Category → Government Of the People…
Gun owners prevail against lawless Harrisburg City
Gun owners have finally prevailed against the lawless and dishonest City of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in a case that was first filed in January 2015, and now, over nine years later, has finally reached a conclusion favorable to logic, to the rule of law, and to fealty to the various federal and state constititional clauses enshrining firearms rights as “Shall not be infringed” and “Shall not be questioned.”
The case was originally brought by Kim Stolfer of Firearms Owners Against Crime, against Harrisburg City, as a result of Harrisburg City openly, brazenly, lawlessly disregarding superseding state law when the city passed and implemented a number of anti-gun ordinances.
In Pennsylvania, state law holds that no political subdivision can enact its own gun regulations, for the same reason that no one wants to go to jail for having an abortion that is legal in the township next door, but illegal in your own township, same state, and because no one wants to encounter different driver’s license requirements in East Succotash, PA, than those found in Wild West Philly, PA. Such a fractured arrangement would be untenable, unsustainable, a legal catastrophe. The law must be unified across the state so that the citizens can live there normally.
And so many years ago, Pennsylvania enacted a pre-emption law that says only the state can pass firearms restrictions, not municipalities. Oh, for lawless leftists this kind of common sense law is a challenge, and of course Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Harrisburg had to test the citizenry. And they have lost time and again, every time one of these places places an innocent gun owner in handcuffs. As a result, numerous large sum financial judgments have been generously granted to gun owners discriminated against by these lawless political subdivisions over the years.
Think about this: Democrat-run Philadelphia, Harrisburg, and Pittsburgh not only wantonly waste taxpayer’s limited dollars by trying to defend the indefensible here in court, they then have to pay out huge awards to aggrieved victims. None of this has to happen, but the mindset of Democrats everywhere seems to be so hell-bent on lawlessness and abusing political opponents.
And we here in Harrisburg are about to begin that financial award phase of our lawsuit, now that it has been successfully decided just days ago, when Judge Andrew Dowling decided that Harrisburg City’s gun ordinances violated state law.
In addition to Kim Stolfer there is another hero here, Attorney Joshua Prince, who has climbed Mount Everest a hundred times over the past nine years in his hard work to keep the city accountable and the rule of law alive. I do not know what the payment arrangement betwen FOAC and Josh Prince is, but I am sure Josh is not getting much more than a few bucks an hour at the present. A financial award commensurate with appropriately smacking down the city’s lawlessness might and hopefully will reset the ledger in favor of Joshua Prince. Josh also maintains a stable of attorneys helping him.
Other people involved in this lawsuit are Kim Stolfer’s successor at FOAC-ILLEA, a dogged and articulate ex-cop named Jim Stoker, a plaintiff named Howard Bullock, who works in the City of Harrisburg, and yours truly, moi, Josh First, who lives in the City of Harrisburg. Part of my sometimes colorful testimony in court last month is highlighted below.
Josh Prince’s blog post today about this important holding is here. The actual court decision is here.
If you are a gun owner, or a freedom lover, or a good government believer, definitely donate some bucks to FOAC-ILLEA. They have earned your support!
Trump supporters, do these two things
If you are a Trump supporter, you need to do these two things, if you have not already done so:
- Donate some money to the Trump campaign here. It doesn’t matter if it is a one-time donation of ten dollars, every cent helps, every penny is important. Political donations may not be your most comfortable experience, and believe me, I understand your feeling on this. My average political donation is probably $25.00, simply because I work very hard to earn the money I have, and so many elected officials are just so disappointing. even the ones I support. But this year, in 2024, America is on the line. Do you want to save democracy from the leftist censors and totalitarians? Give everything you can afford to Trump’s campaign.
- Mail your absentee ballot request, get your absentee ballot, and vote with it. Mail it in and keep the receipt you get that it was received; you may need this. It is important to vote early this year, and avoid the BS that happened in 2020, where the corrupt vote counters hid behind blacked-out windows and added as many fake ballots as they needed to let Joe Biden claim victory.
Kamala vs Trump…really?
