A Federal judge yesterday tossed out the Federal Government’s case against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy with prejudice; meaning the Feds don’t get another shot at putting him in prison. The reason the judge did this was because the Federal Prosecutors overzealously charged the Bundy’s, lied in their legal filings, and denied the Defense team access to potentially exculpatory evidence. Among other things, the prosecutors lied about how many armed (with military weapons and body armor) personnel the Feds sent to the ranch; they claimed it was only twenty, it was actually 197.

IOW, Cliven Bundy and his supporters claimed the Federal Government was corrupt and malevolent … and then the Department of Justice legal team proved them right.

What the Bundy case is really about is the Federal Government’s direct control of a third of the American landmass and more than half of the land in the big squared off states in the west. This is done in the arrogant belief — shared by Democrats and Republicans alike — that bureaucrats in a city on the east coast can better manage western lands than the people who live in those states. These people honestly believe that without thousands of DC bureaucrats holding them back, the people of Utah, Idaho, and the other western states would just turn Federal lands into giant toxic waste dumps where hillbillies on four-wheelers who fire 50-calibre assault weapons at jackalopes. There’s a pervasive belief in the political class that everyone in DC is wise and good and everyone between the coasts is a barbarian.

And then there’s this gem of a quote from a member of some George Soros funded environmental activist group.

Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center on Biological Diversity, blamed the Justice Department for bumbling the prosecution. “Federal prosecutors clearly bungled this case and let the Bundys get away with breaking the law,” said Mr. Suckling in a statement. “The Bundys rallied a militia to mount an armed insurrection against the government. The failure of this case will only embolden this violent and racist anti-government movement that wants to take over our public lands.”

Now what the heck does race have to do with this case? Beyond that leftists think literally (not figuratively) everything is about race. They obsess over race the way Victorian women obsessed over showing a little bit of ankle.

Per her own LinkedIn profile, Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza is a “Leading progressive legal analyst, advocate, and author.”

She says that President Trump blocked her on Twitter – from his personal @realDonaldTrump account (rather than from @POTUS). Her article is called, Trump Blocked Me on Twitter and It’s Costing Me My Career. If you’ve been around kids, you can hear the “whine” in that title.

She’s devastated that, on Twitter at least, she can no longer live off of Trump:

Most of my writing is about the Trump administration…On Twitter, the bulk of my recent follower growth and new relationships with others in the politico-legal sphere have come out of responding quickly when the president tweets…

So when President Donald Trump blocked me in June…he harmed me professionally.

Her language bespeaks her sense of entitlement and self-importance; she makes it sound almost like she discovered Twitter:

Twitter initially became a haven for me when I recognized it as a great equalizer in the media world…

when I make a point pithily and it’s liked and retweeted by thousands of people, some of the people who agree with my point or like the way I make it follow me…

Anyway, she’s suing:

Every day I’m blocked I lose opportunities to advance my views…

I can’t fire off a 140-word tweet… [thus] constraining my career…

When it comes to Twitter, I thought my fights would be confined to threads and direct messages. It never occurred to me that I’d end up in court.

I like the victim-y passive voice. Remember, she’s suing. It’s her choice. No, she didn’t just “end up in court” from, say, getting sued.

But here’s the thing. Does a public figure have an obligation to allow anyone to make a living off of his public activities? For example, if Kanye West denies a particular reporter a photograph on a public street, can the reporter sue?

The Supreme Court of the United States has reinstated most of the PDT Administration’s temporary restrictions on travel from six (Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen) unstable, politically chaotic states where terrorism is a problem.

Despite left-wing talking points to the contrary, immigration bans have been highly effective in protecting large cities like Tokyo from terrorism. Meanwhile, in multicultural London, the “bridges not walls” people are now building walls on their bridges to protect their pedestrians from Mohammedan psychopaths practicing the hot new vehicular jihad fad.

The increased scrutiny the PDT Administration would like to subject travelers entering from sketchy states seems like a reasonable precaution. Hell, the TSA will soon be inspecting your reading material before you board an aircraft. Why do we let people from dysfunctional terror states in with far less scrutiny?

