Tag: Unconstitutional

Former WWE Star-Turned-Mayor Cuts The Cord With Flock

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Knox County, Tennessee, Mayor Glenn Jacobs told Flock Safety that a contract with the county sheriff was no longer valid, placing the future of over 140 cameras in doubt. The former WWE star raised questions about the contract’s validity in an August 12 letter to Alex Guth, a regional sales director for Flock Safety. In the letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, Jacobs said that the purchases and contracts exceeded the threshold requiring review by elected officials. “By our calculations, equipment and services purchased to date under the 2020 contract total $274,720, not including the $800,000 purchase made through Omnia,” Jacobs wrote.

“Clearly then, the purchases made under this contract exceed the $100,000 threshold at which the contract must receive County Commission approval in order to be valid and legally binding.” “Therefore, in my role as Chief Executive of the County, this is to inform you that I do not believe the 2020 contract between Knox County and your company is valid and there is no current service agreement in place,” Jacobs continued, adding that the letter also served as a notice that the county would not be renewing the contact. Flock did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF. “The lack of transparency surrounding Flock’s rollout is one of the most troubling aspects about all this,” Jacobs posted Saturday on X. “It sure seems like there was a sprint towards a fait accompli before the public took notice.”

Jacobs told DCNF investigative reporter Emily Kopp in a video posted to YouTube August 5 that he initially thought Flock cameras were similar to other license plate readers. “I thought they were license plate readers, right? The old drive by and the [camera] takes a picture of your [license plate] and if it’s on some sort of list, stolen car, Amber Alert, whatever, gets a hit, reports it to the police,” the former WWE star said. “What I discovered is these things are completely different than that. Instead of a passive system where, again, a car drives by and the other, they’re looking at the license plates, but they only report when they get a hit on something that the police are looking for, what these cameras do is these cameras are an active system that’s pulling data from every car that drives by. ”

“They take a snapshot, then it uses AI to not only store the data place, but also create what’s called a vehicular fingerprint, and that’s make model color of the car, distinguishing features such as roof racks, even bumper stickers,” Jacobs continued. The cameras, which use artificial intelligence to automatically read license plates, have drawn controversy over privacy concerns, particularly those sited near gun stores and gun ranges. At least two establishments tied to the firearms industry have discontinued the use of Flock cameras initially purchased to enhance safety. Social media posts noted a Flock camera outside Gun Commanders, a firearms dealer in Cleveland, Georgia, triggering a firestorm of protest.

The store’s owner confirmed to the DCNF he had deactivated the camera. “When I installed the system more than a year ago, my intentions were simple and sincere: to help protect my employees, my customers, and my business from theft and violent crime. Before making that decision, I took the time to understand how the system worked and the privacy safeguards that were in place, including extremely limited data retention,” Mike Carter told the DCNF in response to an earlier inquiry on the social media posts regarding the camera. “At no time was the camera installed to monitor, track, or infringe upon the rights or privacy of law-abiding gun owners.”

“After listening to our customers and considering the impact this controversy has had on our staff, our families, and our business, I have decided to remove the Flock camera from our property,” Carter added. “Effective immediately, the camera has been rendered inoperable and is no longer functioning. It is currently in the process of being permanently removed from our property.” Eagle Sports Range, a range and federally licensed dealer operating in Cudahy, Wisconsin, also took its cameras down after installing them in 2023, according to WISN, a Milwaukee-area TV station.

Source: Former WWE Star-Turned-Mayor Cuts The Cord With Flock | The Daily Caller

Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another.
Romans 12:10

For God so Loved the World

“God loved you enough to send His Son, Jesus loved you enough to give His life, and through faith, you are offered a hope this world can never take…

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SCOTUS Could Strike Down EPA’s Unconstitutional Overreach

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The EPA under the Biden Administration crafted a cap-and-trade scheme to allocate market share in the multibillion-dollar hydrofluorocarbons industry — including to “new market participants” based on the promotion of “equity.” Now, one of the businesses the EPA rendered a market-share loser under the federal agency’s unconstitutional take-over of the hydrofluorocarbon industry seeks review by the Supreme Court. And that pending petition represents a sleeper case that could implode much of the administrative state if it makes it onto the high court’s docket next term. Next Thursday, the Supreme Court will conference over the pending petition for review, called a petition for certiorari, in the case of RMS of Georgia, LLC, dba Choice Refrigerants v. EPA.

