Kamala Harris

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Got My Medicare Part D Notice For 2025

September 24, 2024 by 8 Comments

Medicare Part D is the mandatory prescription drug insurance everyone on traditional Medicare is required to have. As the open enrollment period is about to begin, I received my “Advanced Notice of Change” for 2025 recently. Upon looking at it, I thought this can’t be correct!

Except that it was thanks to changes imposed by the Inflation Reduction Act 2022. It only passed the Senate due to a tie-breaking vote by VP Kamala Harris.

As noted by the Daily Signal, the act imposed price controls on prescription drugs that was supposed to lower health care costs. Look at the page below form the notice that compares 2024 premiums and deductibles with that projected for 2025.

My monthly premium increase $35 per month or a 673% increase. The only reason it is “only” $35 is that is the maximum allowed. Likewise, my deductible increases by 110% to $590 and the price for the cheapest prescription drugs doubles from zero to $5.

I am not diabetic so the price cap on insulin doesn’t impact me. The only supposed saving grace about this whole debacle is that my maximum out of pocket is now capped at $2000 per year instead of $8000. Given my actual out of pocket was probably no more than $200, BFD!

So much for inflation reduction as my premiums alone will rise by $420! If the cackling one thinks this is good economics, she isn’t as smart as she thinks she is.

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A Match Made In Hell

August 20, 2024 by 3 Comments

I received an email today from the Everytown Victory Fund which is their PAC. They are now have formed a coalition with the Planned Parenthood Votes PAC to produce a pro-Kamala, anti-Trump online advertisement. The ad touts how Kamala is pro-abortion and pro-gun control. This is juxtaposed against Trump on his appointments to the Supreme Court and speaking about his record on gun rights.

Now anyone who knows anything about gun rights and Trump knows he is not perfect on gun rights despite what they have him saying in this ad. The now overturned bump stock ban is evidence of this.

I don’t care what your position is on abortion but I am having a bit of cognitive dissonance seeing these two leftist organizations in a coalition. One promotes killing the unborn while the other thinks restricting firearms is a safety (sic) measure. Perhaps I should view Everytown as not so much as a gun control organization but rather an organization that is doing everything in its power to limit the basic human right of self-defense. Seen that way, this coalition does make some sense.

I do understand that if you want a free vasectomy or abortion pills, they are both available at the Democratic National Convention. I guess that is one way to limit the spread of leftism.

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Ouch!

August 6, 2024 by 2 Comments

If you haven’t heard by now, Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (DFL-MN) has her running mate. The one-time Blue Dog Demcrat who traded his previously held NRA A-rating for all gun control, all the time in order to be elected governor was probably the most left of the finalists. Indeed, he had the support of Bernie Sanders even before being named.

This tweet hits the target better than any editorial could hope to do.

I can feel the flames all the way over here! If that isn’t the tweet of the day, I don’t know what is.

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Comma-La Coming To Asheville (Updated)

October 15, 2020 by

I don’t know how I’ve been so privileged but it seems I’m on the Joe Biden for President press release list for North Carolina events. I got this one yesterday announcing Kamala Harris is coming to Asheville today.

Kamala Harris to Travel to North Carolina

On Thursday, October 15, Kamala Harris will travel to Asheville and Charlotte, North Carolina on the first day of in-person early voting in the state.
In the morning, Senator Harris will deliver remarks at an early vote launch mobilization event in Asheville, North Carolina.

In the afternoon, Senator Harris will travel to Charlotte, North Carolina to participate in a campaign hub grand opening.
 
In the evening, Senator Harris will participate in a voter mobilization event to encourage North Carolinians to make their plan to vote early.

LOGISTICAL INFORMATION
Details are subject to change
 

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15

Early Vote Launch Mobilization Event with Kamala Harris in Asheville, NC

Start Time: 11:30 AM ET
Pooled Press and Livestreamed

I don’t know why Asheville is being so blessed except that the City Council has voted for reparations and is engaging in a Stalinesque erasure of history to include monuments, statues, and school names. It has been the scene of “mostly peaceful” riots, err, I mean demonstrations downtown.

For the last few years, I’ve been privileged to be on the email press release list of every lefty, progressive, you don’t need an ID to vote, guns are bad, ACB will destroy the Constitution, and we want to turn America into a socialist paradise type of group. I didn’t ask for them and most of the releases are enough to make your eyes roll into the back of your head. But, hey, someone has to get them.

UPDATE: It appears that Kamala will not be gracing Asheville with her presence. The groan you heard was all the sad lefties who were disappointed.

