With student test scores plummeting further every year, is cursive writing really that important? Absolutely!

Irrespective of how it comes down in this case, the federal government’s position combined with the clear-cut support from the court’s three left-most judges speaks to the extent to which free speech is in deep trouble in this country.

What follows are some of the most critical, and often disturbing, takeaways from oral arguments.

1. Feds Are Appalled at the Probing of Their Speech Policing

2. Feds Believe Their Censorship Is Legitimate So Long as it Doesn’t Strong-Arm Anyone

3. Feds Framed Their Censorship as a Right to Speak

4. The Feds Want SCOTUS to Bless Their Speech Policing During the Election

5. Public Health Emergencies Justify Censorship, Feds Argue

6. Justice Jackson Revealed Her Radical Anti-Speech Position

7. Justice Kavanaugh Seems Likely to Cave

8. The Plaintiffs Backed Down Under Duress, and That’s Concerning for All of Us

If this view prevails, we will face an extinction-level event for the First Amendment, or at least what’s left of it.

Anya Bidwell, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, the organization representing Gonzalez claims the city arrested the former councilmember as retaliation for her constant criticism of the mayor and other officials.

“In America, we don’t arrest our critics," she said.

The arrest led to Gonzalez’s lawsuit against the city, which invoked qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that protects government officials from civil liability unless it is established that they violated a Constitutional right.

The Supreme Court’s eventual ruling on this case could reach far beyond Castle Hills. It could redefine the landscape of free speech and government accountability. Depending on how the court decides, it could become harder for government officials to use their positions to punish those who criticize them.

The problem for Goldman is that he's left arguing every single person around the Bidens was corrupt except Joe and Hunter Biden. That's not a narrative that washes. Upstanding people do not surround themselves with corrupt people, and the fact that the DOJ has chosen to prosecute numerous business associates of the Bidens is evidence of selective bias, not innocence on the part of the president and his son. //

On the contrary, the prosecution of Luft points to broader criminality among those who were leading the operation. That would be members of the Biden family, most notably Hunter Biden. Further, Goldman also has zero evidence to support the idea that Bobulinski was fired because he was corrupt but the Bidens weren't.

Elon Musk

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Crazy that Texas has to do the job of the Biden administration, which filed aggressive legal action to stop the state!

If anyone still doesn’t believe that ushering in illegals is the goal of the Biden administration, this should convince them.
End Wokeness
@EndWokeness
HUGE WIN.

The Supreme Court will now ALLOW the Texas National Guard to arrest & deport illegal aliens within the state of Texas.

A big blow to the Biden administration.
3:42 PM · Mar 19, 2024

Again, though, this says nothing about the merits of Fikre's claim (or the government's maintenance of such a list). It just says the government cannot render a case moot merely by undoing what it initially did without some reasonable demonstration that it won't turn right back around and do the same thing.

Warren, along with leftist Democrat Reps. Pramila Jayapal (WA) and Brendan F. Boyle (PA), have reintroduced the Ultra-Millionaire Tax, which would impose a wealth tax and captivity tax ("exit tax"), and would also allot $100 billion for increasing tax audits on the the wealthy.

As law professor, author, and political commentator Jonathan Turley called it in a Wednesday column, an "Eat the Rich" plan. As you might imagine, Turley isn't a fan of a wealth tax — and that's just the beginning.

The wealth tax is back. We have previously discussed the constitutional and policy concerns surrounding the push by Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) to introduce a wealth tax that would start with billionaires. It would not likely end there. //

It is worth noting that the top 1 percent’s income share rose from 22.2 percent in 2020 to 26.3 percent in 2021 and its share of federal income taxes paid rose from 42.3 percent to 45.8 percent.” The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.7 percent federal income taxes,. The bottom 50 percent paid the only 2.3 percent.

Even more stark, in 2021, the bottom half of taxpayers earned 10.4 percent of total adjusted gross income and paid 2.3 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the top 1 percent earned 26.3 percent of total AGI and paid 45.8 percent of all federal income taxes.

Education, innovation, and collaboration to keep rural water sources safe & flowing for good.

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Fascinating analysis of the use of drones on a modern battlefield—that is, Ukraine—and the inability of the US Air Force to react to this change.

The United States Marine Corps’ Operational Test and Evaluation Squadron One (VMX-1) spends most of its time trialing and evaluating new hardware, weapons, and software updates for Marine aircraft. In between all of those testing events, leaders at the squadron came up with an organic effort to bring in all of their assets for an ongoing test event with a heavy focus on Expeditionary Air Basing Operations (EABO) which is a major initiative that could prove essential to winning a war in the Pacific.