The petitioner, known more widely as Choice Refrigerants, is a small business operating out of Georgia which invested in patented blends of refrigerants for air conditioning and other products in the early 2000s. At the time, the EPA encouraged the development of hydrofluorocarbons to replace the ozone-depleting refrigerants then on the market. In December of 2020, Congress passed a statute called the AIM Act, short for the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020, which mandated a phasedown in the United States of hydrofluorocarbons using a cap-and-trade program. The AIM Act provided for a phased elimination of 85% of hydrofluorocarbons produced in, or imported to, the United States. While Congress detailed in the AIM Act the cap for each phase of the plan to reduce hydrofluorocarbons, the statute provided no direction for the EPA to decide who should receive “allowances” under the law.

With no guidance from Congress, the EPA invented its own standards for doling out allowances, with the EPA reserving millions of allowances for “new entrants.” The EPA’s final rule from October 5, 2021, also expressly provided multiple times that, in allocating market share, it could consider “equity.” The EPA later issued a final rule in July of 2023 to cover allocation of hydrofluorocarbons from 2024 through 2028. That final rule continued to provide for allowances to “new market” entrants, prejudicing Choice Refrigerants and other businesses to the advantage of those deemed worthy by the Biden Administration. When Choice Refrigerants challenged the EPA’s scheme, the EPA initially defended its allocation of market-share by claiming it “was free to issue the allowances in a reasonable manner, reasonably explained,” based on Chevron deference. However, the Supreme Court would later overrule the Chevron doctrine — a doctrine which required courts to defer to an agency’s interpretation of a statute so long as it was reasonable. 

Source: SCOTUS Could Strike Down EPA’s Unconstitutional Overreach

For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life.
Galatians 6:8

2 Timothy 3:12 

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted Paul was reminding Timothy that following Christ does not guarantee an easy life. When we choose to live our…

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John 15:18–20

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not…

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Galatians 1:6-10

“When truth becomes negotiable, faith becomes vulnerable so know the Gospel, stand on God’s Word, and seek His approval above the world’s applause.” “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him…

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Isaiah 45:2

“I will go before you and level the exalted places, I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron, This verse reminds us that God…

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Self-Defense: Another “Luxury” the Poor Can Do Without

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“to the point about pricing poor people out of owning firearms, I think poor people don’t benefit from owning firearms.” Dr. Anthony D. Douglas

Many years ago, Otis McDonald, a 76-year old retiree living in a high-crime area of Chicago testified that he had “been robbed numerous times in his Morgan Park home; [he’d] witnessed too many crimes to count and …been threatened with pistols around his home.” The gangbangers and drug dealers had “taken over” his neighborhood, and he wanted to keep a handgun in his own home to protect himself, something that Chicago law at the time prohibited. Mr. McDonald was the named plaintiff in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the landmark challenge to the handgun ban, and his experiences helped persuade the United States Supreme Court to overturn the law as a violation of the Second Amendment.

The Court dismissed Chicago’s and other municipalities’ arguments as “at war with our central holding in Heller: that the Second Amendment protects a personal right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes, most notably for self-defense within the home.”     A University of Chicago trauma doctor, testifying before the Illinois House Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, is seeking to turn back the clock. Responding to concerns over pricing lower-income gun buyers out of the market, Dr. Anthony D. Douglas declared that “to the point about pricing poor people out of owning firearms, I think poor people don’t benefit from owning firearms.” This “concern about poor people being able to, are benefit from owning firearms or being put out of being able to afford firearms is, I think, we are a little bit distracted from what poor people and poor communities actually need.” 

Dr. Douglas is “the mastermind behind HB3320/ SB2279,” the Responsibility in Firearm Legislation (RIFL) Act. This 122-page legislation would, if passed, require firearm manufacturers in Illinois to obtain a RIFL license, and distribute license fees proceeds to “victims of firearms” (“firearm injury” means any gun-related injury, suicide or homicide). License fees would be set at an amount estimated to be “equal to the public health costs and financial burdens borne by the State and its residents as a result of firearm injuries,” using the incidence of firearm injuries in the previous year; however, in the first year the total annual aggregate fee would be capped at $866,000,000.  Each licensee would be required to pay the portion of the total annual aggregate fee equal to the market share of the firearm manufacturer. A program established under the law would compensate “victims of firearms” for all direct costs incurred as a result of firearm injury for up to three years post-event, which payments would be tax-exempt. Anyone suffering a firearm injury (including out-of-state residents), their next of kin, legal guardian, dependent, first-degree relative, second-degree relative, and employer could qualify as “eligible victims.”

