We use rhetoric to move people. To inspire. To convince people to change. This is a part of the protected free speech codified in the First Amendment.

The courts, throughout the years, have leaned heavily on more speech to counter unpopular speech. Until they didn’t.

Like today, the courts have agendas, not always good agendas, not always in favor of The People. For a while, there were entire classes of speech that were illegal. Sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly.

The indirect path was “Criminal Syndicalism”.

In summary, a man called the local news and asked if they wanted to do a report on a Ku Klux Klan meeting. The reporter said yes, brought his cameraman, and they filmed the meeting. During the meeting, the man wore a hood and said lots of Klan-like things, burned a cross, all while open carrying. After the main event, the leader, still wearing his hood, gave a short speech, two paragraphs long. Part of the speech was a statement that they were going to march on Congress on the 4th of July and then split into two groups to march into Augustine, Florida, and Mississippi.

This was aired. Then a second rally was filmed with the same type of speech given, also aired.

The leader was arrested, charged, and then convicted in a court of law. His appeal to the Ohio appeals court was granted, but they affirmed the lower court’s decision. The case then went to the Ohio Supreme Court, where they also affirmed the lower court’s opinion. Finally, the case was appealed to the Supreme Court on constitutional grounds.

In 1927 the Supreme Court upheld California’s Criminal Syndicalism Act, finding that advocating violent means to effect political and economic change involves such danger to the security of the State that the State may outlaw it. Whitney v. California, 275 U.S. 357 (1927), and Fiske v. Kansas, 274 U.S. 380 (1927), both gave this power to infringe on speech to the State.

Later Supreme Court cases, Dennis v. United States, 351 U.S. 494 (1951), for example, thoroughly discredited the Whitney opinion.

These later decisions have fashioned the principle that the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. —id. at 447.

In other words, the speech must incite violence or lawless actions imminently.. What imminently means is not clear and is the reason lawyers make big money.

This is the current case law (IANAL). It is what we judge protected speech by. Is the person inciting violence or the breaking of the law?

A statement of “Kill Bill!” when Bill is over there is clearly incitement. It is imminent, and it is a call for violence as well as a call for breaking the law. If Bill isn’t there, this might not be incitement because it is not imminent. In the same way as “Kill the one-horned, one-eyed, purple people eater” isn’t incitement because that entity isn’t real.

I am more than willing to say, “The only good communist is a dead communist.” I am not asking you to kill communists; I’m not even saying that I am willing to kill communists. It is simple rhetoric.

What if I go a step further, though? What if I were to say, “It is OK to kill communists.” This is still just this side of incitement. There is no imminent aspect, and there is no target.

And this is precisely what we have been hearing for years from the left: “It is OK to punch a Nazi. You should punch Nazis. If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, …, And you push back on them.” These are not incitement, as they sit. There is no target in the first two, and in the last, it is not a call for violence. Just simple verbal confrontation.

But these things do not exist in a vacuum. They live within a context.

When that same group assigns a label, they can then attack that label. When one part of a group is calling you a Nazi and the other part is calling for the death or merely the beating of Nazis, it does rise to the level of incitement.

This is the classic two-step incitement pattern that courts, linguists, and political psychologists have studied for decades. Step 1: Dehumanization/Labeling. Step 2: Invocation of the “Accepted Remedy”.

When the left and the media trumpet, over and over again, that Trump is issuing illegal orders, this becomes part of the context. The media pushes the “Bush-appointed Judge halts Trump’s order, finding that he is unlikely to win on the merits.” to the front page. The Supreme Court slapping down that selfsame judge might get a paragraph on page 6, right under the ad for hemorrhoid cream.

This is the context that the six senators have taken advantage of; they created a simple video reminding military personnel that they are bound to the constitution and that they are required to ignore “illegal orders”. They can dishonestly claim that they aren’t calling for the troops to ignore Trump’s orders, but within the context, that is exactly what they have done.

Trump’s statement, on the other hand, isn’t an attack or an incitement. He has accused those six senators of a crime and stated the penalties for that crime. Only if they are found guilty of that crime are they at risk for that most final punishment.

