Supreme Court Hears First Big Second Amendment Case in a Decade

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The following is an excerpt from Blaze Media’s Capitol Hill Brief email newsletter:

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. City of New York — the most significant Second Amendment case the high court has taken up in years.

The cases asks whether New York City laws about transporting a licensed, unloaded, and locked firearm to a residence or shooting range outside the five boroughs are consistent with the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms. A Federalist Society blog post explains that, under the regulations in question, “a New Yorker whom the City itself has licensed to possess a handgun cannot transport her handgun to a weekend second home (even to exercise the core constitutional purpose of self-defense), to an upstate county to participate in a shooting competition, or even across the bridge to a neighboring city for target practice.”

New York City authorities, however, have said that the controversy is now moot because they relaxed those travel and transport restrictions earlier this year, but the court told them to try again at oral arguments.

For many observers, the big question is how the court’s two newest members will rule on the matter. Justice Neil Gorsuch has some fairly big shoes to fill on the issue, having replaced Antonin Scalia, who authored the landmark opinion in the 2008 D.C. v. Heller case. Meanwhile, Brett Kavanaugh has taken the place of infamous swing vote Anthony Kennedy, who joined in the Heller decision but reportedly insisted upon language limiting its scope. (For more from the author of “Supreme Court Hears First Big Second Amendment Case in a Decade” please click HERE)

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Biden Acknowledges Claims That Obama Says He ‘Doesn’t Really Have It’

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Joe Biden admitted that he doesn’t have the intimate connection to voters that former President Barack Obama had on the campaign trail.

Obama, 58, claimed that his former running mate, Biden, 77, could struggle on the campaign trail because he lacks a connection with voters, according to a report from Politico. Obama criticized some of the 2020 Democratic candidates about their connection to voters, saying, “And you know who really doesn’t have it? Joe Biden.”

Biden responded to Obama’s comments, telling Politico, “He may have said that. And if it’s true, and he said it, there’s truth to it.”

The former vice president credited Obama’s statement and acknowledged that he had mostly dropped in and campaigned for other people in states such as Iowa rather than running campaigns for himself.

“I mostly campaigned for other people in the time I’ve been here,” said Biden. “And I’ve never been in a position seeking the nomination where I have had the money and the organization to be able to get open headquarters all over the state.” (Read more from “Biden Acknowledges Claims That Obama Says He ‘Doesn’t Really Have It’” HERE)

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Impeachment Witness List Loaded with Trump Critics

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House Democrats announced a list of four constitutional law experts who will testify at a Dec. 4 public impeachment hearing, and the panel will include pundits who have criticized the Trump administration and defended the impeachment proceedings. It also includes a witness who has criticized the impeachment investigation.

The Democrats have summoned Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law School professor, to testify in Wednesday’s hearing on the constitutional grounds for impeaching the president. Feldman was among the first people to suggest Trump was trying to bribe Ukrainian government officials into investigating his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. Democrats have adopted the term, which Feldman in September said constitutes an impeachable offense.

“What makes Trump’s alleged conduct so terrible is not that he froze aid to Ukraine for a policy purpose. What makes Trump’s alleged conduct outrageous is the appearance that he was doing it for his own personal benefit,” Feldman wrote for Bloomberg Opinion.

Feldman has called for a new special counsel to investigate Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr, and he also called on Democrats to make the often secretive impeachment proceedings more accessible to the public.

Stanford Law professor Pamela Karlan, a former Obama administration Justice Department official, is also a witness, Democrats announced Monday. (Read more from “Impeachment Witness List Loaded with Trump Critics” HERE)

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WATCH: Ohio State Football Star Spared by Abortion, Announcer Details

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Record-breaking Ohio State running back J.K. Dobbins is reportedly known to his mother as her “miracle baby,” said Fox Sports announcer Gus Johnson on Saturday. Dobbins’ mother became pregnant with him when she was 18 years old and contemplated having an abortion, Johnson outlined, but ultimately chose life.

“J.K. Dobbins’ mom, Mya, became pregnant when she was 18 years old,” the announcer detailed. “She went to the doctor because she was thinking about aborting the baby, but changed her mind.” . . .

Dobbins had an impressive showing on Saturday against the Michigan Wolverines; the running back became the number two all-time leader in rushing yards in Ohio State history.

“The Wolverines couldn’t figure out how to consistently contain [Dobbins] — despite even taking off one of his shoes mid-game — and once he broke away from defenders, he was gone,” For The Win reported, according to Live Action. “With his standout performance in the regular-season finale, he reminded the college football world why he’s a Heisman Trophy candidate (albeit an outside one in a very crowd field that includes two of his teammates).”

Dobbins finished the game with “31 carries for a career-high 211 yards and four touchdowns, while adding two catches for 49 yards,” the report added.

(Read more from “Ohio State Football Star Spared by Abortion, Announcer Details” HERE)

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ICE Blasts New York Authorities for Releasing Illegal Alien Accused of Manslaughter

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents apprehended an illegal alien accused of manslaughter and other crimes after local police, refusing cooperation with federal immigration authorities, released him back into the public, the agency revealed Monday.

Feliciano Perez-Bautista, an Mexican national living illegally in the U.S., was arrested by the Yonkers Police Department (YPD) on July 8 for gang assault in the first degree, according to a press release from ICE. However, after Perez-Baustina’s victim succumbed to his injuries, he was additionally charged with manslaughter of the first degree.

ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations lodged a detainer request with the YPD on July 12 and lodged a request with the Westchester Department of Corrections on July 30. However, neither detainer was honored, and Perez-Bautista was ultimately released back into the community without the local officials notifying ICE. . .

