The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Second Amendment does not provide protection for what it deemed assault weapons, nor does it protect any magazine larger than 10 rounds.
The post Federal Court Quietly Rules ‘Assault Rifles’ Not Protected by 2nd Amendment appeared first on The Free Thought Project.
by Rep. Raul Labrador 1-27-2018
It took too long, but our legal system delivered a blow for justice this month when a federal judge in Nevada dismissed charges against rancher Cliven Bundy, his two sons and a fourth man.
The government alleged they led an armed rebellion against the United States, charging them with conspiracy, extortion, using firearms in the commission of crimes, assault, threatening federal officers and other felonies.
But U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro dismissed the charges, citing “outrageous” misconduct by federal prosecutors that “violated due process rights.”
In an unusual step, Navarro read her order from the bench, taking a half-hour for a point-by-point account of government misconduct. At the heart of the outrage was the prosecution’s willful withholding of critical evidence that could have proven the defendants guiltless. Navarro said the prosecution committed an “intentional abdication of its responsibility.”
To ensure fairness in our justice system, the government is required to disclose exculpatory evidence that may be helpful to the defense. That prosecutors ignored this bedrock principle is abhorrent.
Among the evidence that might have helped the defense were records of government surveillance at the Bundy ranch, information about the presence of government snipers, FBI logs about activity at the ranch in the days before the 2014 standoff, and law enforcement assessments saying the Bundys posed no threat of violence.
Rather than disclose that evidence as required by law, the prosecution taunted the defense for seeking the BLM’s internal affairs report, calling it a “bright shiny object…that did not exist.” Navarro noted that prosecutors had willfully mocked the defense for making a basic request to ensure fairness and justice.
I’ve been so troubled by the prosecutions that in September I contacted Attorney General Jeff Sessions. I both wrote and spoke to Sessions, urging him to review a letter signed by 53 current and former members of the Idaho Legislature. The legislators had expressed serious concerns about the treatment of four Idahoans facing trial in connection with the standoff, including Ammon Bundy, who was among those covered by Judge Navarro’s dismissal.
“There is a strong possibility that a miscarriage of justice is being committed,” I wrote, asking Sessions to ensure that defendants be treated fairly. In December, Sessions opened an inquiry into the prosecutors’ actions. I welcome that investigation.
Congress will also hold the BLM accountable. I am a member of the House Natural Resources Committee, which has asked the BLM director to address the Bundy case and to how to restore trust in the agency’s ability to effectively enforce the law on federal land. In Idaho, the BLM manages about 22 percent of the land. It’s vital that Idahoans working and recreating on those lands have confidence that they are treated fairly.
We must learn from this horrible example of bad faith and take steps to ensure that such misconduct isn’t repeated. And we must never shy from the principle that civil liberties are absolutely fundamental to our constitutional form of government.
The post Prosecutorial Abuse Must Never Be Tolerated appeared first on Oath Keepers.
A judge has warned that he will limit the "graphic, sexual questions" in a case against convicted sex offender and child predator Jeffrey Epstein.
With NAFTA negotiations going badly, Goldman Sachs has published a report, “Thoughts on the Potential US Withdrawal from NAFTA”, that concludes that the US is likely to withdraw from the trade agreement next year “At this point, efforts at revising the agreement look likely to be unsuccessful, though a deal is still possible, in our view. If the talks do not result in a revised agreement by early 2018, we believe that the Trump Administration could announce its intent to withdraw from NAFTA.” The NAFTA agreement calls for a six-month notice period before a nation can withdraw and “we believe it would follow a similar pattern to the strategy the White House has used in recent decisions on immigration (the DACA program), Iran, and health subsidies. Each involved a disruption to the status quo pursuant to a campaign pledge, with delayed implementation and an expectation that a new arrangement might be negotiated in the interim.”
Trump has threatened to pull out of the pact several times if “America First” demands are not met. Following an unsuccessful fourth round of discussions, the parties have accepted that end 2017 timeframe for reaching agreement will no longer be achieved and talks will extend into Q1 2018.
According to Goldman, major sticking points in the talks are:
5-year sunset: The US has proposed that NAFTA would be terminated after 5 years unless all three parties agree to keep it in force. As a practical matter, this would result in a prescheduled renegotiation every ?ve years and increase uncertainty while the agreement is in effect, decreasing the bene?ts of the agreement on investment and cross-border trade ?ows.
Chapter 19: NAFTA allows member countries to settle anti-dumping and countervailing duty disputes through binational arbitration, which has been a priority for Canada in particular. The US has called for Chapter 19 to be non-binding.
Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS): The US has called for the ISDS program to exist on an opt-in basis. ISDS allows companies to seek recourse against policy changes in NAFTA countries that infringe on property rights, such as expropriation of assets.
Government procurement: The Trump Administration is seeking “dollar for dollar government procurement, which would mean that Mexican or Canadian companies could bid on US government contracts equal only to the amount of Mexican or Canadian contracts open to US companies. This would reduce the amount of US government contracts open to NAFTA partners to a fraction of the current amount.
