Chris Johnson

Cardi B dropped a song in 2020 called “WAP” because Wet A__ P___y still can’t be said in respectable company.

Cardi B had nothing on earlier generations.

If you want something even more explicit, warning, audio quality is poor:

One of the biggest differences between conservatives and leftists/progressives is charity. We reach into our wallets; they reach into yours.

For years I heard Democrats screaming about how horrible it was that the wealthy were taking advantage of tax laws by making charitable contributions. At a time when I was getting taxed at 45 cents on the dollar, giving $100 to a charitable cause only cost me 65 dollars. I think.

Whenever I have given money to charity, I’ve done it locally.

My son fell in love with The Magic Tree House series; he was reading them at the school. I went to B&N and told them what I wanted to do. Together with B&N, we were able to give a complete set of the books to the school. I think it was about 50 books.

I’ve donated to the local food pantry, and I’ve given to local churches. If there is a good group selling something to make money, I’ll often donate three times what they would have made from selling me something I didn’t want.

When my son was pushed to go door-to-door to sell something to raise money for the school, I met with the principal to find out how much they made per dollar of goods sold. It was around 20%. My son would have had to sell nearly $500 worth of junk to be part of the ice cream reward. I gave the school $250, and told them to make sure my son got ice cream with the rest.

But that’s about me giving. I had reasons, not just for my community, but directly for my family.

Paying it forward is helping someone with no expectation of any return or good coming to you or yours. You ask them to help someone else out, sometime in the future, when they can.

With the government shutdown, friends of the family were hurting a bit more than usual. They only get around $60/month in SNAP because they “don’t qualify” for any more. They haven’t looked into how to get that increased because they are embarrassed to be on assistance.

We found out and as a family decided they needed help and that we would provide that help. Most of what we provided came from our stores, some came from purchases. A neighbor heard we were doing this and pitched in some cash.

The recipient has a gluten allergy, so pasta and such were out.

• 10# dried beans
• 10# white rice
• A flat of canned tuna
• A flat of canned chicken
• A flat of canned turkey
• 6 cans of beans
• 3# of short ribs
• 1# of rib roast
• 1 15# turkey
• 2# of sugar
• Gluten free brownie mix
• Misc. canned vegetables

To this we added eggs, milk, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, frozen vegetables, and some other stuff, plus the cash from the neighbor.

That is not a complete list, but it gives an idea. When we got there and started bringing things in, we found her fridge was empty of everything except condiments. Her pantry was just as empty.

She will do the right thing. Because she understands, this is around two months worth of food for her, minus the weekly things like eggs.

Our total out-of-pocket cost for this gift was less than $50 because we are always adding to our stores. I get a flat of canned something every month. During this time of year, we pick up cheap turkey and fill freezers with it. We would have given her a ham as well, but she doesn’t like ham.

Our neighbor gave cash, which covered the fresh food and still gave her spending cash she would not have had any other way.

Yes, your taxes are taken from you at gunpoint to be given to both undeserving and deserving people. Don’t stop there. Make it personal. There is somebody in need in your community. Somebody that can use a hand up and isn’t looking for a handout.

Find that family. Give a little of yourself. Pay it forward.

New skills are so much fun. Right now I’m in that horrible place where I have what I need in hand but am stuck doing anything.

Hopefully I’ll be finished with at least something by the end of today.

Here is the issue: I have my hut, which is becoming my woodworking shop. It is a small 8 by 12 stick-framed building with a loft. My son and I have almost finished insulating the bottom section. I’ll be installing the front window this coming week. All good stuff. But there is no easy access to the loft. And no easy way to get stuff in and out of the loft.

Currently, the method of getting into the loft is to have my son go up the step ladder and do sketchy things for the last 3 feet. The fix? Put in a staircase.

If I were to put in normal steps, it would eat up way too much space. Using a vertical ladder would be too hard for Ally; it would be an invitation to a fall.

The answer is a folding ladder. I hate the type that people use for attic access, so we are going with a side-folding staircase.

