Category: Corruption

Georgia Supreme Court Stops Democrats’ Attempts to Cheat in One County.

One metro Atlanta county enacted an extension that allowed for the counting of absentee ballots after Election Day, but the Georgia Supreme Court issued a ruling on Monday that put a stop to it.

WSB Radio reports:

The Georgia Supreme Court ruled late Monday that the extension granted by Cobb County that could impact thousands of mail-in voters has been reversed.

The ruling from the court reversed a lower judge’s ruling that had granted 3,000 voters an extension of the mail-in-ballot deadline after Cobb County election officials admitted they missed the deadline to ship them out.

The deadline for mail-in ballots to be received in Georgia is election day — but the lower judge had given those voters an extension for them to be postmarked by election day and received by Nov. 8, the same deadline for overseas ballots.

Cobb County, Ga., is just northwest of Atlanta, and it’s a typical suburban county in that it has trended toward the Democrats in recent elections. The Democrat Party had filed a suit to allow the county to grant an extension to the mail-in deadline for 3,000 absentee ballots, which a superior court judge upheld.

The mail-in ballot deadline was Oct. 31, but the county initially extended the deadline because it had received a “surge in absentee ballot requests,” as the Cobb County Courier described the situation:

“We want to maintain voter trust by being transparent about the situation,” said Board of Elections Chairwoman Tori Silas in the news release. “We are taking every possible step to get these ballots to the voters who requested them. Unfortunately, we were unprepared for the surge in requests and lacked the necessary equipment to process the ballots quickly.”

“After our vendor’s final run on Friday, we needed to utilize our in-house equipment for the final shipment of ballots, but the equipment was not working properly,” said Silas. “By the time we got the equipment online, the deadline for mailing the ballots had passed, prompting us to work with the US Postal Service and UPS to take extraordinary measures. Our team has been working around the clock to get the ballots out.”

Judge Robert Flournoy had ruled that “this Court declares that Defendants’ delay in mailing absentee ballots to the Affected Voters violated Georgia law and likely Plaintiffs’ and similarly situated voters’ state constitutional rights.” Claiming “broad discretion,” Flournoy ordered an extension to the deadline for these voters.

“The Georgia Supreme Court ordered the Cobb board to ‘keep separate’ the absentee ballots of those voters that are received after the deadline on election day but before November 8 in a secure, safe, and sealed container separate from other voted ballots,” WSB reported.

“The court also ordered the board to notify the voters by email, text, or public announcement of the change,” the report continues. “At this point, all votes will need to be in by 7 p.m. on Election Day.”

Republican National Committee Co-Chair Michael Whatley quickly celebrated the high court’s decision:

However, the ACLU was apoplectic:

Back in May, during Georgia’s primaries, I wrote about how the Supreme Court contest between Justice Andrew Pinson, a Kemp-appointed, fair-minded young jurist, and John Barrow, a far-left crusader, was a down-ballot race that was too important to ignore. Georgia voters made the right choice, and this decision reflected the wisdom of reelecting Pinson.

Never forget that all elections are important.

Navy Says 26 Ships Affected by Faulty Welds at Newport News Shipyard in Virginia.

More than two dozen Navy ships — including three that are currently in service — received faulty welds at the Huntington Ingalls Industries shipyard in Newport News, Virginia, the service’s top civilian leader told lawmakers last week.

In a letter to Congress dated Oct. 3, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said that poor welds were found on the aircraft carrier USS George Washington as well as the attack submarines USS Hyman G. Rickover and USS New Jersey. In addition, the welding issues were identified on 23 more ships — a mix of new construction, ships in maintenance and aircraft carriers undergoing refueling.

The existence of faulty welds became public nearly two weeks ago when USNI News, citing a Navy memo, reported that the sea service was told by Huntington Ingalls, or HII, that workers did not follow proper techniques on some joints in noncritical areas and that early indications suggested that some of the issues were intentional.

Del Toro said that he became aware of the issue on Sept. 24, just days before the details became public.

A week later, the House Armed Services Committee formally demanded answers from the Navy in a letter to Del Toro where they asked for a briefing from the Navy leader by this Friday.

Continue reading “”

Study: COVID-Vaxxed Kids SIX TIMES Likelier to Die Than Unvaxxed Peers

The ostensible takeaway, per the authors, of a poorly-publicized study from June of this year was that children vaccinated for COVID had much higher rates of asthma — almost double, in fact — post-COVID infection than their unvaccinated peers.

That’s compelling enough of a headline, but what should really have been the lede in any sane world got buried deep in the weeds.