Rules of origin: NAFTA currently requires auto imports to include at least 62.5%n regional content, i.e., parts from NAFTA countries. The Trump Administration has proposed raising this threshold to 85%, and requiring 50% US content. These levels seem unattainable, in our view, since the US applies only a 2.5% tariff on cars imported from outside NAFTA, and with such high content requirements auto companies would be better off paying the tariff instead.
While Goldman acknowledges that some of the demands might be merely part of a negotiating strategy, it cautions that some of them are of a binary nature, with little room for compromise versus the current agreement.
It sees three reasons for expecting the talks to fail:
First, the recent proposals suggest that the Trump Administration is not concerned about the possibility of a failure to revise the agreement.
Second, an announcement to withdraw from NAFTA would be in keeping with the strategy the White House has recently followed on other issues. The Administration’s recent decisions regarding the Iran agreement, the DACA program, and ACA subsidies have followed the same pattern: The White House has announced that it will end the status quo, against expectations, but that it will allow for an interim period where a new arrangement could be negotiated. In these examples, the White House has left Congress with the responsibility for establishing a replacement.
Third, it is far from clear that there would be suf?cient support in Congress to pass a revised NAFTA agreement at this point. We believe most trade-skeptic lawmakers might not want to be associated with even a revised version of the agreement, and most pro-trade lawmakers might prefer the status quo, although they might be more supportive of a revised agreement if the US has already announced a withdrawal from NAFTA.
On that basis, it expects the White House to give notice of US withdrawal.
Meanwhile, the risk of a US withdrawal is galvanising efforts by Congress and the business sector to thwart Trump if he does, indeed, serve notice. A legal challenge is thought to be certain from both sides of the House and the auto industry. As the WSJ notes “Congressional trade lawyers and attorneys from private firms in Washington have begun meeting informally to come up with ways to challenge any decision by President Donald Trump to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement.”
While contingency planning is in its early stages, the WSJ acknowledges that it has thrown up a critical question“ How much authority does the president actually have to scuttle an existing trade agreement? ‘This is sort of uncharted territory where no one really knows,’ said Warren Maruyama, a former trade official in the Reagan and two Bush administrations…Mr. Maruyama agreed that the president probably has the power to cancel or gut Nafta, but he expects challenges—with a chance of success—if Mr. Trump attempts to kill the deal unilaterally. “There are people who are desperately scouring [key provisions of trade law] on Capitol Hill and law firms and at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce right now to try to create some kind of argument that Trump can’t do this,” said Mr. Maruyama, now partner at Hogan Lovells LLP in Washington.”
The potential avenues for challenging a withdrawal appear to be twofold, either on the basis that it is unconstitutional, or that a President can’t reverse laws which were passed by Congress with regard to its implementation. Should Trump serve notice, any parties, such as lawmakers or businesses, with standing could seek an injunction in a Federal court. If that fails, the WSJ reports that Congress could still take further measures to exercise leverage over the White House “The Congressional Research Service said in a 2016 report that a final notice of withdrawal from the president ‘appears sufficient’ to release the U.S. from its international obligations under Nafta, but that Congress might wield a variety of powers to dissuade a president from canceling the deal, including through its control over the budget. Congress in theory could also pass a law reinstating Nafta or a similar agreement, but lawmakers are divided on the issue and unlikely to advance legislation protecting a trade agreement, especially if they don’t have a veto-proof majority.
For a moment, let’s assume that the US leaves NAFTA, what would it mean in economic terms?
Goldman explains that besides short-term uncertainty if the US does withdraw from NAFTA, Goldman predicts that the economic fallout will likely be relatively modest.
“A NAFTA withdrawal announcement would create near-term uncertainty but would likely have relatively modest economic effects, as the US-Canada trade would be likely to be covered under a prior free trade agreement, and exports to Mexico constitute only 1.2% of GDP. Most estimates of the trade gains from NAFTA suggest that it raised the level of US GDP by less than 0.2%, and some of these gains might have occurred anyway as Mexico has substantially lowered tariffs for non-NAFTA countries since the deal was implemented. That said, tariffs would rise, non-tariff barriers would increase, and some industries could face more substantial disruption. The auto sector would be most affected, as tariffs on some vehicles are still quite high outside of trade agreements and supply chains have been integrated across borders. Agricultural trade, while not as large, would face important constraints given high protective tariffs on certain products.”
Billionaire globalist and altogether controversial figure, George Soros, is now the subject of a $10 billion lawsuit accusing him of being a “racketeer billionaire” for meddling in the affairs of a sovereign African nation — purely for personal reasons — in what critics say typifies his modus operandi.
For those who skimmed that first sentence, yes, that’s Billion — with an emphatic capital “B.”
FOX News reports the 86-year-old financier and manager of a global network of nonprofits will be forced by BSG Resources’ lawsuit to answer for manipulating the politics and economics of Guinea for his own benefit.
“Soros was motivated solely by malice,” BSGR states in the suit, “as there was no economic interest he had in Guinea.”
Despite Soros’ often contentious dealings and reputation as a pompous busybody, last month’s filing in New York Federal Court has thus far largely escaped the spotlight.