But Trump, being Trump, didn’t cite to the code. He didn’t explicitly state what law the senators broke. This leaves vast amounts of wiggle room. And Trump could be wrong. And he likely got the punishment wrong. Regardless, it doesn’t rise to the level of a threat and is protected speech.

And here is where we start to have issues. I know that Trump is a flawed human. Just as Reagan was a flawed man. They can be heroes of mine without being my gods. I might agree with 99% of what they say or do; that doesn’t mean I will agree with them every time.

The left doesn’t think that way. Their heroes don’t walk with us. Their heroes don’t have feet of clay. Their heroes float above us, giving us the wisdom of the ages. They have their Ministry of Truth, their own Minitrue, to keep their heroes halos shining brightly.

But there is a third part of the equation that we don’t talk about. That is the audience.

When these talking heads, politicians, or party leaders speak, they are speaking to an audience. When some talking head says that “MAGA is falling apart,” they are not talking to you and me; they are talking to their audience. The fact that I hear their words doesn’t change who their audience is.

My parents were part of that leftist audience; they knew Trump 45 was bad. They knew it because they heard it from all the people they heard talking about Trump. I wasn’t a part of that audience. I heard the same words, I heard the same spin, I heard the same lie. I went looking for the truth, and found it wasn’t what I heard from “everybody”.

In the same way Trump talks to his audience. But there is a huge difference when he speaks to us. The media and talking heads all tell us what Trump really meant. They hear the same words and twist the message to meet their needs, not the needs of The People.

There is another, more significant difference. The audience of the left is prone to violence. The audience of the right is not.

The number of people in the left audience willing to do violent acts is huge. There are members of the right audience that want to react violently but not initiate that violence. The FAFO policy. Or as I learned from my parents and as I taught my kids, we don’t start fights; we end them.

Where I see conflicts forming is in my trust of those audiences. I trust the left to do violent things. I trust the right to be prepared and willing to provide FA, but not to initiate that violence. If you don’t have that trust, there are problems.

Unfortunately, that problem is about that crazy dude over there. There are crazies on both sides. If we care about optics, if we care about people, we don’t celebrate violence inflicted on others. This helps contain the smaller number of crazies on the right. The left glorifies their crazies.

Just look at the hero worship over a man who killed a CEO. That is simply evil.

Conclusion

I’m tired, and I believe that many on the right are tired of playing nice because the left will think badly of us. They already think badly of us. It doesn’t matter what we do; we will always be evil to them. For those in the middle that might look at the tired response of “Well F you right back” as being the same, we can’t roll over anymore. The only way forward is to fight back.

It doesn’t matter how many times they tell the same old lie, we still have to say “That is a lie.” It is long past time to stop being the doormat to the left.

Let’s get going. First, the bare wall.

We have a 101.25″ rise and a maximum run of 43.75 inches. We cut the master stringer and lean it against the wall and hold up a hinge and fake tread to give you an idea of what will happen.

You can’t actually attach the hinge to the stringer or the stringer to the wall until you have used the master stringer to trace the other stringer. The SKIL 20V brushless circular saw is underpowered, and with the 2Ah battery it comes with, I can’t even cut a single stringer. Thus the delay in getting the stringers and treads cut.

I’m worried about how this will all work when done, but I’m moving forward. Here it is with most of the hinges attached to the wall stringer. The lowest hinge is not attached, but you can’t see that. Three treads have been attached to the wall stringer and two to the moving stringer.

I’ll be doing the bottom step and the top step next, but this is proof of concept. Here it is in its mostly folded mode.

I didn’t have it exactly right, but it does go up further. I expect it to get easier as it gets less wobbly.

Chris and I have had a fundamental disagreement over Trump’s statements regarding the rogue Senators’ video. Let me get the original information here, for anyone who isn’t aware.

The text reads: Americans trust their military, but that trust is at risk. This administration is pitting our uniform military and intelligence community professionals against American citizens. Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders. You can refuse illegal orders. You must refuse illegal orders. Don’t give up. Don’t give up. Don’t give up. Don’t give up the ship. 

Trump’s response: truthsocial.com/@WashingtonExa. It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL. Their words cannot be allowed to stand – We won’t have a Country anymore!!! An example MUST BE SET. President DJT

Trump’s later comment: SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH! (later in the above thread)

Alright, with all the information at hand now here on one page, with the actual words and not just copies or reports of them… let me continue.