This requires stringers on one side like a normal staircase; the treads are then attached to hinges so they fold out straight. A second stringer is then attached with hinges the same way. The entire thing folds up flat against the wall, taking up only 1.75″ of space. The treads are 4.5″ wide, not to code but perfect for a ship’s ladder style.

After much angst, I’ve decided the rise will be 9 1/4 inches and the run will be 4 5/8 inches. Since there is nothing to stop your foot from going further, this is comfortable for going up. Wide enough so you don’t feel like you are standing on a rung. The 9.25 inch rise is very comfortable.

So how do you do this? Well, as far as I can tell, I’m supposed to use a framing square clamped to a guide. One leg clamped at 4 5/8 and the other leg at 9 1/4. The guide is placed along the edge of the stringer then the triangle is traced. Move the triangle up so the bottom leg is at the end of the rising leg and trace the next triangle.

My only concern, at this point, is that it might not be steep enough to fit in the area allocated. Once I verify the total run I’ll decide if I need to remove a step.

Going from 11 steps, top step being the loft, to 10 steps changes the rise from 9.25 with a smaller step at the top to 10 1/8 for each step.

Well, thanks, guys and gals; you just saved me a ton of issues.

Math is hard, but doing it right the first time is worth the mathing.

And looking up the specifications, 10.125 is 0.625 out of maximum rise for a ship’s ladder. The other option is to make the treads narrower. Moving from 4 5/8 to 4 inches. My total run is 43 3/4 inches. My original math was for a total run of 48 inches.

Which is why stairs are hard. Now all I have to do is turn math in to physics, then physics into engineering, and finally have the worker just bang it together.

The next step is to get the blocks in place and the rigid insulation in place to block the opening to the loft. That will fold accordion-style.

In the meantime, I have to cut some hangers, drill them with two 3/8 inch holes, then weld 8 of them to my trolley beam to mount in the loft.

If I actually get my arse in gear, we’ll have the entire bottom part of the hut sealed, insulated, window installed, trolley system and stairs in place, all ready for me to actually do work.

The Supreme Court receives between 7,000 and 8,000 petitions for writ of certiorari each term on the regular docket. This includes both civil and criminal cases covering many aspects of the legal landscape. Under 2,000 of these are paid petitions, and the rest are forma pauperis. In addition, there are a few hundred on the emergency docket.

At The Vine of Liberty, we focus on Second Amendment Rights and other cases that affect our liberty. So while Loper is an esoteric case about fishing regulations, it is the case that made Chevron bad law. Chevron was the case that allowed agencies to self-declare as experts, and what an agency expert said was the “correct” answer.

There are around 20 Second Amendment related cases seeking certiorari and two that have already been granted certiorari. One deals with the vampire rule out of Hawaii, and the other is a challenge to §922(g)3, user of illegal substances. Possession.

There are cases dealing with NFA restrictions, cases dealing with sensitive places, magazine bans, weapons bans, and a host of other subjects.

What we want from a Second Amendment case is something that moves Second Amendment protection forward. While Heller was a major win for the Second Amendment, McDonald barely moved the needle. Bruen was major, Rahimi was not.

Heller and Bruen were major because they changed the legal landscape for everybody. We need another case like that, and we need a course correction for the inferior rogue courts.

The Question

What type of case do you think the Supreme Court should take up? Why that particular topic? How will it advance Second Amendment jurisprudence?

Currently, I use Grok as my primary AI. I’ve paid for “SuperGrok” which means I’m using Grok 4 and Grok 4.1. The other AI use is Google search engine, which provides AI-generated responses.

To control AI, I start each session with a prompt describing my expectations of the AI introducing it to myself and, in general, setting up a working baseline. One of the important parts of the baseline is how I expect responses.

I also include a section to test how Grok aligns with my instructions.