The unidentified drones were such an issue that assets were called in from around the government, including a NASA WB-57 high-altitude jet.

byJoseph Trevithick, Tyler Rogoway| PUBLISHED Mar 15, 2024

Langley Air Force Base, located in one of the most strategic areas of the country, across the Chesapeake Bay from the sprawling Naval Station Norfolk and the open Atlantic, was at the epicenter of waves of mysterious drone incursions that occurred throughout December.

This is a full posting of the short story by Arthur C. Clarke. It is titled “Superiority”. “Superiority” is a science fiction short story by Arthur C. Clarke, first published in 1951. It depicts an arms race, and shows how the side which is more technologically advanced can be defeated, despite its apparent superiority, because of its own organizational flaws and its willingness to discard old technology without having fully perfected the new.

Let’s not pretend this is about countering communist China or protecting Americans. It’s about using CCP tactics here at home. //

Namely, the push to “ban” TikTok is a thinly veiled scheme to force ByteDance to sell to a U.S. company. The purpose of forcing a sale should be obvious. If a U.S. firm owns TikTok, the federal censorship industrial complex can use the platform as it has used virtually every other social media company: to spy on and manipulate American citizens. //

The suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was banned from Twitter, Facebook, and most other social media platforms almost as soon as it was reported, was only possible because of the leverage that federal intelligence agencies had over these social media companies.

Over the past year, we’ve learned more and more about the depth and breadth of collusion between Big Tech and the federal government, which views social media companies as proxies that enable it to censor and manipulate American citizens. Anything that cuts against the deep state’s preferred narrative is labeled as “misinformation” that must be suppressed, censored, or banned. Instead of doing this directly, the intelligence community dragoons social media companies into carrying out these tasks, and the effect is the quashing of free speech online.

Make no mistake, this is the goal of the movement to “ban” TikTok. How else to explain the effort to force a TikTok sale? If the goal was really to ban TikTok (because the CCP uses it to collect data on American citizens, or because it’s harmful to its users’ mental health, or both) then Congress would have simply passed a bill that banned the app from stores and web-hosting services in the United States. It could have been a straightforward, one-page bill.

U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman ruled on March 8 that a federal law prohibiting illegal immigrants from owning guns is unconstitutional, arguing the law did not adhere to the Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen that stipulated gun control laws must fit historical tradition. //

But someone who broke the laws of the land and is illegally residing here is not entitled to the same rights that the Constitution secures for U.S. citizens. Foreign citizens instead must have their rights secured by their own governments.

The Second Amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The Supreme Court ruled in D.C. v. Heller that “the people” refers to “all members of the political community.” Foreign citizens are by definition members of a different political community. Writing for the majority, the late Justice Antonin Scalia wrote. “the people” “refers to a class of persons who are part of a national community or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection with this country to be considered part of that community.” //

The topic was also argued more than a decade ago in a different case, with a panel of the Fourth Circuit ruling in U.S. v. Carpio-Leon that “illegal aliens are not law-abiding members of the political community and aliens who have entered the United States unlawfully have no more rights under the Second Amendment than do aliens outside of the United States seeking admittance.”

And Democrats made it so. //

“To make Israel a partisan issue only hurts Israel and the US-Israeli relationship,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer had the temerity to say only days after demanding the Jewish state’s duly elected government be toppled.

Schumer was responding to Donald Trump’s hyperbolic contention that Jews who vote for Democrats “hate Israel” and their religion. And to be fair, Trump isn’t exactly right.

Democrats are more inclined to whine about AIPAC’s milquetoast press releases than they are to bring up the fact that Iranian assets are working in the Pentagon.

The only party clamoring to save Hamas right now is the Democrat Party. Biden claims he continues to “affirm that Israel has a right to go after Hamas” but also wants a ceasefire. Those positions are in direct conflict, as the president accidentally admitted in an interview last week. Hamas, Biden told MSNBC, wanted a ceasefire to “survive” and “rebuild.” A ceasefire now, when Israel is at the cusp of eliminating the terror group, is a pro-Hamas position. //

Unlike Obama, Biden is not driven by ideological motivations. He’s just a weak, feckless man devoid of any real principles. Privately, for instance, Biden allegedly told Netanyahu that he is not trying to oust him. Which, if true, means he is only doing so publicly to placate his pro-terror wing.

How is this not a partisan issue?

Records obtained by PILF showed Virginia elections officials filtered out ‘approximately 100,000 deceased’ individuals and about 68,000 people who no longer resided in Virginia. //

Calvin Coolidge, long before he was president, told his state senator father, “It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin must have been channelling old Silent Cal earlier this month when he vetoed Democrat-led bills that would have required the commonwealth to rejoin the leftist-linked Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). //

Virginia is among a growing number of states severing ties with ERIC. The multi-state voter roll maintenance partnership has been criticized for pushing expansive voter registration efforts, particularly a requirement that member states reach out to “eligible but unregistered” voters (EBUs) from lists compiled by ERIC.