Kamala Harris has never had a real private sector job, ever. She says she flipped burgers one summer as a teenager, but I do not believe that is true. She comes from a wealthy upper crust family that owned slaves in Jamaica. All of her jobs and roles were within one political party and in public taxpayer-funded jobs. No way does she even hold a candle to President Trump, and yes, she is far worse than he is in every measure.
Do not mistake this criticism as partisan, because Kamala Harris is like the great Republican failure here in Pennsylvania, the former state senator Jake Corman, who I also attacked mercilessly.
Jake Corman is now a “lobbyist” in Harrisburg, PA, after being forced out of his state senate seat BY HIS FELLOW REPUBLICANS and by voters like me who just could not stand his stench in politics any longer. All Jake’s jobs his entire life were in the Republican Party or in taxpayer funded public sector roles. Jake was like Kamala – fake, arrogant, snotty, unaccomplished, undeserving, mean, treated people around him like crap. Like Kamala, Jake Corman was an example of everything wrong in American politics, in both political parties.
I did everything possible to chase Republican Jake Corman out of politics and out of his senate seat. I spent thousands and thousands of my own dollars doing this, dollars that I had to work hard for in my small private sector business, often working in brutal physical conditions while running my sawmill. And believe me, all of the sycophants surrounding Jake and making money off of Jake went after me, as a result. I took a lot of slings and arrows for my efforts to unseat Jake Corman.
I hate career politicians of both parties, though I am more Republican than Democrat, because the Democrat Party is now officially an anti-America political force.
Think about this: I used to be a Democrat. In 1988 I was the central Pennsylvania regional coordinator for the Al Gore for President campaign, back when Al Gore was endorsed by the NRA. Think about that. No, I did not leave the Democrat Party, they left me. The Democrat Party is an evil organization and does not deserve the support of decent people.
So do not try to paint my criticism of Kamala Harris as partisan, no way.
And now I am looking at Kamala Harris, a hugely and justifiably unpopular, unimpressive career politician who is challenging President Donald Trump, and I am thinking whhaaaat?
There is no comparison between these two people. Kamala Harris has zero real world experience, has never really been tested by life or by reality, has taken zero risks and made zero sacrifices; she is totally fake and phony. Trump has earned all of the support he has, by not only working hard his whole life, but by standing up for the America that even partisan Democrats take for granted and enjoy, and which will disappear for good if Kamala Harris is elected.
If you are confused about this, then you are probably addicted to mainstream media bullshit. NPR is totally fake news, complete lies from end to end, and yet all the liberals in my life basically live all day long with NPR on the radio piping in complete bullshit to their ears, without any curiosity about why so many Americans despise NPR’s propaganda.
Are you intellectually curious? You probably tell your friends and family and yourself that you are “open minded” and “intellectual,” but if you are not getting information from diverse sources, you are close-minded, and therefore an uninformed fool.
If you are curious, start out at The Gateway Pundit and Breitbart. Compare and contrast their reporting with that done by NPR, ABC, PBS et al, and then you will make up your own mind with a much better array of information to make a better, more informed decision.
So for anyone with a fair minded attitude about this election, the choice is easy – vote for Trump. He is not a politician, he is not crooked, he has personally taken risks and sacrificed beyond imagination for all us Americans, whether we supported him or not. And he is subject to all kinds of assassination attempts and plots…why? Because he loves the America that you love and that you likely foolishly take for granted, and which our enemies hate and desire to destroy.
America is not too big to fail, and under Kamala Harris, America will fail.
Vote for Trump and thereby vote for the America that you love.
The Democrat Party abuses women, actually hates womanhood and motherhood, and yet some women feel strangely attracted to it
The swift execution of Bryan Malinowski
Six months ago, the swift execution, or official murder under color of very shady interpretation of law, of a very plain vanilla law-abiding guy named Bryan Malinowski, hit some national headlines. Mainstream media initially tried to palm off his assassination at the hands of lawless ATF agents as some sort of maybe-bad-guy-got-his-due, until the facts of his death (in his boxer shorts, in his bedroom, next to his wife) started to smell really bad.
And then the mainstream media stopped talking about Bryan’s execution, because none of their usual narratives could be supported by the facts: Bryan was no crazy conservative, no wild eyed “scary Republican,” no “white supremacist,” no fringe guy prone to writing long bizarre screeds on social media, like me. No, Bryan Malinowski was the epitome of clean living normalcy, all-American stability, and solid suburban home life. He had no criminal history, and he had conducted no criminality when taxpayer-funded federal agents busted in his door without warning, and immediately shot him in his home.
