes them to undercut the Second Amendment, always maintaining that the right of the people to keep and bear arms amounts to a collective right if such a right exists at all; conferring no individual right to own and possess firearms.The liberal wing of the High Court long ago opined that both Heller and McDonald were wrongly decided. At the time Heller was decided in 2008, the dissenting Justices included: Breyer, Stevens, Souter and Ginsburg. And, at the time McDonald was decided, the dissenting Justices included: Breyer, Stevens, and Sotomayor.Ostensibly a jurisprudential conservative who retired in 2009, Associate Justice David Souter, nominated by then-President George H.W. Bush, turned out to be a major disappointment. His replacement, Elena Kagan, nominated by Donald Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, would come as no surprise. One needn’t guess her jurisprudential philosophy toward the Second Amendment, all of which is predicated on the temperament of the liberal wing of the High Court that now comprises Associate Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan—a psychological temperament that informs their jurisprudential philosophy and a methodological approach toward case analysis that is wholly unlike that of the late eminent Justice Scalia and that Justices Thomas and Alito.The liberal wing of the Court abhors the very idea that Americans have a fundamental and immutable and unalienable, natural right to own and possess firearms. If they vote to hear a Second Amendment case, it will only be with a view toward undercutting the Second Amendment and they will only vote to hear a Second Amendment case once they feel they have sufficient support to compose the majority opinion on the matter.The New York City gun transport case was the most innocuous of Second Amendment cases for the High Court to take up when compared to other cases that had come before it. Perhaps that was one reason they granted review of the New York City case.Moreover, the New York City case invited the New York City Government to amend the law to encourage the liberal wing of the High Court to avoid deciding the case on the merits.And so, the liberal wing did find the case mooted by a change in the law. No surprise there. And Chief Justice Roberts readily jumped on board. No surprise there either. But the decision of Justice Kavanaugh, joining the liberal wing and Roberts majority rather than the dissenters, Justices Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch—that was a surprise and far, far from a pleasant one.Who is it that Justice Kavanaugh thinks he is fooling? He knows damn well how difficult it is for a Second Amendment case—any Second Amendment case—to be heard. Americans can rest assured that Justice Thomas clued Kavanaugh in on that if Kavanaugh harbored any doubt about that. And Americans are supposed to sit on their hands, and hold their breath waiting for the next Second Amendment case to be taken up by the Court, gaining sustenance from a conjecture tucked away in an absurd Concurring Opinion?Unfortunately, Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh isn’t the only person on the High Court infected with St. Vitus Dance, ever meandering, weaseling, tap dancing around the Second Amendment rather than giving it the attention and respect it deserves, dealing squarely with it, to protect the core of it.And the Third Branch of Government isn’t our only concern.Recall how the Republican-controlled House and Senate failed to enact national concealed handgun carry into law. Republicans could easily have enacted 115 H.R. 38 into law if they really wanted to. But they didn’t. Back on November 30, 2018, the Arbalest Quarrel wrote, in our article titled, “As Deadline Draws Near, Supporters Of Second Amendment Demand U.S. Senate Vote On National Concealed Handgun Carry Reciprocity,”“The Senate Judiciary Committee has been sitting on the bill that was sent to Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, last December 2017, when it passed the Republican-controlled House. The version of national concealed handgun carry reciprocity that passed the House is designated, 115 H.R. 38, “Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017.” Once Senator McConnell received it, he sent it immediately to the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Charles Grassley, for action. Clearly, no work was done on it; and a year has gone by since the Judiciary Committee had received it.” Nothing was done by the Republican Controlled Congress in 2017, at that time, to strengthen Americans’ right to keep and bear arms. And, now, at this juncture—with the decision of Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Kavanaugh, having joined the liberal wing of the High Court, in the New York City gun transport case—nothing yet has been done to preserve and strengthen our sacred Second Amendment right.Do you think, perhaps, that all too many legislators and jurists, adherents of Collectivism, who claim to support the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, really don’t? Is talk of support for the right of the people to keep and bear arms just that: merely talk? Is preservation of our Bill of Rights merely a will-o’-the-wisp, an elaborate play, the purpose of which is to placate a rightfully embittered American electorate, facilitating the slow, inexorable, erasure of the very notion of fundamental, immutable, God-given rights that fall beyond the lawful power of Government to denigrate and eradicate?As we have pointed out in our previous article, some Collectivists in the U.S. suggest that no constitution is necessary. Taking their cue from Great Britain which is said to have an “unwritten constitution” (which really means NO constitution), the Collectivists surmise that changes to Government and changes to the relationship of the people to Government should always be flexible, malleable—subject to change in accordance with the whims of those who wield power. For these rulers, adherents of Collectivism, any constitution is too restrictive and any rights afforded the populace must always be subject to modification or abrogation as the rulers dictate. And, they have made that plain. The Collectivists seek to rewrite portions of the Articles, and they seek to rewrite, or to torturously and tortuously reinterpret, or to abrogate altogether, or simply to ignore portions of our fundamental, unalienable, immutable, natural rights—our Bill of Rights—giving special attention to the Second Amendment that they perceive as the greatest single threat to their illegal, unconscionable usurpation of power.The American people must not let these Radical Left Collectivist insurrectionists succeed.____________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

CHURCHES “UNDER THE GUN”

“And God spake all these words, saying,I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.Thou shalt have no other gods before me.Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.”  ~from The Old Testament, Exodus and Deuteronomy, King James Version; source: www.Bartleby.com­­­­­­____________________________________________“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” First sentence from the Declaration of Independence, In Congress, July 4, 1776; source: archives.gov

THE DEFIANCE AND BRASHNESS OF STATE GOVERNMENT TYRANTS IS APPARENT FOR ALL TO SEE

America is first and foremost a Christian Nation. This isn’t hypothesis, or hyperbole, or manifestation of hysteria. It is fact. This fact is the backbone and linchpin of our Constitution. It is the foundation of our natural rights; rights bestowed on man by a loving, Divine Creator. It is self-evident true.In recent years, the would-be destroyers of our Nation have attacked this notion; and, with the intentional or reckless unleashing of a pandemic on our Nation and on other nations by the amoral, irreligious, autocratic, and diabolical, Communist regime of Xi Jinping of China, the would-be destroyers of our Nation have renewed their assault on the Christian Church. They have done so with unusual feral ferocity.Who are these would-be destroyers of our Constitution; these betrayers of our National heritage, of our natural rights and liberties; these sowers of ill will; these destructive, hateful forces who disingenuously, hypocritically, coldly, callously, calculatedly assert a need, an impulse to tear down the Christian framework of our Nation, ostensibly, as they say, or so they claim, to save it? We know them. They are all around us. They comprise a heterogenous, amorphous conglomeration of malcontents both here and abroad who seek to remake the world in their own image: Marxists, Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, Neoliberal Billionaire Globalists, and others. They all share the same belief system, the same value system: distrust of the common man; a strong, tenacious, insatiable desire to control and subjugate humanity; and a strong bias toward and a disturbing penchant for Atheism, Agnosticism, or Satanism, and concomitant amorality and immorality, albeit disguised as seemingly benign secularism, moral relativism, and nontheistic humanism.

A MODERN CIVIL WAR

America is in the midst of a Civil War. This war isn’t fought with guns or bombs, at least for the moment. But it’s war, nonetheless. We see this war waged in the attempt to control the mind, the thoughts of Americans. The despoilers of our Nation have sought to drive a wedge between Americans and their sacred rights and liberties. If successful, our Nation will cease to exist, for the sovereignty of the American people exists and thrives only in the unfettered exercise of their God-given rights and liberties. For only in the exercise of those rights and liberties may the power of Government be restrained and constrained.These would-be annihilators of our Nation use calamity to drive a wedge between the citizenry and their fundamental rights and liberties. They are adept at seducing many Americans to surrender their rights and liberties for security. Recall Benjamin Franklin’s famous, oft reiterated, prescient quote: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

THE PRESUMPTUOUS, CALCULATED, CONCERTED, INCESSANT, INSOLENT ASSAULT ON OUR BILL OF RIGHTS

After the attack on the World Trade Center, the assassins of our Bill of Rights said Americans don’t require freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures because Government must protect Americans from terrorists; ergo, Americans came to lose their sovereignty through a slow, inexorable process toward creation of the Surveillance State, and the concomitant whittling away of the sacred right embodied in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.After some lunatics went on a shooting binge, in the last couple of decades the assassins of our Bill of Rights said Americans ought not exercise their unalienable God-given right to keep and bear arms because Government must promote public safety and ensure public order; ergo, we see the rapid evolution toward restricting ownership and possession of firearms, and the concomitant whittling away of the sacred right embodied in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.And now, with the Chinese Communist Coronavirus unleashed upon us, the assassins of our Bill of Rights have said Government must constrain the free exercise of religion, restrain the freedom of speech, preclude the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to curtail the right of the people to petition the Government for a redress of grievances; ergo we see the rapid evolution toward controlling the thoughts and actions of the citizenry; the subjugation of the people, and the concomitant whittling away of the sacred rights embodied in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

STATE GOVERNMENTS USE FORCE TO ENFORCE CHURCH CLOSURES

Ironically, it isn’t the Federal Government, now, but the Governors of a few States who seek to curtail the free exercise of religion.With all the bluster of the Radical Left that calls President Trump an autocrat, the actions of Radical Left Governors make plain who the autocrats really are. Their actions are both unconstitutional and unconscionable.Radical Left New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, Illinois Governor, J.B. Pritzker, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, California Governor, Gavin Newsom, and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer have closed churches claiming, as a rationale, the need to promote public health due to the Chinese Coronavirus.Unsurprisingly, a website that calls itself, the “Friendly Atheist,” says, that State Governors can do this:“ ‘Policies don’t violate religious freedom laws if they’re created in order to save people’s lives,’ said Michael Moreland, director of the Ellen H. McCullen Center for Law, Religion and Public Policy at Villanova University.” ‘So long as those restrictions are neutral and applicable to everybody, religious institutions have to abide by them,’ he said. . . . So, yes, governors can and should shut down church gatherings in the same way they’re shutting down public schools and restaurants. Treat them fairly. Treat them equally. There’s nothing illegal going on no matter how many pastors whine about religious discrimination.”Let’s deconstruct a couple of these comments. First, the “Friendly Atheist” draws a false dilemma, claiming that either the Church remains closed or people will fall sick and die. That’s untrue. Churches are cognizant of the threat. Church officials have been implementing proper protocols to preclude the spread of the Chinese Coronavirus all along. Second, the remark of the legal expert, Ellen McCullen is vague and ambiguous. She asserts, “So long as those restrictions are neutral and applicable to everybody, religious institutions have to abide by them.” What is she saying? There are two possibilities.McCullen may be saying that, so long as State Governors force every religion in a State to close its doors, not just Christian denominations, then Church closure orders are lawful. In the alternative, McCullen may be saying that, so long as closure restrictions apply to all political, social, educational and religious associations and organizations, and apply t0 all business establishments—literally to every conceivable entity throughout the State, apart, say, from hospitals, pharmacies, and food establishments—then Church closure orders are lawful. Now, if the former statement is what Ellen McCullen means, then Church closure actions are not “content-neutral,” and are, then, unconstitutional. They are clearly unlawful. If the latter statement is what she means, then Government ordered Church closure actions are still, likely, unconstitutional, and, so, still unlawful.Why? It comes down to what reasonably, rationally constitutes an “essential service” and what constitutes a “non-essential service”: terminology State Governments have themselves concocted to create winners and losers; to divide those whom they count as friends from those they perceive as enemies.No one would deny that severely ill people need the care of health care providers that, in many cases only hospitals can effectively provide. And no one can honestly deny that many people require prescription medicines to remain well. And no one can reasonably deny that everyone requires food sustenance to survive. So a case can be made for application of the essential versus non-essential dichotomy but only if applied in a rational, non-arbitrary manner. What about Churches? Does the Church provide an essential service? Well, houses of worship do fall under the category of essential services, as spiritual need is arguably just as essential to the well-being and survival of a person as are food, medicine, and medical care. Moreover, the free exercise of religion isn’t a mere privilege; nor is it a minor right. It is a fundamental, unalienable right. In fact, the right to worship the Divine Creator in a house of worship, and the right of self-defense, and the right to maintain one's personal autonomy are the most sacred of rights. Yet those State Governors deny a person the right to attend Church, even as they permit a person to visit an abortion clinic, a liquor store, or a cannabis shop. That is the height of arrogance, foolishness, capriciousness, and outright stupidity.

IN A FREE REPUBLIC CHURCHES MUST REMAIN OPEN

These State Governors who would dare close Churches are simply wrong. Churches must remain open.Curiously, it is the U.S. President, not the State Governors who recognize the importance of our sacred rights and liberties. As recently reported in the website, usnews.com, for one:“President Donald Trump on Friday said he has deemed churches and other houses of worship ‘essential’ and called on governors to allow them to reopen this weekend despite the threat of the coronavirus.”“ ‘Today I’m identifying houses of worship — churches, synagogues and mosques — as essential places that provide essential services,’ Trump said during a hastily arranged press conference Friday. He said if governors don't abide by his request, he will ‘override’ them, though it’s unclear what authority he has to do so.So, then: Who is the autocrat? Who is the tyrant? It isn’t Donald Trump. The real autocrats and tyrants are those State Governors who usurp the sovereignty of the American people by denying to the people their fundamental right to worship the Divine Creator: the one Being who gave man free will, and who bestowed on man fundamental, unalienable, immutable rights.There are those of us who adore and worship the Divine Creator; and there are those who don’t.But for those who would deny the Divine Creator, there is no limit to their capacity for evil. They don't wish to attend Church? Fine. But, to prevent others from doing so is not to be countenanced, and should be roundly condemned. These atheists dare to use a catastrophe as an excuse to destroy rights and liberties they never created yet have the audacity and the temerity to annul. “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” said Rahm Emanuel, one-time Chicago Mayor and White House Chief of Staff in the Obama Administration.* ______________________________________*Rahm’s Rule—the arrogant “first principle” of the deniers of the Divine Creator.____________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

WILL THE SECOND AMENDMENT SURVIVE GOVERNMENT ACTION TO DESTROY IT?

PART FIVE

WHAT WILL BECOME OF U.S. SUPREME COURT HELLER AND MCDONALD PRECEDENT?