And the reason the event was canceled?

WLOS is reporting that one of her staffers has tested positive for COVID-19.

Just before the Senator was scheduled to land in Asheville, the campaign released the news. According to a press release, late Wednesday night, two individuals involved in the campaign tested positive for COVID-19: a non-staff flight crew member and Liz Allen, communications director to Senator Harris.

“Neither of these people have had contact with Vice President Biden, Senator Harris or any other staffers since testing positive or in the 48 hours prior to their positive test results.”

Senator Harris was not in close contact, as defined by the CDC, with either of these individuals during the two days prior to their positive tests; as such, there is no requirement for quarantine. Regardless, out of an abundance of caution and in line with our campaign’s commitment to the highest levels of precaution, the campaign is canceling Senator Harris’s travel through Sunday, October 18th.

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Quote Of The Day From Ben Stein

September 7, 2018 by

I like Ben Stein. I don’t think any actor could have done his deadpan teacher in Ferris Buehler’s Day Off any better. Sometimes his politics are a bit too country club Republican for my tastes but I can live with that. That said, I found his take on a couple of the Democrats questioning Judge Brett Kavanaugh absolutely spot on.

In an article for The American Spectator entitled, “What Mazie Doesn’t Know”, he wrote on Mazie Hirono and Kamala Harris:

Anyway, Judah Friedman and I drove around in his car, a gleaming Mazda 6, and listened to the torture of Judge Kavanaugh by some asinine nitwit named Mazie Hirono, a Senator from Hawaii. God help us. Book her, Danno. Somehow, she attacked Mr. Kavanaugh so violently she made me want to vomit. My guess is that she’s so INCREDIBLY stupid that she thought he was suddenly going to throw his hands in the air and say, “Senator, you nailed me. I was a concentration camp guard at Belsen. I surrender.”


Thirty minutes later, a true nitwit, our California Senator, Kamala Harris, started doing her Tom Cruise imitation trying to make Kavanaugh “confess” to having said the words “Mueller” and “investigation” to some unknown someone last year. She obviously thought she was just a spectacular courtroom bully. In fact, she was a pitiful little weasel.


And meanwhile, every few minutes some psycho in the audience gets up and starts cursing at Kavanaugh and the GOP. It’s really sad. What a bunch of losers the leftists and their pals in the audience are. They’re not going to get anything on Kavanaugh. There’s nothing to get. He’s a mega genius jurist who will make a superb High Court justice.

Stein is right. Kavanaugh will make a superb Supreme Court Justice and the Democrats on the committee know they can’t do a damn thing to stop him. I do like his characterization of Willie Brown’s ex-girlfriend as “a pitiful little weasel.” 

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Sorry Kamala, No Stay For You

November 21, 2014 by 2 Comments

California Attorney General Kamala Harris had sought a stay of Judge Anthony Ishii’s decision in Sylvester v. Harris. That was the case that challenged California’s 10-day waiting period as it applied to certain individuals. Her argument in a nutshell was “Hey, this is gonna cost us some bucks, we need to hire some folks to comply, I don’t see how we can comply within in a year, and you know we really have more important stuff to do.”

Telling a judge you have more important stuff to do than to comply with his order really isn’t the smartest thing in the world to do as Kamala and her minions found out. Judge Ishii, said in his best judge-speak, “dude, don’t give me that sh*@”.

The problem is that Defendant believes
that other projects are deserving of greater priority. See id. There is no description of what these
critical projects are or when the deadlines might be, nor is there an explanation of why outside
contractors cannot be utilized for some of those projects, nor is there an explanation of why
computer personnel from different departments or agencies cannot be utilized. A bench trial has
concluded, and a law that is actively being enforced has been found to be unconstitutional. The
Court does not know how Defendant or the BOF prioritizes projects, but dealing with an unconstitutional law should be towards the top of the list.

 The bottom line is that Judge Ishii is not going to stay his decision nor is he going to give the California Department of Justice and its Bureau of Firearms more time than the 6 months he already gave them.

More on the case from the CalGuns Foundation below:

ROSEVILLE, CA / November 20, 2014 – California’s laws requiring gun purchasers to wait at least ten days before taking possession of their lawfully-acquired firearms are one step closer to being history, reports The Calguns Foundation, a gun rights group headquartered in the Sacramento suburb of Roseville.


In a new order released today, Federal District Court Judge Anthony W. Ishii rejected two requests made by California Attorney General Kamala Harris in the dispute, captioned Silvester, et al. v. Harris, that was filed in Fresno nearly three years ago.