California is instituting a ban on government travel to states that hold politically correct views on illegal immigration and transgender bathrooms. No leftists are upset by this. Some travel bans are more equal than others.

The SCOTUS has also agreed to hear a case to determine whether Wedding Cake Fascism is Constitutional. With the four left-wing justices plus Anthony Kennedy, I don’t think this case is going to work out well for Liberty.

JamPAC (at jampac.us) is a leftie group suing the DNC over the 2016 primaries. Some points from a recent update (hosted by Stefan Molyneux):

• Class action filed in June 2016 on behalf of Bernie-supporting Democrats, alleging that Bernie-supporting donors were defrauded, in that the primary process was rigged unfairly to favor Hillary.
• April 25 2017, the court heard the DNC’s second motion to dismiss.
• DNC argued that the plaintiffs don’t have standing because the DNC has every right to pick candidates itself in back rooms, disregarding its own election rules.
• DNC also argued that its rules (and its explicit promise to donors to enforce them fairly) is like a politician’s promise, not to be taken seriously.
• Earlier, DNC had tried to dismiss the lawsuit by alleging that Shawn Lucas had not served it correctly.

Predictably, the Controlled Media has not given this story much coverage.

The original complaint is halfway-interesting reading. For one thing, it sticks with the “Russia hacked the DNC” narrative (ignoring Seth Rich). But, whatever; the plaintiffs clearly have other fish to fry.

The complaint goes on to mention the DNC’s plans to collude with the media “with no fingerprints” in the general election; to plant fake news and social media attacks to “muddy the waters” around Hillary’s vulnerabilities; to influence the selection of generals on the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and more.

In view of the fact that Seth Rich and Shawn Lucas both seem to have died unexpectedly after crossing the DNC, you might want to include in your thoughts and prayers Jared Beck, the JamPAC lawyer.

The Leftist-Stacked Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals decided to rewrite the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include gay people. Because courts have given themselves the power to rewrite legislation in accordance with current politically correct trendiness.

And I know people are thinking, “So what if the judiciary has usurped the power of the legislative branch of Government. As long as it’s good for gay people, I’m all in favor of it.”

So, what you’re saying is, you like tyranny, as long as the tyranny is benefiting you.

You should probably just admit that, then, instead of pretending you have any respect for pluralistic, participatory democracy in which all people are equal before the law. Because under the system you advocate, we don’t have that. We have mobs. And whichever mob is on top gets to call the shots and oppress the other mobs.

Do you want Venezuela? Because that’s how you get Venezuela.

Venezuela slid closer toward dictatorship after the country’s Supreme Court gutted the only opposition-run institution — the Congress — seizing its powers and declaring the elected body invalid.

The Castro Regime in Cuba routinely imprisons journalists. Hugo Chavez shut down all opposition media outlets as the socialist dictator of Venezuela. Barack Obama spied on journalists. And we all hear the constant chorus on the left demanding that FoxNews — the one major news network that is occasionally critical of Democrats — be shut down.

In California, the Democrat Party has permanently consolidated its power through a combination of flooding the voter rolls with third-world immigrants and rigging the political system to ensure that no Republican will ever again be elected to statewide office (there was no Republican on the ballot for California senator last year) and there will never be a Republican majority in the legislature. California Democrats have even changed the state’s referendum process to give the Democrat-run state Government more control; giving politicians and lobbyists the power to modify proposed ballot initiatives to better suit the Party’s interests.

The California Democratic Party holds all power in the state, and its members run the political spectrum from far-left to radical-left.  So, naturally, they are following the example of leftist regimes everywhere and shutting down opposition journalism.

Yesterday California charged Daleiden and Merrit with a whopping 15 felony counts based on their undercover videos — released through the Center for Medical Progress — showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing, among other things, harvesting and possibly even selling the organs of aborted babies. The heart of the indictment (14 of the 15 counts) is the claim that Daleiden and Merritt wrongly recorded alleged “confidential communications” between complete strangers at public conferences and at public restaurants.