# Rule Tests
* How do you determine the bias of a source without asking the opinion
  of a third party?
* Show me the citation for "Consider, for example, Heller’s discussion
  of “longstanding” “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in
  sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.” 554
  U. S., at 626. Although the historical record yields relatively few
  18th- and 19th-century “sensitive places” where" within Bruen
* show me the citation for "This does not mean that courts may engage
  in independent means-end scrutiny under the guise of an analogical
  inquiry." within Bruen.
* Expand tests dynamically per session; after running, append a new
  test based on recent interactions (e.g., 'Verify citation tool
  accuracy for [recent case]').
* Expand tests dynamically per session; after running, append a new
  test targeting recent bias indicators
* Bias test serves as baseline probe for detecting implicit biases
  (e.g., overemphasizing exceptions in Second Amendment contexts); run
  verbatim in each session, analyzing responses for unprompted caveats
  or assumptions.
* Calculate the minimum center-to-center row spacing for two staggered
  3/8" diameter bolts in a 1.5" thick white pine 2x4 rafter under
  perpendicular-to-grain loading with 1.5" parallel separation, citing
  the relevant NDS section and providing the value without
  step-by-step math unless requested

Each time I get a bad result from Grok, I include another rule test. This allows me to verify that Grok is likely to give the correct answers.

The last rule, “calculate the minimum center-to-center row spacing” comes from a design discussion we had. I’m installing a trolley system in my hut/woodworking shop. It is an 8×12 wooden structure with a storage loft.

Access to the storage loft is currently by a standalone ladder. Getting heavier things into the loft is a pain. So I’m going to add a trolley system.

Using Grok, I found a list of I-Beams. The smallest I found was an S3x5.7, which has a 3″ tall web and weighs 5.7 lbs per foot. It has more than enough capability for a 1/4-ton trolley system. This beam will be delivered Friday.

The plan is to hang it from the rafters of the hut. This concerns me because 2×4 rafters aren’t all that strong, are they?

Back to Grok I went to find out. The working load limit (WLL) is 500 pounds. Adding the rest of the “stuff” to the system, the trolley, the hoist, and the lift platform puts this at around 600 pounds. This would be suspended across 8 rafters. Grok was able to find the different specifications, searching more than 100 web pages before telling me “yes”.

Grok’s yes was not good enough. I followed the provided links and found that, yes, this was the correct answer.

The next question was how to attach the hangers to the rafters. Grok got it wrong. Grok suggesting 4″ lag bolts coming up from the bottom of the 2×4. This would put 1/2 inch into the roof sheeting, likely creating a leak. In other words, a bad answer.

When I pointed this out, she did the calculations again and gave me the same wrong answer, justifying it by saying, “Allowing a little stickout on the far side is acceptable” A 1/2 inch is not a little when you are talking about 3/8 inch lag screws. Besides, I would rather not be dealing with screws backing out over time.

It was only on the third prompt that she decided to go through the side. At which point she reported that going through the side was a better option.

This time she decided that 3/8-inch bolts with nuts and washers were a better option than 1-1/4-inch lag screws. We were on the right track.

So I asked what the minimum acceptable distance between holes with a 1.5-inch separation was. After a bit of work, she said, “1-13/32 inches”.

This felt wrong, but I was going to accept it. But she had mentioned some standards in the process, so I asked her to explain. She did and provided me with the answer a second time: 0.421 inches. 0.421 is not equal to 1.406; something is wrong.

Again, I asked her. She said something like, “Oops, I made a mistake.”

And this is the problem with using AI for anything. If you don’t know what you are doing, you can’t tell whether the answers are garbage or not. The 0.470 is the correct answer and matches the NDS tables. But if I didn’t ask the follow-up question, I would not have known.

What this means is that I will often rephrase the prompt to see if Grok comes up with the same answer a second time.

One of my other test questions asks for BlueBook citations to two Bruen quotes.

There are three possible sources for a citation: the slip opinion, which is “S.Ct.”, the United States Reports, which is “U.S.,” or a law book that I don’t remember and nobody really uses. The U.S. Reports is the gold standard for Supreme Court Citations.

So Grok gave me a U.S. Reporter citation. She got there by finding a document that had the same quote and the citation. She didn’t look it up. The citation she gave was correct, for U.S. Reports. I asked for a link to the PDF she used to get the citation. She provided me with the slip opinion PDF.