“Defendant [Harris] made various arguments to justify the waiting period, but the evidence did not actually support a 10-day waiting period,” today’s order noted. “The [state’s] arguments were more in line with rational basis scrutiny”– a weak form of judicial review that was expressly rejected in the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark District of Columbia v. Heller decision – “than with intermediate scrutiny,” which forces governments to prove how a law impinging on a constitutional right serves an important purpose.


In the case of the waiting period laws, Attorney General Harris couldn’t.


“The Court notes that Defendant has not identified any error of law or any erroneous factual finding,” Judge Ishii explained in his denial of Harris’ requests. “The Court stands by its analysis and its findings that the waiting period laws violate the Second Amendment” as applied to the three classes of individuals that, plaintiffs successfully argued, shouldn’t be subject to the laws.


Harris had moved for a modification of the original August court order – which gave the state Department of Justice six months to take whatever steps were necessary to bring the agency’s policies in line with civil rights standards – to allow it a year to comply with the ruling, and also to delay the court’s enforcement of the order entirely until the appeals process had concluded. Both motions were denied.


“A bench trial has concluded, and a law that is actively being enforced has been found to be unconstitutional. The Court does not know how Defendant or the BOF prioritizes projects, but dealing with an unconstitutional law should be towards the top of the list.”


“We’re pleased that Judge Ishii saw right through the Attorney General’s acrimonious delay tactics and properly denied her the opportunity to infringe our fundamental Second Amendment rights even more than she already has,” said Brandon Combs, the executive director of The Calguns Foundation and a plaintiff in the case. “Today’s court order bodes well for justice and, especially, for law-abiding gun purchasers.”


Harris, who has already filed a notice with the district court that she intends to take the loss to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, will presumably argue against the court’s holding that “the 10-day waiting period violate[s] the Second Amendment as applied to three classes of individuals,” like those similarly situated to individual plaintiffs Jeff Silvester and Combs.


Notably, the waiting period requirement was first passed in the same 1923 legislative act as California’s “may-issue” concealed carry laws and a ban on the public display of handguns by gun dealers. Both of those regulations are currently being challenged in federal lawsuits backed by The Calguns Foundation and the Second Amendment Foundation, who are institutional plaintiffs in the Silvester case. The Ninth Circuit is currently considering Yolo County Sheriff Ed Prieto’s request for rehearing of a decision that found his carry license policies violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms. Meanwhile, four gun dealers seeking to strike down the ban on commercial speech filed a motion for preliminary injunction in Sacramento’s federal district court on Monday, arguing the handgun display ban violates the First Amendment.

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California Gun Shops Suing Over First Amendment Violations

November 11, 2014 by

Four gun shops in California are suing California Attorney General Kamala Harris over a state law that prevents them from advertising handguns for sale. Penal Code Section 26820 which dates back to 1923 prohibits dealers from saying they have handguns for sale on their buildings. This includes even having a picture or drawing of a handgun posted where it can be seen from the street.

The suit, Tracy Rifle and Pistol et al v. Kamala Harris et al, alleges that the California law is a violation of the First Amendment rights of the gun shops and their owners. The complaint notes that handguns are lawful items and that the “First Amendment protects the dissemination of truthful, nonmisleading commercial information about lawful products”.

The attorneys for the plaintiffs are Stephen Duvernay of the Benbrook Law Group and Prof. Eugene Volokh of the UCLA School of Law. Prof. Volokh also runs the well-known legal blog The Volokh Conspiracy.

The lawsuit is being supported by the California Association of FFLs, the CalGuns Foundation, and the Second Amendment Foundation.

The release about the case from the Firearm Policy Coalition is below:

November 10, 2014 (SACRAMENTO, CA) — Four California gun dealers are filing a federal lawsuit today against California Attorney General Kamala Harris over what they say is a violation of their First Amendment civil rights. Stephen Lindley, who heads the DOJ’s Bureau of Firearms, is named as a co-defendant in the case.


Tracy Rifle and Pistol, a firearm retailer and indoor shooting range located in San Joaquin County, was recently cited by Harris’ Department of Justice for having pictures of three handguns in window signs that can be seen outside the store. California Penal Code section 26820, first enacted in 1923, bans gun stores from putting up signs advertising the sale of handguns — but not shotguns or rifles. An adjacent window image at Tracy Rifle, which shows a photograph of an AR-15 rifle, was not cited by the DOJ.


