What You May Not Know About Your Right to Protest

I decided to write this after hearing Harold Ford Jr. talk about the pro-Palestinian demonstrators who blocked the Manhattan Bridge amid holiday travel for hours.  He said they had a right to protest as long as they were peaceful.  I have heard this many times before but did you know that just because a protest is peaceful it does not mean it is legal and is a protected right?

The following is from the Oregon ACLU written to help protesters so they know their rights:

“Generally, you have the right to distribute literature, hold signs, collect petition signatures, and engage in other similar activities while on public sidewalks or in front of government buildings as long as you are not disrupting other people, forcing passerby to accept leaflets or causing traffic problems.”

The ACLU goes on to say “The First Amendment does not protect speech that is combined with the violation of established laws such as trespassing, disobeying or interfering with a lawful order by a police officer.”

This notice also says that you do not have the right to remain on private property, including businesses, after being told to leave by the owner.

Your right to protest is very limited.  Remember this next time someone defends protestors who break the law.

First the Sunday People, then the Saturday People

"First the Saturday People, then the Sunday People" is a phrase attributed to the Arab world in the past.  It means that the Jews (the Saturday people) and then Christians (the Sunday people) were to be targeted as victims of jihad.

I thought of this phrase when I heard that Jews were rightly coming out against colleges and read the opinion piece in the NY Times called “What Is Happening on College Campuses Is Not Free Speech”.  It was written by three students at Yale, Cornell, and Brown.

These three wrote the following:

“All students have sacred rights to hold events, teach-ins and protests. And university faculty members must present arguments that make students uncomfortable. University campuses are unique hubs of intellectual discovery and debate, designed to teach students how to act within a free society. But free inquiry is not possible in an environment of intimidation. Harassment and intimidation fly in the face of the purpose of a university… Simply affirming that taunts and intimidation have no place on campus isn’t enough. Professors violating these rules should be disciplined or dismissed. Student groups that incite or justify violence should not be given university funds to conduct activity on campus.”

This op-ed was written in response to the pro-Palestinian protests and antisemitism at American universities.  It is indicative of the feelings of many American Jews and I agree with them whole-heartedly.  That said, I wonder what took them so long.

Did they write this article when conservatives were attacked and assaulted at universities? Did they write this article when U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan attempted to speak at a Stanford event and was shouted down by protestors? Did they write this article when former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines was barricaded in a room at San Francisco State University for nearly 3 hours after she was physically assaulted following a speech to students about saving women's sports?

In the case of universities, they came for the Sunday people first (in this case conservatives) and the Saturday people said nothing.  Now they are coming for the Saturday people.  Hopefully, the actions being taken now will ensure that all forms of discrimination at universities are eliminated going forward.

My Take on the Ryder Cup

Seems like the last time the Americans won in Europe was in WWII.

If it Walks Like a Bribe....

Can you bribe a government official by giving money to their family? Let’s look at the policy for accepting gifts to see how the government’s General Services Agency (GSA) answers that question. The following is from the GSA’s training website https://training.smartpay.gsa.gov/rules-about-gifts:

Accepting Gifts

A gift is considered to be anything of monetary value. Examples include gratuities, favors, discounts, entertainment, hospitality, loan, forbearance (forgiveness of a loan), services, training, transportation, travel, meals, lodging, etc.

An employee shall not, directly or indirectly, solicit or accept a gift from a prohibited source or a gift that is offered because of the employee's official position.

·         Direct acceptance means you, the account holder, accept the gift.

·         Indirect acceptance means that someone gives a gift, with your knowledge and acquiescence, to your spouse or child, a sibling or other dependent relative because of that person's relationship to you. A gift could also be indirectly given to a charitable organization, at your recommendation or designation.

Let’s stop pretending that we need to prove Joe Biden took money directly from Hunter’s shady business dealings to prove Joe accepted bribes. 

The Rank-and-File

I am tired of hearing about how leadership of our intelligence agencies are corrupt but how the rank-and-file agents are above reproach.

The FBI and CIA were established to protect the United States of America.  Any lower-level agent that covers for a compromised administration is not doing their job and should be fired and their pensions eliminated.

If I were Chairman Comer, I would make the following statement: A compromised president is a danger to the U.S.  Any agent that our investigation finds has covered for this administration will be fired.  If you have performed responsibly, you have our respect and will be protected.  If you have been part of, or complicit with, any illegal activity and do not come forward to this committee privately or openly, you will be held accountable.  

The Oversight Scam

Congress has oversight of the executive branch to ensure a balance of power but the executive branch uses multiple ploys to avoid accountability.  Here are three things that Congress should change to have true oversight:

1. Select members of Congress should be privy to on-going investigations.  How many times have you heard members of the Justice department say that they couldn’t answer a question from Congress because there is an open investigation? Investigations can be opened or kept open to exploit this.  If certain members of Congress have access to our country’s most important secrets, why can’t they have access to information related to an open investigation.

2. Select members of Congress should be allowed to know details of intelligence agencies’ operations. How many times have you heard members of the FBI or CIA say that they couldn’t answer a question from Congress because it would reveal sources and methods?

3. Select members of Congress should have access to unredacted documents from the executive branch.  Too often they redact information for nefarious reasons or simply because it is embarrassing to a department.

Until these things are changed congressional oversight is a scam.

Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government

There is a subcommittee to determine if the Federal Government, including the intelligence agencies, has been weaponized?  I assume weaponization means that they would go after people they don’t like.  Well, I think Senator Schumer has already weighed in on the topic when he said “you go after the intelligence community they have six ways from Sunday to get back at you so … (it’s) really dumb to do (this).” See for yourself:

                               

Check out a related post here.

Before and After

Being president of the United States is a tough job.  Presidents age visibly while in office.  Here are examples of before and after pictures of presidents who served two terms in office.

Here is what Biden will look like if he serves two terms as president.

Start Out as You Mean to Go

Juveniles are out of control across our country.  They are organizing on social media and making life impossible for law abiding citizens and business owners. The reason is simple.  Juveniles are not treated like adults when it comes to sentencing. And criminal records are often sealed when they turn 18.

So, not only do kids know they can get away with committing crimes, gangs know it as well. They recruit kids to do their dirty work because they know they will be back out on the street even if they get caught.  These kids grow up for years committing crimes and working for gangs and getting away with it.  What makes anyone think that they will magically stop their criminal behavior when they become 18 and are considered an adult? Why do we not charge these kids as adults and hopefully stop them early before they start their life of crime?

And yes, this will have a disparate effect on minorities.  Get over it.

Put Up or Shut Up

Jose Alba, the New York City bodega worker who stabbed an assailant in self-defense, just testified before a congressional committee. He lost me when he started his statement by saying that he is not supporting Republicans nor blaming Democrats.

If you vote for Democrats you should not be allowed to complain about the following:

Crime

Inflation (including high gas prices)

Ineffective schools and colleges

Men in women’s sports

Violent Protests (including the January 6^th protests)

The mess at the border

Onerous covid related restrictions

I’m tired of people complaining about these issues and then turning around and voting for democrats who are clearly perpetuating these issues.

Leftists Don’t Want to Fix Issues, They Want to Use Issues to get Elected.

Conservatives are giving Al Sharpton credit for saying that progressives need to get tough on crime.   The difference between conservatives who want to get tough on crime and progressives is that conservatives want to stop people from getting killed and/or molested.  Progressives want to start getting tough on crime because they think that high crime rates in progressive cities are hurting their chances of getting elected.

Abortion is another example.  Democrats had the Whitehouse and both houses of congress and could have passed a law making abortion legal across the country but then they couldn’t run on the issue.  Without abortion as an issue to get liberals out to the polls democrats are doomed.

The war on poverty is another issue leftists don’t want to solve.  They need to be able to promise to give people “free” things in name of fighting poverty in order to bribe them for their votes.

Fighting racism is another example.  They need to make everything about race, even promoting fake hate crimes, to keep getting a majority of the black vote.

One more example is global warming.  Leftists claim that global warming will destroy the planet killing billions of people around the globe but are against clean nuclear energy.  Whatever issues they might have with nuclear energy it has to be better than killing billions of people.  Their position only makes sense if they are not really serious about global warming.

This is not an exhaustive list.  Add your examples in the comment section.

Republicans Should Have a Conversation with Democrats about Gun Control – Under One Condition

Republicans should agree to work with Democrats on gun control under one condition; Democrats get tough on people that use a gun during the conduct of a crime or own an illegal gun.

Republicans should refuse to address any efforts to make buying guns legally more difficult until Democrats crack down on people that use guns illegally. A five-year minimum sentence for discharging a gun during the conduct of a crime is a good start.  A lesser minimum sentence should be imposed for brandishing a weapon during the conduct of a crime. Just being caught with an illegal gun should result in jail time.

Also, people that knowingly lie on a gun application should face jail time as well. That means you, Hunter.

“Progressive” Conservatism

 I wrote this in March of 2022 and decided to post it now due to the recent events associated with the election of the new Speaker of the House:

It is time to get serious about reducing the size of the federal government and return to the limited federal power over our lives that our founding fathers envisioned.  To that end I recommend the following “progressive” conservative ideas:

1.       Reduce the power of the federal government over the use of federal land and reduce federal deficits by selling back federal lands to the states. Today the federal government owns and manages roughly 640 million acres of land in the United States, or roughly 28% of the 2.27 billion total land acres.

2.       Codify a more limited definition of “interstate commerce” to reduce the use and abuse of federal power using the regulation of interstate commerce as the pretext. 

3.       Pass a law to clarify that a child born to an illegal immigrant living in the U.S. does not become a U.S. citizen.  Since there was no such thing as an illegal immigrant at the time of the writing of the 14^th amendment, it is possible to argue that such a child is not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S.  Pursue a constitutional amendment if necessary.

4.       Eliminate Omnibus appropriation bills.   Omnibus appropriation bills combine the proposed budgets from the 15 federal departments into one bill which gets a single up or down vote.  Each department should be required to submit budgets and each department’s budget should be voted on individually.  This would not only make each department more accountable; it   would also reduce the need to shut down the entire government when there are budget disputes in congress.

5.       Baseline budgeting should be eliminated.  Federal baseline budgeting assumes a department’s spending will increase every year.  That increase is added to the prior year’s budget to create a new funding baseline.  This baseline increase includes automatic adjustments for inflation and anticipated increases in program participation.  This means the size of the government grows every year without any action required by the congress.  With the current rates of inflation, this is particularly egregious.  Citizens have to deal with the effects of inflation on our budgets when the government just gets more money that then becomes the baseline for future budgets.

6.       Pass a “Clean Bill” law restricting the ability of congressman from adding items to a bill unrelated to the subject of the bill. 

It is time for conservatives to get “progressive”.