“Companies controlled by Israeli mining magnate Beny Steinmetz sued fellow billionaire George Soros, claiming he cost them at least $10 billion through a defamation campaign that stripped them of rights to an iron ore deposit in Guinea and other business opportunities around the world,” Bloomberg reported.
“Soros funded law firms, transparency groups, investigators and government officials in Guinea in a coordinated effort to ensure BSG Resources Ltd. lost the rights to the Simandou deposit in April 2014, BSGR said in a complaint filed [April 14] in Manhattan federal court.”
Interestingly, as opposed to innumerable civilians directly affected by Soros’ notoriously shady string-pulling, the lawsuit originates with the billionaire’s peers — who claim his monied influence bilked them of at least as many billions as claimed.
“To Soros, Steinmetz’s success, as well as his active, passionate promotion of Israeli life, business and culture are anathema,” the lawsuit states. “Soros is also well known for his long-standing animus toward the state of Israel.”
Steinmetz was arrested in December 2016 over allegations he and BSGR forked over millions in bribes to government officials for mining rights on Simandou — but those charges had been based on “fabricated reports by Soros-funded companies,” BSGR explains in its suit.
Bloomberg notes Mamadie Toure, the fourth wife of the former president of Guinea, “who implicated BSGR and Steinmetz, received $50,000 from an adviser to President Alpha Conde and $80,000 from an ‘agent or affiliate of Soros,’ according to the complaint.”
States the lawsuit, “Soros’s financial clout gave him power over Guinea’s processes of government, which he then thoroughly abused” — and only as a matter of enmity, since the obscenely wealthy globalist stood to gain nothing economically in the Western African nation.
Iron ore from the untapped Simandou is thought to be of the highest grade in the industry, with reserves estimated to comprise over two billion tons — making this legal brawl among tycoons a matter of grave financial consequence — at least, to those other than Soros.
Years of allegations and accusations of underhanded business affairs between BSGR and Soros had not led the company to take direct action until now. In its complaint, “BSGR alleges that Soros was driven by a grudge dating back to 1998 around a business in Russia and his alleged hostility towards Israel.”
Indeed, accusations the Hungarian-American regularly disguises shady political maneuvers as humanitarian in nature — when the contrary tends to be true.
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Among many other entities, Soros’ Open Society Foundations — an umbrella over multiple ostensively beneficial organizations — has long been suspected of funding and training political movements toward ends favorable to the globalist.
Even officials from his homeland of Hungary affirm this, as top education official, Minister of Human Capacities Zoltan Balog, asserting recently, as quoted by FOX,
“We are committed to use all legal means at our disposal to stop pseudo-civil society spy groups such as the ones funded by George Soros.”
Soros reaches deep into personal financial reserves during U.S. elections, often spending ample funds for desirable candidates in every level, from District Attorneys to presidential hopefuls — and frequently bequeaths millions to contenders on both sides of the aisle.
In fact, Soros’ undeniable influence over American politics will be central to BSGR’s case against him, as the suit claims sway over the U.S. Department of Justice after it sided with the billionaire on the bribery issue.
J. Christian Adams, former Obama-era DOJ attorney, told FOX the system had been ‘at Soros’ beck and call,’ noting he had been instrumental in reforming police procedures and in bringing about changes to voter ID laws. Adams told the outlet,
“Soros’ organizations in the U.S. were instrumental in shaping DOJ policy under the Obama administration.
“Americans do not understand the extent to which Soros fuels this anti-constitutional, anti-American agenda.”
A spokesperson for Soros told FOX the lawsuit is a diversionary tactic for the company, as BSGR only wishes to deflect from its own wrongdoing.
Whatever the ultimate outcome of the BSGR lawsuit, it’s clear the planet can no longer stomach the parlor game attitude Soros effects when meddling in the affairs of sovereign nations, entities, and individuals.
In the Age of Information, and with the wealth of information available online, bottomless pockets like Soros’ can no longer pull puppet strings without someone, somewhere taking notice — and moving to sever the ties for good.
Following angry tweets all day from President Trump, the U.S. Justice Department filed notice Saturday evening of a formal appeal of a Seattle judge’s temporary restraining order which put the administration"s immigration order on hold.
Ironically, the appeal hit just minutes after Trump tweeted...
Why aren"t the lawyers looking at and using the Federal Court decision in Boston, which is at conflict with ridiculous lift ban decision?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 4, 2017
The appeal made official what the Trump White House had promised on Friday night.
As AJC reports, the official notice of appeal was a barebones legal document filed by the Trump Administration.
PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that the defendants Donald Trump, in his official capacity as President of the United States; United States Department of Homeland Security; John F. Kelly, in his official capacity as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; Rex W. Tillerson, in his official capacity as Secretary of State; and the United States of America hereby appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit from the February 3, 2017 Order (ECF No. 52) enjoining and restraining enforcement of portions of the January 27, 2017 Executive Order on Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.
This legal fight will now shift to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals – an appellate court with a long legal history that shades to the liberal side.