I will start where I always start, by denouncing the behavior of the dems in question. What they did was wrong, full stop. For the ones who have previously been in the military (I know Sen. Kelley was in the Navy and is retired, but there may be others), the Uniform Code is still in play. That means that, if you’ve EVER served in the military and have taken the Oath, then you are still held to the USC.

According to Grok: 8 U.S.C. § 2387 makes it a federal crime to engage in activities that “affect the armed forces,” such as intentionally obstructing military recruitment, enlistment, or operations. It also prohibits advising, urging, or attempting to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty among service members. Penalties include fines, imprisonment of up to ten years, and a five-year ban from U.S. government employment upon conviction.
What 18 U.S.C. § 2387 prohibits:
Obstruction: Intentionally obstructing or attempting to obstruct the armed forces’ recruiting, enlistment, or general military operations.
Incitement: Advising, urging, or attempting to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty among members of the U.S. military.
Distribution of certain materials: Distributing written or printed matter that advises, counsels, or urges any of the above actions.

It seems quite clear to me that the above statements made by the six falls under 8 USC 2387. Those Dems clearly stated that Trump (“this administration”) is pitting military folk against citizens. It’s simply  not true. The phrase, “Don’t give up the ship,” has special meaning in the military harkening back to Cap’t James Lawrence of the USS Chesapeake in 1813, but has been expanded to cover many branches of the military. So the dems were wrong. There are ways to communicate with the military, through the chain of command, that could have stressed the idea of following lawful orders, but they chose to do it via a public video, grandstanding, and not only is that … well, grandstanding… it’s also harmful.

Many of you probably know that the military has classes that teach soldiers what sorts of things are considered legal and illegal orders. Yes, it is expected of our troops, all of them, to not follow illegal orders. However, what constitutes “illegal” is a very specific thing, and they have to learn what that is. So this holiday, instead of enjoying turkey and stuffing wherever they’re stationed, they’re going through the full lecture series again, so that everyone’s 110% sure of what “illegal orders” are. Because for an active soldier to decide an order is illegal, there are hoops to jump through, and they are putting their career and possibly their very life on the line. Doing what they did, those dems ensured our military community will be pissed and irritated for the next several months.

Read More

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.

Grok has made doing some of my legal research easier. In particular, it has done a better job of finding PDFs of cases than my normal search tools. And faster too.

Today I was looking into some more Second Circuit Court of Appeals games because it reminds me of what happened with Bianchi (this case became known as Snope).

The courts do not like to relitigate decisions. Once they make a decision, they want to keep repeating that decision.

Bianchi was a direct challenge to Kolbe which was decided earlier by the Fourth Circuit using means-ends methods. As Bianchi was making its way through the inferior courts, the courts simply said, “This is just Kolbe revisited. We decided this already. Denied.” It wasn’t until the Fourth Circuit heard the case en banc that a new decision could be made. Though they made the same decision, against The People.

Today we are litigating Antonyuk. One of challenges was against an administrator who denied pistol permits to some plaintiffs. The administrator defendant has asked that the suit against him be dismissed based on a recent Second Circuit court opinion in Kellogg.

Kellogg was a challenge against an administrator who had denied pistol permits to the plaintiffs. The merits panel fell back on an earlier case from 2018, before Bruen, to rule that since the administrator had the title judge, his administrative duty of issuing pistol permits was actually a judicial duty giving rise to absolute immunity from civil suits.

One of the major holdings from Bruen is that subjective assessments are not allowed in granting pistol licenses. While pre-Bruen there might have been a judgment taking place, after Bruen it is entirely objective and just an administrative task.

It is no different than a clerk at the DMV looking to see if the paperwork is filled out correctly, that proper payments have been made, and all other conditions have been met. This means that there is no immunity for those judges.

But the Second Circuit didn’t even bother. They said, “We aren’t allowed to deviate from the past, so administrators are really judges and have absolute immunity.” They even confused this reader by explaining that they can’t overrule en banc opinions, even though Libertarian Party was not heard en banc. A request for a rehearing en banc was requested and denied, and cert was denied from the Supreme Court.

You really need to follow all the citations. There is so much hidden in those citations; you cannot take them at face value.

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.