Commentators and readers—pro, con, or ostensibly neutral toward the Second Amendment—presume the U.S. Supreme Court will soon take up, on review, one or more of the several pending Second Amendment cases awaiting a vote by the Court. But will they?SCOTUS Blog reporter, Amy Howe, reported, on April 28, 2020, that, “We expect orders from Friday’s conference on Monday, May 4, at 9:30 a.m. EDT.Mance v. Barr – Whether the federal ban on interstate handgun sales violates the Second Amendment or the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.Rogers v. Grewal – In a challenge to New Jersey’s handgun carry permit scheme, whether the Second Amendment protects the right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense; and whether the government can condition the right to carry a handgun outside the home on the showing of a special need to carry a firearm.Pena v. Horan – In a challenge to a California law banning most commonly used handguns, the petition asks the justices to weigh in on the scope of the Second Amendment.Gould v. Lipson – In a challenge to Massachusetts’ handgun carry permit scheme, whether the Second Amendment protects the right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense; and whether the government can condition the right to carry a handgun outside the home on the showing of a special need to carry a firearm.Cheeseman v. Polillo – Challenge to New Jersey handgun carry permit scheme.Ciolek v. New Jersey – Challenge to New Jersey handgun carry permit scheme.Worman v. Healey – Challenge to Massachusetts ban on the possession of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.Malpasso v. Pallozzi – In a challenge to Maryland’s handgun carry permit scheme, whether the Second Amendment protects the right to carry handguns outside the home for self-defense.Culp v. Raoul – Whether the Second Amendment requires Illinois to allow nonresidents to apply for a concealed-carry license.Wilson v. Cook County – Challenge to Cook County’s ban on assault rifles and large-capacity magazines, as well as to the Second Amendment analysis used by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit to uphold the ban.This post was originally published at Howe on the Court.”But, as of the posting of Part Five of this multi-series article on the Arbalest Quarrel, AQ has not yet heard whether the High Court will be reviewing any of the aforesaid cases, even as CNBC News reported, on Sunday, May 17, 2020, that,“The Supreme Court is looking eager to weigh in on the Second Amendment weeks after it punted on its first substantial gun rights case in nearly a decade.”Eagerly looking forward to weighing in on a Second Amendment case? Really? Well, apart from Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch, who had previously written or joined dissenting comments asserting strong displeasure for the failure of the Court to take up any one of several cases, to date—and, we presume, apart from Associate Justice Samuel Alito who had penned the McDonald majority opinion, and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who had penned the dissenting opinion in Heller II when he had served as a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, before joining the U.S. Supreme Court as an Associate Justice—the idea that the liberal wing of the High Court and the idea that the Chief Justice, himself, John Roberts, also relish the opportunity to review any Second Amendment case, except to rein in the fundamental, natural, immutable, unalienable right of the people to keep and bear arms, if they have the opportunity to do so, is a bit of a stretch. The only other Justice who would, if he could, had a strong desire to review another Second Amendment case would be the late eminent Associate Justice, Antonin Scalia, who had penned the majority opinion Heller rulings and holdings.The U.S. Supreme Court has had many opportunities to do so since the Court’s majority handed down the seminal rulings in the 2008 Heller and the 2010 McDonald cases. But, apart from the quasi Second Amendment Voisine case and the recent New York City Gun transport case, the Court never did review a Second Amendment case. Concerning those two cases, Justice Thomas remarked of the former, that, while the Court did review Voisine, it never did address the Second Amendment issue, which might explain why the Court decided to hear the case at all. And, as for the latter—the New York City gun transport case—the High Court’s majority, comprising the Anti-Second Amendment liberal wing, along with Chief Justice Roberts, and, surprisingly, Associate Justice Kavanaugh, the recent addition to the Court, both ruled against allowing the case to proceed to the merits.Can Americans be so certain that another Second Amendment case is going to be taken up soon? Consider how many writs of certiorari come before the High Court during any term.On the U.S. Supreme Court site, supremecourt.gov, we are told:“The Term of the Court begins, by law, on the first Monday in October and lasts until the first Monday in October of the next year. Each Term, approximately 7,000-8,000 new cases are filed in the Supreme Court. This is a substantially larger volume of cases than was presented to the Court in the last century. In the 1950 Term, for example, the Court received only 1,195 new cases, and even as recently as the 1975 Term it received only 3,940. Plenary review, with oral arguments by attorneys, is currently granted in about 80 of those cases each Term, and the Court typically disposes of about 100 or more cases without plenary review. The publication of each Term’s written opinions, including concurring opinions, dissenting opinions, and orders, can take up thousands of pages. During the drafting process, some opinions may be revised a dozen or more times before they are announced.” Do you honestly think one of the pending Second Amendment cases will garner the four votes necessary for the U.S. Supreme Court to review it, and relatively soon?With a clear schism between, on the one hand, the entrenched liberal-wing of the High Court that detests any notion of a God-given, fundamental, immutable, unalienable, natural right of the people to keep and bear arms, and vehemently disagrees with the majority’s rulings in Heller and McDonald, and, on the other hand, the entrenched conservative-wing Constitutionalists of the High Court, consisting of Associate Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch who are adamant in their desire to preserve the Second Amendment as the framers of the U.S. Constitution had intended, it is to be seen whether Americans will henceforth be able to continue to own and possess firearms as a fundamental and unalienable right, rather than as a mere Government privilege. It will all come down to how Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Kavanaugh decide any such Second Amendment case.Keep in mind, it only takes one vote, either Roberts or Kavanaugh, to rule with the liberal wing of the High Court to affirm the rulings of U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld unconstitutional government actions, counter to the rulings of Heller and McDonald, striking a flagrant blow to Supreme Court precedent. But, it takes two votes, both Roberts and Kavanaugh joining the conservative-wing, to reverse or, otherwise, to modify, or vacate and remand, a badly decided lower court ruling.Our guess is that, with a U.S. Presidential election approaching this year, which will, as well, also decide whether Democrats maintain majorities in the House and secure a majority in the Senate, the U.S. Supreme Court would prefer to await the outcome.If Democrats win the Presidency and take control of the Senate, the liberal wing of the Court may be willing to provide the four votes necessary to hear a Second Amendment case. The liberal wing of the Court would do so not to chastise the Federal Circuits for failing to adhere to Heller and McDonald precedent, but to overturn those precedents, or, at least, to weaken Heller and McDonald, as they always took the position that the majority had wrongly decided Heller and McDonald. Of course, if the four members of the liberal wing of the Court do decide to vote in favor of reviewing a Second Amendment case, it would do so only if they feel confident they would obtain a “conservative” wing majority, meaning that both Chief Justice Roberts and Associate Justice Kavanaugh must join Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch, to reverse outright a Circuit Court of Appeals decision that upheld a government action infringing the core of the Second Amendment.But, whatever the High Court decides to do with this new batch of Second Amendment cases, it behooves us to take a moment and proceed down memory lane to contemplate those cases the Court could have reviewed, should have reviewed, but failed to secure even four of nine votes necessary to review a case implicating the core of the Second Amendment: cases decided by U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals that blatantly, defiantly, arrogantly, egregiously denied and defied Heller and McDonald precedent.

