The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in a case that asks whether Minnesota violated the First Amendment when it banned voters from wearing a vast array of political badges, buttons, insignias, and other attire at polling places. Facing sharp questioning this morning from the justices, the state’s lawyer admitted that the law could even be used to ban t-shirts featuring the text of the Second Amendment or the pro-gay rights rainbow flag.
The case is Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky. It originated in 2010 when Andrew Cilek, the executive director of the conservative group Minnesota Voters Alliance, tried to vote while wearing a t-shirt adorned with an image of the Gadsen Flag, the phrase “Don’t Tread on Me,” and a Tea Party Patriots logo. Cilek was also wearing a “Please I.D. Me” button from the conservative group Election Integrity Watch.
J. David Breemer, the lawyer representing the Minnesota Voters Alliance in its constitutional challenge, told the justices that the statute should be struck down for being unconstitutionally overbroad because it prohibits bedrock forms of expression that have nothing to do with any candidate, campaign, or party, such as “shirts that simply say AFL-CIO, Chamber of Commerce, [or] NAACP.” The law “seeks to silence so much peaceful conventional messaging by the blunt means of—of outlawing everything,” he argued.
Daniel Rogan, the lawyer representing Minnesota elections official Joe Mansky, did not exactly do a winning job of countering Breemer’s claim. In fact, Rogan all but conceded that the state law is indeed an arbitrary violation of the Constitution, as evinced by this revealing exchange he had with Justice Samuel Alito:
Justice Alito: How about a shirt with a rainbow flag? Would that be permitted?
Mr. Rogan: A shirt with a rainbow flag? No, it would be—yes, it would be—it would be permitted unless there was—unless there was an issue on the ballot that—that related somehow to—to gay rights….
Justice Alito: Okay. How about an NRA shirt?
Mr. Rogan: An NRA shirt? Today, in Minnesota, no, it would not, Your Honor. I think that that’s a clear indication—and I think what you’re getting at, Your Honor—
Justice Alito: How about a shirt with the text of the Second Amendment?
Mr. Rogan: Your Honor, I—I—I think that that could be viewed as political, that that—that would be—that would be —
PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Coahuila — The seizure of a large cache of military weapons at a rural area near this border city points to the dangerous cartel, known as Los Zetas continuing to arm themselves in order to continue terrorizing this region.
Recently, state authorities found an arsenal of weapons hidden by Los Zetas off a rural road near Piedras Negras, just across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas. The weapons included a .50 caliber rifle, a rocket launcher, six AK-47s and three AR-15s. Officials also seized 1,500 cartridges of different calibers. The officers also found vests and other tactical equipment. All of the seized items were turned over to federal authorities for further investigation.
State authorities found the arsenal as part of an intelligence-driven operation aimed at minimizing the violent capabilities of the cartel known as Los Zetas. As Breitbart Texas reported, the Los Zetas group known as Cartel Del Noreste (CDN) is the one that maintains its presence in Piedras Negras. The CDN is being challenged by other cartels as well as independent groups.
In recent months, groups of cartel hitmen carried out multiple executions that spread panic among the residents of this city. Although authorities arrested several of the hit men, state judge Maritza Gonzalez Flores continues to release them under the argument that there is no evidence tying them to the crimes, Breitbart Texas reported. The judge released numerous cartel-linked drug dealers under suspicious rulings.
Trump is a insecure man that needs approval. Gun Control does not work and the FBI and the Sheriff department dropped the damn ball not the guns.
While meeting with lawmakers on Wednesday, President Trump discussed gun violence restraining orders that would give law enforcement the ability to remove weapons from people who are reported to be dangers to themselves or others by obtaining a court order, but stated, “I like taking the guns early.” He further expressed openness to “take the guns first, go through due process second.”
After Vice President Mike Pence referenced gun violence restraining orders, Trump stated, “Or, Mike, take the firearms first, and then go to court. Because that’s another system. Because a lot of times, by the time you go to court, it takes so long to go to court, to get the due process procedures. I like taking the guns early. Like, in this crazy man’s case that just took place in Florida, he had a lot of firearms — they saw everything. To go to court would have taken a long time. So, you could do exactly what you’re saying, but take the guns first, go through due process second.”
Trump talked tough at CPAC but now sells out We The People.
President Donald Trump embraced Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) gun control bill but rejected Rep. Steve Scalise’s (R-LA) push for national reciprocity during a bipartisan meeting with lawmakers Wednesday afternoon.
After listening to Sen Chris Murphy (D-CT), Trump looked at toward the end of the table and asked Sens. Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) to detail their gun control bill.
The Manchin/Toomey gun control bill is the same universal background check legislation supported by Barack Obama in the wake of the heinous attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School. It the very bill that was defeated in the Democrat-controlled Senate on April 17, 2013.
Toomey described it for Trump, saying the bill “strengthens the reporting of information into the background check system” and “requires background checks on all commercial sales.” This is code-talk for requiring background checks on private gun sales, which Toomey described as sales at gun shows and online (even though online sales already require a background check).