“I run one of the most heavily regulated and inspected businesses in existence, but it’s still illegal for me to show customers that I sell handguns until after they walk in the door,” explained Michael Baryla, the owner of Tracy Rifle & Pistol. “That’s about as silly a law as you could imagine, even here in California.”


While California gun dealers cannot display even the word ‘handgun’ at their stores to passersby, adjacent businesses and anti-gun protesters are not prohibited from doing as much. The court filings argue that the law operates as unconstitutional speaker, content, and viewpoint-based discrimination, in addition to having other legal problems.


Similar statutes banning handgun displays can be found in places like Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington, D.C., but the California Department of Justice appears to be the only state agency enforcing provisions like the challenged ban.


The lawsuit claims that this restriction violates gun stores’ First Amendment rights, by severely restricting truthful, non-misleading commercial speech. Lead counsel Bradley Benbrook said about the lawsuit, “The First Amendment prevents the government from telling businesses it disfavors that they can’t engage in truthful advertising. This case follows a long line of Supreme Court cases protecting such disfavored businesses from that type of censorship.”


Though the case doesn’t claim a Second Amendment violation, plaintiffs do argue that commercial advertisement of constitutionally protected products and services — whether abortion, contraceptives, or guns — is especially clearly protected under the First Amendment.


The plaintiffs are also represented by Benbrook’s colleague Stephen Duvernay and Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor who has written and taught extensively about the First and Second Amendments. Before joining the UCLA faculty 20 years ago, Volokh clerked for Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court. He also operates the popular legal blog “The Volokh Conspiracy,” now hosted at the Washington Post.


California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees, the state’s firearm industry association, joined gun rights groups The Calguns Foundation and Second Amendment Foundation in support of the case.


The lawsuit’s other plaintiffs include Sacramento Black Rifle of Rocklin, Ten Percent Firearms of Taft, and PRK Arms, a Fresno-based dealer that operates a chain of three stores in California’s Central San Joaquin Valley, as well as business owners Robert Adams, Wesley Morris, and Jeffrey Mullen, respectively.


A copy of the complaint can be viewed at http://www.calgunsfoundation.org/litigation/trap-v-harris.

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Peruta Case Isn’t Done Yet

May 21, 2014 by 3 Comments

On May 1st, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Sheriff William Gore to respond within 14 days to two questions. First, did the sheriff have a position on whether California AG Kamala Harris should be allowed to intervene in the case? Second, did he consider this case moot as he had starting issuing carry permits on a shall-issue basis?

Gore responded on Wednesday, May 14th in a letter signed by the Senior Deputy County Counsel James Chapin that was sent to the Clerk of Court. The letter said:

The Court has requested the position of Appellee William Gore on the
pending motions to intervene and a response to the suggestion that this case is
moot. Appellee responds as follows:

Motions to Intervene.

Appellee believes that the Attorney General is the appropriate intervenor in
this case because the panel opinion finds California’s legislative scheme regarding
the carrying of handguns unconstitutional. Appellee requests that the Court grant
the Attorney General’s Motion to Intervene. Appellee takes no position on other
intervenors.

Mootness.

This case is not moot. Appellee has not changed his policy or procedures for
the issuance of concealed carry licenses. All current applications that do not meet
the existing policy are being held without action, pending final direction from the
Court or the Legislature.

Intervenor status was also sought by the Brady Campaign. An en banc review of the Peruta decision is being sought by Harris, the Brady Campaign, the California Peace Officers Association, and the California Police Chiefs Association.

As attorney Chuck Michel made clear back in March, both Gore and the plaintiffs had asked Harris to participate in the case she declined. It was only after Peruta was decided in favor of the plaintiffs did she try to intervene. I guess she never thought the 9th Circuit would decide in favor of the plaintiffs and in such a forceful decision.

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CalGuns And Cal-FFL Have To Take AG Kamala Harris To Court – Again

May 21, 2014 by 1 Comment

In a release sent out on Tuesday, the CalGuns Foundation and Cal-FFL have announced that they are or will be suing California Attorney General Kamala Harris over a new policy she has implemented for the California Department of Justice. The new policy limits those who have a California issued certificate of eligibility and a federal firearms license to the purchase of one handgun per month. They assert that Harris’ reinterpretation of an existing statute is contrary to the meaning of the law itself.

From their joint release announcing the lawsuit:

California Attorney General Kamala Harris Sued Over New Handgun Purchase Ban

Gun rights groups back lawsuit to restore the right to buy handguns in the Golden State.