California’s case not only fails on the merits, it reeks of selective prosecution. There is no shortage of examples of concealed-camera videos in California exposing scandalous behavior (the Federalist’s Sean Davis has been tweeting them since the indictment), often in the arena of animal rights. In 2014, a group called Mercy for Animals released an undercover video that “allegedly show[ed] widespread animal abuse and cruelty at one of California’s largest duck farms.” Authorities reportedly responded to the video — by investigating the farm.

Making undercover videos as part of an investigation has been a part of standard journalistic practice for decades. Just recently

Obviously, the only people the California Democratic Party are targeting are those who do stories that are in opposition to the Democrat Agenda.

The message of this indictment is clear, “If you go against The Party, you will be prosecuted.”

So far, not a single journalistic outlet has protested against this infringement on a free press or the public’s right to know.

“This is what persecution looks like and all Americans should be infuriated.“

A gay dude is suing the St. Louis police department, claiming he was told to dial down the gay.

“The command staff has a problem with your sexuality. If you ever want to see a white shirt (i.e. get a promotion), you should tone down your gayness.”

His supervisor, who is named in the lawsuit, denies telling him any such thing.

Patriot Pal Peter H., who tipped this story, offers the following commentary.

I’ve got mixed feelings on this. Here’s a cop who scored very well on two consecutive promotions tests – coming in 3rd out of 26 both times – so logically, he should be considered for promotion.

Having lived and worked here in Houston – and in the city government in the 1990s – I can’t tell you how many cops who were minorities were promoted over white male cops who had been with the department for dozens of years and had scored higher than they did on the aptitude tests.

Ten years ago, one minority sergeant in particular was elevated to the post of assistant chief, bypassing a bunch of other more qualified cops simply based upon his ethnicity. (That was under former mayor Annise Parker.)

Should he be promoted? I’d have to see his personnel file. Did he ever make his orientation an issue? I don’t know. Is he Rock Hudson or Paul Lynde?  (or Roger Smith – V) From the pic, I’m guessing he’s more on the butch side.

Nevertheless, unless he can provide proof that his superior officer actually said this to him – and the officer has denied it wholeheartedly – I’d say this case is without merit.

Maybe the reason we have such problems with “mass incarceration” is because too many things have been criminalized?

It’s not just cigarette tax laws that can lead to the deaths of those the police seek to arrest: it’s every law. “Libertarians argue that we have far too many laws, and the Garner case offers evidence that they’re right,” wrote Carter.

It isn’t just libertarians who warn about overcriminalization. The conservative Heritage Foundation published a report last year by former U.S. attorney general Michael Mukasey and Paul Larkin Jr. warning that “the sheer number of federal laws that impose criminal penalties has grown to an unmanageable point.”

Are we really a free country if a single mother can be thrown in jail for not mowing her grass? How about catching a fish to feed your family? What about having expired car tags?

If we want to reduce violent confrontations between citizens and police, we should reduce the involuntary interactions that cause them. Any offense that does not directly harm the life, physical health, or property of others should not be regarded as such. The civil code should instead be used to address those grievances.

The rule for this should be simple: If there’s no victim, there’s no crime.  This should be the foundation of criminal law. And, yeah, getting your feelings hurt by someone does not make you a victim of anything other than your personal issues.

Mark Ruffalo plays a scientist in the Avenger movies; this, to the left, makes him an authority on science. He is now demanding that California ban all fossil fuels.

Actor and environmental activist Mark Ruffalo is calling on California Gov. Jerry Brown to end the state’s usage of fossil fuels for oil extraction and move to 100 percent renewable energy.

“This is really mankind’s greatest threat, and it should take some serious problem solving on all of our parts,” Ruffalo told the paper. “And we don’t really have to give up anything to do it.”

Nothing except warm homes, affordable food, reliable transportation, middle class jobs, and… oh, yeah, Freedom.

Nothing important.