Manchin then spoke and suggested that West Virginians will support the Manchin/Toomey gun control bill if Trump will support it. He did not mention that the Manchin/Toomey bill would not have prevented the Florida attack — just as it would not have prevented the Sandy Hook attack that spawned it.
Trump spoke of the using the Manchin/Toomey bill “as a base” to which other gun bills can be added, and then continued taking comments from various senators and representatives in attendance.
When it was Rep. Scalise’s time to speak, he highlighted the crime-fighting value of concealed carriers and the need to pass national reciprocity legislation. National reciprocity was introduced in the House on January 3, 2017, and passed in the House on December 6, 2017. It was introduced in the Senate on March 1, 2017, and it has yet to come up for a vote nor has Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said a word in support of it.
Trump shut down Scalise’s reciprocity push, suggesting the gun control package being pieced together would never pass if national reciprocity were added to it.
Trump looked at Scalise and said, “You know I’m your biggest fan in the whole world. I think that maybe that bill will someday pass, but it should pass as a separate bill. … You’ll never get this passed. If you add concealed carry to this, you’ll never get it passed. Let it be a separate bill.”
She is from the bird family. Please see the picture below.
This is what Barbra Streisand said to Trump.
Yep this is what Barbra Streisand evolved from.
Actress and singer Barbra Streisand took her criticism of President Donald Trump to a new level in an interview with Variety, in which she says Trump shares the blame for the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
“I think even that shooter was affected because Trump brings out the violence in people,” Streisand says, of the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, earlier this month that saw Nikalos Cruz kill 17 people with a legally purchased AR-15 rifle.
“He says, ‘It’s OK — rally, lock her up,’” Streisand told Variety of then-candidate Trump and a refrain he chanted about then-candidate Hillary Clinton at campaign rallies.
The two-time Academy Award-winner also praised the students campaigning for more gun control laws in the wake of the Florida shooting.
“I’m so proud of the children who are coming out and talking about sensible gun control,” she said. “That to me, the children, are our future. The children are going to make this happen. I believe that.”
Indeed, Barbra Streisand has long-criticized President Trump. She wrote a Huffington Post article last July, entitled “The Fake President,” in which she writes, “There’s a narcissistic fraud in the White House.”
The 74-year-old, who was a vocal supporter of Clinton, has also blamed President Trump for her weight gain.
“Donald Trump is making me gain weight,” Streisand wrote on Twitter. “I start the day with liquids, but after the morning news, I eat pancakes smothered in maple syrup!”
She is such a dumb “NIE”. Arming the teachers makes them less safe. What a freaking genius.
On February 26, MSNBC Terror Analyst Malcolm Nance suggested that teachers are not ready to carry guns and that they would most likely be shot as police entered a building in the case of an attack.
Nance made these suggestions while being questioned by host Stephanie Ruhle.
Ruhle asked Nance what armed teachers would face. He responded by talking about military and police training, then shifted to teachers, saying, “It’s not like the movies. The movies have nothing to do with reality. You are putting yourself where you could be killed.”
Ruhle then asked what it would be like if an attacker brought an AR-15 and all the teacher had was a handgun.
Nance responded:
That’s really a matter of understanding and training. We have a lot of people who are going on what they think they see in the movies. If you’ve got a handgun and that’s all the tool you have, you have to be extremely well-trained to go out and engage someone who has a fully automatic or semiautomatic weapon … and to be quit honest, depending on the distance that you’re away, civilians don’t understand [that] in close quarters the first thing you are going to have to experience is the explosive sound of the weapon going off, not yours but the shooters.
He went on to say that it is only after all these first obstacles that a teacher will actually get into a gun fight.
Missing from Nance’s assessment is any acknowledgment that teachers are already hearing the sound of the attacker’s gun, but they are doing it in an unarmed, defenseless posture. In other words, they are hearing it while trying to hold the door closed, while hiding under the desk at the shooter’s feet, while throwing books and erasers at the attacker, or while selflessly charging him as did Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung.
Right now, they are hearing the “explosive sound” of the gun and then dying, being injured, or psychologically traumatized. Why not let them hear it while they are holding a gun and at least have a fighting chance?
Nance continued by claiming arming teachers is a “ludicrous idea.” He said it is “the worst idea” he has ever heard. He said that when SWAT enters a school building after a 911 shooting call, they are checking hands and they are going to shoot if they see a handgun in a teacher’s hand.
He did not mention that schools know which teachers are and are not armed, and that information can be provided to SWAT teams beforehand. Moreover, he overlooked the fact that, in our current scenario, SWAT teams that come into rooms where mass shooters have been are often stepping over a teacher’s body: the body of a teacher that had no means of self-defense.
It should be noted that President Donald Trump is not just calling for armed teachers, but for teachers who undergo training to carry and use a gun in reaction to an attack on a school. Such training can be extremely intense, as with the FASTER program that prepares armed teachers in what must be done should a horrific attack occur.
MSNBC: Teachers Not Ready to Carry Guns, Would Just Get Shot by Police