CASES ATTACKING THE CORE OF THE SECOND AMENDMENT THAT THE U.S. SUPREME COURT REFUSED TO HEAR

Because the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in cases discussed infra, had blatantly ignored and dismissed Heller and McDonald precedent, Justice Thomas and the late Justice Scalia, and, later, Justice Gorsuch, were visibly annoyed, angered really, at the failure of the High Court to take up any of the cases, as evidenced in several dissenting comments.Those Justices were confident that, had any one or more of the below cases secured the four votes necessary for a Second Amendment case to be heard, Justice Roberts, and, at the time Justice Kennedy, would have been compelled to join the Conservative wing, reversing the decision of the Circuit Court.Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kennedy would have been required to join the conservative wing even if they had a predilection against doing so, based on their own obvious lukewarm regard for the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution. They would have had to overturn any U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision that clearly attacked the core of the Second Amendment, as the below cases attest to. They would have been obliged to do so, consistent with Heller and McDonald precedent, and, more particularly, consistent with those Justices own decisions in Heller and McDonald, having joined the majority in those decisions. And, given that imperative, they evidently decided to take the “safer” course of action. They refused to hear any one of those cases.These cases include:Silvester vs. Becerra: Petition for certiorari denied on February 20, 2018“Issues: (1) Whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit improperly applied lenient scrutiny in a Second Amendment challenge to the application of California’s full 10-day waiting period to firearm purchasers who pass their background check in fewer than 10 days and already own another firearm or have a concealed carry license; and (2) whether the Supreme Court should exercise its supervisory powers to cabin the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit’s concerted resistance to and disregard of the Supreme Court's Second Amendment decisions.” California’s full 10-day waiting period to firearm purchasers remains in effectJustice Thomas was livid:The ABA pointed out: “Justice Clarence Thomas asserted the Second Amendment is ‘a disfavored right’ in the U.S. Supreme Court when he dissented Tuesday from the denial of certiorari in a gun case.Thomas said the Supreme Court should have heard Silvester v. Becerra, a challenge to California’s 10-day waiting period for gun purchases. His dissent starts on the 34th page of the Supreme Court order list.In upholding the law, the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals used rational basis review, though it claimed to be using intermediate scrutiny, Thomas said.‘If a lower court treated another right so cavalierly, I have little doubt that this court would intervene,” Thomas wrote. “But as evidenced by our continued inaction in this area, the Second Amendment is a disfavored right in this court.’”In his dissent for failure of the high Court to hear the case, Justice Thomas said with particularity and with righteous indignation:The Second Amendment protects “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” and the Fourteenth Amendment requires the States to respect that right, McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 749-750, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010) (plurality opinion); id., at 805, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). Because the right to keep and bear arms is enumerated in the Constitution, courts cannot subject laws that burden it to mere rational-basis review. District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 628, n. 27, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008).But the decision below did just that. Purporting to apply intermediate scrutiny, the Court of Appeals upheld California’s 10-day waiting period for firearms based solely on its own ‘common sense.’ Silvester v. Harris, 843 F. 3d 816, 828 (CA9 2016). It did so without requiring California to submit relevant evidence, without addressing petitioners’ arguments to the contrary, and without acknowledging the District Court’s factual findings. This deferential analysis was indistinguishable from rational-basis review. And it is symptomatic of the lower courts’ general failure to afford the Second Amendment the respect due an enumerated constitutional right.If a lower court treated another right so cavalierly, I have little doubt that this Court would intervene. But as evidenced by our continued inaction in this area, the Second Amendment is a disfavored right in this Court. Because I do not believe we should be in the business of choosing which constitutional rights are “really worth insisting upon,” Heller, supra, at 634, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, I would have granted certiorari in this case.Drake v. Jerejian: Petition for certiorari denied on May 5, 2014No hearing; no comment“Issue: (1) Whether the Second Amendment secures a right to carry handguns outside the home for self-defense; and (2) whether state officials violate the Second Amendment by requiring that individuals wishing to exercise their right to carry a handgun for self-defense first prove a ‘justifiable need’ for doing so.”The weblog, outside the beltway, had this to say about the case:“Well it’s official. The Supreme Court has abdicated the Second Amendment.No Second Amendment right, in New Jersey, to carry a handgun outside the home; and proof of “justifiable need” to carry handgun outside the home for self-defense remains in effect in New Jersey“Today, the Court denied cert in Drake v. Jerejian, the New Jersey carry case. This case offered a perfect vehicle to test whether the Second Amendment applies outside the home. It was relisted a few times, which this term has been a prerequisite to cert. Yet, it was denied today.Since the Supreme Court decided McDonald v. Chicago in 2010, they have not deigned to take a single Second Amendment case. Not one. Several have been relisted a few times, but all ultimately denied, with not even a statement concurring or dissenting from denial of cert.As I noted in this post, this strategy of ‘deny, deny, deny’ is reminiscent of the absence of Cert grants in cases concerning Guantanamo Bay. There, the Court seems content to let the D.C. Circuit rewrite habeas law. I suppose, in a similar fashion, the Court is happy with a plethora of nation-wide Circuit splits about the meaning of the right to keep and bear arms.” Jackson vs. City & Cnty. of San Francisco: Petition for certiorari denied on June 8, 2015 “Issue: Whether San Francisco’s attempt to deprive law-abiding individuals of immediate access to operable handguns in their own homes is any more constitutional than the District of Columbia’s invalidated effort to do the same.”Requirement to keep handguns inaccessible in home remains in effect in San Francisco.(Thomas dissenting; Scalia joins dissent) Thomas with righteous indignation, writes:“‘Self-defense is a basic right’ and ‘the central component’ of the Second Amendment’s  guarantee of an individual’s right to keep and bear arms. McDonald v. Chicago 561 U. S. 742, 767, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894 (2010) (emphasis deleted). Less than a decade ago, we explained that an ordinance requiring firearms in the home to be kept inoperable, without an exception for self-defense, conflicted with the Second Amendment because it ‘ma[de] it impossible for citizens to use [their firearms] for the core lawful purpose of self-defense.’ District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 630, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008). Despite the clarity with which we described the Second Amendment core protection for the right of self-defense, lower courts, including the ones here, have failed to protect it. Because Second Amendment rights are no less protected by our Constitution than other rights enumerated in that document, I would have granted this petition.”Friedman vs. City of Highland Park, Illinois:Petition for certiorari denied on December 7, 2015 “Issue: (1) Whether the Constitution allows the government to prohibit law-abiding, responsible citizens from protecting themselves, their families, and their homes with a class of constitutionally protected ‘arms’ that includes the most popular rifles in the nation; and (2) whether the Constitution allows the government to prohibit law-abiding, responsible citizens from protecting themselves, their families, and their homes with ammunition magazines that number in the tens of millions and make up nearly half of the nation’s total stock of privately owned ammunition magazines for handguns and rifles.Semiautomatic weapons defined as ‘assault weapons,’ even if in common use remain illegal in City of Highland Park, IllinoisThomas dissenting: “The City of Highland Park, Illinois, bans manufacturing, selling, giving, lending, acquiring, or possessing many of the most commonly owned semiautomatic firearms, which the City branded “Assault Weapons.” See Highland Park, Ill., City Code §§136.001(C), 136.005 (2015), App. to Pet. for Cert. 65a, 71a. For instance, the ordinance criminalizes modern sporting rifles (e.g., AR-style semiautomatic rifles), which many Americans own for lawful purposes like self-defense, hunting, and target shooting. The City also prohibited “Large Capacity Magazines,” a term the City used to refer to nearly all ammunition feeding devices that “accept more than ten rounds.” §136.001(G), id., at 70a.The City gave anyone who legally possessed ‘an Assault Weapon or Large Capacity Magazine’ 60 days to move these items outside city limits, disable them, or surrender them for destruction. §136.020, id., at 73a. Anyone who violates the ordinance can be imprisoned for up to six months, fined up to $1,000, or both. §136.999, id., at 74a.Petitioners — a Highland Park resident who sought to keep now-prohibited firearms and magazines to defend his home, and an advocacy organization — brought a suit to enjoin the ordinance on the ground that it violates the Second Amendment. The District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted summary judgment to the City.A divided panel of the Seventh Circuit affirmed. The panel majority acknowledged that the prohibited weapons ‘can be beneficial for self-defense because they are lighter than many rifles and less dangerous per shot than larger-caliber pistols or revolvers,’ and thus ‘[h]ouseholders too frightened or infirm to aim carefully may be able to wield them more effectively.’ 784 F. 3d, at 411.The majority nonetheless found no constitutional problem with the ordinance. It recognized that Heller ‘holds that a law banning the possession of handguns in the home . . . violates’ the Second Amendment. 784 F. 3d, at 407. But beyond Heller’s rejection of banning handguns in the home, the majority believed, Heller and McDonald ‘leave matters open’ on the scope of the Second Amendment. 784 F. 3d, at 412. The majority thus adopted a new test for gauging the constitutionality of bans on firearms: ‘[W]e [will] ask whether a regulation bans weapons that were common at the time of ratification or those that have some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, . . . and whether law-abiding citizens retain adequate means of self-defense.’ Id., at 410 (internal quotation marks omitted).Judge Manion dissented, reasoning that ‘[b]oth the ordinance and this court’s opinion upholding it are directly at odds with the central holdings of Heller and McDonald.’ Id., at 412.We explained in Heller and McDonald that the Second Amendment ‘guarantee[s] the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation.’ Heller, supra, at 592, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2797, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 657; see also McDonald, supra, at 767-769, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 3036-3037, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894, 914-916. We excluded from protection only ‘those weapons not typically possessed by law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes.’ Heller, 554 U. S., at 625, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2815, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 677. And we stressed that ‘[t]he very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon.’ Id., at 634, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2821, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 682 (emphasis deleted).Instead of adhering to our reasoning in Heller, the Seventh Circuit limited Heller to its facts, and read Heller to forbid only total bans on handguns used for self-defense in the home. See 784 F. 3d, at 407, 412. All other questions about the Second Amendment, the Seventh Circuit concluded, should be defined by ‘the political process and scholarly debate.’ Id., at 412. But Heller repudiates that approach. We explained in Heller that ‘since th[e] case represent[ed] this Court’s first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment, one should not expect it to clarify the entire field.’ 554 U. S., at 635, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2821, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 683. We cautioned courts against leaving the rest of the field to the legislative process: ‘Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad.’ Id., at 634-635, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2821, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 683.Based on its crabbed reading of Heller, the Seventh Circuit felt free to adopt a test for assessing firearm bans that eviscerates many of the protections recognized in Heller and McDonald. The court asked in the first instance whether the banned firearms ‘were common at the time of ratification’ in 1791. 784 F. 3d, at 410. But we said in Heller that ‘the Second Amendment extends, prima facie, to all instruments that constitute bearable arms, even those that were not in existence at the time of the founding.’ 554 U. S., at 582, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2792, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 651.The Seventh Circuit alternatively asked whether the banned firearms relate ‘to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.’ 784 F. 3d, at 410 (internal quotation marks omitted). The court concluded that state and local ordinances never run afoul of that objective, since ‘states, which are in charge of militias, should be allowed to decide when civilians can possess military-grade firearms.’ Ibid. But that ignores Heller’s fundamental premise: The right to keep and bear arms is an independent, individual right. Its scope is defined not by what the militia needs, but by what private citizens commonly possess. 554 U. S., at 592, 627-629, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2797, 2817-2818, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 657, 678-680. Moreover, the Seventh Circuit endorsed the view of the militia that Heller rejected. We explained that ‘Congress retains plenary authority to organize the militia,” not States. Id., at 600, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2802, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 662 (emphasis added). Because the Second Amendment confers rights upon individual citizens—not state governments—it was doubly wrong for the Seventh Circuit to delegate to States and localities the power to decide which firearms people may possess.Lastly, the Seventh Circuit considered ‘whether law-abiding citizens retain adequate means of self-defense,’ and reasoned that the City’s ban was permissible because ‘[i]f criminals can find substitutes for banned assault weapons, then so can law-abiding homeowners.” 784 F. 3d, at 410, 411. Although the court recognized that ‘Heller held that the availability of long guns does not save a ban on handgun ownership,’ it thought that ‘Heller did not foreclose the possibility that allowing the use of most long guns plus pistols and revolvers . . . gives householders adequate means of defense.’ Id., at 411.That analysis misreads Heller. The question under Heller is not whether citizens have adequate alternatives available for self-defense. Rather, Heller asks whether the law bans types of firearms commonly used for a lawful purpose—regardless of whether alternatives exist. 554 U. S., at 627-629, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2817-2818, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 678-680. And Heller draws a distinction between such firearms and weapons specially adapted to unlawful uses and not in common use, such as sawed-off shotguns. Id., at 624-625, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2815-2816, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 676-677. The City’s ban is thus highly suspect because it broadly prohibits common semiautomatic firearms used for lawful purposes. Roughly five million Americans own AR-style semiautomatic rifles. See 784 F. 3d, at 415, n. 3. The overwhelming majority of citizens who own and use such rifles do so for lawful purposes, including self-defense and target shooting. See ibid. Under our precedents, that is all that is needed for citizens to have a right under the Second Amendment to keep such weapons. See McDonald, 561 U. S., at 767-768, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 3036-3037, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894, 914-915; Heller, supra, at 628-629, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2817-2818, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 679-680.The Seventh Circuit ultimately upheld a ban on many common semiautomatic firearms based on speculation about the law’s potential policy benefits. See 784 F. 3d, at 411-412. The court conceded that handguns — not ‘assault weapons’  — ‘are responsible for the vast majority of gun violence in the United States.’ Id., at 409. Still, the court concluded, the ordinance ‘may increase the public’s sense of safety,’ which alone is ‘a substantial benefit.’ Id., at 412. Heller, however, forbids subjecting the Second Amendment’s ‘core protection . . . to a freestanding ‘interest-balancing’ approach.’ Heller, supra, at 634, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 2821, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637, 683. This case illustrates why. If a broad ban on firearms can be upheld based on conjecture that the public might feel safer (while being no safer at all), then the Second Amendment guarantees nothing.IIIThe Court’s refusal to review a decision that flouts two of our Second Amendment precedents stands in marked contrast to the Court’s willingness to summarily reverse courts that disregard our other constitutional decisions. E.g., Maryland v. Kulbicki, ante, at 1 (per curiam) (summarily reversing because the court below applied Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674 (1984), ‘in name only’); Grady v. North Carolina, 575 U. S. ___ , 135 S. Ct. 1368, 191 L. Ed. 2d 459 (2015) (per curiam) (summarily reversing a judgment inconsistent with this Court’s recent Fourth Amendment precedents); Martinez v. Illinois, 572 U. S. ___, ___ , 134 S. Ct. 2070, 2077, 188 L. Ed. 2d 1112, 1120 (2014) (per curiam) (summarily reversing judgment that rested on an ‘understandable’ double jeopardy holding that nonetheless ‘r[an] directly counter to our precedents”).There is no basis for a different result when our Second Amendment precedents are at stake. I would grant certiorari to prevent the Seventh Circuit from relegating the Second Amendment to a second-class right.Kolbe vs. Hogan: Petition for certiorari denied on November 27, 2017No hearing and no comment Issues: (1) Whether District of Columbia v. Heller excludes the most popular semiautomatic rifles and magazines from Second Amendment protection; and (2) whether they may be banned even though they are typically possessed for lawful purposes, including self-defense in the home.Maryland’s ban on ‘military-like’ ‘assault weapons’ and ‘high-capacity magazines upheld. To provide ostensible legal support for an inherently unconstitutional State Government action, the Fourth Circuit Court majority said, in pertinent part,‘Being satisfied that there is substantial evidence indicating that the FSA’s prohibitions against assault weapons and large-capacity magazines will advance Maryland’s goals, we conclude that the FSA survive intermediate scrutiny. Simply put, the State has shown all that is required: a reasonable, if not perfect, fit between the  FSA and Maryland's interest in protecting public safety. And, as for plaintiff’s equal protection claim, the Fourth Circuit said: ‘The Supreme Court has recognized that equal protection ‘is essentially a direction that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike.’ [citation omitted] Thus, a plaintiff challenging a state statute on an equal protection basis ‘must first demonstrate that he has been treated differently from others with whom he is similarly situated and that the unequal treatment was the result of intentional or purposeful discrimination.’”In other words, the average person is just a peasant. If one dies at the hands of a predator because he could not adequately defend himself, he can rest in peace knowing that every other peasant may well receive the same end: as the lives of all peasants receive equal treatment: the lives of all peasants are equally worthless.Peruta vs. California: Petition for certiorari denied on June 26, 2017Issue: Whether the Second Amendment entitles ordinary, law-abiding citizens to carry handguns outside the home for self-defense in some manner, including concealed carry when open carry is forbidden by state law.California law denying law-abiding citizens the Second Amendment right to carry handguns outside the home for self-defense in the absence of a showing of “good cause” remains in effect.Thomas Dissenting; Gorsuch joins dissent:The Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees that ‘the right of the people to keep and bear Arm[s] shall not be infringed.’ At issue in this case is whether that guarantee protects the right to carry firearms in public for self-defense. Neither party disputes that the issue is one of national importance or that the courts of appeals have already weighed in extensively. I would therefore grant the petition for a writ of certiorari.ICalifornia generally prohibits the average citizen from carrying a firearm in public spaces, either openly or concealed. With a few limited exceptions, the State prohibits open carry altogether. Cal. Penal Code Ann. §§25850, 26350 (West 2012). It proscribes concealed carry unless a resident obtains a license by showing ‘good cause,’ among other criteria, §§26150, 26155, and it authorizes counties to set rules for when an applicant has shown good cause, §26160.In the county where petitioners reside, the sheriff has interpreted ‘good cause’ to require an applicant to show that he has a particularized need, substantiated by documentary evidence, to carry a firearm for self-defense. The sheriff’s policy specifies that ‘concern for one’s personal safety’ does not ‘alone’ satisfy this requirement. Peruta v. County of San Diego, 742 F. 3d 1144, 1148 (CA9 2014) (internal quotation marks omitted). Instead, an applicant must show ‘a set of circumstances that distinguish the applicant from the mainstream and cause him to be placed in harm’s way.’ Id., at 1169 (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). ‘[A] typical citizen fearing for his personal safety—by definition—cannot distinguish himself from the mainstream.’ Ibid. (emphasis deleted; internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). As a result, ordinary, ‘law-abiding, responsible citizens,’ District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U. S. 570, 635, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (2008), may not obtain a permit for concealed carry of a firearm in public spaces.Petitioners are residents of San Diego County (plus an association with numerous county residents as members) who are unable to obtain a license for concealed carry due to the county’s policy and, because the State generally bans open carry, are thus unable to bear firearms in public in any manner. They sued under Rev. Stat. §1979, 42 U. S. C. §1983, alleging that this near-total prohibition on public carry violates their Second Amendment right to bear arms. They requested declaratory and injunctive relief to prevent the sheriff from denying licenses based on his restrictive interpretation of “good cause,” as well as other “relief as the Court deems just and proper.” First Amended Complaint in No. 3:09-cv-02371, (SD Cal.) ¶¶149, 150, 152. The District Court granted respondents’ motion for summary judgment, and petitioners appealed to the Ninth Circuit. In a thorough opinion, a panel of the Ninth Circuit reversed. 742 F. 3d 1144. The panel examined the constitutional text and this Court’s precedents, as well as historical sources from before the founding era through the end of the 19th century. Id., at 1150-1166. Based on these sources, the court concluded that “the carrying of an operable handgun outside the home for the lawful purpose of self-defense . . . constitutes ‘bear[ing] Arms’ within the meaning of the Second Amendment.” Id., at 1166. It thus reversed the District Court and held that the sheriff’s interpretation of “good cause” in combination with the other aspects of the State’s regime violated the Second Amendment’s command that a State “permit some form of carry for self-defense outside the home.” Id., at 1172. The Ninth Circuit sua sponte granted rehearing en banc and, by a divided court, reversed the panel decision. In the en banc court’s view, because petitioners specifically asked for the invalidation of the sheriff’s ‘good cause’ interpretation, their legal challenge was limited to that aspect of the applicable regulatory scheme. The court thus declined to ‘answer the question of whether or to what degree the Second Amendment might or might not protect a right of a member of the general public to carry firearms openly in public.’ Peruta v. County of San Diego, 824 F. 3d 919, 942 (2016). It instead held only that “the Second Amendment does not preserve or protect a right of a member of the general public to carry concealed firearms in public.” Id., at 924 (emphasis added).IIWe should have granted certiorari in this case. The approach taken by the en banc court is indefensible, and the petition raises important questions that this Court should address. I see no reason to await another case.’AThe en banc court’s decision to limit its review to whether the Second Amendment protects the right to concealed carry—as opposed to the more general right to public carry—was untenable. Most fundamentally, it was not justified by the terms of the complaint, which called into question the State’s regulatory scheme as a whole. See First Amended Complaint ¶63 (‘Because California does not permit the open carriage of loaded firearms, concealed carriage with a [concealed carry] permit is the only means by which an individual can bear arms in public places’); id., ¶74 (‘States may not completely ban the carrying of handguns for self-defense’). And although the complaint specified the remedy that intruded least on the State’s overall regulatory regime—declaratory relief and an injunction against the sheriff’s restrictive interpretation of ‘good cause’—it also requested ‘[a]ny further relief as the Court deems just and proper.’ Id., ¶152. Nor was the Ninth Circuit’s approach justified by the history of this litigation. The District Court emphasized that ‘the heart of the parties’ dispute’ is whether the Second Amendment protects ‘the right to carry a loaded handgun in public, either openly or in a concealed manner.’ Peruta v. County of San Diego, 758 F. Supp. 2d 1106, 1109 (SD Cal. 2010). As the Ninth Circuit panel pointed out, ‘[petitioners] argue that the San Diego County policy in light of the California licensing   scheme as a whole violates the Second Amendment because it precludes a responsible, law-abiding citizen from carrying a weapon in public for the purpose of lawful self-defense in any manner.’ 742 F. 3d, at 1171. The panel further observed that although petitioners ‘focu[s]’ their challenge on the ‘licensing scheme for concealed carry,’ this is ‘for good reason: acquiring such a license is the only practical avenue by which [they] may come lawfully to carry a gun for self-defense in San Diego County.’ Ibid. Even the en banc court acknowledged that petitioners ‘base their argument on the entirety of California’s statutory scheme” and ‘do not contend that there is a free-standing Second Amendment right to carry concealed firearms.’ 824 F. 3d, at 927.BHad the en banc Ninth Circuit answered the question actually at issue in this case, it likely would have been compelled to reach the opposite result. This Court has already suggested that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry firearms in public in some fashion. As we explained in Heller, to ‘bear arms’ means to “wear, bear, or carry upon the person or in the clothing or in a pocket, for the purpose of being armed and ready for offensive or defensive action in a case of conflict with another person.” 554 U. S., at 584, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637 (quoting Muscarello v. United States, 524 U. S. 125, 143, 118 S. Ct. 1911, 141 L. Ed. 2d 111 (1998) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting); alterations and some internal quotation marks omitted). The most natural reading of this definition encompasses public carry. I find it extremely improbable that the Framers understood the Second Amendment to protect little more than carrying a gun from the bedroom to the kitchen. See Drake v. Filko, 724 F. 3d 426, 444 (CA3 2013) (Hardiman, J., dissenting) (‘To speak of ‘bearing’ arms solely within one’s home not only would conflate ‘bearing’ with ‘keeping,’ in derogation of the [Heller] Court’s holding that the verbs codified distinct rights, but also would be awkward usage given the meaning assigned the terms by the Supreme Court’); Moore v. Madigan, 702 F. 3d 933, 936 (CA7 2012) (similar).The relevant history appears to support this understanding. The panel opinion below pointed to a wealth of cases and secondary sources from England, the founding era, the antebellum period,  and Reconstruction, which together strongly suggest that the right to bear arms includes the right to bear arms in public in some manner. See 742 F. 3d, at 1153-1166 (canvassing the relevant history in detail); Brief for National Rifle Association as Amicus Curiae 6-16. For example, in Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. 243 (1846)—a decision the Heller Court discussed extensively as illustrative of the proper understanding of the right, 554 U. S., at 612, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637—the Georgia Supreme Court struck down a ban on open carry although it upheld a ban on concealed carry. 1 Ga., at 251. Other cases similarly suggest that, although some regulation of public carry is permissible, an effective ban on all forms of public carry is not. See, e.g., State v. Reid, 1 Ala. 612, 616-617 (1840) (‘A statute which, under the pretence of regulating, amounts to a destruction of the right, or which requires arms to be so borne as to render them wholly useless for the purpose of defence, would be clearly unconstitutional’).Finally, the Second Amendment’s core purpose further supports the conclusion that the right to bear arms extends to public carry. The Court in Heller emphasized that ‘self-defense’ is ‘the central component of the [Second Amendment] right itself.’ 554 U. S., at 599, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637. This purpose is not limited only to the home, even though the need for self-defense may be ‘most acute’ there. Id., at 628, 128 S. Ct. 2783, 171 L. Ed. 2d 637. ‘Self-defense has to take place wherever the person happens to be,’ and in some circumstances a person may be more vulnerable in a public place than in his own house. Volokh, Implementing the Right To Keep and Bear Arms for Self-Defense: An Analytical Framework and a Research Agenda, 56 UCLA L. Rev. 1443, 1515 (2009).CEven if other Members of the Court do not agree that the Second Amendment likely protects a right to public carry, the time has come for the Court to answer this important question definitively. Twenty-six States have asked us to resolve the question presented, see Brief for Alabama et al. as Amici Curiae, and the lower courts have fully vetted the issue. At least four other Courts of Appeals and three state courts of last resort have decided cases regarding the ability of States to regulate the public carry of firearms. Those decisions (plus the one below) have produced thorough opinions on both sides of the issue. See Drake, 724 F. 3d 426, cert. denied sub nom. Drake v. Jerejian, 572 U. S. ___, 134 S. Ct. 2134, 188 L. Ed. 2d 1124 (2014); 724 F. 3d, at 440 (Hardiman, J., dissenting); Woollard v. Gallagher, 712 F. 3d 865 (CA4), cert. denied, 571 U. S. ___, 134 S. Ct. 422; 187 L. Ed. 2d 281 (2013); Kachalsky v. County of Westchester, 701 F. 3d 81 (CA2 2012), cert. denied sub nom. Kachalsky v. Cacace, 569 U. S. ___, 569 U.S. 918, 133 S. Ct. 1806, 185 L. Ed. 2d 812 (2013); Madigan, 702 F. 3d 933; id., at 943 (Williams, J., dissenting); Commonwealth v. Gouse, 461 Mass. 787, 800-802, 965 N. E. 2d 774, 785-786 (2012); Williams v. State, 417 Md. 479, 496, 10 A. 3d 1167, 1177 (2011); Mack v. United States, 6 A. 3d 1224, 1236 (D. C. 2010). Hence, I do not see much value in waiting for additional courts to weigh in, especially when constitutional rights are at stake.The Court’s decision to deny certiorari in this  case reflects a distressing trend: the treatment of the Second Amendment as a disfavored right. See Friedman v. Highland Park, 577 U. S. ___, ___, 136 S. Ct. 447; 193 L. Ed. 2d 483 (2015) (Thomas, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari) (136 S. Ct. 447; 193 L. Ed. 2d 483, 484) (‘The Court’s refusal to review a decision that flouts two of our Second Amendment precedents stands in marked contrast to the Court’s willingness to summarily reverse courts that disregard our other constitutional decisions’); Jackson v. City and County of San Francisco, 576 U. S. ___, ___, 135 S. Ct. 2799; 192 L. Ed. 2d 865 (2015) (same). The Constitution does not rank certain rights above others, and I do not think this Court should impose such a hierarchy by selectively enforcing its preferred rights. Id., at ___, 135 S. Ct. 2799; 192 L. Ed. 2d 865, 866) (‘Second Amendment’ rights are no less protected by our Constitution than other rights enumerated in that document’). The Court has not heard argument in a Second Amendment case in over seven years—since March 2, 2010, in McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U. S. 742, 130 S. Ct. 3020, 177 L. Ed. 2d 894. Since that time, we have heard argument in, for example, roughly 35 cases where the question presented turned on the meaning of the First Amendment and 25 cases that turned on the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. This discrepancy is inexcusable, especially given how much less developed our jurisprudence is with respect to the Second Amendment as compared to the First and Fourth Amendments.For those of us who work in marbled halls, guarded constantly by a vigilant and dedicated police force, the guarantees of the Second Amendment might seem antiquated and superfluous. But the Framers made a clear choice: They reserved to all Americans the right to bear arms for self-defense. I do not think we should stand by idly while a State denies its citizens that right, particularly when their very lives may depend on it. I respectfully dissent.”Justice Thomas is absolutely right.Justice Thomas is absolutely right. He asserts over and over again: The Second Amendment is not to be treated as “a disfavored right.” It isn’t a “second-class right.” “Second Amendment rights are no less protected by our Constitution than other rights enumerated in that document.”  “This discrepancy is inexcusable, especially given how much less developed our jurisprudence is with respect to the Second Amendment as compared to the First and Fourth Amendments.” And, still, the liberal wing of the High Court does just that. Because the liberal wing of the Supreme Court finds the fundamental, unalienable right embodied in the Second Amendment personally distasteful, it allows itself to embrace the pretense, or more likely the delusion, that the right of the people to keep and bear arms is to be expressed today as something less than the fundamental, unalienable right that it in fact is; indeed, that the right embodied in the Second Amendment isn't to be treated even as a minor, non-fundamental right, but, rather, as nothing more than a minor concession, a privilege, to be bestowed on American citizens at the whim of Government; something even less than “gender rights” that Radical Left groups, such as overbrook.org would dare raise to the level of a fundamental right, contorting, distorting, twisting the U.S. Constitution to such an extreme extent that it becomes unrecognizable as the sacred, immutable document it once was and was forever intended to be, becoming a horrible mutation; a grotesque travesty of what was once something profound, beautiful, sublime.Radical Left and New Progressive elements in American society today, prefer to call the U.S. Constitution, as they choose to perceive it today, a so-called “Living Constitution,” grounded on what some legal scholars and academicians refer to as “living Constitutional theory;” a theory opposed to “originalism,” the latter theory of which seeks to preserve the U.S. Constitution as written, and that seeks to preserve a free Republic as the Founders of the Nation intended. See, e.g., “Living Constitutional Theory,” by Andrew Coan, Duke Law Journal, Volume 66, June 2017. Not surprisingly, proponents of so-called living Constitutional theory would attempt to buttress this new living constitutional theory by denigrating originalism, and its corollary textualism, by misquoting the late Associate Justice, Antonin Scalia.It is one thing for a lower Federal Court to abdicate its responsibility to defend and protect the U.S. Constitution. It is quite another thing for the U.S. Supreme Court to do so. Yet the lower Courts take their cue from the Highest Court in the Land. If the U.S. Supreme Court abdicates its responsibility, it should well expect the lower Courts to do so. And, they have.______________________________