And so Bryan’s incredible story was tossed overboard by the MSM and the Democrat Party as just so much expected collateral damage in the leftist jihad to remake America from the country of un-government to the country of scary dominant national government that will kick your ass every time. Yes, some conservative outlets wrote about Bryan’s murder, and reported about the few curious elected officials who raised questions. But by and large, what was one murdered white guy when the political class had Trump to bitch about.
Here’s the thing: Ever since innocent Bryan’s execution in his home by ATF agents gone wild who mysteriously did not wear their required body cameras, and who illegally put tape over Bryan’s home surveillance camera lenses as they were busting in his door without warning, and who were serving a highly dubious search warrant – not an arrest warrant, the rest of the federal government law enforcement apparatus has only gotten more aggressive towards its political enemies.
Nothing was “learned” by federal government employees about what went wrong with Bryan’s murder, because the ATF employees achieved exactly what they were after.
The aggressive militarization of federal law enforcement, like the FBI, ATF, DHS, who are strictly domestically focused, stands in stark contrast to the often unarmed or scared and alarmed white homeowners whose doors are being unnecessarily and often illegally kicked in by the taxpayer funded employees supposedly in uniform to protect them.
There is a deliberately evil purpose here to Bryan’s execution and all of the other official murder and mayhem done on your tax money, such as the FBI’s blatant attempt to assassinate President Trump in Butler PA, and that is for the federal government to intimidate the general American population.
Oh, the Feds might only kill your one innocent neighbor, and they may have only grazed Trump’s ear with a bullet, but rest assured, the Feds are out there, listening to you, watching you, and can descend upon you or your political candidate of choice at any second, without cause and without warning, if they simply choose to do so.
This is the stuff of Stalin’s Russia NKVD, East Germany’s STASI secret police, the Nazi GESTAPO, and all other federal police forces around the world that turned out to be the treasonous domestic terrorists America’s framers warned us about. It is purely evil behavior and an official mis-use of taxpayer-owned assets, and for some reason about 40% of American voters think this is just fine. They think it is, after all, only about “the other guy.” They forget history, where everyone becomes the other guy when sociopathic maniacs aggregate power and wield it mercilessly. We have one political party in America that is only about aggregating and applying power, and the Americans enabling that party are simply cannon fodder, to be “removed” when they begin to wake up and realize what is happening.
In just a bit over a month from now, America will choose a new president. Kamala Harris is on record saying that when she is president, the federal government will kick in your door and walk through your home to check on you, whether you want them to, or not. The lawlessness that executed Bryan Malinowski in his home is just a vote away from happening nation-wide all the time.
If you want more innocent Bryan Malinowski-type people to be murdered by a lawless, out of control federal government, then vote for Komrade Kamala. She is the Stalin you seek. The rest of us true freedom-loving Americans, we will vote for the one person who can bring order to this evil chaos, Donald Trump.
OH YEAH: Forgot to mention that the ATF’s already bogus search warrant included gathering up all of Malinowski’s ammunition. Now let us ask ourselves what the heck ammunition has to do with potential illegal guns or suspected questionable guns. The answer is…nothing, zero, nada, nicht. Ammunition cannot be illegal, especially in a state like Arkansas. Including ammunition was just a simple bonus add-on by a rogue and lawless agency designed to further punish and harm a private citizen. The ATF has zero legitimate interest in Malinowski’s ammunition, and yet they included it in the warrant, and some loser know-nothing judge signed off on it. Malinowski’s ammunition should have NEVER been included in the ATF search warrant. But the ATF was simply trying to pile on Malinowski, and take away and impound his personal property, as a punishment to him, not because the ATF had any real need for or interest in the ammunition. Just more citizen harassment by an agency whose shelf life ended long ago.
Innocent Bryan Malinowski was murdered in his home by rogue ATF employees, over a question of law, not a breaking of the law
Remembering 9-11
Remembering 9-11 is important, because it was both an enormous islamic terror attack against American civilians, and a warning to Americans about our loose immigration policy.
