Tag Archives: freedom

Dangerous Settlement

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Bob Updegrove, a Virginia-based photographer, has settled his case against the State of Virginia and its Virginia Values Act, which barred “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in housing, public and private employment, public accommodations, and access to credit. The Act includes denying folks their right to demur on the basis of their religious beliefs.

Citing the recent 303 Creative LLC v Elenis Supreme Court case, Updegrove’s case was ultimately dismissed by both parties in appeals court on the agreement that he would not be forced to take part in same-sex weddings.

Agreement. Settlements start out being dangerous, since they’re binding only on the parties to the litigation, and they depend on the agreeing parties adhering to their agreements. In the Updegrove case, the settlement does not prevent the State from enforcing its Act against other photographers, other graphic designers, or anyone else who objects to something based on their own religious beliefs.

Worse, it depends on Virginia’s AG, Jason Miyares’, word. Which he immediately exposed as questionable:

“As Attorney General, my highest duty is to the federal Constitution. I am pleased that with the settlement, the law is upheld at no cost to the taxpayers and Mr Updegrove’s First Amendment rights are preserved,” he added.
The attorney general, however, still maintains the authority to enforce the Virginia Values Act, including against Updegrove, based on conduct outside the complaint.

Updegrove’s First Amendment rights are not circumscribed by the bounds of this specific case. His rights extend throughout his life, yet Miyares has just committed to attempting to cut short those rights whenever he can find something outside this settlement on which to do so.

Better would have been to force the matter through the courts and get Virginia’s Act itself cut short on the basis of the Supreme’s 303 Creative LLC v Elenis ruling.

Private Citizens and Firearms Licensing in Israel

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Israel has some firearms licensing requirements that would greatly please the Leftists in our nation. The particular requirement of interest to me is this one:

Firearm licenses for private citizens in Israel are typically only granted to individuals who can prove a need for extra security in their line of work or daily life.

And those who do succeed in getting licenses are limited to 100 rounds of ammunition at any one time.

Israeli citizens live in a small nation surrounded by terrorists that routinely and frequently attack that nation, particularly targeting civilians and civilian gathering spots. That’s their need for extra security.

In the immediate aftermath of Hamas’ current butchery, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is relaxing the nation’s gun control laws. More permanent and broader reaching relaxation/easier access to firearms for the citizenry may be in the offing.

Such moves are late, but that’s better than never. If they actually happen.

It Doesn’t Get any Clearer than This

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The citizens of California want to have a State referendum on taxes, specifically a vote on the Taxpayer Protection and Government Accountability Act, in November 2024. The Act would limit the State government’s ability to raise taxes on those good citizens.

Progressive-Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom has joined John Burton, ex-State Progressive-Democratic Party Chairman, in an emergency(!) petition to the State’s Supreme Court to get the initiative removed from that election. The measure if passed, Newsom and Burton worry, would gut the administrative state and shift the longstanding balance of powers in California back toward the State’s legislative branch.

Gut the administrative state. Increase the power of the citizens’ more direct representatives in their House and Senate.

To hell with democracy, especially to hell with representative democracy.

…voters will be harmed if the Measure appears on the November 5, 2024 ballot….

The State Knows Better and must not be constrained by these…commoners.

As goes California’s State Progressive-Democratic Party, so goes the national Progressive-Democratic Party.

This is what’s on the national ballot—however sotto voce—in 2024.

Queen Michelle Lujan Grisham

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New Mexico Reina Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has said the quiet part out loud: the solemn word of a Progressive-Democratic Party politician is worthless.

Reina Grisham has taken it upon herself to completely suspend our Constitution’s 2nd Amendment, and with that, she is actively barring the open or concealed carry of firearms in her realm, even by New Mexico citizen-subjects who are duly licensed to do so.

What’s also—and possibly more broadly—dangerous is that Grisham’s suspension demonstrates her belief that her oath of office is not absolute. She can walk away from any part of it whenever that oath, or anything her oath binds her to and to do, becomes inconvenient to her and/or to her politics. Here she is as plain as can be (listen to the whole four minutes, or scroll ahead to about 2:25):

No constitutional right, in my view, including my oath, is intended to be absolute.

This is what the New Mexico constitution requires in the way of an oath of office. Article XX, Section 1:

Every person elected or appointed to any office shall, before entering upon his duties, take and subscribe to an oath or affirmation that he will support the constitution of the United States and the constitution and laws of this state, and that he will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of his office to the best of his ability.

She is required to support…the constitution and laws of this state. There is no caveat giving the governor of the State an out for whenever she doesn’t feel like keeping her oath. Further, that bit about faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of his office explicitly demands that the State’s constitution and laws be enforced fully; no part of either of them can be set aside whenever they become inconvenient to the governor.

With specific reference to our Federal Constitution’s 2nd Amendment, the New Mexico governor also is explicitly sworn to support the constitution of the United States, again without exception, caveat, or instance of inconvenience.

This is the degree of integrity of the members of the Progressive-Democratic Party. Grisham has made it explicit: Party member commitments, promises, even oaths of office are utterly worthless. They—each of them—will walk away from their promises the moment that promise becomes personally or politically inconvenient to them.

Oh, and one more thing. This is what Article IV, Section 36, of New Mexico’s constitution says about impeachable offenses:

All state officers and judges of the district court shall be liable to impeachment for crimes, misdemeanors and malfeasance in office….

Grisham’s conscious, deliberate violation of her oath of office is, very clearly, malfeasance in office, and so she is plainly impeachable and convictable for her violation. However, with strong Progressive-Democratic Party majorities in both houses of the New Mexico legislature, that will never happen.

This Will Be Instructive

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Of course, Israel’s newly enacted judicial reform bill, limited in reform as it is, will go before Israel’s Supreme Court; an initial hearing is set for September.

Israel’s Supreme Court said Wednesday that it would hear a petition challenging the constitutionality of a judicial overhaul law enacted earlier this week, setting up a possible showdown between the court and the government.
The court, however, didn’t issue an immediate injunction, as petitioners had requested.

It will be instructive to see the Court’s ruling and how anxious those Justices are to hang onto their power—political, especially, as well as judicial.