POSTSCRIPT———

CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS IS DEAD WRONG: SOME JUSTICES DO WORK IN A POLITICAL MANNER

OVERTLY POLITICAL LIBERAL-WING OF SUPREME COURT INTENDS TO CONSTRAIN AND EVENTUALLY DESTROY THE SECOND AMENDMENT

Given the substantial opportunity for the U.S. Supreme Court to review several U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decisions that upheld facially unconstitutional Government decisions, infringing the very core of the Second Amendment, it is remarkable that the  High Court failed to take up any one of them. One would have thought the High Court would have done so, would have been compelled to do so, consistent with their Oath to do so. And one would have thought the High Court would relish doing so, given blatant lower Court hostility toward the Second Amendment and a dismissive attitude toward clear, categorical Supreme Court precedent as laid down in the 2008 Heller and 2010 McDonald cases. But, many Justices obviously were not content to do so. That the Supreme Court failed to garner even four votes on any one of a substantial number of cases, coming on the heels of the seminal Second Amendment Heller and McDonald U.S. Supreme Court cases, where State, County, or Municipal Governments visibly, defiantly, blatantly, defiantly attacked the very core of the Second Amendment, this necessarily bespeaks a decided, decisive, and unruly antipathy expressed by many Justices on the High Court, toward the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights. Associate Justice Clarence Thomas rightfully, justifiably, and clearly articulated his frustration with both the U.S. Supreme Court and the lower federal U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal in his comprehensive, dissenting comments in several of those Circuit Court of Appeals cases.If the High Court had taken up any one of the myriad Second Amendment cases within the first few years that Heller and McDonald were decided, it is likely the writs filed in many of the cases, mentioned and discussed, supra, would never have been filed; would never have to be filed, as the U.S. District Court Judges and U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judges would be loath to attract the righteous ire of the U.S. Supreme Court. But, as the High Court routinely refuses to hear any one of many egregious U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decisions, these Courts, not surprisingly, continue to dismiss the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms, and, just as blatantly dismiss out-of-hand the rulings of the Supreme Court in Heller and McDonald.Of course, the normally reticent Chief Justice, John Roberts, doesn't normally interject remarks outside the Court setting but felt no reluctance to do so when, the U.S. President, Donald Trump, correctly exclaimed how political the Supreme Court is.The New York Times, always a media source that can be counted on to incessantly, viciously attack the President and laud those who do the same, was quick to jump on the remarks of the Chief Justice in late 2018, reporting: 

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. defended the independence and integrity of the federal judiciary on Wednesday, rebuking President Trump for calling a judge who had ruled against his administration’s asylum policy “an Obama judge.”

The chief justice said that was a profound misunderstanding of the judicial role.“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” he said in a statement. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them. That independent judiciary is something we should all be thankful for.”The Times took another dig at the U.S. President, when, almost one year later, they again reported with glee, on Chief Justice Roberts' further jabs at President Trump, reporting:

“We don’t go about our work in a political manner,” he told an audience of some 2,000 people at the Temple Emanu-El’s Streicker Center in Manhattan.

Asked about President Trump’s attack on a decision he said had been rendered by an “Obama judge” and a recent brief from Democratic senators that questioned the Supreme Court’s legitimacy, Chief Justice Roberts said he had no objection to criticism of the court.

“We probably do a better job criticizing ourselves in our dissents than anybody else could,” he said.

But he added that the outside criticism did not affect the court’s independence. “A lot of the criticism is based on a misperception,” he said.

People often note that the court is made up of five Republican appointees and four Democratic ones, he said, and they expect predictable 5-to-4 decisions along those lines.

“Last year,” he said, “we had 19 5-to-4 decisions, and seven of them were divided with the five justices appointed by Republican presidents in the majority and the four justices appointed by Democratic presidents in dissent.”

“That shouldn’t come as a surprise because we don’t go about our work in a political manner,” he said.”“That shouldn't come as a surprise”? There is something else that doesn't come as a surprise, but would be a nice indeed surprise were it to come about, namely, the judicial philosophy and attitude of Associate Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Steven Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and retired Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, toward the fundamental, unalienable, immutable right of the people to keep and bear arms, as codified in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The American public knows where those Justices' allegiance rests when it comes to the Second Amendment. They seek to defeat it at every turn. Chief Justice John Roberts doesn't bother to direct the public's attention to that disturbing and hardly incidental fact about them; a fact that is anything but anomalous. This isn't a matter of judicial independence, where each Justice does whatever he or she wants. This is a matter of personal integrity, judicial restraint, the obligation to one's Oath, and reverence toward the sanctity of our natural rights, to be understood and applied to the facts of a case in controversy in strict accord to the dictates of the U.S. Constitution, as written, and as ratified, as the Framers intended.The Oath of the Supreme Court Justice is set forth in Statute: 28 U.S. Code§ 453. Oaths of justices and judges:Each justice or judge of the United States shall take the following oath or affirmation before performing the duties of his office: “I, ___ ___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as ___ under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”____________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

JUSTICE KAVANAUGH: FRIEND OR FOE OF THE NATURAL RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS?

PART FOUR

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” ~ Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail; often miscited in abbreviated form as: “Justice delayed is justice denied.” Various renditions of the quotation have come down through the ages, recited by many learned and famous men. The origin of the quotation likely came from William Penn (1644 to 1718), who asserted, “To delay Justice is injustice.”

WHAT IS JUSTICE?

Black’s Law Dictionary says this about the concept, ‘justice:’ “In jurisprudence. The constant and perpetual disposition to render every man his due. . . . In the most extensive sense of the word it differs little from ‘virtue;’ for it includes within itself the whole circle of virtues. . . . But ‘justice,’ being in itself a part of ‘virtue,’ is continued to things simply good or evil, and consists in a man’s taking such a proportion of them as he ought. Bouvier. Commutative justice is that which should govern contracts. It consists in rendering to every man the exact measure of his dues, without regard to his personal worth or merits, i. e., placing all men on an equality. . . .”

WAS JUSTICE METED OUT TO PETITIONERS IN THE NYC GUN TRANSPORT CASE?

Some good Americans think the principal Petitioner, the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association (NYSRPA) prevailed in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc., vs. Petitioners V. City Of New York, 590 U.S ____ (2020), simply because New York City—evidently fearing loss if the case were decided on the merits—capitulated, redrafting New York City regulations and New York State Statute, permitting New York City holders of restricted handgun premise licenses to lawfully take their firearms out of the City. The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the mootness issue and found for the City against NYSRPA.  Nonetheless, can this case legitimately be considered a win for NYSRPA? Holders of such New York City restricted handgun licenses are not permitted to use the firearm for self-defense outside of the residence or business to which the license confers or deigns a “right”  (more a “privilege”) of use for self-defense? And questions remain as to limitations on the import of travel to and from the residence or business establishment—questions that could only have been resolved were the case to be decided on the merits.Some Second Amendment scholars with whom AQ has since spoken believed the New York City case was not a good Second Amendment case to be decided by the Court, not least of all because it allowed the City to exploit the problems, predictably. These scholars believe that Kavanaugh, having urged, in his concurring opinion, for another Second Amendment case—among those presently pending on a writ of certiorari—to be taken up by the Court means that the Court will, shortly, take up another Second Amendment case. The idea, then, is that the NYC case was important for that reason alone.Be that as it may, it still does not explain why, if Justice Kavanaugh agreed with Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing of the U.S. Supreme Court in ruling in favor of New York City, against the New York State Rifle & Pistol Association (NYSRPA) in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc., vs. Petitioners V. City Of New York, 590 U.S ____ (2020), on the mootness issue.Why didn’t Justice Kavanaugh just add his name to that of the liberal wing of the Court and to that of Chief Justice Roberts, in deciding in favor of the City, and leave it at that?Did Justice Kavanaugh feel a jurisprudential need to write a concurring opinion, knowing that going along with the liberal wing is not what would be expected of him, given his past deference to the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights, in his well-reasoned, comprehensive dissent in Heller II?Did Associate Justice Kavanaugh feel he needed to write a concurring opinion, knowing that siding with Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing of the High Court, against the conservative wing, comprising, Justices, Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch, would lead the American public, to infer, not unreasonably, legal and logical inconsistency and incongruous intellectual dishonesty on Kavanaugh’s part—something impossible for him to hide? Perhaps. But no one really knows because no reporter or commentator has even bothered to hazard a guess as to Justice Kavanaugh’s motivation for drafting a concurring at all.Does Justice Kavanaugh know for a certainty the High Court will in fact take up for review another and more significant Second Amendment case and did he intend to use a concurring opinion specifically to inform the legal community and the public of that fact?No commentator, to date, to our knowledge, has explored these questions and that leaves us in a quandary as to Kavanaugh's intentions.For example, on April 27, 2020, Amy Howe, independent contractor, and reporter, who writes regularly for the SCOTUS blog, simply reiterated the simple fact that—“Justice Brett Kavanaugh filed a concurring opinion in which he explained that he agreed with the majority that the gun owners’ original claims are moot and that the new claims should be addressed first by the lower courts. But Kavanaugh also indicated that he agreed with Alito’s ‘general analysis of Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago,’ in which the court made clear that the Second Amendment applies fully to the states, and that he shares Alito’s ‘concern that some federal and state courts may not be properly applying Heller and McDonald.’ Kavanaugh posited that the Supreme Court ‘should address that issue soon, perhaps in one of the several Second Amendment cases with petitions for certiorari now pending before the Court.’”In her follow-up article, dated April 28, 2020, on SCOTUS blog, Amy Howe, reiterated the  fact that:——“The court’s electronic docket reveals that Kavanaugh’s suggestion may come to fruition soon: By the end of the day yesterday, the Supreme Court had distributed for consideration at Friday’s conference 10 cases that had apparently been on hold for the New York case.”In that April 28^th post, Howe mentions the following cases to be reviewed on Friday, April 29, 2020, which we cite here, directly from her commentary:“Mance v. Barr – Whether the federal ban on interstate handgun sales violates the Second Amendment or the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.Rogers v. Grewal – In a challenge to New Jersey’s handgun carry permit scheme, whether the Second Amendment protects the right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense; and whether the government can condition the right to carry a handgun outside the home on the showing of a special need to carry a firearm.Pena v. Horan – In a challenge to a California law banning most commonly used handguns, the petition asks the justices to weigh in on the scope of the Second Amendment.Gould v. Lipson– In a challenge to Massachusetts’ handgun carry permit scheme, whether the Second Amendment protects the right to carry a handgun outside the home for self-defense; and whether the government can condition the right to carry a handgun outside the home on the showing of a special need to carry a firearm.Cheeseman v. Polillo – Challenge to New Jersey handgun carry permit scheme.Ciolek v. New Jersey – Challenge to New Jersey handgun carry permit scheme.Worman v. Healey – Challenge to Massachusetts ban on the possession of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines.Malpasso v. Pallozzi – In a challenge to Maryland’s handgun carry permit scheme, whether the Second Amendment protects the right to carry handguns outside the home for self-defense.Culp v. Raoul – Whether the Second Amendment requires Illinois to allow nonresidents to apply for a concealed-carry license.Wilson v. Cook County – Challenge to Cook County’s ban on assault rifles and large-capacity magazines, as well as to the Second Amendment analysis used by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit to uphold the ban.”

THE AMERICAN PUBLIC SHOULD BE WARY OF THE LIBERAL WING OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT, AND WARY, TOO, OF CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS AND ASSOCIATE JUSTICE KAVANAUGH

Yes, so, there are more cases coming down the pike the U.S. Supreme Court may take up. So what? Are Americans expected to wait, with bated breath, for the next Second Amendment case the High Court may or may not take upon review?Recall Justice Kavanaugh’s remark, as reiterated by Amy Howe, “that [Kavanaugh] shares Alito’s ‘concern that some federal and state courts may not be properly applying Heller and McDonald’” [and] “that the Supreme Court ‘should address that issue soon, perhaps in one of the several Second Amendment cases with petitions for certiorari now pending before the Court.’” Is this a cause for rejoicing simply because writs of certiorari in several Second Amendment cases have been filed with the Supreme Court and are pending a vote? The idea that the Supreme Court ‘should’ address the issue whether Courts are properly applying Heller and McDonald, doesn’t mean that the Supreme Court ‘will’ address that issue.Are those writs not simply a fervent hope of Americans who venerate our Bill of Rights hoping against hope that maybe, just maybe, the Supreme Court will review another Second Amendment case, if only reluctantly?But possibility is not the same thing as probability, and even less, certainty, that the High Court will agree to hear another Second Amendment case. And, if the Court does agree to hear another Second Amendment case, when might that be? And, if soon, will the Court actually address the issue whether Appellate Courts had properly applied Heller and McDonald?Recall the Voisine vs. United States case the Court took up prior to the New York City case—a case that, as Justice Thomas insisted, did include a tenable Second Amendment issue; yet the Court refused to consider the implications and ramifications of the Second Amendment. Would the Court refuse to consider the impact of Heller and McDonald in any future Second Amendment case it does deign to hear, lest a Supreme Court majority be seen as strengthening the fundamental, natural, immutable, unalienable right that it is loath to do? Lastly, how would such a case be decided? These are not spurious questions. They are serious ones and unsettling ones, worthy of speculation. And the point of this speculation is that the New York City gun transport case was the first case to come down the pike ten years after McDonald, involving a core Second Amendment issue (with the exception of the seeming quasi Second Amendment Voisine case)Keep in mind, too: there have been many Second Amendment cases that came before the High Court on writs of certiorari, in the intervening years between the seminal rulings in Heller and McDonald and negative decision in the New York City gun transport case. Each one of those cases “should” have been reviewed; truly required review, but were not reviewed. What happened to those petitions? The answer is nothing happened. Nothing happened because the high Court voted against taking those cases up.None of the cases garnered four votes necessary for any of those cases to be heard, precisely because the actions of State governments were unconstitutional, clearly so, blatantly so.Had the High Court taken those cases up, it would have had no choice but to overturn government action: egregious government action that clearly infringed the core of the Second Amendment; government action that was inconsistent with Supreme Court precedent categorically laid down in Heller and McDonald. By failing to review those cases that meant unconstitutional government actions, upheld by U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, infringing the Second Amendment, stood.State governments and U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals would remain confident that ridiculously, outrageously unconstitutional government action, infringing the core of our Second Amendment right would continue; and that high Court reticence in reviewing unconstitutional State action would thereby allow, invite, even encourage more and more invasions of a fundamental right, each one building on the one before; becoming more flamboyant, more destructive of Americans’ exercise of their natural right to keep and bear arms.In our next segment AQ provides the good reader with a reminder of several of those critical Second Amendment cases the U.S. Supreme Court could have taken up for review in the last several years; cases the High Court ought to have taken up; but cases, alas, the liberal wing of the High Court, together with the presumed “moderate Justice,” since retired, Anthony Kennedy, along with Chief Justice Roberts, likely didn’t want to take up, didn't dare to take up, and, so, didn't take up precisely because if those cases had been taken up, they would be compelled—unlike the liberal wing of the Court—to overturn unconstitutional State government action, as demanded by Heller and McDonald case law precedent; case law precedent that they, unlike the liberal wing of the Court, helped set.Those cases the Supreme Court failed to review involve actions of U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal that, to a one, reflect decisions blatantly, defiantly, irrefutably egregiously dismissive of binding precedent laid down in Heller and McDonald.