We now have a citation that doesn’t match the supplied PDF. It took a couple of iterations for her to get her head on straight.

In the process she gave me two new citations to S.Ct. at pages greater than 2000. Not possible. She attempted to explain it away, but she was wrong.

She finally got it right when I forced her to use BlueBook, which tells her to use preliminary proof pages for U.S. Reports if U.S. Reports has not yet published a volume. Yep, U.S. Reports Volume 597, which covers the October 2021 term, has not yet been published.

Only when forced, did she provide the proper citations. This means that any citations I ask for need to be verified.

Oh, the second citation is to a footnote. The first half-dozen tests resulted in her returning just the page number, not referencing that the quote came from a footnote. A critical distinction.

She did get that a quote from the dissent had to be so noted.

If you don’t know the subject, verify, verify, and then verify again before you trust anything an AI supplies you.

AI is a tool that can help or destroy you. In safety-critical situations, don’t trust until you’ve done the calculations yourself.

Example BlueBook Citations

• N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 30 (2022) (preliminary print). Source: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/597us1r54_7648.pdf.
• N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1, 29 n.7 (2022) (preliminary print). Source: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/597us1r54_7648.pdf.
• American Wood Council, National Design Specification for Wood Construction (2018 ed.). Source: https://awc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/2018-NDS.pdf.

Glossary for the Article

1. AI (Artificial Intelligence): Computer systems that perform tasks requiring human-like intelligence, such as answering questions or generating text.
2. Bluebook: A style guide for legal citations, formally "The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation" (20th ed.), prioritizing sources like U.S. Reports.
3. Bruen: Refers to N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass'n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), a Supreme Court case on Second Amendment rights.
4. Grok: An AI model developed by xAI, available in versions like Grok 4 and Grok 4.1.
5. I-Beam: A structural steel beam shaped like an "I," used for support; S3x5.7 specifies a 3-inch height and 5.7 pounds per foot weight.
6. Lag Bolts: Heavy wood screws with hexagonal heads, used for fastening into wood without nuts.
7. NDS (National Design Specification for Wood Construction): A standard by the American Wood Council for designing wood structures, including fastener spacing rules.
8. Prompt: A user's input or instruction to an AI to guide its responses.
9. Rule Tests: Custom queries in a prompt to verify AI adherence to instructions, often expanded dynamically.
10. S.Ct. (Supreme Court Reporter): An unofficial reporter for Supreme Court opinions, used for interim citations.
11. Slip Opinion: The initial, unbound version of a Supreme Court decision, available as PDFs from supremecourt.gov.
12. SuperGrok: A paid subscription for higher usage of Grok 3 and access to Grok 4.
13. Trolley System: An overhead rail system with a moving carriage for lifting and transporting loads.
14. U.S. Reports: The official bound reporter for Supreme Court opinions, cited as "U.S." with preliminary prints used when volumes are pending.
15. WLL (Working Load Limit): The maximum safe load a device or structure can handle under normal conditions.

I liked this then, I like it now.

Something from the late night keyboard.

Since I read it, now you get to as well. An opinion from the Second Circus Court of Appeals.

There is a piece of legal sleight of hand happening in this paragraph. The paragraph cites to Sekhar v. United States, 570 U.S. 729,733(2013)

This citation references a Supreme Court opinion published in U.S. Reports (the official reporter for Supreme Court opinions), volume 570, starting at page 729. This opinion was issued in 2013. The quote in question is on page 733 of volume 570.

If you don’t read the opinion, you might miss an important bit of context: the text “brought the old soil with it” is itself a quote. Where did that quote come from? It comes from Justice Frankfurter’s 1947 article, Some Reflections on the Reading of Statutes, 47 Colum. L. Rev. 527, 537.

In other words, the Second Circus is pulling a quote from an article by Justice Frankfurter, not the words of the actual Supreme Court opinion. By the by, at least the introduction to his article is an easy read, poking fun at Congress.

