Managing Partner - EPIC Policy Group; United States Marine; political antagonizer; freedom fighter but proudest to be Dad to three great adult children. 🚫DMs
Phoenix
Joined September 2008
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Michael Infanzon retweeted
My American friends, a former United States Marine named Stephen Lara stood on the shoulder of a highway in Nevada while state troopers loaded his entire life savings into their patrol car.
Lara had honorably served his country in the Marine Corps. In February 2021, he was driving from Texas to California to visit his two daughters, carrying $86,900 in cash inside his backpack because he did not trust banks after losing his job during the pandemic lockdowns.
He kept every single paper ATM and bank withdrawal receipt inside the bag to prove the money was earned honestly.
Nevada Highway Patrol troopers pulled him over on Interstate 80 for allegedly following a truck too closely. When Lara answered their questions politely and told the truth about his savings, troopers searched his car, found zero drugs and zero weapons, and never charged him with a single crime.
They took every dollar of his $86,900 anyway.
Under a system called civil asset forfeiture and federal equitable sharing, state police handed Lara's cash to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration so the local agency could pocket up to eighty percent of the veteran's life savings for its own budget.
It took months of public lawsuits by the Institute for Justice before the government finally returned his money.
Americans, I want to ask you from the bottom of my heart: how can a Constitutional Republic allow government agencies to rob an innocent Marine veteran on the side of the road without ever charging him with a crime?
Congress Is Away, but the Next Fight Is Taking Shape michaelinfanzon.substack.com…
The 2027 Arizona Motorcycle Policy Agenda: What We Are Working On and Why Riders Should Pay Attention Arizona’s 2027 legislative session will bring new rules and new debates for motorcyclists. Some changes are already scheduled to take effect. Others require riders to speak up before lawmakers decide what Arizona’s roads, safety programs, and motorcycle laws should look like.
michaelinfanzon.substack.com…
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Michael Infanzon retweeted
Major American television networks barely gave this story thirty seconds of airtime, because what happened at a graduation party in Charleston, West Virginia, did not fit their script.
On the evening of May 25, 2022, around forty neighbors, parents, and young children gathered outside an apartment complex in Charleston to celebrate a high school graduation and birthday party.
When thirty-seven-year-old Dennis Butler, a violent criminal with four prior felony convictions, sped his car down the street right past the playing children, parents politely asked him to slow down.
Thirty minutes later, Butler came back for revenge. He parked his car, pulled out a stolen AR-15-style rifle, and opened fire directly into the crowd of forty mothers and kids.
He never got to reload. Standing among the families was a law-abiding American woman with zero police or military background, carrying a legally concealed nine-millimeter pistol in her waistband.
While everyone else dove for the grass, she stood her ground, drew her handgun, and fired across the yard, fatally striking the gunman in seconds.
Not a single child or guest at that party was scratched. The next morning, Charleston Chief of Detectives Tony Hazelett told reporters that instead of a mass casualty tragedy, one brave woman saved dozens of American lives.
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Michael Infanzon retweeted
PHOENIX, Ariz. – Today, U.S. Attorney Timothy Courchaine announced that his office has opened a case into recent reporting about three non-profit organizations registering non-citizens to vote in Arizona. The United States Attorney’s Office has already referred the matter to the FBI for a thorough federal investigation.
On Monday, Oct. 26, U.S. Attorney Courchaine also sent letters to the Maricopa County Recorder and Arizona Secretary of State expressing concerns about the recent reporting and encouraging those offices to review voter registrations associated with the accused non-profit organizations.
As a reminder, if you are not a U.S. citizen, you may not vote in Tuesday's election.
The full press release and letters can be found here:
justice.gov/usao-az/pr/distr…
Arizona has no AR-15 ban. But Attorney General Kris Mayes joined a Supreme Court brief urging the justices to uphold bans adopted elsewhere. What did Arizona sign onto, and how does that position fit with our state’s constitutional protection of the right to bear arms? Read the article.
michaelinfanzon.substack.com…
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The Dirty Harry analogy is what happens when bad math puts on a movie costume.
The brief compares one person firing 30 rounds with eight fictional cops emptying their revolvers 144 times, then treats the result as evidence that a commonly owned rifle should lose constitutional protection. That calculation says nothing about accuracy, hits, or actual danger. It just makes a shaky argument look scientific.
If your case for a gun ban depends on multiplying Dirty Harrys, maybe the problem isn’t the gun. It’s the argument.
Read the article: bearingarms.com/camedwards/2…
Michael Infanzon retweeted
On the night of October 1, 2017, a twenty-nine-year-old former U.S. Marine named Taylor Winston stole a white Ford F-150 pickup truck in Las Vegas.
By sunrise, that stolen truck had saved thirty human lives.
Winston, an Iraq War veteran, was dancing at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival when automatic rifle fire began raining down from the thirty-second floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel into a crowd of twenty-two thousand people.
After throwing his girlfriend over a fence to safety, Winston ran into the gravel parking lot right next to the kill zone.