POSTSCRIPT——

In future segments, we will begin our comprehensive analysis of what to our mind is Justice Kavanaugh’s bizarre concurring opinion in the New York City gun transport case, and we will address the mootness issue head-on.We will strive to decipher Kavanaugh’s concurring to ascertain if Kavanaugh’s decision, siding with the Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing of the Court, is merely an anomaly or if it portends something ominous: an entire rethinking of Kavanaugh’s philosophy pertaining to the Second Amendment? Our aim, in forthcoming articles, will be to determine whether Americans can trust Brett Kavanaugh to remain true to his Oath to preserve and defend the Constitution of the United States.And what is that Oath? It is this:Each justice or judge of the United States shall take the following oath or affirmation before performing the duties of his office: “I, ___ ___, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as ___ under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.” 28 U.S. Code § 453. Oaths of justices and judgesAsk yourself: How many Justices in the past several decades have honorably and honestly sought to comply with the Oath of a Supreme Court Justice? And how many Justices have betrayed their Oath, disdaining and revoking a natural, fundamental, unalienable, immutable God-given right, thereby, consciously or unconsciously, making a Pact with Satan? And, yes, agnostics and atheists, and Godless immoral, abnormal, perverse and perverted Satanists, do draw breath and do walk among us.____________________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

ANTIGUN CROWD BREATHES COLLECTIVE SIGH OF RELIEF AFTER SUPREME COURT MAJORITY GIVES NYC A VICTORY IN GUN TRANSPORT CASE

PART THREE

The liberal wing of the High Court sided with Respondent in the New York City gun transport case. No surprise there. The liberal wing of the Court detests the Second Amendment.Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberal wing. Robert’s vote gave the liberal wing of the Court—Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan—the critical fifth vote needed to secure victory for the Anti-Second Amendment, Anti-Bill of Rights crowd. A huge disappointment, of course, but no surprise there either, unfortunately. The two-page majority opinion went unsigned.Associate Justice Samuel Alito wrote a comprehensive and scathing thirty-plus page dissenting opinion. Associate Justice Clarence Thomas and Trump’s first nominee to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, joined Justice Alito, in rebuking the majority’s decision.

—OH! AND LET’S NOT FORGET THE LEGAL OPINION OF PRESIDENT TRUMP’S SECOND NOMINEE TO THE SUPREME COURT, BRETT KAVANAUGH.

The anti-Second Amendment, antigun crowd need not have worried itself over Associate Justice Kavanaugh, after all.Associate Justice Kavanaugh joined Chief Justice Roberts and the liberal wing majority on behalf of the Respondent New York City. Kavanaugh’s decision provided the Court’s majority with a sixth vote. And that is odd! Kavanaugh did know, of course, that jurists, attorneys, academicians, and lay Americans would perceive his as intellectually dishonest; and justifiably so. That explains why Kavanaugh apparently felt the need to write a separate opinion at all; to clarify an odd finding that neither attorney, nor jurist, nor academician, nor layperson would have expected from him.But, you would think that having bothered to draft a concurring opinion at all, Kavanaugh would have written a detailed exposition, setting out in particularity the reason or reasons for his unsettling and inapposite decision, having joined Roberts and the liberal wing of the Court. After all, the New York City gun transport case was, as most commentators assert, the first major Second Amendment case to come down the pike since the Supreme Court decided McDonald ten years earlier.*Moreover, Kavanaugh tends to write detailed opinions, but he didn’t do so here. That is out of character, especially since his decision in the Supreme Court case doesn’t square with the sound and logical and observant and discriminating and comprehensive dissenting opinion he drafted in Heller II when he served as a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District Columbia Circuit, a typical stepping-stone to an eventual seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. President George W. Bush nominated Kavanaugh to serve as an appellate judge in 2003.Yet, Brett Kavanaugh’s usual perspicuity, inclination, even fervor, for detailed exposition, is altogether lacking in the New York City case. Why is that do you suppose?Justice Kavanaugh provided detailed commentary for his decision in Heller II—a major Second Amendment Circuit Court of Appeals case—but oddly provided no explanation for his decision here in the first major Second Amendment case to be decided by the High Court in a decade (with the possible exception of Voisine) and the first Second Amendment case Kavanaugh had an opportunity to decide once he sat as a Supreme Court Associate Justice.Kavanaugh’s shoddy and vacuous concurring is perplexing. It is also deeply disturbing and disconcerting since, both in form and in substance, Kavanaugh’s concurring doesn’t dovetail with his earlier prolific, well-reasoned dissent in Heller II.The seditious Press, while, pointing to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring merely echoes his pronouncements, but eschews doing any analysis of it, seemingly lacking all journalistic alacrity and curiosity. Why is that?We will consider Brett Kavanaugh’s odd concurring, in detail, in the next several AQ segments. We will deal with the ramifications of that concurring and what it may portend for our sacred Second Amendment right, in the 21^st Century.Is Brett Kavanaugh second-guessing his own jurisprudential methodology and philosophy of the Second Amendment?  We do know that the jurisprudential leaning of Supreme Court Justices tends to evolve during the course of their tenure on the Court, but not with lightning speed as seems to be true of Justice Kavanaugh if the NYC case isn't to be dismissed as a mere anomaly. But, then, is Justice Kavanaugh’s concurring in the New York City gun transport case simply an isolated happenstance, an aberration, or is it an alarming and disheartening precursor of what we might expect from him in the future? We believe this to be a critical question, and, therefore, one worth investigating.__________________________________*Actually, the New York City gun transport case wasn’t the first Second Amendment case the High Court took up for review, since the 2010 McDonald decision. There was an earlier quasi Second Amendment case that the Court took up in 2015, five years after McDonald. The case is United States vs. Voisine.The Arbalest Quarrel wrote about Voisine. We said: “[Although] a salient issue in Voisine [United States vs. Voisine, No. 14-10154 (S. Ct. Dec. 17, 2015)] does involve the meaning to be given a word phrase in one particular section of a lengthy federal Statute, [n]onetheless, the Voisine case is the first Supreme Court case to be heard by the High Court that does impact the Second Amendment. [Justice Thomas made that point patently clear in his dissent in Voisine even if the Court’s majority assiduously refrained from even invoking the words, ‘Second Amendment.’] In fact, Petitioners did timely and properly raise a Second Amendment claim in their Briefs to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. And that claim was preserved, and that issue was ripe for review by the U.S. Supreme Court when it granted Petitioners’ Writ of Certiorari. Moreover, while the Second Amendment issue was set forth with particularity as a salient issue in Petitioners’ Brief, the Second Amendment claim was not set forth as an issue in the Government’s own Brief in Opposition to the Brief of Petitioners. And the Government, in its Brief in Opposition to the Brief of Petitioners, addressed Petitioners’ Second Amendment claim only perfunctorily, giving little thought to it, seemingly in deference to and happily therefor to the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit’s treatment of it, for the First Circuit dismissed Petitioners’ Second Amendment claim outright. United States vs. Voisine, No. 14-10154 (S. Ct. Dec. 17, 2015). You can read the entire opinion, as a PDF Document. ____________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

ANTI-GUN FORCES WON’T REST UNTIL SECOND AMENDMENT RIGHT IS ERASED FROM MEMORY

PART TWO

SUPREME COURT MAJORITY JOINS FORCES WITH SECOND AMENDMENT FOES TO CHIP AWAY AT  NATURAL GOD-GIVEN RIGHT.

As reported in the leftist periodical Newsweek, on March 27, 2018———“Young activists calling for more gun control legislation should be more ambitious in their nationwide effort and focus on repealing the Second Amendment, according to retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.“In an op-ed published Tuesday in The New York Times, Stevens praised the students and young people who rallied in Washington and around the country over the weekend as part of the March for Our Lives. The demonstration was sparked by the shooting last month at a Parkland, Florida, high school that left 17 people, including 14 students, dead.Stevens wrote that he had ‘rarely’ seen such a wide scope of ‘civic engagement’ from young people in his lifetime and encouraged their efforts to go even further.‘That support is a clear sign to lawmakers to enact legislation prohibiting civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons, increasing the minimum age to buy a gun from 18 to 21 years old, and establishing more comprehensive background checks on all purchasers of firearms,’ Stevens wrote. ‘But the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform. They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment.’”March 27, 2018 article appearing in Newsweek, citing and extolling retired Justice John Paul Stevens, whose Op-Ed appeared in the NY Times on the same date: March 27, 2018. In that Op-Ed Stevens explicitly calls for repeal of the Second Amendment, an extraordinarily extreme position he alluded to but would dare not expressly assert in his dissent in the 2008 Heller case.

ANTI-SECOND AMENDMENT MAINSTREAM MEDIA REJOICES OVER MAJORITY DECISION IN NEW YORK CITY GUN TRANSPORT CASE.

The seditious Anti-Second Amendment Press breathed a collective sigh of relief when the U.S. Supreme Court Majority voted for Respondent, New York City, against the Petitioner, NYSRPA, in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc., vs. Petitioners V. City Of New York, 590 U.S ____ (2020).* The New York City gun transport case was the first major Second Amendment case to be decided by the High Court since the McDonald case decision ten years earlier.Although the legal issue, a very narrow one, only implicated the bizarre, abhorrent, draconian, multifaceted, bloated, fascistic, and constantly refined and engineered handgun licensing requirements of New York City, apropos of Section 5-01(a) of Title 38 of the Rules of the City of New York, pertaining to a “premise handgun license,”, the antigun, anti-Second Amendment mob exhibited marked hysteria that the high Court had dared to hear the case at all; concerned that a decision for the NYSRPA against the City would open the floodgates to renewed attacks against restrictive gun regulations across the Country.The weblog “Bearing Arms,” said, at the time, just before oral argument: “Now, the Court is hearing arguments on the case. That’s more than enough to trigger anti-gunners to completely lose their crap.” In its article, Bearing Arms cited an unconscionable, reprehensible story that appeared in the Radical Left weblog news one in which the weblog denounced and denigrated Associate Justice Clarence Thomas for having the audacity to exalt the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Unabashedly mocking the esteemed Associate Justice, as if the writer for news one had any comprehension of U.S. Constitutional Law and of the critical importance of the natural, fundamental, unalienable, immutable right of the people to keep and bear arms to the proper functioning of a free Constitutional Republic, the writer blurted out:“Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been one of the most destructive justices on the court. However, his foolishness is about to hit a new level with the Second Amendment being revisited for the first time on the court in over a decade.In case you missed it, the Supreme Court is hearing a case to expand gun rights. Yep, you read that right. The majority conservative court might make it easier to have [sic] gun in a time when the majority of Americans are asking for more gun control.It all has to do with New York City, which has strict rules to protect people from gun violence. In July of 2019, New York City put in a strict rule that limited where New Yorkers could bring their guns, which included transporting legally owned guns outside city limits. No other city or state has this restriction, which was put into place after the horrific shooting of school children in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012.  Twenty-six people, including 20 children between six and seven years old, were killed.Well, Clarence Thomas isn’t happy and wants more people to have guns. The Washington Post reports, ‘Justice Clarence Thomas has complained that the lower courts have been too willing to uphold gun restrictions, accusing the courts of treating the Second Amendment as a ‘second-class right.’The Washington Post also asserts, ‘These justices apparently want to adopt a stricter test for courts to apply in Second Amendment cases, making it harder for gun laws to survive a legal challenge. If the court follows suit in the New York case, recent reforms such as red flag laws and universal background checks could be imperiled.’Many states have made their own changes to their gun laws, which the federal government has failed to do. However, if the Supreme Court finds that New York City went too far with the latest restriction, this could be a serious blow to gun advocacy groups like Everytown for Gun Safety, March for Our Lives, Moms Demand Action, and for the thousands of people.Leave it up to Clarence Thomas to be on the wrong side of history.”“Protect people from gun violence”— by removing the most effective means, i.e., a gun,’ with which the average, rational, law-abiding person might capably protect him or herself from a vicious predator? “Wrong side of history”— (i.e., revisionist history) because Justice Thomas defends our Nation’s cherished Bill of Rights?And Fox19 now, noted, after the New York City gun transport case decision came down:“The anti-climactic end to the Supreme Court case is a disappointment to gun rights advocates and relief to gun control groups who thought a conservative Supreme Court majority fortified by two appointees of President Donald Trump, Justices Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, might use the case to expand on landmark decisions from a decade ago that established a right under the Second Amendment to keep a gun at home for self-defense.Lower courts upheld the regulation, but the Supreme Court’s decision early in 2019 to step into the case signaled a revived interest in gun rights from a court with two new justices. Officials at both the city and state level scrambled to find a way to remove the case from the justices’ grasp. Not only did the city change its regulation to allow licensed gun owners to transport their weapons to locations outside New York’s five boroughs, but the state enacted a law barring cities from imposing the challenged restrictions.Those moves failed to get the court to dismiss the case before arguments in December, and gun control advocates worried that the court might adopt the reasoning Kavanaugh used in a 2011 opinion in his former job as a Court of Appeals judge. There, he wrote, gun laws “that are not longstanding or sufficiently rooted in text, history, and tradition are not consistent with the Second Amendment individual right.” Anti-Second Amendment foes need not have worried. But most Americans do need to worry about the future of Americans’ natural, fundamental, unalienable, immutable God-given right to keep and bear arms.The New York City gun transport case provides Americans with a blueprint for assessing the predilections of U.S. Supreme Court Justices on matters pertaining to the Second Amendment.First, the liberal wing of the High Court—comprising, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Steven Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan—abhors the Second Amendment. The liberal wing will routinely, if not invariably, rule in favor of Government actions that, on their face, infringe the core of the right. The liberal wing will contort the law to find Government actions constitutional that are clearly unconstitutional and that tend to weaken our fundamental, natural rights and liberties. The liberal wing will continue to demonstrate little reluctance in subordinating the U.S. Constitution and U.S. case law precedent to the dictates of international norms and standards that stand in marked conflict to our system of laws and jurisprudence.Second, the conservative wing of the High Court—comprising, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch—in the mold of the late, brilliant and esteemed Justice, Antonin Scalia, will continue to demonstrate great deference to our Constitution, and will, consistent with their Oath, always strive to preserve and strengthen our natural rights and liberties.Third, Chief Justice Roberts cannot and should not be considered a Judicial conservative. He does not exemplify those Justices of the conservative wing of the Court. Even the expression, Judicial ‘moderate’ may not be an accurate descriptor for him. He does not exhibit the appropriate deference to the Second Amendment as now exemplified in having sided, sans a qualified concurring opinion, with the decision of the liberal—dare we say, increasingly, ‘radical’—wing of the High Court. Justice Roberts will continue to see-saw between the two wings of the Court. But do not expect the Chief Justice to treat our Bill of Rights with deep, abiding respect and reverence.Fourth, prior to the decision in the New York gun transport case, one would have reasonably thought that Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the newest member of the Court—as of the posting of this article—would exhibit the same deference to the Bill of Rights as those Justices comprising the conservative wing of the Court. Certainly, given Justice Kavanaugh’s comprehensive, well-reasoned, and well-written dissent in Heller II, one would have expected Justice Kavanaugh to express the same desire for consistency and detail in his written opinions as a U.S. Supreme Court Justice that he had exhibited as a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Sadly, that does not appear to be the case. Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring in the New York City gun transport case appears oddly dull, imprecise, even apologetic in tone. And the decision is not consistent with his dissent in Heller II.Of course, Justice Kavanaugh’s decision would not have changed the outcome of the case, but it does give one pause. For, if that concurring opinion serves as an indication of what we might expect in the future from this Associate Justice, our sacred Second Amendment—along with our other fundamental rights and liberties—may well be in jeopardy; all the more so if the presumptive Democrat Party nominee for U.S. President, Joe Biden, actually defeats Donald Trump in November. That happenstance would be the manifestation of our Nation’s worst nightmare.Justice Kavanaugh’s jurisprudential philosophy remains at this point inscrutable and that is not a good thing. In the next several segments, we attempt to unpack Kavanaugh’s concurring, along with a review of past Second Amendment cases that the High Court denied cert, and a close look at the issue of mootness, as the majority decision in the New York City case wasn’t consistent with Supreme Court precedence; not even close.____________________________________*SCOTUSblog Holding and Judgment:Holding: Petitioners’ claim for declaratory and injunctive relief with respect to the City’s old rule on transporting firearms is moot, and any claim for damages with respect to that rule may be addressed in the first instance by the court of appeals and the district court on remand.Judgment: Vacated and remanded in a per curiam opinion on April 27, 2020. Justice Kavanaugh filed a concurring opinion. Justice Alito filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Gorsuch joined in full and Justice Thomas joined except for Part IV-B.____________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

CANADA JOINS BRITISH COMMONWEALTH NATIONS, AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND, IN BANNING “ASSAULT WEAPONS”