Here we are, 23 years later, and America’s current immigration policy isn’t. “Border Czar” Kamala Harris has purposefully let the flood gates wide open in what is the largest hostile invasion of a nation in human history. The destruction raining down on Americans everywhere from this illegal invasion is evident daily as reports of rapes, murders, violent gangs, thefts, robberies committed against everyday Americans skyrocket.
This is all avoidable. If Kamala Harris wants it to stop, she would stop it and round up the illegal invaders and deport them. Instead, Kamala Harris is trying to make as many illegal voters out of this as she can.
Imagine using illegal invaders as the basis of your “democratic election”…official lawlessness in order to gain full control of America. It is crazy, treasonous, and destructive of everything a democratic nation stands for. And yet, a lot of American citizens seem perfectly fine with it.
Seems too few Americans remember 9-11 and what it was about. Humans forget history at their own risk. If this cultural amnesia becomes official government policy, America will have no borders, and all of the illegal lawlessness will become daily life coast to coast.
Only one person can fix this and save America: Donald Trump.
Trump Harrisburg Town Hall was fabulous
Yesterday afternoon I participated in the President Donald Trump town hall with Sean Hannity here in Harrisburg, at the Farm Show building, and it was a fabulous experience. I am glad I went, and two young-er family members went with me.
Some takeaways:
- Plenty of former Democrats and current Independents were in the crowd. I spoke with quite a few of the people around me, and learned that there are still registered Democrats who are nonetheless supportive of Trump. I think the open border is scaring them. Plenty of Independents, too.
- Trump is a smart and straight-talking person, not just unafraid to be challenged and questioned but welcoming the give-and-take. He is a gregarious person with confidence, and enjoys explaining his policy positions.
- His supporters are normal every-day people. I met a computer programmer, two teachers, a retired police officer. The people in the audience dressed and acted like normal people, friendly to one another, gracious. I saw no bad or crude behavior.
- Not all of Trump’s supporters are hyper-excited fangirls, although we certainly saw and heard them roaring and cheering last night (the young man who accompanied me screamed himself hoarse). But boy, does he have supporters who are SCARED of what has happened to America in the past few years. These are people who were a-political or non-political until recently. They are not regulars at protests or political rallies, they may not have voted until the past few years, but they showed up last night because they see their entire nation slipping away under their feet and through their fingers, and they wanted to show their support for the person they believe can stop the destruction. Quite a few of these people did not even cheer or yell, they hardly clapped, but they were in the audience with great intention. You could see it clearly in their faces.
- Sean Hannity surprised us all. He has a reputation for talking over his guests, which he did not do to Trump. Funny enough, the hopped up crowd did that for Hannity, often loudly chanting or enthusiastically yelling out as Trump was going to say something.
- The Mainstream Media really is the enemy of The People, because the lies and nonsense they put out starting with late last night and spilling into today are just incredible. I am disgusted by the sheer number of blatant lies told by the press about the town hall. The press is supposed to hold the government accountable, but now in America, the press are 100% partisan political activists for the government, for censorship, and against the constitutional rights that We The People hold so dear.
- Discussing the event with an older Democrat friend, I was caught off guard by his sudden vehemence and the strange things he said about Trump. A disconnect between what I had just witnessed from start to finish, and what I guess is the mainstream media’s spoon-feeding of garbage to whoever is in their audience, like my friend. When I challenged him to provide me with evidence for his claims, he assured me he would. So far that has not materialized, and I don’t think it will. The facts do not support Trump being “demented” (Biden clearly is demented while Trump clearly is clear headed and sane), or a “Lying, cheating con man…a grifter.”
- Trump is the complete opposite of a grifter, because he did not take a presidential salary and did not make money during or after being president, but rather lost a lot of money. Contrast that with the Bidens, Obamas, and Clintons, all of whom entered public service poor and exited extremely wealthy. Biden is clearly a criminal recipient of illegal bribes from China, both directly and through his son Hunter.
- As for the lying and cheating part, I have not yet seen it with Trump, though both are epidemic among regular politicians, and I wonder if my Democrat friend applies the same standard to his favorite candidates as he applies to Trump….