License fees, in reality a “punishment tax,” would add at least $1,600 to the cost of each firearm sold in the state, according to a lobbyist for the Illinois State Rifle Association. Guns for self-defense or subsistence hunting would become unaffordable luxuries for the poor and eventually, for just about everyone, once the legislation destroys the Second Amendment in Illinois.  Dr. Douglas and other bill supporters argue that the gun industry should “pay for the bloodshed it helps to create” by shifting “the direct costs away from taxpayers and place[] them where they belong: on the gun industry.” Manufacturers would “pay according to how frequently their products are recovered in injuries and deaths in Illinois. If their products are never recovered, they pay nothing…The logic that ‘guns don’t kill people, people kill people’ is passé.” Besides driving up prices, and creating new fees and bureaucracy, the bills seek to override the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which protects the heavily-regulated gun industry from liability for a third party’s criminal misuse of their products.

The legislation also ignores the pesky logical issue that violent crime is, in fact, the product of gangs and criminals and enabled by soft-on-crime public officials advocating “non-punitive” justice, all of which have nothing to do with the gun industry and none of whom will share the financial burden imposed by the RIFL Act. An inconvenient truth at odds with Dr. Douglas’s narrative is that Chicago’s poor and minorities, in common with those throughout America, remain the most at risk of crime and violence and therefore have, if anything, an even more pressing need for the tools of self-defense than most. The Illinois Policy Institute, a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) research organization, notes that minority communities in the city’s South Side and West Side face poverty rates “of nearly three times the citywide average,” and an analysis shows, further, that “low-income areas of the city and Black and Hispanic Chicagoans are much more likely to experience crime.”

Source: NRA-ILA | Self-Defense: Another “Luxury” the Poor Can Do Without

Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
Psalm 119:105

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News From Chicago

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Breaking News from around Chicago

2 men shot and killed in Greater Grand Crossing

Around 11:20 a.m., Chicago police said a group of give men approached two other men in the 7800 block of South Calumet Avenue and fired shots.  Police said it is unclear how many people in the group fired shots.  A 37-year-old man was pronounced dead a the scene with a gunshot wound.  Police said a 44-year-old man was taken to the University of Chicago Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. 

Source: 2 men shot and killed in Greater Grand Crossing – CBS Chicago

12 tornadoes were produced in Indiana, Illinois during severe storms in early March, weather service says

The National Weather Service confirmed on Tuesday that 12 tornadoes were produced across Illinois and northern Indiana during a series of severe storms earlier this month. The supercell produced 10 tornadoes in Illinois and two others in northern Indiana on March 10. The most powerful tornado was an EF-3 in Kankakee County. Updated information indicated that the tornado had 160 mph winds, with a width of 15 football fields, and the path length stretched over 35 miles, according to the NWS.

Source: 12 tornadoes were produced in Indiana, Illinois during severe storms in early March, weather service says – CBS Chicago

2 men stabbed during fight on CTA Red Line train on Chicago’s South Side

Chicago police said just before 1:30 a.m., two men were riding the train in the 200 block of W. 47th St when another man approached. Police said the men got into an argument when the other man took out a sharpt object and attacked both victim.  Both victims were stabbed in the neck and taken to the University of Chicago Hospital in fair conditon. 

Source: 2 men stabbed during fight on CTA Red Line train on Chicago’s South Side – CBS Chicago

Man, 67, killed in shooting on Chicago’s Near West Side

A 67-year-old man was killed Tuesday afternoon in a shooting on Chicago’s Near West Side.

The shooting transpired at Madison and Leavitt streets, about three blocks west of the United Center. Chicago police said that at about 12:49 p.m. the man was walking on the street when he was approached by two armed suspects who pulled out guns and opened fire.

Source: Man, 67, killed in shooting on Chicago’s Near West Side – CBS Chicago

Crash-and-grab burglars smash into Chicago’s Golden Apple restaurant while it’s open

Police said three burglars crashed a gray Jeep Grand Cherokee through the front of the restaurant, and then stole an ATM once they were inside. The burglars escaped with it in a waiting black sport-utility vehicle, police said.