ERIC “expanded beyond that of its initial intent – to improve the accuracy of voter rolls,” Elections Commissioner Susan Beals wrote upon Virginia’s break with the group.

Consider uranium: the underrated element of awe //

Back to energy density: uranium metal really packs a punch. It is 1.67 times more dense than lead, and 1 kilogram of uranium-235 contains 2 to 3 million times the energy equivalent of 1 kg of oil or coal. This means that a relatively small quantity of nuclear fuel can produce significant amounts of energy through fission. How does uranium compare to other fuels? Calculations vary a little, but through fission, 1 kg of enriched uranium corresponds to roughly 10,000 kg of mineral oil or 14,000 kg of coal. That’s a lot of raw material that can be left in the ground. //

A single nuclear fuel pellet in a typical reactor creates about the same amount of energy as one tonne of coal. //

nuclear energy stands its ground. It’s reliable and dependable, with the highest capacity factor of all energy sources, which means that power plants produce maximum power more than 92% of the time during the year. That’s almost twice as much as natural gas and coal and nearly three times more than wind and solar farms.

Since less raw material is needed to create the same amount of power, nuclear energy also has a very small land footprint compared to the alternatives. More land is required to mine the coal and dig the metals and minerals used in wind turbines and solar panels out of the ground, and for the sites they are built on, which makes it the most land-efficient source of energy. //

https://xkcd.com/1162/

So why is Ford back in the news? On the surface, it's to make money off her new memoir, but that only speaks to her motivation. The motivation of ABC News and other outlets to once again platform her is not some book that likely won't sell well. It's to ramp up attacks on the Supreme Court during an election year.

Members of the press and the Democratic Party are currently in the midst of a war against the nation's highest court, and the goal is to discredit it by any means necessary heading into November. The more anger is driven at the Supreme Court, the more the left feels it will benefit from voters who disapprove of recent decisions spanning abortion to gun rights. Marching Ford back into the spotlight is yet another way to act as if the current makeup of the court is illegitimate.

nuclear power

Bill Whittle’s newest season of ‘What We Saw’ on Daily Wire Plus dips its toe in the oceans of blood Russia’s Communist revolution released.

The true crime genre is not big enough for what Communists and socialists did in Russia in the 20th century. It demands a new genre — perhaps call it true horror.

Bill Whittle’s newest season of “What We Saw” on Daily Wire Plus dips its toe in the oceans of blood Russia’s Communist revolution released. It’s grisly and difficult to take in. Whittle attempts to quantify the myriad forms of mass killings by comparing their death tolls to the erasure of several U.S. cities, yet still the numbers are numbing.

What’s not numbing is the question he includes in the season’s trailer comparing the Nazi Holocaust with the Soviet mass murder of an estimated 20 million: “Why are we encouraged to never forget one, and then intentionally taught to forget the other?” //

While it’s difficult to probe such manifestations of supernatural evil, doing so should be required of every human being. That’s because we need to look at evils like these and attempt to understand how they happen and what they say about human nature and history. Such knowledge is a fortification against it happening again — creating, for example, common knowledge that evil and corrupt governments often baselessly accuse their opponents of terrorism.

Here are four other things one can learn from studying Soviet history, as horrifying as that exercise can be.

1. Misery Is Normal in Human History

It’s hard to believe that when you’re an American and all you’ve ever known is clean and hot water coming out of the tap at a turn. But it’s also important to keep in mind. For one thing, it produces appropriate gratitude. For another, it should discipline hasty desires to “tear it all down,” and cultivate contempt for people who use the same lying words and policies as Communists.

2. People Are Not Innately Good

A heck of a lot of people somehow believe that humans are innately good. //

Soviet Russia is a tire iron to the back of that idea’s head. There can be no excuses for what the Communists did. No amount of bad potty training or poverty can excuse the mass murder of 20 million people and the enslavement of countless tens of millions more in gulag concentration camps. //

3. Socialists, Nazis, and Communists All Make the Same Hell on Earth

The truth is, socialists, Nazis, and Communists engage in furious infighting, but they’re all ultimately on the same side. They fight with each other, not because they disagree about collectivism, but because they all want to be on top of the dogpile of bodies their sister collectivist ideologies cause. Communists are Nazis are socialists are communists.

Socialist true believers will seek their collectivist ends “by any means necessary,” including government-sponsored terror, killing fields, and concentration camps. Anyone who proclaims himself a socialist in the face of historical facts about the hell on Earth socialism has always produced is a fool and fellow traveler, if not a covert supporter of mass terror.

4. We’d Better Keep America From Full Socialism

Let’s be honest: The United States is already partly socialist. We’re a pension plan with an army, as Andy Biggs noted, and every few years some other collectivist program that ratchets up the socialism is increased or enhanced, like Obamacare.