TRUDEAU ACTS, APPARENTLY UNILATERALLY, AND WITH SPEED, TO BAN "ASSAULT WEAPONS" IN CANADA

On April 30, 2020, the Hill reported that:“Canada’s government is set to announce a ban on assault-style weapons following a deadly shooting in Nova Scotia this month that killed 22 people.Officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's administration will announce the ban before the week’s end, though the key provisions have already been decided by his Cabinet.Among the weapons set to be banned include the AR-15 and the Ruger Mini-14. It wasn’t initially clear whether Canadian citizens who currently own such weapons will be required to turn them in.After a deadly shooting in New Zealand, officials banned assault-style weapons and instituted a buyback program.Trudeau’s Liberal Party pledged to enact an assault-style weapons ban in last year’s election campaign, at the time pledging to implement a similar buyback program. The move comes after a gunman killed 22 people, including a police officer, during a rampage through the rural province of Nova Scotia while driving a car meant to look like a Royal Canadian Mounted Police cruiser. The suspected gunman, 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman, was killed by police.”At a news conference on that same day, global news reports, that,“Trudeau was asked during a briefing with journalists in Ottawa on Thursday about a report published by the Globe and Mail newspaper that said the government plans to issue a new list of banned high-power firearms including the notorious AR-15 weapon used in recent mass shootings in the U.S.‘We have made a firm commitment to Canadians to ban military assault-style weapons because, in Canada, there’s no room for weapons made to kill large numbers of people,’ Trudeau said.‘We were almost ready to announce measures to strengthen gun control when Parliament was suspended because of the pandemic and we will be making announcements in days to come and will give more details on this then.’Trudeau made good on his word. On May 1, one day later, the BBC reported Trudeau’s announcement to the world:“Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has introduced a long-promised ban on assault-style weapons following the country's worst gun massacre in April.New rules would make it illegal to sell, transport, import or use 1,500 varieties of assault weapons.The ban is effective immediately but there will be a two-year amnesty period for law-abiding gun owners to comply.Mr Trudeau also said he would introduce legislation, which has yet to pass, to offer a buy-back programme.Unlike the US, gun ownership is not enshrined in Canada's constitution, but gun ownership is still popular, especially in rural parts of the country.Mr Trudeau made a point of saying that most gun owners are law-abiding citizens, but argued that assault-weapons serve no beneficial purpose.‘These weapons were designed for one purpose and one purpose only — only to kill the largest amount of people in the shortest amount of time,’ he said in a press conference on Friday.‘You don't need an AR-15 to bring down a deer.’The call to ban assault weapons was heightened after a number of high-profile shootings—in 2017, at a mosque in Quebec, in 2018 on a commercial street in Toronto and most recently, in a rampage across the province of Nova Scotia that became the deadliest shooting in Canada's history.RCMP have said that the shooter was not licensed to own firearms, but had what appeared to be an assault-style weapon, as well as other guns. The RCMP did not specify which kind, so it is unknown if it will be covered by the ban.Mr Trudeau campaigned on the ban ahead of last November’s election, and he said he was planning on introducing the ban in March, but it was delayed because of coronavirus.His government had already expanded background check requirements and made it tougher to transport handguns, prior to November’s election.So that there is no mistake as to when the ban on “assault weapons,” takes place in Canada, The National Review announced, on May 1, 2020, that, as Trudeau makes clear, Canada’s firearms’ ban takes effect immediately.“ ‘Effective immediately, it is no longer permitted to buy, sell, transport, import or use military-grade assault weapons in this country,’ Trudeau said at a press conference. Trudeau added that Canada was effectively ‘closing the market’ on certain firearms and categorized several mass shootings that have occurred in Canada as a ‘stain our conscience.’”The ban will classify various firearms that have been used in mass shootings in Canada and around the world as ‘prohibited,’ including the AR-15 rifle, M14 semi-automatic rifle, Ruger Mini-14, and others.‘From this moment forward, the number of these guns will only decrease in Canada,’ Public Safety minister Bill Blair said at the briefing alongside Trudeau. Blair emphasized that the ‘vast majority’ of Canadian gun owners are law-abiding and use their firearms safely.Canada’s government will implement a buyback program for current legal owners of one or more of the 1,500 types of firearms covered by the ban. Owners will be granted a two-year amnesty during which time they must participate in the buyback program.”Recall how Australia, back in 1996 also used a “mass shooting” as a pretext to ban semiautomatic firearms. Twenty-two years later in the U.S., Fortune Magazine expressed exuberance over Australia’s actions,“So what happened after the assault-weapon ban? Well therein lies the other half of the story twist noted above: Nothing.Nothing, that is, in a good way.Australian independence didn’t end. Tyranny didn’t come. Australians still hunted and explored and big-wave surfed to their hearts’ content. Their economy didn’t crash; Invaders never arrived. Violence, in many forms, went down across the country, not up. Somehow, lawmakers on either side of the gun debate managed to get along and legislate.As for mass killings, there were no more. Not one in the past 22 years.”Actually, there were never many firearm homicide deaths in Australia, anyway. And, contrary to the Fortune writer's supposition about tyranny having failed to materialize in Australia, tyranny is always just around the corner, up around the bend, where a person's right to keep and bear arms remains a government prerogative rather than a God-given right. In fact, one may well argue that the Australian Government's draconian actions point to the very presence of tyranny in that Country and in others where Government severely restricts or suppresses altogether the individual's right to keep and bear arms. On March 21, 2019, as reported in the weblog, the Conversation,“New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has just announced a ban in that country on specific military-style firearms. It will soon become an offence to own or possess semi-automatic firearms and shotguns with detachable magazines capable of firing more than five cartridges.”“A rigorous study to ascertain ‘. . . the null hypothesis that the rate of mass shootings in Australia remained unchanged after introduction of the National Firearms Agreement’” was reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine, on July 3, 2018. The bottom line: no causal connection can be established. The report states,“ ‘Without a 22-year randomized controlled trial assigning only parts of a national population to live under the National Firearms Agreement, establishing a definitive causal connection between this legislation and the 22-year absence of mass firearm homicides is not possible.’ At most ‘a standard rare events model provides strong evidence against the hypothesis that this prolonged absence simply reflects a continuation of a preexisting pattern of rare events.’” Strong evidence of a causal connection, though, is not definitive evidence, sufficient to establish a causal connection” between enactment of a strict “assault weapons” ban and a reduction in the incidence of “mass shootings.” But, there is a more important point to be made here. The test reported in Annals of Internal Medicine applied the null hypothesis, as they state, only to “mass shooting” incidents, not all shooting incidents, and that limitation already limits and skews the results the null hypothesis at the outset.In that regard the website fee.org reported:“In the wake of the March 15 New Zealand shootings, advocates for new gun restrictions in New Zealand have pointed to Australia as ‘proof’ that if national governments adopt gun restrictions like those of Australia's National Firearms Agreement, then homicides will go into steep decline.‘Exhibit A’ is usually the fact that homicides have decreased in Australia since 1996 when the new legislation was adopted in Australia.There are at least two problems with these claims. First, homicide rates have been in decline throughout western Europe, Canada, and the United States since the early 1990s. The fact that the same trend was followed in Australia is hardly evidence of a revolutionary achievement. Second, homicides were already so unusual in Australia, even before the 1996 legislation, that few lessons can be learned from slight movements either up or down in homicide rates.”

THE TAKEAWAY FROM ALL THIS:

If you would like to live in a Commonwealth Nation, as the subject of the Queen of England, have at it. The Government will take good care of you:Security proffered by Government = TyrannyUnlike the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, the right of the people to keep and bear arms IS enshrined in the United States. Americans consider that a blessing—a fundamental, unalienable, immutable right bestowed on man by the Divine Creator, that no man or government can lawfully deny any man.Let both the Queen of England and her subjects in the Commonwealth Nations and the atheist Marxists and Anarchists in our own Nation scoff at our God-given right, as a free sovereign people, to keep and bear arms.We will never allow our Nation to be overrun with the ugly weeds of tyranny._____________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

SEDITIOUS U.S. PRESS APPEASES CHINA BUT ATTACKS TRUMP

PART FIVE

A PLAGUE IN OUR MIDST

There is a viral plague in our midst. It is a thing both tenacious and relentless; implacable and ruthless; furtive and evasive; grievously painful and deadly. It is a scourge, spreading rapidly across our Nation, suffocating the very life out of Americans, and crippling our Nation. What is this debilitating virus?No, we are not talking about the Chinese Coronavirus.Sure, Premier Xi Jinping’s Coronavirus is horrific. And, it has become a useful, effective bioweapon of war for Xi, whether the unleashing of the viral plague on the U.S. and the world was the Regime’s intention or not.Consider: As of April 20, 2020, the CDC  reports the Chinese Coronavirus has killed almost 80,000 Americans and has sickened almost three-quarters of a million more. And,  epidemiologists suspect hundreds of thousands more Americans have contracted the disease—asymptomatic carriers of the disease, capable, unintentionally, of passing the disease on to others.There is much speculation about the movement of the Chinese Coronavirus plague in our Nation and much disagreement as to the best ways to deal with it and to protect our people and also to get our economy up and running. But one thing is clear and indisputable: The Chinese Coronavirus has ravaged our land and our people. And it is devastating our economy. It is everything loathsome, vile, disgusting, and deadly. Because of this "Gift" from China, our lives are changing, perhaps forever.But as dreadful as the Chinese virus is, there is another virus in our midst that is more horrific; more rapacious and voracious; more ferocious and tenacious; and more noxious, and it has been with us much longer than the Coronavirus. It is a parasitic virus, a silent plague; carefully cultivated and nourished, right here at home. It doesn’t attack and destroy the body. It latches onto and destroys the mind; the spirit; the soul. Many Americans have a natural immunity to it. Most, unfortunately, do not. It is endemic to our Nation but rarely mentioned. There is no known cure for those who contract the disease. And, for those who succumb to it, the virus turns a person into a numb, unthinking automaton, an obedient drone.And this parasitic virus has a vile, odious feature the China Coronavirus doesn’t have. It is seductive.This parasitic virus in our midst is the mainstream Press. It is a plague upon us; one that has been with us for decades.Where did this plague come from? Disturbingly, it arose from and took root in the U.S. Constitution itself through a corruption of the First Amendment. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The freedom of speech is, of course, a fundamental, unalienable, immutable right: a right that exists intrinsically in man, bestowed by a loving Creator in man. Is freedom of the Press distinct from the freedom of speech? Legal thinkers in the past didn’t think so. In fact——“Through most of our history the distinction has not seemed important because the terms freedom of speech and freedom of press have been used more or less interchangeably. In the last decade, however, the press has begun to assert rights arising specifically from the press clause—the right to maintain the confidentiality of sources, the right of access to prisons and courtrooms, the right to keep police from searching newsrooms,  and the right to prevent libel plaintiffs from inquiring into journalists’ thought processes. Thus far the Supreme Court has declined to give independent significance to the phrase ‘freedom of the press.’ It has refused to give the press any more protection than an individual enjoys under the speech clause.” The Origins Of The Press Clause., 30 UCLA L. Rev. 455, February 1983, by  David A. Anderson, Professor of Law, The University of Texas at Austin.If the freedom of the Press exists implicitly in the freedom of speech, why did the founders reference it in the Constitution? We guess they did so to emphasize the import of “free Press Speech,” apart from general public “free Speech,” evidently assuming that the energies of a free Press would be directed to safeguarding the Nation. Many of the founders therefore trusted in an unencumbered, unrestrained, unconstrained free Press. Many did; but not all.But, the founders did, as one, foresee the innate tendency of the federal Government to accumulate power unto itself. And that concern informed the founders’ blueprint for the Nation. They concluded an unshackled free Press, in tandem with the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms, were two effective guardians against a tyrannical Government. But did the founders misapprehend the Press? Did they fail to see that an unrestrained Press, far from safeguarding a free Constitutional Republic, would endanger it?The founders correctly deduced the tendency of the federal Government to unlawfully amass power, even as the Constitution's first three Articles, carefully delineated the powers and authority that each Branch may lawfully wield. The founders also correctly deduced that an armed citizenry would effectively counter encroaching tyranny. But the founders evidently did not believe a Press, far from serving as a mechanism to ward off tyranny, might one day become the agent of it, even as some, notably Thomas Jefferson, harbored serious misgivings about Press Freedom as reflected in his writings. In those writings Jefferson expressed uncertainty, even equivocation, despite the fact that many commentators, today, deny this, arguing Jefferson unequivocally supported Press Freedom. He did not.John Norvell, U.S. Senator from Michigan, January 26, 1837 – March 4, 1841, wrote to Jefferson, explaining how he would one day wish to enter the field of newspaper publishing:“It would be a great favor, too, to have your opinion of the manner in which a newspaper, to be most extensively beneficial, should be conducted, as I expect to become the publisher of one for a few years.Accept venerable patriot, my warmest wishes for your happiness.” Jefferson composed a stern letter to Norvell, warning him of the dangers of the Press.“To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful, I should answer, ‘by restraining it to true facts & sound principles only.’ Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more compleatly deprive the nation of its benefits, than is done by its abandoned prostitution to falsehood. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day. I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens, who, reading newspapers, live & die in the belief, that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time; whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected . . . but no details can be relied on. I will add that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.”—Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 14 June 1807And, 200 years after composing his cautionary letter to John Norvell, the fear that Jefferson expressed has come to pass as many academicians hold to the theory that Freedom of Speech and Freedom of Press are two conceptually distinct freedoms; one accorded to the body politic generally, and the other accorded to mainstream “professional journalists.”The schism has resulted in the false idea that Press Free Speech is of a higher order of Right than the general Free Speech Right accorded the ordinary masses'; that "professional journalists" should be designated a privileged group; that Press freedom should be accorded more deference than speech freedom. This is a dangerous idea, not only detrimental to First Amendment Free Speech but to the very sanctity of a free Constitutional Republic. And the danger isn’t theoretical; it is actual.We see the danger of an unshackled Press manifested today in two ways: one, in an unconscionable attempt to silence the masses from exercising their personal right of free speech because that tends to dilute the voice of the Press; and two, outright sedition. The mainstream Press is actively working with ruthless forces at home and abroad who desire to destroy our free Constitutional Republic; to institute tyranny; to exert control over the American people. There is proof aplenty for this inference. The Press is not content simply to report the news and to critique the Government. No! The Press has itself become an instrument of repression as it strives to constrain our fundamental rights and liberties, to overthrow a duly elected President, and to undermine a free Constitutional Republic.The Press has engaged in a continuous brash, malicious, conscious assault on the Trump Presidency with the unapologetic aim of sabotaging if not destroying Trump. This has been the modus operandi of the Press since the inception of the Trump Presidency.Matea Gold, the investigations reporter for the Washington Post, made this point clear on January 17, 2016, in her call to action article. Matea's remarks are all the more alarming because they saw expression in a “news” piece, not an Op-Ed. She writes:“The effort to impeach President Donald John Trump is already underway.At the moment the new commander in chief was sworn in, a campaign to build public support for his impeachment went live at ImpeachDonaldTrumpNow.org, spearheaded by two liberal advocacy groups aiming to lay the groundwork for his eventual ejection from the White House.”The reader should take note that this Washington Post reporter doesn’t mention a basis for calling for the extraordinary process of impeachment of the U.S. President. Evidently, Matea Gold didn’t consider a legal reason to be necessary. One would arise, she may have thought, or one would be manufactured.The Collectivists, like this Washington Post reporter, simply want Trump “gone” and, she wants those Americans who support a free Constitutional Republic and unfettered exercise of fundamental rights to be gagged; denied expressing their views. If the Collectivists do succeed in getting Biden, or some other Clown, into Office, the Radical Left Democrats and the seditious Press will see their wish fulfilled. They will be well on their way to gutting the U.S. Our Country will devolve into something less than a sovereign independent Nation-State._____________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved. 