- There is huge positive energy around President Trump, and we need to keep that going. The Democrat Party is doing everything possible to allow illegal aliens to vote (which is patently illegal) in this upcoming election, and we need to have such a massive turnout for Trump that the election is too big to rig. (Personal note: I sat directly in line with the cameras focused on Trump, and whenever he was speaking I was visible precisely to the right of his right cheek. Wearing a light blue shirt and a red hat, I was also blurry…so close to finally being on TV, and yet not really being on TV)
That’s me. I have never been so close to world fame, and yet so blurry and far away from it
“The Elites Have Revolted and Are In a State of World War Against Us”
Today we host Tom Shepstone as a guest here. His essay below is a well written aggregation of some of the different things I myself have written here over the years, and also things which other much better known commenters than either Tom or I have said and written. If I recall right, it was radio show host Mark Levin who first pointed out that the elites are in full revolt against the people. What Tom has done is pull a bunch of these related threads together for a coherent appeal to moderate American voters: If you like your civilization, and you want to keep your civilization, you must vote for the one person who will protect your civilization.
###########
The Elites Have Revolted and Are In a State of World War Against Us
By Thomas J. Shepstone
Every day there’s further evidence global elites are at war with the people. Western Civilization has periodically been the exception to the rule that the people ordinarily live as serfs in totalitarianism nations dominated by the elites. Those times when the people have actually had a role in governing themselves have been relatively few, in fact, over the centuries. The signing of the Magna Carta by King John giving up some of his rights to lesser nobles was such a moment. The American Revolution was another. Sooner or later, though, the elites claw back their power as the people are conned into giving them a bit of it back only to see the inch given turn into miles and miles.
This process of decay has reached to the very core of Western Civilization at our present point. Free speech is evaporating like a dragster taking off for the hay bales at the end of the strip. Rumble has been banned in France and X chased out of Brazil. The developer and CEO of Telegram has been arrested for not cooperating with government. The UK is jailing people for Facebook posts challenging the government narrative and has threatened to extradite Elon Musk for allowing the same thing. The Biden-Harris administration bullied Twitter into downplaying the significance of the Hunter Biden hard drive during a political campaign.
The mainstream media has allied itself with totally corrupt CIA and FBI agencies. Politicians lie with abandon and tell ever bigger lies with straight faces. The heads of other Federal agencies such as Homeland Security and the Department of Justice make flat out false assertions with no embarrassment whatsoever. The Attorney General [Merrick Garland] refuses to pursue perpetrators of violence against pro-life centers but is willing to put grandmothers in jail for praying outside abortion mills. The main bodies of both political parties have joined forces as a uni-party focused on special privileges for themselves as they bankrupt the country. The President and a Vice-Presidential nominee both appear to be all but Chinese Communist Party agents.
The rot simply cannot be denied. Oh, it’s always been there. Woodrow Wilson was a vicious racist who reduced free speech to whispers and even Lincoln arbitrarily took away many basic rights but those were war-time situations and temporary. There was also corruption with the Teapot Dome scandal, Alger Hiss and so many other cases, but it’s never been as deep and widespread as today. France’s Macron refuses to leave office despite being massively defeated in the recent election. The UK’s new leader replaced one never elected and the new one is more aligned with the World Economic Forum than his own country.
The elites are in full revolt — world war, if you will — against us. They are stealing elections now but hope to end them soon. They are pushing self-appointed world government on every front with phony campaigns against ‘malinformation’ (their invented word for accurate information opposed to the government narrative), proposals for digital currencies, 15-minute cities, health care dictatorships and so much more. It’s all in the name of control, control and more control and it’s mushrooming like crazy.
What can we do about it, short of another dangerous and counterproductive French Revolution like the one two centuries ago that ended up consuming the advocates of revolution? Well, the first thing it seems to me, despite my gloomy observations above, is not to despair. There are reasons to hope after all. It is clear, for example, there is worldwide revulsion of the elites who are currently running our institutions not only of government, but everything else that matters as well. There is also a realignment of some nature taking place.