Why did he not simply wait for ambulances to arrive? Because police perimeters and twenty thousand fleeing people had gridlocked the Strip, and victims with arterial gunshot wounds were bleeding to death on the grass with minutes left to live.
Winston checked the doors of parked trucks until he found a white four-door Ford F-150 with the keys tucked above the sun visor.
He dropped the steel tailgate, ran back into the gunfire, and used Marine combat triage to load the most critically wounded strangers into the truck bed and cab.
With bullets still cracking overhead, he floored the gas pedal, wove through the chaos to Desert Springs Hospital, handed the victims to emergency doctors, and immediately drove the blood-stained F-150 straight back into the gunfire for a second load.
Across two trips, he delivered roughly thirty critically injured Americans to the hospital in time to survive.
The next morning, Winston tracked down the truck's owner and texted him: "Hey man, I took your truck to drive people to the hospital. How can I give you your keys back?"
The owner told him to keep the peace of mind, and an Arizona dealership gave the Marine a brand-new Ford F-150 of his own.
Uniforms come off when a Marine leaves the Corps. The oath never does.
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Michael Infanzon retweeted
Yesterday it was golf. Today she is after your guns. Vote Warren Petersen for Attorney General.
The Major Richard Star Act: Ending the Offset for Combat-Injured Military Retirees
The new CBO estimate puts the cost of the revised bill at $12.75 billion over ten years. That is a real cost, and Congress should account for it honestly. It is also a targeted fix for a specific group of combat-injured retirees whose military disability retirement is reduced because they receive VA disability compensation.
michaelinfanzon.substack.com…
Michael Infanzon retweeted
In September 2013, my private health insurance was canceled due to the implementation of Obamacare via a letter I received in the mail. (See photo taken in 2013)
Out-of-state big labor and far left billionaires are spreading lies and misinformation about my support for affordable healthcare.
After Congress passed the federal bill, doctors and other medical professionals exited the industry. Like so many other hard-working Americans, my family lost access to our preferred doctors. Sadly, treatment costs and wait times continue to skyrocket.
Yet, these same out-of-state well-funded labor organizations still offer gold-plated health benefits to their members.
The average American worker with family coverage now pays $7,471 a year toward his health insurance premium, according to KFF’s 2026 Employer Health Benefits Survey, released last week.
That is nine percent more than a year ago. It is also the small part of the bill. The full family premium, most of it paid by employers, now averages $28,303.
Frédéric Bastiat held that the bad economist sees only what is seen, while the good one accounts for what is unseen. American health care may be his best illustration. The worker sees $7,471. He does not see the roughly $20,800 his employer pays on his behalf, money that would otherwise have reached his paycheck.
KFF has estimated that the full cost of a family premium now exceeds 40 percent of a typical salary. No family would shop for groceries by handing over a card and never glancing at the receipt. For medicine, nearly every family does. Then we wonder why the total keeps rising.
When @BarackObama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, the average family premium was $13,770, with workers paying just under $4,000 of it. Both figures have since roughly doubled. Reaching back to 1999, when the family premium stood at $5,791, the increase approaches fivefold. From 1999 to today, consumer prices rose about 93 percent (mostly due to monetary inflation). Hospital services rose 281 percent.
The law’s central promise was cheaper premiums. Obama made it again and again:
(Read more in the link below)
Michael Infanzon retweeted
New York judge delays Demetrio Daga’s sentencing for reasons unknown
“I should be on my way to court right now to be sentenced,” Demetrio Daga said Monday morning.
In September, Daga was convicted after a seven-day trial of violating 15 New York State criminal charges. However, County Court Judge Andra Ackerman, who oversaw Daga’s trial, delayed his sentencing until Nov. 30. The judge did not say why the delay was needed.
Daga, his attorney and even his father-in-law strongly suspect why the judge did not want to sentence the 44-year-old, married, father of two this week.
She’s awaiting a new pre-sentence investigation report, known as a PSI.
Even though Daga is technically facing decades behind bars, the last PSI, which was prepared by the Albany County Probation Department, recommended that he receive no jail time, only probation.
Judge Ackerman—who has already admitted she may not follow her own probation department’s recommendations—hopes a new PSI will recommend that Daga serve time behind bars, Daga and his team firmly believe.
“I think you could certainly read into that—why the judge claims she wants to see an updated PSI,” said Daga’s trial attorney Kevin O’Brien. “I know it’s legally unnecessary, and it seems strange to me. The original PSI was done over the summer. There wouldn’t be much to update, technically speaking. She’s entitled to that, so that’s what she did.”
What frustrates Daga and his legal team is the judge’s timing.
“The even more bothersome part is that if she wanted this done, we’re unsure of why it wasn’t ordered right away,” O’Brien said. “Obviously, this is delaying him and his ability to appeal the sentence. It’s frustrating for sure. I don’t know that it’s calculated, but it certainly feels that way.”
When the original PSI report was issued, which only the attorneys have access to, it caused quite a bit of consternation.
“No one had ever seen a report like it. It recommended probation only. It floored everybody, including the judge,” said Jim Googas, Daga’s father-in-law. “From what everyone has told me, it was the cleanest probation report ever seen.”
He strongly hopes his son-in-law will be released soon.