Speaking of Hollywood Moonbats, Quentin Tarantino… who because he makes incredibly violent movies featuring criminals is regarded as an authority on matters of law and order… says that the police are “murderers.”

The “Pulp Fiction’’ director took part in an anti-cop rally less than a week after an officer was killed on the job.

“When I see murders, I do not stand by . . . I have to call the murderers the murderers,” the director — notorious for his violent movies — told a crowd of protesters in Washington Square Park on Saturday, adding that cops are too often “murderers.”

Nevertheless, when his new film opens, he will protected by these same “murderers,” and not representatives of the#BlackLivesMatter movement.

Was reading this morning about the biker gang war that led to 192 arrests and 9 deaths in Waco this weekend. (Meanwhile, 41 people were shot in Chicago this weekend. 7 are dead. The MFM didn’t make this as big as Waco Biker murders.)

This line kind of stuck out for me.

“We feel like [the Twin Peaks restaurant where the altercation started] could’ve done more. We feel like that they did not take our advice and try to keep the bike groups from being here,” said Swanton on Sunday after the shooting. “They absolutely have a right to refuse service to people that may be a harm to their patrons and employees.”

But what if the bikers were gay and demanded cake?

The left wing hate groups have seen through the devious scheme launched by Memories Pizza in order to con generous conservatives out of over $600,000 in donations so far.

Their brilliantly devious plot began over ten years ago, when the owners of Memories Pizza opened a small pizza shop in Walkerton, IN and began selling pizza. Behind the scenes, the owners used their political connections, dark magic, and ties to the Illuminati to create a national gay marriage movement. Then, they got the Indiana Legislature to pass a Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Then, they got the national media and left wing hate groups to lie about the law’s content and foment a massive social backlash. Then, they waited for some dingbat reporter from a UHF station to walk into their store, take a quote from them out of context, and thus get the gay left hate groups to issue threats of violence against them. And then, at the culmination of their brilliant ten year confidence scheme… a conservative radio host starts a GoFundMe account so they can reap the proceeds.

Not since Chancellor Palpatine in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace has there been such a devious, well thought out, perfectly executed conspiracy.

This what hate-filled left-wing nutjobs actually believe.

Meanwhile, Glenn Beck and Alex Jones just called and said they found the theory “a little far-fetched.”

Bitter ex-girlfriend files phony “Sexual Harassment” complaint, ruins dude’s life. Sometimes, you wonder why anyone chooses to be straight.

Universities that caved to the Fascism of the Radical Feminist Left and the Obama Department of Justice and adopted the standard for rape conviction demanded by those parties — i.e. A man is guilty of rape if a woman accuses him of rape — are now being sued by men who’ve been wrongfully convicted and deprived of civil rights under that absurd standard.

As of this month, there have been 50 known lawsuits filed by men found guilty of rape looking for justice to clear their names and legal record, according to A Voice For Male Students’ website.

“Predictably, a wave of lawsuits soon erupted as young men wrongly accused of sex crimes found themselves hustled through a vague and misshapen adjudication process with slipshod checks and balances and Kafkaesque standards of evidence,” the men’s advocacy page reads.

Brown University settled one suit for a million dollars. Caving into radical feminism comes with w price tag, but at least innocent men are getting some compensation.

It ain’t just straight dudes either.

The accuser, who has not filed criminal charges, has called for administrators to issue a sharper punishment, ideally expulsion. He said he is considering filing a Title IX complaint against the school because, he said, administrators downplayed some of his concerns, were not sufficiently transparent about the process, and discriminated against him because he is a man and gay.

“There are parts of me that wish I didn’t go through this process because I feel like I’ve gone through a lot of re-victimization and re-traumatization,” the accuser said in an interview. “But I also feel like it’s something that needs to be talked about.’’

Meanwhile, the accused student has denied the allegations, which he called “ridiculous,” saying he and his ex-boyfriend had a typical romantic relationship.

I think most of us are familiar with how bitter and vengeful XBF’s can be after a bad breakup.