Via Infection (medical journal) (emphasis added):

Two cohorts of children aged 5 to 18 who underwent SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR testing were analyzed: unvaccinated children with and without COVID-19 infection, and vaccinated children with and without infection. Propensity score matching was used to mitigate selection bias, and hazard ratio (HR) and 95% CI were calculated to assess the risk of new-onset asthma.

Our study found a significantly higher incidence of new-onset asthma in COVID-19 infected children compared to uninfected children, regardless of vaccination status.

In Cohort 1, 4.7% of COVID-19 infected children without vaccination developed new-onset asthma, versus 2.0% in their non-COVID-19 counterparts within a year (HR = 2.26; 95% CI = 2.158–2.367).

For Cohort 2,COVID-19 infected children with vaccination showed an 8.3% incidence of new-onset asthma, higher than the 3.1% in those not infected (HR = 2.745; 95% CI = 2.521–2.99). Subgroup analyses further identified higher risks in males, children aged 5–12 years, and Black or African American children. Sensitivity analyses confirmed the reliability of these findings.

The study highlights a strong link between COVID-19 infection and an increased risk of new-onset asthma in children, which is even more marked in those vaccinated. This emphasizes the critical need for ongoing monitoring and customized healthcare strategies to mitigate the long-term respiratory impacts of COVID-19 in children, advocating for thorough strategies to manage and prevent asthma amidst the pandemic.

However, as Alex Berenson — vindicated “conspiracy theorist” who turned out to be right about all of the things he was censored for since the start of the pandemic — explains, the truly shocking statistical finding, which somehow never made it into the conclusion, is a six-fold increase in death among vaxxed kids in the study as compared to the unvaxxed.

Via Alex Berenson (emphasis added):

The study about Covid and asthma in American kids and teens has gone mostly unnoticed. It hasn’t been cited once since it was published in June.

Which may be why no one has raised an alarm over the stunning figures buried in its appendix about deaths among mRNA Covid-vaccinated kids.

They show that 354 of the 64,000 children and teenagers who received a Covid mRNA shot died within a year after vaccination – a death rate of almost six kids per 1,000.

In contrast, only 309 out of 320,000 unvaccinated kids died, fewer than one per 1,000.

One might assume, again, that finding a drug is implicated in a six-fold increase in childhood mortality might be the headline — but, if it were, these researchers might not get another grant their whole careers. In fact, they might be working at McDonald’s or collecting unemployment within a week.

Why the researchers refused to focus on this statistic, or even mention it in passing in the summary of their work, is obviously a matter of speculation.

But speculate I will.

Scientists rely on grant money, either directly from the pharmaceutical industry or indirectly from the pharmaceutical industry by way of the government, which is often in bed with said industry.

There are, as such, clear financial interests at play, which is why you will notice that, virtually universally, scientists will downplay even the mildest negative effects of pharmaceutical products they study— especially blockbuster ones like the COVID-19 shots — or else rig the research design to produce rosier results, or else never publish any negative research findings in the first place.

Indeed, it’s mildly surprising that the data Alex Berenson unearthed ever made it to publication at all, when it would have been so easy just to scrub it out of existence.

Blue States Can’t Ban Your Guns So They’ll Punish You For Using Them.

Try as they might, blue cities and states can’t seem to ban their citizens’ guns. They’ve enacted handgun bans, “assault weapons” bans, registration mandates, taxes, and levied confiscatory fees on guns, ammo, and carry permits. As a result, they’ve been challenged at every turn by those who take the Second Amendment at its word. And then Bruen came along and made the job of civilian disarmament even more difficult for aspiring tyrants.

What’s a gun-banner to do then? Simple. Make life hell for anyone who dares to use a gun they own, particularly in self-defense. Look no further for an example than what happened last night in Newton, Massachusetts.

A group of people were holding a peaceful pro-Israel rally when a Hamas supporter began yelling at them from across the street. The Hamasnik, who apparently couldn’t abide free speech being exercised in his presence, ran through traffic and assaulted one of the Israel supporters, jumping on him as his back was turned.

Watch video of the altercation here . . .

It’s hard to imagine a clearer case of self-defense after the Hamas supporter tackled a man who has been identified at 47-year-old Scott Hayes of Framingham, Massachusetts. It’s been reported that Hayes is a lawful gun owner and permitted carrier, though the police investigation is ongoing.

Continue reading “”

Appeals Court Paves the Way for Illegals to Potentially Steal the Election in Arizona.

It seems like the Democrats’ rule of thumb is: if you can’t win, cheat.

On Thursday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed itself and will now allow Arizonans to register to vote in federal races without having to prove citizenship.