Said Googas: “I’m 71 and I’ve become the acting father of his two young boys.”
Daga had no criminal history prior to his arrest and has been a model prisoner. He has no idea why the judge asked for a new PSI.
“My attorney has asked several times for a reason,” he said. “He was told they’ll let him know when the report is done. I don’t even know what a new PSI will tell them. The charges are all the same. The old PSI said no incarceration—probation only. I haven’t had a single issue in the jail. I don’t want to believe it’s to make me suffer more, but we’re in Albany. They call Albany ‘The Machine.’ It’s a very political city. One attorney thinks they have someone rewriting the PSI report with results that will be more favorable for them. We have the original PSI. Nothing’s changed. I’ve been in jail. If they now recommend prison, what changed? What’s the difference?”
His incarceration has been hardest, he said, on his two young boys.
“My one son said it’s the end of October, when are you coming home?” Daga said. “I’m so mad … I can’t make them understand because they don’t understand politics. They’re not alone. Even people who aren’t conspiracy-minded are asking what’s going on.”
Case history
Daga’s case was investigated solely by the New York State Police. No other agency—federal, state or local—was involved in the investigation, search warrant or arrest.
Daga was convicted of 15 state weapon charges: one count of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the First Degree, two counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree, three counts of Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Third Degree, and nine counts of Criminal Possession of a Firearm.
He was not charged or convicted of making firearms, even though his prosecutor accused him of it in court.
“Demetrio Daga was buying and producing gun parts and building weapons in his home,” Deputy Chief Assistant District Attorney Jessica Blain-Lewis told the jury during closing arguments. “And he wasn’t just someone who builds guns, he was building an arsenal.”
What she referred to as Daga’s “arsenal” consisted of 13 handguns, which she called “ghost guns,” 22 “AR-style assault rifles,” which she also said were “ghost guns,” 18 “AR-style assault rifles” with serial numbers, and two pump-action shotguns.
Blain-Lewis has never shied away from the media. In 2016, she was a contestant on the popular CBS show “Survivor.”
None of what Braga possessed is even considered illegal in a free state.
His plight is drawing attention from those who faced similar predicaments.
“I’m doing everything I can for Demetrio. Let’s hope for a surprising outcome, but if not, we’ll continue pressing onward. Let’s hope for another victory like mine,” said Patrick “Tate” Adamiak, who was recently pardoned by President Donald L. Trumpafter he was convicted of federal weapons charges.
Demetrio Daga’s family has established a GiveSendGo page for those who are able to help.
The Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project wouldn’t be possible without you. Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support pro-gun stories like this.
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Veterans. We are planning 2027 clinics for the veteran community.
What information, practical skill, or service would make life easier for you or your family?
Thanks.
Two major Second Amendment case updates:
In NSSF v. Torrez, the Second Amendment Foundation and its partners have asked a federal court for a preliminary injunction against New Mexico’s firearms waiting-period law, HB 129. The request follows a Tenth Circuit ruling in Ortega v. Grisham that found the law unconstitutional and a permanent injunction protecting the plaintiffs in that case. The new lawsuit seeks relief for a broader group of New Mexico residents, including SAF members. The court has not yet ruled on this motion.
At the U.S. Supreme Court, governments defending rifle bans have filed their opening briefs in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins. The cases challenge bans on commonly owned semiautomatic rifles in Cook County, Illinois, and Connecticut. SAF says it will file replies. Oral arguments in both cases are scheduled for December 2.
These are active cases, and the next court decisions could affect how Second Amendment protections are applied to waiting periods and bans on commonly owned firearms. The filings and arguments are not final rulings in these cases.
Support the @2AFDN @CCRKBArms @AZCDL_Freedom
#SecondAmendment #FirearmsPolicy #ConstitutionalRights #NSSFvTorrez #Viramontes #GrantvHiggins
Woke Judge Gives Bond to the Illegal Alien Who Beheaded the Quantico Statue pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado…
Michael Infanzon retweeted
🚨 PLEASE HELP DEMETRIO DAGA AND HIS FAMILY. 🇺🇸
Before his incarceration, Demetrio earned well into six figures, providing a comfortable life for his wife and two children.
Today, his wife is raising their children alone on a teacher’s salary.
His family has already spent OVER $200,000 in legal fees, exhausting their savings fighting to bring him home.
And the bills keep coming.
Just to obtain the trial transcripts needed for his appeal?
$8,600. JUST FOR TRANSCRIPTS.
Meanwhile, his family pays 12 cents a minute for phone calls, 50 cents per text message, and up to FIVE TIMES retail prices for basic commissary food.
I’ve lived through this nightmare. I know firsthand that when the government puts someone behind bars, their entire family pays the price.
I’m asking the Second Amendment community to rally behind Demetrio.
If just 1,000 people donated $10, we could cover his transcripts and provide some relief to his wife and kids.
You don’t have to give much. If you can’t donate, PLEASE repost.
A little from a lot of us can change everything for this family.
Let’s show them they’re not fighting alone. 🇺🇸
🙏 DONATE HERE:
givesendgo.com/support-demet…
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