SEDITIOUS PRESS AND RADICAL LEFT DEMOCRATS GO TO BAT FOR CHINA, NOT TRUMP, DURING GLOBAL PANDEMIC CRISIS

PART FOUR

CHINA AND RADICAL LEFT DEMOCRATS WELCOME ECONOMIC DEVASTATION WROUGHT BY CHINESE CORONOVIRUS TO HASTEN DEMISE OF A FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC

The seditious Press and the Democrat Party leadership, along with the other Radical Left members of Congress, assail Trump in his efforts to protect this Nation and its people in the midst of the worst pandemic to hit both the U.S. and the world since the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, over a century ago. But, even as the Press and Democrats continue to assail the U.S. President, they either ignore, or defend, outright, China’s response to the plague, notwithstanding that the Coronavirus arose in China, and notwithstanding that, far from acting as a harbinger of the danger to the world presented by this novel and deadly virus, China’s Premier Xi Jinping hid the spread of the virus in China, for several weeks, “silencing” medical practitioners in Wuhan who sounded the alarm, or who sought to sound the alarm, and denying access of medical CDC experts from the U.S., willing to risk their own lives to assist China in containing the spread of the disease.Premier Xi has, as a matter of policy, either permitted or orchestrated the rapid dissemination of the virus across the world: hitting Italy, Spain and, ultimately, the U.S., particularly hard.Arguably, Premier Xi and his Government deliberately abetted the spread of the virus across the world. This would be consistent with his objective, not merely to enhance China’s prestige in the world but to make China the preeminent power in the world.Undoubtedly, the Autocratic Communist Regime of Xi Jinping poses the gravest economic, military, and geopolitical threat to the security and well-being of our Nation and people since the mid-twentieth century, when the USSR posed the greatest threat to our national security. Was the release of the viral plague upon the U.S. and upon the rest of the world, a secretive, diabolical component of Premier Xi’s geopolitical strategy to acquire economic dominance over the U.S.? Conceivably!In one respect, China poses a greater threat to the preservation of a free Constitutional Republic than the USSR ever posed. One could never imagine the USSR buying up our Nation's assets. But, during the last decade, China has been doing just that: quietly purchasing our Nation’s real estate and industrial assets. Why would a powerful enemy nation go through the trouble of attempting to destroy another powerful nation militarily, when that enemy might feasibly, by keeping an enemy nation intact, take over that nation's assets and resources, using those assets and resources to extend its own power and influence?China is adept at using our own market principles and the naked greed of pseudo-Americans against us; relying on pathological, ruthless, amoral business interests and, worse, ruthless, amoral members of our own Government, willing to sell out our Nation for their own short-term personal gain.Hillary Clinton represents one textbook example of a pseudo-American who shamelessly, unabashedly had used her position as Secretary of State in the Obama Administration for personal gain, amassing a fortune for herself, her husband, and her daughter. One can imagine how Hillary Clinton might have misused the Office of the Chief Executive of the Nation to extend that personal fortune a hundred-fold or a thousand-fold, profaning the Constitution, and irreparably harming the Nation and its people. And, then there is Joe Biden, the Democrat Party's remaining nominee (among a stellar cast of also-rans) for U.S. President, who, as Obama's Vice President, happened to make a tidy sum for himself and his son, selling our Country out to China. As reported in Breitbart:“In 2013, less than two weeks after accompanying his father on an official visit to Beijing–and despite his lack of pertinent expertise–Hunter Biden secured $1 billion (later raised to $1.5 billion) from the state-owned Bank of China for his newly formed investment firm, Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). This was in addition to the first-of-its-kind deal the Chinese government awarded Biden’s private equity firm Rosemont Seneca in the recently formed Shanghai Free-Trade Zone, a deal that allowed the firm to focus on international acquisitions.‘With the backing of the state-owned Bank of China, one of the country’s ‘big four’ financial institutions, BHR had access to the types of deals that most Western firms only dreamed of, including IPOs of state-owned companies,’ Schweizer and McLeod write, noting that Biden’s firm “invested in strategically sensitive assets in both China and the United States.”One can only imagine the sort of shady deals Biden would make with China's Premier Xi if Biden were to become U.S. President: Xi and Joe, business partners—Xi using Joe for a sinister purpose; to extend the power of China throughout the world; and Joe, using Xi, for a most ignoble, seditious purpose; making a killing for himself and for his family, enabling the Bidens to retire in regal splendor, perhaps on Bora Bora, for the rest of their natural lives. And, now Joe has the endorsement of Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and, yes, ex-President, Barack Obama, himself. No contested Democrat convention, after all. How wonderful. China's Xi must be chomping at the bit, hoping against hope that Biden would indeed emerge as the U.S. President in the coming General Election: Biden, the Democrats' crowning achievement, and the true Manchurian Candidate for U.S. President. China definitely has an interest in buying up American assets. The website, usnews.com reported alarming purchases by Chinese interests of our Nation's assets in the last five years, especially:“The concept of ‘Made in America’ is slowly giving way to ‘Made by China’ in America,’ as Chinese investors are increasingly snatching up U.S.-based companies and assets and raising the eyebrows of some regulators and market spectators.Since the turn of the new year, Chinese suitors have either announced interest in or closed on several multibillion-dollar acquisitions of American institutions, such as General Electric's appliance wing, construction manufacturer Terex, Starwood Hotels, California-based tech company Ingram Micro and finance and production outfit Legendary Entertainment.And although the full value of the deal has yet to be publicly unveiled, the Chicago Stock Exchange announced in February that it planned to be acquired by the China-based Chongqing Casin Enterprise Group at some point later in 2016.‘This proposed acquisition would be the first time a Chinese-owned, possibly state-influenced firm maintained direct access into the $22 trillion U.S. equity marketplace,’ a group of congressional representatives said in a letter to a top Treasury Department official back in February, requesting a ‘full and rigorous investigation into this proposed acquisition to address our concerns and provide clear information to the American people.’Chinese foreign direct investment into the U.S. hit a record $15.7 billion in 2015, up 30 percent from the year prior, according to economic analysts at the Rhodium Group. A separate Rhodium report published last month estimated 83 percent of America's congressional districts were home to some form of Chinese investment.In few industries is China's investment growth more apparent than real estate. A report published Sunday by the nonprofit Asia Society and the Rosen Consulting Group estimates Chinese buyers between 2010 and 2015 spent at least $93 billion on American residential property, with total expenses rising at an average annual rate of about 20 percent each year.Over that period, Chinese companies and individuals also bought up at least $17.1 billion in existing office buildings, hotels and other commercial buildings on U.S. soil. By the end of 2015, the report found, China was the source of at least $350 billion in U.S. real estate holdings and investments, and costs for Chinese-backed construction projects in the U.S. had climbed to at least $15 billion.‘Chinese direct investment in U.S. real estate was negligible until 2010 but has since grown dramatically and visibly,’ the report said. ‘While it is not as politically sensitive and does not directly impact national security as does Chinese investment in U.S. technology or telecommunications, real estate affects more people and communities and involves policymakers at multiple levels.’To be sure, foreign investment is neither specific to China nor inherently problematic. In fact, American companies' own outbound investments in 2014 to countries around the world clocked in at more than $4.9 trillion, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.China's investments alarming to some American analysts. Beijing officials are heavily involved in China's private sector and have at times frozen the domestic stock market and changed other finance rules on the fly in the interest of economic self-preservation.So, when a Chinese investment group buys up, say, a major stock exchange in Chicago – or a group of investors throws billions of dollars into America's real estate sector – Beijing suddenly has an inroad to some of the gears that make the U.S. economy tick.‘The Chinese economy revolves around the artificial boosting of domestic firms,’ the U.S. members of Congress' February letter said. ‘Furthermore, government manipulation of currency in the Chinese marketplace continues to be an unresolved problem for the United States government.’So, is the rapid Chinese buying spree a political ploy? Is the Chinese government trying to infiltrate America's economic bedrock through the purchase of domestic companies and real estate assets?”Not exactly, says David Dollar, a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development programs at the Brookings Institution. ‘I see most of this capital outflow is commercial, not strategic or political,’ Dollar said last month at an event in Washington. ‘I don't see much strategy there. I see diversification, which is a smart strategy for a very big investor.’Dollar said the eclectic pool of U.S. investments and holdings tied to the Chinese – including New York's Waldorf Astoria hotel, the national AMC Theatres cinema chain and Smithfield Foods, America's largest pork producer – isn't indicative of a coordinated political power play. Rather, he suggested Chinese companies – possibly at the behest of the Chinese government – are attempting to buy up international assets in a less volatile economy like America's. ‘By spreading out Chinese-owned assets, the country can better protect itself from an unexpected domestic crisis’ ” [like unleashing a viral plague on the U.S. and the rest of the world, perhaps? Hmm]. Note, this usnews.com article came out on May 17, 2016. But, in February 2020, after the unleashing of the Chinese Coronavirus on an unsuspecting world, the Brookings Institute issued this statement, on its website:“China has emerged as a truly global actor, impacting every region and every major issue area. To better address the implications for American policy and the multilateral order, Brookings experts are undertaking a two-year project intended to furnish policymakers and the public with a new empirical baseline for understanding China’s regional and global ambitions.”Perhaps David Dollar of the Brookings Institute would revise his May 2016 assessment, as provided to the usnews.com in light of recent events.If China had, for the past five years, an interest in gobbling up America's assets, that appetite will certainly continue, and will likely become even more voracious if Biden were to gain the White House.But China's interest in purchasing America's assets is not the only scurrilous activity China engages in. Chinese espionage activity is pervasive in our Nation. Consider one recent example, among many—and one implicating those connected with a premier U.S. academic institution, Harvard University. The Department of Justice (DOJ) issued this statement, on January 28, 2020:“The Department of Justice announced today that the Chair of Harvard University’s Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department and two Chinese nationals have been charged in connection with aiding the People’s Republic of China.  Dr. Charles Lieber, 60, Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, was arrested this morning and charged by criminal complaint with one count of making a materially false, fictitious and fraudulent statement.  Lieber will appear this afternoon before Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler in federal court in Boston, Massachusetts.Yanqing Ye, 29, a Chinese national, was charged in an indictment today with one count each of visa fraud, making false statements, acting as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy. Ye is currently in China. Zaosong Zheng, 30, a Chinese national, was arrested on Dec. 10, 2019, at Boston’s Logan International Airport and charged by criminal complaint with attempting to smuggle 21 vials of biological research to China.  On Jan. 21, 2020, Zheng was indicted on one count of smuggling goods from the United States and one count of making false, fictitious or fraudulent statements.  He has been detained since Dec. 30, 2019.”China is stepping up its efforts on multiple fronts to press for world economic, geopolitical, and military dominance.This is a singularly depressing commentary on the present state of affairs in our Country. And, what is the seditious Press and other Anti-Constitutional elements within our Nation doing to sound the alarm over the threat posed by China to our National Security? Nothing. The Press and the Democrat Party Leadership and other Radical Left members of Congress, along with the Bureaucratic Deep State, seem, rather, fixated on Russia, a minor player in present world affairs, and no appreciable threat to our Nation when compared to the present and dire threat posed by China. In fact, this seditious Press, the Democrat Party Leadership, and Radical Left members of Congress, along with the Bureaucratic Deep State seem intent on either ignoring China or defending China and Chinese interests; and portraying the Globalist elites of Europe, who embrace the concept of, and are working toward, the creation of a unified transatlantic Government, comprising the EU, the U.S., and the Commonwealth Nations, as our friends; all the while denigrating, besmirching, antagonizing, and working endlessly on the task of undermining our own President, Donald Trump, who is attempting to place our Nation's interests first, and who is attempting to preserve the independence and sovereignty of the United States. Imagine that! This sorry state of affairs points to the colossal and imminent danger to both the preservation of a free Constitutional Republic and to the preservation of the fundamental, immutable, and unalienable rights and liberties of the Nation’s citizenry that reprehensible, disruptive, disreputable forces--both inside and outside our Nation--continuously pose for our Nation and for our people._____________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved. 

RADICAL LEFT AND SEDITIOUS PRESS WEAPONIZE CHINESE VIRUS TO ADVANCE ANTI-CONSTITUTIONAL AGENDA

RADICAL LEFT AND SEDITIOUS PRESS WEAPONIZE CHINESE VIRUS TO ADVANCE ANTI-CONSTITUTIONAL AGENDA

PART THREE

THE ATTACK TO OUR NATION AND ITS PEOPLE FROM WITHIN

“A scorpion, which cannot swim, asks a frog to carry it across a river on the frog's back. The frog hesitates, afraid of being stung by the scorpion, but the scorpion argues that if it did that, they would both drown. The frog considers this argument sensible and agrees to transport the scorpion. Midway across the river, the scorpion stings the frog anyway, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung the frog despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: “ ‘I couldn't help it. It’s in my nature.’” The fable of the Scorpion and the Frog as posted in Wikipedia. A rendition of this fable, as delivered by the character played by the actor, Forest Whitaker, appeared in the 1992 thriller, the Crying Game that also starred Stephen Rea. Americans have been carrying a scorpion on their back for decades but many do not know this. And, what is this scorpion? It is an amorphous collection of diabolical, amoral, ruthless, powerful interests bent on destroying the very fabric of our Nation: a free Constitutional Republic. These ruthless elements, adherents of the ideology of Collectivism, loathe the idea that in, our Nation, the American people are sovereign, not Government. The Collectivists routinely ignore the fact that the sovereignty of the American people is etched in stone—etched in that critical part of the U.S. Constitution referred to as the Bill of Rights.The Bill of Rights is a codification of fundamental, immutable, unalienable rights that exist intrinsically in each American. These rights cannot be lawfully modified, ignored, or abrogated; ever. That some rights exist in man, beyond the lawful power of the State to modify, ignore, or abrogate, is repugnant to the Collectivists and always has been. They deem the American citizenry as pawns of the State. But, as long as our Constitution survives intact, the Collectivists cannot modify, ignore, or abrogate our fundamental rights. So, they are attempting to regulate those fundamental rights out of existence and to replace them with others: such as the fundamental right of a pregnant woman to murder her own child. See article on abortion posted in the Arbalest Quarrel on July 4, 2019While the nation-state still held a measure of utility to the Collectivists, decades ago, they stood back, patiently awaiting the day when they could proclaim the U.S. Constitution—the backbone of our nation-state—to be archaic, obsolete. Now, however, these ruthless interests feel the very concept of ‘nation-state’ no longer has utility. So, these Collectivists are not standing back any longer. They are attacking the concept of the nation-state head-on. The U.S. Constitution that Collectivists claim to be a “living” Constitution—and by the term, ‘living’ Constitution they mean a Constitution subject to change in accordance with a changing world—is actually a “dead” Constitution; namely, a Constitution that has no further use in a one-world Collectivist State, in which vast populations are controlled and subjugated by a small ruling elite.This scorpion on our back—the Collectivists comprising the Democrat Party Leadership along with other smug, sanctimonious Radical Left and New wave Progressive Left elements, pockmarked and permeating through business, government, academia, the entertainment establishment, and the Press—has been spreading their noxious, deadly poison for decades. Many Americans, perhaps most, haven’t been keenly aware of this because the insidious effort to overthrow of a free Constitutional Republic has, heretofore, taken place systematically, and quietly in the shadows; but, no longer, and the effects of the disassembling of a free Constitutional Republic is plain.Americans have seen the erosion of their First Amendment freedom of speech and freedom of religion. They have seen more and more brazen attempts to weaken the Second Amendment right of the people to keep and bear arms to the point where exercise of it would be reduced to a nullity—this in spite of U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Heller and McDonald. They have seen the erosion of our fundamental Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures as the surveillance State engages in the unconstitutional act of profiling every citizen and obtaining every iota of data on that citizen. Americans have seen a once mighty manufacturing base gutted and sent off packing to China, along with the Nation’s technology, and our money. Americans have seen the Government waste trillions of dollars on foreign intrigues and escapades that serve to weaken our Nation’s security, rather than strengthening it. And, Americans have seen the Southern border opened up to criminal cartels and to waves of discontented flotsam from other Countries whose governments are all too happy to rid themselves of the carrion that feeds on our own Government largess, only to leave our own people destitute. And, Americans have seen the Federal—that is to say, “Private”—Reserve engaging in unconventional monetary policies, doing what exactly? Operating for the benefit of average Americans or operating solely for the benefit of its own member banks and for multinational corporations, housed both here and abroad; leaving the Nation gutted of its wealth; laden with more and more debt.Like a scorpion, the dangerous, ruthless forces here at home, that would crush our Nation and our people into submission as they thrust their vision of the world on all of us, seem oblivious to just how pernicious and damaging their Collectivist vision is for both our Country and our people. Either these abjectly ruthless forces are oblivious to the dangers they would dare inflict on our Nation and our people, or they simply don’t care.