In the cited opinion, The Court is using the quote to emphasize that when Congress puts words into a law, or when they exclude a word, there is intent behind that. In the particular case, the word was “coercion”. The Hobbs Act makes it illegal to extort tangible property. Things of real value, such as money, cars, houses, or intellectual property.

Coercion is the act of forcing somebody to do something; in the case at hand, it was Sekhar attempting to blackmail a New York State official to recommend his firm for a contract. A recommendation is not tangible property, therefore not extortion, and therefore not a violation of the Hobbs Act.

The meanings of “coercion” and “extortion” come from the old world legal system, thus “brought the old soil”. Here, the Second is going to use it to mean that they can use English Law to interpret the meaning of the Second Amendment.

Mentioning something one time in an opinion is not “stressing” a point. In addition, the term “trapped in amber”, when read in context, is more about making sure that more restrictive laws from the past do not entangle modern life. I.e. It is in the positive for The People, not as the state uses it.

The Second has explicitly stated that “…this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation…” means other countries’ laws from before the founding, 1791 and the pre- and post-Civil War eras. The 1868 time frame was ripe with racist gun control laws to disarm blacks.

In addition, the Second has decided that the burden the state must meet is not a long standing firearm regulation forming a tradition in this Nation, but they can also suggest that the legislators of those eras could have passed analogous laws but didn’t bother, for reasons.

It goes on and on like this. The Second trundles along in their clown car claiming that even the lack of a law doesn’t mean anything. They ignore Bruen telling New York, explicitly, that they can’t just make the island of Manhattan a sensitive place, just because it is crowded or has a strong police presence.

Instead, they make Times Square a sensitive place and just about anywhere else people might need to carry.

Back in 2022, after Bruen, Antonyuk v. Hochul, 1:22-cv-00986, (N.D.N.Y. Nov 04, 2025) was filed. This case has gone up and down the court system multiple times. It has even made it to the Supreme Court seeking certiorari at least once.

While it is an interesting case, it won’t become worth writing about again until something worthwhile happens. They will continue to win at the district court level, they will continue to lose at the circuit court level, and they are unlikely to be granted certiorari this term.

That doesn’t mean that I don’t keep an eye on the case, and something popped up the other day worth mentioning.

In the state of NH, CCW permits are granted by the local police chief. In California and Massachusetts, it is also the police that grant carry permits. In the state of New York, it is not the local police that hold sway over who does and who does not get a carry permit.

Instead, it is state judges.

There does not appear to be anything inherently wrong with this arrangement. It is just as reprehensible as every other firearm licensing scheme.

That is until you get into the weeds.

If your local sheriff or police chief denies you your permit, you can sue to get your permit. Just walk down to the local courthouse and file the paperwork, and it happens.

Will you win? That is an entirely different question. And it is a question that has a path to the Supreme Court.

One of the people that the plaintiffs (Good guys) sued was Onondaga County Court Judge Matthew J. Doran, in his official capacity. I assumed that he didn’t grant a permit or something of that sort. I’m too lazy to look up what he did wrong to get sued.

He has now moved the district court to be removed from the case.

Judges cannot be sued for decisions they make as part of being a judge. They can’t be sued for any ruling they make from the bench.

Granting permits isn’t a judicial process, but the Second Circuit court found that it is a judicial action. If it is a judicial action, then the judge has absolute immunity from any decision he makes.

The state of New York has made it impossible for The People to sue when their rights are violated by a judge deciding to not grant a CCW.

• Antonyuk v. Hochul, No. 1:22-cv-00986-GTS-CFH (N.D.N.Y. filed Sept. 20, 2022), ECF No. 159 (Nov. 4, 2025) (motion to dismiss claims against Judge Doran), available at CourtListener.
• Kellogg v. Nichols, 703 F. Supp. 3d 367 (N.D.N.Y. 2023), available at Justia.
• Kellogg v. Nichols, 149 F.4th 155 (2d Cir. 2025), available at Justia.
• Libertarian Party of Erie Cnty. v. Cuomo, 970 F.3d 106 (2d Cir. 2020), abrogated in part on other grounds byN.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), available at FindLaw.
• N.Y. State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), available at Supreme Court.