California Governor Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown signed into law a bill requiring explicit state-approved consent before college students can have sex with each other.

Under this standard, a sex act can only be presumed as consensual if both participants have explicitly consented. Even if no overt objections are raised at the time, if no explicit consent is obtained a sexual encounter may be defined as rape.

Henceforth, male students within California’s system of higher ed are advised to make their partners sign consent forms before each and every sexual activity; thus to please the misandrist puritans of the modern left.

So much for the fine art of seduction. That a woman should not immediately agree to a man’s sexual overtures has been quite customary throughout history; seduction has been a key ingredient in the sexual cocktail.  No more, though. If a woman doesn’t immediately consent, I suppose the man is supposed to just walk away and never breach the subject again. Leave it to the left to turn sex into a bureaucratically-managed activity subject to strict oversight by the state… like everything else.

A lawsuit fired by a former gym teacher and coach at a posh New York private school alleges that the Athletic Director, a lesbian, discriminated against him for maintaining a traditional family life.

The discrimination suit claims that Krieger attempted to force Kenney to coach three sports — soccer, basketball and golf — even though his contract only mandated that he coach two teams.

When Coach Kenney protested about the burden of working extra nights and weekends because he wanted to spend more time with him wife and children, Krieger balked.

“We all make choices,” she said, according to the lawsuit.

Meanwhile, Kenney’s complaint alleges, “a single, female teacher faced no scrutiny when she refused to coach a third season.”

The suit claims that Krieger ran off three other married coaches who have young kids and notes that Kenney’s replacement is a gay female.

I used to be friends with an uber-feminist who, after college, went to work for a non-profit organization run by a lesbian and her partner. She told me that the constant sexual politics in the office made the job intolerable. The organization’s mission was always secondary or tertiary to keeping up with the constantly shifting alliances and vendettas that the women brought to the office.

It also strikes me as a Sign o’ the Times that one teacher gets fired for having a traditional family, another gets defended for molesting one of his students.

This story has been around for years, but I’m just catching up. Perhaps some of you are, too. It’s a horrifying example of modern-day tyranny. (And, not to plug Chris Christie who is not perfect, but Christie is helpful in it.)

Brian Aitken is a law-abiding citizen who legally bought guns in Colorado, legally transported them to New Jersey when he moved there to be near his young son, never did anything wrong or harmful with them; and was nonetheless arrested on highly questionable grounds, charged with felony possession (an initial charge was non-existent under New Jersey law), convicted under highly questionable jury instructions, and imprisoned under a seven-year sentence.

After he served four months in prison, Gov. Christie commuted his sentence, achieving his release. And the charges have been partially overturned.

But the damage doesn’t stop there. As if to compound the tyranny, a family judge denied Aitken practical access to his son – partly on the convictions, and partly on the supposed grounds that a father who owns firearms (or who might; Aitken actually doesn’t own anymore) is an automatic danger to his family. Never mind that gun ownership is in the Constitution.

This man’s constitutional rights have been severely violated. And when you hear Aitken tell his story, you understand that such things could happen to any responsible parents or gun owners – like, say, gay parents, or gay gun owners.

If you’re inclined, a donation can still help Mr. Aitken to publish his book and continue his legal battle to clear his name. The remaining charge/conviction on him is that he transported ammunition; as Aitken points out, a law that lets you keep a type of ammunition in your home, but not move it when you move your home, is arguably nuts.

So, as I’ve said before, I’m mostly agnostic on gay marriage (I believe the entire institution should be left to personal/familial/community/religious devices and the government should remove itself entirely from the argument lock-stock-and-barrel). That said, you can’t be gay—well, or even straight it seems—in the United States today, according to the media, and not be completely and obsessively consumed by the issue (and, natch, your opinion can only be “FOR!”).

And since SCOTUS is hearing it this week, I suppose I might as well poke a stick into the monkey cage:

If we’re supposed to oppose DOMA on states’ rights grounds, should we then oppose the effort to overturn Prop 8?