Source: Crash-and-grab burglars smash into Chicago’s Golden Apple restaurant while it’s open – CBS Chicago

6 wounded, including 2 Illinois State University students, in Normal, Illinois shooting

Normal police said on social media that at 2:40 a.m., they were called for multiple shots fired in the 700 block of Franklin Avenue Officers found several people outside who had been shot. Police said all six victims suffered non-life-threatening injuries, though they did not specify each victim’s condition. The victims included two juvenile boys, two men, and two women, police said. Illinois State University police said on social media that two of those injured were students at the university.

Source: 6 wounded, including 2 Illinois State University students, in Normal, Illinois shooting – CBS Chicago

My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.
1 John 3:18

Record-setting cyclospora outbreak is over, U.S. health officials declare

The cyclospora food poisoning outbreak linked to recalled iceberg lettuce is over, U.S. health officials said Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said there is no longer a risk of people getting sick with cyclosporiasis from this outbreak and is confident that all related iceberg lettuce is off the market. The U.S. Food and…

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Field of Flags marks 25 years since 9/11 at Kennesaw Mountain

At the foot of Kennesaw Mountain, 2,977 American flags now stand as a reminder that every person killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks had a life and a story. People of all ages joined first responders and community groups to plant the flags at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. Each flag represents one person…

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Teen survives for days clinging to capsized boat off Alaska

A 15-year-old boy survived on top of an overturned skiff in Alaska’s frigid Bering Sea for roughly two days, losing his older brother and then his cousin to the ocean after the boat capsized while they were out fishing. The teen, identified by a relative as Derek Parker Aghnaanga, was finally hoisted to safety Monday…

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9/11 Never Forget; An Awesome Tribute

Created by Steve A. I hear a song and that song evokes an emotion and that emotion in me helped in the creation of this tribute video. While I wish all of the images were high resolution….some images of that day were caught with low quality equipment and the images I chose all seemed to…

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Flight 93 Memorial ceremonies today mark 25 years since 9/11

Today marks 25 years since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and observance ceremonies will be held at the Flight 93 Memorial near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to remember the lives lost that day. Nearly 3,000 people died and thousands more were injured as terrorists carried out coordinated attacks on the World Trade Center skyscrapers in New…

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25 years after 9/11, Massachusetts to mark attacks with statewide moment of silence and “Tribute in Light”

Massachusetts is marking 25 years since the 9/11 terrorist attacks with a statewide moment of silence on Friday and special tributes that include illuminating Boston buildings in remembrance of the tragedy. Gov. Maura Healey said she is directing flags in the state to be lowered to half-staff. She’s also “calling on residents, schools, businesses and…

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Street preachers sue Chicago over ‘unconstitutional’ arrests

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Chicago has been sued over the arrests of Christian street preachers in a case alleging unconstitutional enforcement of city regulations against religious speech, according to a U S legal advocacy

Source: Street preachers sue Chicago over ‘unconstitutional’ arrests | U.S.

We love Him because He first loved us.
1 John 4:19

Maryland invests $11 million to expand bike, pedestrian and trail infrastructure

Maryland is investing more than $11 million in grants to expand bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure across the state. The Maryland Department of Transportation says the funding will support nearly 25 projects aimed at improving safety and accessibility. The projects include Safe Routes to School improvements, bikeway connections and trail upgrades. Baltimore City, Anne Arundel County…

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Why are so many yellowjackets buzzing around Southeast Michigan?

They induce fear. They’re aggressive. And for some people, they pose a serious health risk. Many people’s instinct is to swat and run away from those black-and-yellow bugs that have a really painful sting, but this year it seems there are a lot of yellowjackets everywhere. But why? Dion DeGennaro, president of Sergio’s Pest Control,…

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Berkeley officials sound alarm after 5 bats test positive for rabies

Officials in the East Bay city of Berkeley have issued a warning to residents and doctors amid a rising number of bats that have tested positive for rabies. In a letter sent to the Berkeley City Council on Aug. 26, City Manager Paul Buddenhagen’s office said lab tests confirmed five rabies-positive bats were found. The…

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A study of the Mesha Stele

The Mesha Stele, also famously known as the Moabite Stone, is a 3-foot-tall black basalt monument dating back to circa 840 BCE. It is one of the most vital archaeological discoveries connecting biblical history with extra-biblical evidence. Commissioned by King Mesha of Moab (a kingdom situated in modern-day Jordan), the stele boasts 34 lines of…

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