THE COLLECTIVIST VISION AND THE THREAT OF GLOBALIZATION

The impact of the Chinese Coronavirus on our people and our economy is horrific. But even as it devastates our Nation, the Collectivists in the Press and in Congress seek to use this pandemic to their advantage, against the President and, by extension, against the American people. Still, even as our economy suffers and as our people suffer, and as a seditious Press continues an unrelenting, remorseless attack on President Trump at the behest of the ruthless Collectivists, with whom the Press is in league, these Collectivists must realize that Americans are seeing the negative consequences of Globalization in a way they have never seen before. The viral pandemic is not, then, something that the Collectivists can effectively use to force their bizarre vision on our Country. The pandemic has demonstrated the danger of relying on other Nations to provide for our economic needs.If our Nation’s medicines and medical equipment, and medical apparel were solely manufactured at home, as once was the case a half-century ago—before the vast  majority of our manufacturing was handed over to Asia, particularly to China—China would not be able to threaten our healthcare system, as it is threatening our healthcare system now. Breitbart says:“China could effectively shut down America’s healthcare system within months given the one-party state’s ‘global chokehold’ on the manufacturing of medicines and medical supplies, explained Rosemary Gibson, author of China Rx: Exposing the Risks of America’s Dependence on China for Medicine.”It is ironic that China, the Nation that bears sole responsibility for unleashing this virus on our Nation and on the rest of the world, whether wittingly or not, could and would dare to choke the lifeblood out of us by denying us vital medicines and medical supplies. Such is the result of Globalization and our dependency on other Nations, even our enemies, to supply us with our basic needs.We see that the instrumentality of ‘Globalization’  is vital to the realization of the Collectivist vision of a one-world government; heralding, indeed hastening, the end of independent, sovereign nation-states that have lost their self-reliance and resiliency precisely because of Globalization.  The website Investopedia, defines the word, thus:“Globalization is the spread of products, technology, information, and jobs across national borders and cultures. In economic terms, it describes an interdependence of nations around the globe fostered through free trade.”But Globalization involves something much more devious and insidious: the restructuring of the entirety of the social, political, economic, educational, legal, and cultural domain in which man lives.The Collectivists see Globalization as a good thing, an inevitable thing, and a necessary thing if they are to realize their vision of a one-world government. Not surprisingly, the concept of 'globalization' has parallels in the material of Karl Marx. In Das Kapital, Marx lays out his economic theory. But, Das Kapital, is, more broadly speaking, a discourse on the social evolutionary process of man, as Marx sees it.Elizabet Sahtouris, an essayist, who was almost certainly familiar with the writings of Karl Marx and possibly emulated him, posted, on July 21, 2001, an essay for the Living Economies Forum, titled, “Globalization as a Natural Evolutionary Process.” She begins her essay with this:“Globalization, from the perspective of an evolution biologist, is the natural, inevitable, and even desirable process by which humanity matures as a species, shifting from the competitive, acquisitive mode of a juvenile species to the cooperative, sharing mode of a mature species.In any case, globalization is already well on its way and is not a reversible process. Some aspects of it beautifully demonstrate our ability to cooperate.” Globalization is one of a handful of implements in the Collectivists’ toolkit they have utilized to engineer the destruction of independent nation-states, including our own.  The phenomenon of globalization has become ubiquitous and may very well be impossible to curtail. Collectivists intend for globalization to usher in the New World Order. But, with a world-wide viral plague upon us, the inherent complexity, unwieldiness, and attendant deficiencies of globalization have been illuminated. Because of the viral pandemic, nations now realize they must regain and thenceforth retain economic self-sufficiency that globalization has harmed. So, even as the economic health of our Nation and that of other Western Nations has deteriorated, the realization that each Nation must once again relearn self-reliance and self-sufficiency may secure the survival of independent sovereign nation-states, much to the chagrin of the Collectivists.In hindsight, then, the assertion that globalization is “natural, inevitable and, even desirable,” must invite incredulity and skepticism, not enthusiasm and trust, for Globalization is really none of those things.Globalization is an artificial construct, not a biological necessity. It isn't inevitable; and, while it may be desirable to some, i.e., a few wealthy, powerful transnationalist Collectivists who envision a one-world government that they alone preside over, such an eventuality would be a veritable Hell for everyone else._____________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.

WHETHER BY ACCIDENT OR DESIGN, CHINESE CORONOVIRUS BRINGS GRIEVOUS HARM TO BOTH AMERICA AND WORLD AT LARGE

PART TWO

CHINA THREATENS FREE CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC: THE ATTACK TO OUR NATION FROM WITHOUT

“Much of the debate about China’s rise in recent years has focused on the potential dangers China could pose as an eventual peer competitor to the United States bent on challenging the existing international order. But another issue is far more pressing. For at least the next decade, while China remains relatively weak compared to the United States, there is a real danger that Beijing and Washington will find themselves in a crisis that could quickly escalate to military conflict. Unlike a long-term great-power strategic rivalry that might or might not develop down the road, the danger of a crisis involving the two nuclear-armed countries is a tangible, near-term concern—and the events of the past few years suggest the risk might be increasing.” Introduction to article, titled, “China’s Real and Present Danger: Now Is the Time for Washington to Worry,” appearing in “Foreign Affairs, September/October 2013, (seven plus years before the deadly Chinese Coronovirus outbreak) Xi Jinping, the current Premier of the autocratic Communist Chinese Government, headquartered in Beijing, intends for China to supplant the United States as the preeminent world economic and military power. This isn’t mere wild speculation. It’s ice-cold fact. Evidence of this fact is legion: in academic treatises, in textbooks, in periodicals, in news accounts; and in a multitude of commentary and analysis on the internet.The virulent Chinese Coronovirus arose outside the United States, in the Wuhan Province of China. That, too, isn't mere speculation. It's ice cold fact. No one can legitimately deny this; not that Premier Xi’s Government hasn’t tried, claiming that the Chinese Coronovirus originated in the U.S. The British newspaper, The Guardian, reports  Chinese propagandists for the Chinese “news” paper, the “People’s Daily,” ridiculously claiming that:“‘The US has finally acknowledged that among those who had died of the influenza previously were cases of the coronavirus. The true source of the virus was the US!’ one commentator said. ‘The US owes the world, especially China, an apology,’ another said. “American coronavirus,” one wrote.China also ludicrously asserts that American soldiers brought the virus to China. Yet, even The New York Times that reported the China's claim, pointed to the utter absurdity of it.Try as Premier Xi might to offload responsibility for the viral plague on to the United States, the Chinese Coronovirus must be placed squarely at the feet of China. That fact is clear and inescapable. But two matters aren’t clear: first, how the Chinese Coronovirus happened to manifest and propagate itself in China; and, second, how the Chinese Coronovirus happened to propagate and to disseminate rapidly across the world. Was the origin of the virus and its massive spread to the rest of the world due to accident? reckless disregard? Negligence? Diabolical design on the part of China’s autocratic Government?Whether or to what extent the unleashing of the viral pandemic on America and the world was due to naivety, or to indifference, or to reckless disregard, or to gross or ordinary negligence, or to outright cold, calculating, malevolent design on the part of the autocratic Communist regime of  Xi Jinping, one matter is indisputable and irrefutable: Premier Xi’s Communist regime bears initial and ultimate responsibility for the horror unleashed here, at home, and around the world, and specifically, for the Government's failure to timely warn the U.S. and the rest of the world of the new anomalous virus that can lead to deadly pneumonia in its victims.Why do we accuse Premier Xi and the Government of China? We do so because of what we do know, as events unfolded.First, we know that Premier Xi hid evidence of the Coronovirus. The Chinese Government deserves our condemnation for concealing the Chinese Coronovirus from the outside world. This enabled the rapid spread of the virus.U.S. News and World Report confirms this:“The disclosure of [Premier Xi’s February 23, 2020] speech indicates top leaders knew about the outbreak’s potential severity at least two weeks before such dangers were made known to the public. It was not until late January that officials said the virus can spread between humans and public alarm began to rise.” Second, Xi would not allow epidemiologists and virologists into China to study the virus, and to assist the Chinese Government in effectively containing it. That is one matter that remains to be studied in depth at a later date. But, Bloomberg news, in a February 2020 article, titled: “U.S. Experts Seeking Outbreak Access Kept Waiting by China,” said:“U.S. officials have said they’ve offered for weeks to send front-line disease experts to China to study the outbreak, which originated in the city of Wuhan, and consult with colleagues there on how to stop it.‘We haven’t been invited yet,’ Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters Wednesday.”“ ‘We’ve offered the Chinese the opportunity to have American doctors from CDC, NIH and others,’” National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said Tuesday evening {February 11, 2020} in Washington. “ ‘That offer’s not been accepted at this point, but it’s an outstanding offer.’” Third, Xi’s Government knew of the serious threat posed by the virus outbreak, as his Government wanted him to take no chances when he made a publicity tour visit to Wuhan Province. The Asian Times reported on March 11, 2020, in a news article, titled, “Xi’s trip to Wuhan fails to restore confidence:“Chinese President Xi Jinping has finally visited Wuhan, ground zero of the still-unfolding pneumonic plague, reportedly spending less than 10 hours in the virus ravaged central Chinese city on Tuesday, before flying back to Beijing in the evening. . . . Reporters with state media told Asia Times on condition of anonymity that Xi’s whirlwind visit only lasted for a little over nine hours. After touching down at Wuhan’s airport, he was whisked off to a local hospital in a limo fitted with top-grade antiviral and biohazard gear.” Fourth, Xi’s Government hid and continues to hide evidence of the impact of this virulent disease from the world, as it forces U.S. reporters to leave China. See, e.g., articles posted online in theguardian.com and in news.com.auFifth, while it is clear the Chinese Coronovirus originated in China, what isn’t clear is how the virus manifested in China. Did the virus originate and spread from an outdoor food market, as widely reported? If so, that would suggest mere accident at best or, at worst, gross negligence or reckless disregard for the health and well-being of the common people of China apropos of, one, how food happens to manufactured and distributed in China and, two, the sort of things the Chinese people consume. But, what if the Chinese Coronovirus did not originate from disseminate from an outdoor food market, as widely reported. What if the virus did not arise in nature but was artificially created by the Chinese Government, in a biological weapons lab? If so, was this virus then recklessly unleashed, or, conceivably, deliberately deployed on the world? Is this idea far-fetched? One U.S. Senator thinks the matter deserves investigation. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) suspects that the Chinese Government created this virus as a biological weapon, as he reports his suspicions on Fox News.And, the dailymail.co.uk reports:“Chinese scientists believe the deadly coronavirus may have started life in a research facility just 300 yards from the Wuhan fish market. A new bombshell paper from the Beijing-sponsored South China University of Technology says that the Wuhan Center for Disease Control (WHCDC) could have spawned the contagion in Hubei province.'The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus,' penned by scholars Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao claims the WHCDC kept disease-ridden animals in laboratories, including 605 bats. It also mentions that bats - which are linked to coronavirus—once attacked a researcher and ‘blood of bat was on his skin.’”The Conservative New York Post writes:"At an emergency meeting in Beijing held last Friday, Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke about the need to contain the coronavirus and set up a system to prevent similar epidemics in the future.A national system to control biosecurity risks must be put in place “to protect the people’s health,” Xi said, because lab safety is a “national security” issue.Xi didn’t actually admit that the coronavirus now devastating large swaths of China had escaped from one of the country’s bioresearch labs. But the very next day, evidence emerged suggesting that this is exactly what happened, as the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology released a new directive titled: ‘Instructions on strengthening biosecurity management in microbiology labs that handle advanced viruses like the novel coronavirus.’ What’s more, the People’s Liberation Army’s top expert in biological warfare, a Maj. Gen. Chen Wei, was dispatched to Wuhan at the end of January to help with the effort to contain the outbreak.According to the PLA Daily, Chen has been researching coronaviruses since the SARS outbreak of 2003, as well as Ebola and anthrax. This would not be her first trip to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, either, since it is one of only two bioweapons research labs in all of China.Does that suggest to you that the novel coronavirus, now known as SARS-CoV-2, may have escaped from that very lab, and that Chen’s job is to try to put the genie back in the bottle, as it were? It does to me.Add to this China’s history of similar incidents. Even the deadly SARS virus has escaped — twice — from the Beijing lab where it was (and probably is) being used in experiments. Both “man-made” epidemics were quickly contained, but neither would have happened at all if proper safety precautions had been taken.And then there is this little-known fact: Some Chinese researchers are in the habit of selling their laboratory animals to street vendors after they have finished experimenting on them.”Curiously, the seditious Leftist mainstream media won’t touch this story. Perhaps The New York Times and the Washington Post, along with CNN and MSNBC, believe the story to outlandish to investigate and comment on. Or perhaps they don’t wish to antagonize Premier Xi.  Not that these seditious “news” sources don’t ever concoct wild yarns and endlessly regurgitate nonsense.Certainly, the origin of the Chinese Coronovirus deserves more attention. Yet the mainstream media accepts the notion and propagates the basic story line that the virus somehow arose, accidentally, in an outdoor food market. It then leaves the matter at that, apparently afraid to antagonize Premier Xi; and yet demonstrates no reluctance in castigating President Trump for what he did or didn’t do, after the fact, to contain the spread of the deadly virus in the U.S. We discuss the reprehensible actions of the seditious U.S. Press, in our next, upcoming, segment on the Chinese Coronovirus. Yet, the Slate, despite its left-wing bent, is one website that seems to have developed a pang of conscience. The Slate is no friend of the U.S. President, but, even a leftist website apparently feels there is a limit to the onslaught of vituperative vitriol that mainstream journalism pours without letup onto Trump, in this time of crisis.The Slate writes, in its article, titled, “China Is Not the Hero of the Pandemic:“You can criticize Trump without parroting Beijing’s propaganda.“When Chinese scientists identified a mystery virus in December 2019, they were ordered to stop tests, destroy samples, and suppress the news. When Chinese medical professionals began to sound the alarm, they were seized by police. For weeks, when Chinese state media went on air or to print, they ignored the virus’s spread. When government cadres heard rumors of some new SARS-like virus, they kept their heads down and continued praising party leader Xi Jinping. China’s strategy to fight COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, though later praised by the World Health Organization and scientists worldwide, consisted of cover-ups, lies, and repression. It also failed miserably, exposing the world to this deadly sickness. After claiming yesterday to have no new cases of the virus, China is now trying to take a victory lap, emphasizing the strength of its response—and the United States’ apparent failures—while spreading conspiracies that the U.S. government manufactured the virus. And while U.S. President Donald Trump’s sluggishness toward the outbreak merits criticism, China’s endangering of the world with its initial incompetence is certainly more to blame. Some of Trump’s fiercest public critics, however, have in their condemnations of the president remarkably ignored China’s faults or even praised the Chinese Communist Party’s response. In doing so, they are propagating falsehoods—and Chinese propaganda."Sixth, Despite the unrelenting seditious mainstream Press attack on the autocratic regime of Putin’s Russia, it is the autocratic regime of Xi Jinping’s China that has been, for decades, the greater threat to our Nation’s free Constitutional Republic.So, then, whether through accident or secretive, insidious design, the release of the Chinese Coronovirus into the world has had devastating impact on both the physical health and well-being of our people and on our Nation’s economic health and upon the rest of the world. And this viral pandemic plays well for China in its ongoing quest for world economic and military domination.As Xi asserts with great bombast and bravado, as reported by cnbc:“We absolutely will not permit any person, any organization, any political party — at any time, in any form — to separate any piece of Chinese territory from China,” Xi said to applause. “No one should expect us to swallow the bitter fruit of damage to our sovereignty, security and development interests.” Apparently, the Chinese Premier feels that Tibet is one of those Chinese territory pieces that China will not permit anyone to separate, and that includes the people of Tibet. And the U.S. doesn’t call China out!Apart from geographical regions of the world that Premier Xi considers to be a "piece of Chinese territory," Americans might rightfully ask if Xi’s “development interests,” extend to the United States. Does Xi wish to “swallow” the U.S.? Quite possibly. As illustrated in a CNBC youtube video, “Billions of dollars flow into the U.S. from China every year, and some of China’s biggest assets are held in New York."Investopedia reports that China holds $1.1 Trillion of American debt.What this means is that China need not attempt to destroy the U.S. militarily. Why would it bother to do so? why would it want to and risk its own demise, when it can pursue a safer course, purchasing the major assets of the U.S., making the U.S. into a satellite of China and hasten things along, by obliterating the economy and weakening the American spirit through the mechanism of a viral plague.Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, there exists another threat to America's free Constitutional Republic and to the preservation of a free sovereign people. A major aim of the Western Neoliberal Globalist Collectivist elites’ agenda is to pull the U.S. into its own orbit. The U.S. is caught in the middle between the two, in a viselike grip: Xi Jinping in the East, and the Neoliberal Globalist Collectivist elites of the West; each operating like an immense, competing private equity Goliath; each seeking to commandeer America’s many assets into its own portfolio, and in the process, hollowing out our once Great Nation.Unfortunately, Radical Left and New Progressive Left politicians and multinational business interests in this Nation, have, themselves, no love of and, apparently, no further use for the U.S. continuing as an independent, sovereign Nation State, and for a free sovereign people.  These ruthless, voracious Collectivist forces want our Nation-State to die, and with the unleashing of the Chinese Coronovirus, they realize they have a vehicle to hasten the Nation's death, along with reducing the citizenry population envisioning a new transnational world order, emanating from both the ruins of the U.S. and the Nations of Europe.Perhaps this new world order will comprise a Duopoly: a world in  which China, on the one hand, and the Neoliberal Collectivist Globalist elites of Europe and the U.S., on the other, divide the world up between them. And the seditious carpetbaggers, among the Democrats and Centrist Bush Republicans wouldn’t mind making a little profit, for themselves, from the “estate” sale of our Nation. Through Democrat Party ascendancy—with Biden as U.S. President, before he most certainly, and unceremoniously, steps down, in favor of his Vice-President successor, this would obviously benefit many anti-Constitutional, anti-American interests, at home, who see the divestiture of U.S. assets with greedy eyes.It is the American people who will lose out. But, then, their lives are of little if any consequence to domestic and foreign profiteers anyway.*__________________________________________*Biden and his son have made out like bandits selling America out for their own selfish interests. See NY Post articleAnd then there are the Multinational corporate executives, safely ensconced in the U.S., who, along with Congressional Democrats, appear more concerned about their personal well-being than of the well-being of our Nation. See, e.g., the hightower lowdown_____________________________________Copyright © 2020 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.