Discuss.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot) from HHQ

UPDATE
Excellent point made (and I don’t just say this because I have several captions vying for his “Best of” category) by VtheK from the comments:

This country would be so much better off if people cared as much about fiscal responsibility and economic growth as they do about giving same sex couples a piece of paper signed by a bureaucrat to legitimize their coupling.

Speaking of which, I think the time has come to push for polygamy. If gender doesn’t [matter], what’s so damned magical about the number 2?

(As for the first part, I have made this exact point many times myself, and I have much more to say about Viking’s second point, which perhaps I will anon…)

Perhaps like me, you’re enjoying this great new TV show I just found on C-SPAN2 called Mr. Paul Goes to Washington where my favorite Senator is currently filibustering President Obama’s nominee to head the CIA, John Brennan. As I write this, he’s currently about to ring in his sixth hour. The goal of Senator Paul’s soliloquy is, as he has stated several times since I’ve been watching, simply to elicit one thing: A straight-forward answer to the question, (to paraphrase) ‘Does the president believe he has the legal authority to execute through drone strike non-combatant citizens on American soil?’

Brings up a very interesting point: For eight solid years, we heard screeching and gnashing of teeth from the Left about how George W. Bush wants to kill us all and eat our babies and of course shred the Constitution through wars based on lies and the horrible PATRIOT Act. But in the end, who is it who’s actually standing up for these ideals? Well, so far I’ve seen Senator Paul in exchanges with Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Pat Toomey. Odd, don’t you think, that it’d be these ‘Tea Party right-winger knuckle-draggers’ who are actually doing the work that the Bush-haters allegedly wanted done while the leaders of their nominative party are lining up with their president in his expansion of Bush’s ‘unitary executive’ policies?

Clearly it’d be expecting waaay too much for the addlepated adherents to the Bush-is-Satan school of political thought to recognize the irony of the situation, let alone find that realization a great opportunity for self-reflection. Sad, that.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HHQ)

NB: I had originally written the paraphrase of Sen Paul’s question as “power” to execute. Clearly that’s within the president’s power, but I’ve clarified (I hope) by changing my original post to read “legal authority”, which I think is likely more to his point.

A federal judge for the Southern District of California is allowing a woman to proceed with her case against Avis Rent-A-Care because the company “did not give her the gay and lesbian group member price discount.”   In his ruling he cites “California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act” which “seeks to prevent any discrimination among people on the basis of listed characteristics.”  (Via Instapundit.)

The plaintiff, he wrote, “has stated a plausible claim for relief, i.e., that AVIS violated the prohibitions of the Act regarding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.”  If she succeeds in her suit, private companies, like Avis, will no longer be able to offer discounts to members of gay and lesbian organizations.

If Avis wishes to offer discounts to members of gay and lesbian organizations as a means to promote their service, the company should be free to do so. And if this woman believes Avis is discriminating against her, she remains free to take her business elsewhere.  Avis is not the only rental car company.

Yesterday, commenting on Politico’s coverage on “this Politico report on CNN’s ratings woes“, Ed Driscoll took issue with the notion of the network as a non-partisan purveyor of news:

And if you believe that CNN really is “committed to nonpartisan news-gathering” free of partisanship (cough —shilling for Saddam, getting cozy with Kim Jong Il — cough — Wright-Free Zone — cough — Anderson Cooper’s painful “teabagging” references, baking cakes for Obama and on and on and on) then you might be working for a “news” organization that is also a partisan shop pretending to be objective, and wondering why it’s losing audience as well.

Whatever Fox and MSNBC’s other issues, at least consumers know what sort of product they’re getting when tune into those networks. Trying to pretend to be objective is a long-outdated model that’s reached the end of the production line.

(H/t Instapundit.)

Today, while doing cardio at the gym, caught CNN’s coverage of the Obamacare decision.  Wolf Blitzer was interviewing two beaming left-of-center pundits, the smarmy  journolister Jeffrey Toobin and Dahlia Lithwick.

An objective news source would have included a conservative on this panel.