The new divisions are ever less of a left vs. right nature and more a matter of the elite establishment vs. versus anti-establishment commoners, insane folks who wish to destroy the family vs. normal people who recognize it as the building block for any civilization, and wannabe masters of the universe vs. freedom lovers. Each of these divisions is important because they clarify what the problem is and what must be remedied, which can only happen if we talk to each other and abide our differences. Reforming or abandoning corrupt institutions so as to realign on principles are the only ways that can happen.
That’s how I see what’s happening in the political realm these days. The RFK, Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard endorsements of Trump are indicative of what I’m talking about. I strongly disagree with both on certain matters, especially on abortion and, in Kennedy’s case also on climate and energy matters. Yet, look what’s happened. Bobby, Jr. unforgivably helped killed fracking in New York. He once stated, too, that he wanted to jail ‘climate deniers.”
But, in recent speeches and interviews, Kennedy has attacked the billionaire green grifter class sucking up all our money on wasteful green boondoggles. How can we possibly disagree? He also went after Anthony Fauci in a way no else was capable of doing. And, he has defended free speech like a lion. He came to Trump because he had no other principled choice, and so it must be with us. We need to unite with one-time enemies where we can and destroy the old divisions on the way to restoring Western Civilization.
Notwithstanding all this, elections, while mattering greatly, won’t save us by themselves. No one individual can do it and events always intervene, making it extraordinarily difficult in the situation we face, which is a world war of entrenched special interests against those of us who would ask questions. Yet, individuals of principle do make a difference, so it falls on all of us to live by our principles. Chief among them are life, liberty and truth-telling, all of which rest on a foundation of free speech and the elite troops arrayed against are making simultaneous major assaults on this principle on every front.
Free speech is the prerequisite of any truly functioning democratic republic, despite the disingenuous wails of the left suggesting that democracy is threatened by it. They want to separate good speech from bad, but don’t tell us they plan to be the arbiters of what is good and bad. And, what they mean by democracy is anything but the vote of the people. No, what they mean by democracy is no more than the institutions they now control, whether they be government agencies or electoral bodies. They aim to kill true democracy, as in “the will of the people,” to save their captured form of it.
Their so-named democracy lives by lies and, therefore, can tolerate no truth telling. The only way they know to stop others from speaking truth to power is smother it by throwing a wet blanket over all speech on the excuse that some of it’s bad. Free speech, though, has no such distinctions. It is mixture of good and bad and it’s only by comparing the two that free people get to make up their minds. The antidote to bad speech in the eyes of the beholders is always more speech. Even if ends in both sides calling each other liars, those observing the debate get to decide where the truth really lies. That is true democracy. All speech must be protected or there is no speech for any of us.
We will not turn back the elite troops attacking us without free speech. If we do not insist upon it, we are doomed. We will be forced to live in city colonies and give up our right to travel. We’ll be forced to subsidize the lives of elites by paying for unreliable and pricey energy systems that make no sense but fatten the wallets of grifters. We’ll lose the right to farm, to possess our own homes, to vote and to live in a nation of our own making. We will revert to a feudal society.
Let’s all remember this when we vote. Let’s vote like our very lives depend upon it, because they do, but more than that we all owe it to ourselves and each other to speak up and challenge each other. That means getting on social media, becoming activists and talking with others, especially with whom we disagree. There can be no running away from argument.
That doesn’t mean making everything political or acting hostile. No, it simply means engaging others in a civil way. We must cross the divides and ask questions…lots of questions so those aligned against us might understand us better and vice versa with a view toward identifying areas of agreement. We will not win the war against the elites without making friends of some of our enemies. And, we will not wrestle the beast we have created to the ground alone.
#Elites #FreeSpeech #WesternCiviization #Democracy
Had my day in court
Literally had my day in court yesterday, in the Dauphin County courthouse in Downtown Harrisburg. After nearly ten years of taxpayer-funded expensive stonewalling and dodging and delaying, Harrisburg City’s expensive taxpayer-funded attorneys (Lavery) were forced to actually litigate.
Harrisburg City was forced to actually argue for and explain why it has maintained three patently illegal ordinances on the books for years. At issue are city ordinances that criminalize carrying guns in a public park, discharging a firearm within the city limits, and failing to report a lost or stolen gun.