A spokesperson for the agency blasted local law enforcement for refusing to honor their immigration detainer and allowing Perez-Bautista to be released, allowing him to potentially harm others.

“When law enforcement agencies decide to not honor ICE detainers and release violent criminals back onto the streets, they are putting their city at serious risk,” ICE New York Field Office Director Thomas Decker said in a statement released Monday. “We want nothing more than to cooperate and work together with local law enforcement authorities in order to protect our communities and keep this nation secure.” (Read more from “ICE Blasts New York Authorities for Releasing Illegal Alien Accused of Manslaughter” HERE)

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REPORT: Chinese Big Tech Is Using Zimbabwe Citizens as Guineas Pigs to Identify and Track Black People

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Chinese big tech companies are using Zimbabwe as a large research laboratory to develop facial recognition that will help them identify and track black people, The Financial Times reported Monday.

ZTE and other Chinese tech behemoths are shaping the United Nations’s architectural standards for facial recognition technology, according to leaked documents FT obtained. The standard will reportedly help China’s tech industry open up new markets in the Middle East and Africa.

China’s tech titans are proposing new standards inside the United Nations’s International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for facial recognition, video monitoring, and vehicle surveillance, among other cutting edge tech developments. . .

“African states tend to go along with what is being put forward by China and the ITU as they don’t have the resources to develop standards themselves,” Richard Wingfield, head of legal at Global Partners Digital, told reporters. . .

The new ITU proposal stipulates a requirement that companies must store detected facial features in a database, which will include identifying information, such as race, skin color, facial curvature, among other demographic features. (Read more from “REPORT: Chinese Big Tech Is Using Zimbabwe Citizens as Guineas Pigs to Identify and Track Black People” HERE)

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Greta Thunberg’s Plan to Save Carbon Emissions Backfires over Travel on Luxury Yacht

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Teenage climate change activist Greta Thunberg refuses to fly on airplanes, relegating her trans-Atlantic travel to boats. The 16-year-old Swede believes the move cuts down on carbon emissions.

So, when Thunberg needed to travel from the U.S. to Europe last month in order to attend a climate summit in Madrid, Thunberg took a boat, of course.

However, as it turned out, Thunberg’s trip did not reduce carbon emissions. Instead, it produced the same amount that Thunberg hoped to save — perhaps even more.

That is because, as the Sunday Times reported, Nikki Henderson, a 26-year-old yacht skipper, flew to the U.S. from Britain to sail Thunberg’s ship — the La Vagabonde, a 48-foot catamaran — the 3,500 mile journey from the U.S. to Portugal. . .

Adding insult to injury, the vessel Thunberg used for her journey is not climate friendly because it has two diesel engines and is made from products that use petroleum for production. (Read more from “Greta Thunberg’s Plan to Save Carbon Emissions Backfires over Travel on Luxury Yacht” HERE)

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WATCH: Pete Buttigieg Agrees When Leftist Pastor Says Illegal Aliens Are ‘Coming Back to Land We Stole’

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Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg nodded in agreement with a leftist pastor who said Mexican illegal immigrants are “coming back to land we stole.”

The Rev. William Barber hosted Buttigieg at Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina, where a Q&A session followed Sunday services, the Associated Press said. . .

“Let me ask you a couple quick rapid-fire [questions],” Barber began. “Do you think we need to also stop allowing forces to demonize ‘people who are trying to get their immigration status,’ and we start lifting up all the ways they benefit this country? The money in Social Security, the taxes they pay—” . . .

“And we need to talk about that,” Barber noted before saying, “We call people ‘illegal aliens’ and all these things that are not human and certainly not Christian. Why can’t we just own in America that some of the people that are trying to come from Mexico here are coming back to land we stole?”

With that, Buttigieg sat up in his seat, made an expression as if he was given a shot of truth, then nodded his head as the audience applauded. (Read more from “Pete Buttigieg Agrees When Leftist Pastor Says Illegal Aliens Are ‘Coming Back to Land We Stole'” HERE)

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Republicans Blast Impeachment Evidence in New Report

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In a new report put together by House Republican staff on the Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight and Reform Committees, which was reviewed by Townhall, they blast evidence presented during the hearings because nothing provided proved any of the Democrats’ allegations against President Trump in their impeachment inquiry.

“The sum of the substance of the Democrats’ case for impeachment is that President Trump abused his authority to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden…for President Trump’s benefit in the 2020 election,” the report states. “Democrats say this pressure campaign encompassed leveraging a White House meeting and the release of U.S. security assistance to force the Ukrainian President to succumb to President Trump’s political wishes.”

“The evidence presented does not prove any of these Democrat allegations, and none of the Democrats’ witnesses testified to having evidence of bribery, extortion, or any high crime or misdemeanor,” the report adds.

The GOP report asserts the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shows no quid pro quo, bribery, extortion, or abuse of power.

“The evidence shows that President Trump holds a deep-seated, genuine, and reasonable skepticism of the U.S. foreign aid and the need for European allies to shoulder more of the financial burden for regional defense,” the report continues. (Read more from “Republicans Blast Impeachment Evidence in New Report” HERE)

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Man Dies After Triggering His Own Homemade Booby Traps

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A Maine man died after setting off his own homemade booby trap on the night of Thanksgiving, according to local authorities.

The Van Buren Police Department announced that 65-year-old Ronald Cyr had died after triggering his homemade security device which fired a handgun, striking the man. Cyr was able to call 911 after being shot by the device, but officers were unable to save him by the time they arrived.

When authorities got to Cyr’s home, they found several similar homemade booby traps, forcing them to contact the Maine State Police Bomb Squad.

(Read more from “Man Dies After Triggering His Own Homemade Booby Traps” HERE)

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