(Sacramento, CA – May 20, 2014) – California Attorney General Kamala Harris continues to substitute anti-gun policies for black letter law, say California gun rights groups The Calguns Foundation (CGF) and California Association of Federal Firearms Licensees (CAL-FFL).

In a new lawsuit filed today against the state’s highest law enforcement officer and Department of Justice firearms bureau chief Stephen Lindley, plaintiffs Alvin Doe–who is using a fictitious name to protect their privacy due to a fear of criminal prosecution and retaliation–and Paul Gladden say that “the DOJ’s new [handgun] enforcement policy is contrary to the plain language” of the law.

The case challenges a recently enacted DOJ policy that denies people who have both a DOJ-issued “Certificate of Eligibility” to purchase firearms and a federal firearms license the ability to purchase more than one handgun in a thirty-day period. Holders of these licenses and certificates, such as the plaintiffs, have successfully completed rigorous fingerprint-based background checks that include full investigations of all state and federal criminal and mental health databases. The policy, say the plaintiffs, is simply not consistent with the law and does nothing to enhance public safety.

“The Attorney General’s new policy blocks individuals from exercising rights that the Legislature granted them,” said the plaintiffs’ attorney, Bradley Benbrook of Sacramento-based law firm Benbrook Law Group. The firm, which recently filed a brief to the United States Supreme Court on behalf of 33 members of Congress in support of the Second Amendment right to carry handguns for self-defense, is asking the court for an injunction against the DOJ policy.

“Ms. Harris’ attempt to restrict lawful handgun sales by reinterpreting a 15 year old statute is entirely inconsistent with the democratic process and separation of powers,” said CAL-FFL President Brandon Combs.

Continued Combs, “Her latest ban is nothing short of an attempt to choke off handgun purchases and shutter California gun dealers. We cannot stand by and let her hostility towards the gun rights culture go unchallenged.”

“The Attorney General is there to be the chief law enforcement officer, not to make up laws to fit her policy preferences,” explained Gene Hoffman, chairman of The Calguns Foundation. “We look forward to the courts rejecting her extralegal interpretation.”

The plaintiffs expect to file their motion for preliminary injunction on Friday and are cautiously optimistic that the case will be heard within the next month.

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Great Response To California AG Harris’ Attempt To Appeal Peruta

March 3, 2014 by 5 Comments

Attorney Chuck Michel is the West Coast attorney for the National Rifle Association and was the trial counsel in Peruta v. County of San Diego. He issued an interesting statement on Friday regarding the attempt by California Attorney General Kamala Harris to intervene and appeal the case.

Michel notes that when the Attorney General was named in other suits regarding carry, she successfully argued that the power to administer carry licenses lay with the sheriffs and not her. In the statement below, he uses her own language in official filings to impeach her efforts to intervene in the Peruta case.

From the statement:

The Attorney General’s office was repeatedly invited to participate in this case both by Sheriff Gore’s attorney, and by the plaintiffs. The Attorney General declined to participate in the case, just as she has refused to get involved in similar cases challenging policies in other cities and counties that refused to accept self-defense as justification to get a license to carry a firearm in public to defend yourself and your family.

In fact, when the Attorney General’s office was named as a defendant in some of those cases, it has successfully moved to be dismissed from the cases because the court has accepted the Attorney General’s argument that she is not the official vested with the authority of the state when it comes to administering these licenses – the Sheriff is.

Excerpts from Mehl:

1) “Since only sheriffs and chiefs of police have authority under the CCW statutes to grant, deny or revoke licenses, Applicants cannot establish Article III jurisdiction over the Attorney General with regard to their facial challenges to the validity of the statutes or for review of the Sheriff’s refusal to grant their CCW licenses.”

2) “Only sheriffs and chiefs of police are authorized to perform these functions. . . . Contrary to Applicants’ implication, the Attorney General is not authorized by the CCW statutes to review the decisions of the sheriffs and chiefs of police. Because Applicants’ alleged injury can occur only through the actions of the Sheriff, independent of the authority of the Attorney General, any ostensible harm cannot be traced to the Attorney General.” Mehl v. Blanas.

It is ironic that the Attorney General does not recognize that the arguments she made about her authority to abandon the defense of the gay marriage ban apply equally here. The Sheriff has the ultimate authority to decide whether to continue to fight this case, and he has made his decision to refrain from doing so. But now that it suits her political agenda, Kamala Harris wants the court to impose a double standard.