Each of these ordinances is subject to state pre-emption, because Pennsylvania state law clearly prohibits any political subdivision, like Harrisburg City, from creating its own gun regulations. This is in order to avoid a crazy-quilt pattern of gun laws within a state, where just crossing from one municipality to another, one township to the township next door, with a firearm, could result in an unintentional felony and violent arrest and incarceration. No society can operate like that, whether it’s gun regulations, abortion regulations, car regulations etc.
So, somehow the elected officials of Harrisburg City believed they were above the law, and they passed these illegal city ordinances. A group I belong to FOAC-ILLEA and Firearms Owners Against Crime, filed suit against the city many years ago, to compel the city to remove these illegal ordinances. After all, what is the purpose of having illegal laws on the books? What is the purpose of having illegal laws on the books, and actually spending hundreds of thousands of Harrisburg taxpayer dollars fighting to keep said illegal laws in place?
I will tell you why these ordinances are on the books: Harrisburg City wants to have the threat of these ordinances to use against people the city doesn’t like. People with different political beliefs, maybe the wrong skin color, maybe the wrong religion, you name it, these illegal ordinances can and will be used by city leaders for purely political and punitive purposes.
Even if the city charges someone with these ordinances and eventually loses in court, the city will still have won. Because the criminal process is the punishment. Simply dragging someone through the expensive, scary legal process from being arrested and handcuffed, having their person and home ransacked by police, being jailed, having to get a lawyer, maybe losing your job, is pretty bad punishment. So even if the city eventually loses a criminal prosecution with any of these ordinances, they will have really hurt someone.
And that is the purpose of ALL liberals everywhere, to scare and control and punitively hurt and damage people who disagree with them. Especially gun owning individuals who represent an armed citizenry capable of pushing back against tyrannical government. Like all liberal-run Democrat Party bastions everywhere across America, Harrisburg City desires to control its citizens, not represent them.
And so yesterday we finally got to sit in Judge Andrew Dowling’s court room and have a real, genuine legal offense-defense. It was something out of a Hollywood movie, with real court room drama, an occasionally piqued or openly amused judge, a sharp litigator (Joshua Prince) and a defense attorney who – no lie, no embellishment here – actually bellowed “I am being bushwhacked! This is an ambush!” after the judge reminded him that he was the attorney who said let’s move this trial to this date today.
Being the plaintiff of record from Harrisburg City itself, I had my opportunity to testify from the witness stand. I was cross examined at length, sometimes with real humor, by the defense counsel. I really don’t believe myself to be a “lawbreaker” when I am defying a patently illegal law, and it was nice to see the attorney have to concede that. I also enjoyed recounting how, during the catastrophic flood of 2011, I walked up and down my block and adjoining blocks with a shotgun and a handgun, to deter looters. That raised eyebrows, and led to an interesting line of questioning from the defense counsel and thumbs-up from my fellow plaintiffs.
Other plaintiffs, Howard Bullock, who lives outside Harrisburg City but who works within it, and Jim Stoker, president of FOAC, also took the witness stand, and were also cross-examined. All three of us did well representing our case. And the bushwhacked lawyer who raised ridiculous objection after ridiculous objection, including once to his own statements (the judge kindly reminded him that he was now arguing against himself), was clearly deflated after Judge Dowling said he would issue a decision on this trial.
Nearly ten years of Harrisburg taxpayer gravy train defending the indefensible are about to end for Lavery Law! And for me, the rule of law is being established, our flag of freedom being firmly planted in a small county court room far from the public eye. Not one news reporter was present, not one City employee, nobody but us freedom fighters, the judge and his staff, and the hapless bushwhacked lawyer.
Once again the forgotten taxpayer is out of sight, out of mind, though a holding of any sort in this case will then raise questions about why Harrisburg City spends hundreds of thousands of rare taxpayer dollars so frivolously and carelessly.
It was a great day for the law and a great day to be in court forcing the law to be upheld by striking illegal laws from the books. Thanks to attorney Joshua Prince for representing the rule of law, and to Judge Dowling for running his court room fairly and often with real humor and sharp observations.
(L to R) Plaintiff Howard Bullock, attorney Joshua Prince, attorney Kevin Fenchak, attorney Dillon Harris, plaintiff Yours Truly Josh First, and plaintiff Jim Stoker of FOAC fame in the Dauphin County courthouse yesterday.
January 6th 2021, USA’s modern civil rights march
On January 6th, 2021, I stood near the Washington Monument and listened to President Donald J. Trump speak about election integrity. He was right on the facts and also a bit long winded, but who in his position wouldn’t be. America had just witnessed a stolen election, and a presidency illegally ripped from Trump’s hands by a band of lawless bureaucrats and anti-America activists.
To say that America was shocked at the blatant theft of the 2020 election was an understatement. Most people expected the US Supreme Court to step in and hear arguments about the overwhelming details of rampant election fraud across the country. But no help was coming from the spineless weasels on the Supreme Court. And with very few exceptions, no help was forthcoming from anyone in elected office, either, as state attorney generals sat on their hands and looked the other way, and state legislatures refused to take impeachment and removal actions against rogue bureaucrats and lawless state supreme courts that helped implement the Steal of 2020, the theft an entire nation.
I will never forget marching down Constitution Avenue in the early afternoon of January 6th, arm-in-arm with people who were strangers on the one hand, and yet recognizable to me on the other hand. On my left arm was a black guy, probably mid thirties, visibly upset and shouting about our rights being trampled. On my right arm was a Hispanic guy, who was animated but who also seemed especially positive. We were bound together as Brothers in America. Regardless of our different skin colors, we shared then and still share now a common interest in the rule of law and honest elections.
I think we all expected our participation that day in that 100% peaceful march for our most important civil right, the right to vote, to bear fruit. We justifiably expected the representatives of The People to suspend the artificially forced electoral vote counting, and that all the obviously fraudulent actions in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona and Georgia, would get a public airing.
Alas, the lawlessly violent police response to our peaceful civil rights march in front of the US Capitol matched the lawless behavior of the elected official class: Both groups ignored We, The People, and both police and members of congress went on unimaginable rampages against us. The DOJ’s shameful hunt for political dissidents continues to this very day.
As I wrote here on the day after January 6th, I was illegally gassed three times and repeatedly shot with rubber bullets by a police officer who was keyed in on me, and yet my face, which he seemed so intent to hit with his many rubber bullets, was just a few feet out of range of his gun. His projectiles kept hitting my chest, my shoulders, but never my face. I don’t recall there being much room behind me to step back from the officer’s assault, and like others around me, I stood shocked by what I was witnessing and experiencing. The police were supposed to be our protectors, not assault troops acting as an arm of the lawless political class.
January 6th, 2021, was the civil rights march of our time, and I am proud that I was there as an active participant. Unlike the police there that day, I did not hurt anyone, I did not break anything, and I did not act lawlessly. My heart and my mind are clear. The police, however, must be investigated and legally held accountable for their civil rights violations against us peaceful protestors.
Nothing is more important than voting, having the right to vote, and have your vote be honestly counted and not be diluted by fake ballots and hacked voting machines that deliberately change votes in favor of the lawless political class. Without one person-one vote, there is no republic, there is no democracy, there is no representative government of, by and for The People, and no America.
In 1964, elected Republicans overcame Democrat Party opposition and got America to pass the Civil Rights Act aimed at letting Black Americans live free and equal lives with everyone else. A year later, in 1965, elected Republicans again overcame Democrat Party opposition and got the Voting Rights Act passed, which allowed Blacks to vote freely and not be subject to the myriad barriers the Democrat Party was placing in their way.
On Januray 6th, 2021, a new civil rights movement was begun, one for clean voting in America. For elections free of violence, free of interfering police, free of hacked voting machines, free of endless fake ballots, free of endless vote counting so that one political party eventually gets enough fake votes to declare a fake triumph, and free of papered-over windows of vote counting rooms where Republican watchers have been ejected, which happened in many venues, including here in Pennsylvania in 2020 and 2021.
In 2025, America needs a new Voting Rights Act, that protects all American citizens: a) One paper ballot per legal voter, b) personal official ID by all voters that matches their voting roll information, c) in-person voting for all but military personnel and those with extenuating circumstances, d) no voting machines, and e) just one Election Day, with all results counted and announced immediately after counting that evening.
America will not continue as a free nation without this one essential civil right being achieved.