“It’s another dizzying swerve in the legal battle over a 2022 law that aims ultimately to reverse a portion of the National Voter Registration Act and require all Arizona voters to show proof of citizenship to register to vote,” reports USA Today. “The order reopens a path for potential voters who just two weeks ago were barred from using the state voter registration form to sign up to vote unless they could produce proof of U.S. citizenship. It comes with two months left before the Oct. 7 registration deadline for the high-stakes presidential election.”

The order means people can again use the state-issued voter registration form even if they don’t produce proof of citizenship. Instead, they attest under penalty of perjury that they are citizens, and are limited to voting in federal races only.

In the first 10 days after the July 18 ruling that required the documentary proof, the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office said it had rejected 200 voter applications.

On Thursday, the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office clarified the impact of the ruling.

“Election officials may not reject voter registration applications submitted without DPOC, regardless of which form is used,” communications director Aaron Thacker said. DPOC is shorthand for documentary proof of citizenship.

There is only one reason to allow Arizonans the ability to register to vote without proving citizenship: to let illegals vote. That’s why Joe Biden opened up the border, and that’s why the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed itself.

Senate President Warren Petersen vowed to seek an emergency stay from the U.S. Supreme Court “to make sure only American citizens are voting in our elections.”

Petersen, along with House Speaker Ben Toma, have defended the proof of citizenship law since it passed in 2022 and was almost immediately challenged. The two Republican legislative leaders are joined in the case by the Republican National Committee.

Two weeks ago, Petersen and Toma were celebrating the ruling that blocked registrations without citizenship proof. But late Thursday, Petersen said the reversal is “another example of why the radical 9th Circuit is the most overturned circuit in the country.”

He acknowledged his praise of two weeks ago. “When someone gets it right, they deserve praise. A broken clock is right two times a day.”

We knew that radical leftists were going to play dirty to win this election. They’re not hiding it anymore. Arizona was incredibly close in 2020, and fraud allegations marred that election. Mass mail-in voting had a significant impact on the election, and an audit later revealed that 53,305 ballots had various irregularities, which is more than five times Biden’s state-certified margin of victory. The media, of course, dismissed the audit, and any suggestion that Biden’s victory was illegitimate was a surefire way to get censored and demonetized.

Courts Attacking Second Amendment Right to Legally Acquire Firearms

There’s an interesting – if not devious – trend emerging in some Second Amendment cases. The first step of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bruen test is to ask whether the conduct at issue is covered by the text of the Second Amendment which protects a pre-existing “right to keep and bear arms.”  Some lower courts in purporting to apply the Bruen test are upholding gun control laws by holding that you do not have a Second Amendment right to buy a firearm.

That’s intellectually dishonest, to say the least. The ability to freely approach the gun counter to legally purchase a firearm is paramount to exercising the Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms. There is no “keeping” of firearms if there is no legal right to lawfully acquire those same firearms. The ramifications of this flawed legal reasoning are self-evident. The government could simply ban the buying (and selling) of firearms and therefore eviscerate the Second Amendment all without infringing upon the right.

Continue reading “”

BLUF
If you can give an innocent explanation for the mountain of evidence that this was allowed to happen, I really want to hear it, because a plot to get Trump killed is the worst-case scenario. I really don’t want to believe it.

Right now I believe it. Please prove me wrong.

Director Rowe Personally Crippled Trump’s Secret Service Team

The tap dancing, lies, and coverup of the Trump assassination attempt by the Secret Service, FBI, and now the mainstream media is so far beyond bureaucratic ass-covering that it’s hard to conclude that the events in Butler were not desired.

I still maintain that it is unlikely in the extreme that anybody inside the government recruited Crooks to take his shots at Trump because it seems so implausible that any sane person would recruit an untrained kid to do the deed, but it is now clear to me that the top levels of the Secret Service and Homeland Security wanted Trump in danger.

For weeks, I wanted to believe that massive incompetence led to the events in Butler. I really did because the alternative didn’t bear thinking of. I thought the lawfare campaign was banana republic stuff, but assassination? That is Putin-level evil.

But consider the facts: the security “breakdowns” were so massive and implausible when combined that any large police force could have done a better job than the most elite protection unit in the world. The shooter was identified, tracked, photographed, filmed on the roof, the Secret Service was warned multiple times, the shooter was in the line of sight of the snipers, and Trump was trotted out onto the stage and kept there as the shooter was lining up his shot in full view of the Secret Service snipers.

None of that is disputable.

Continue reading “”

Question O’ The Day
Do I look like someone who would make that basic mistake?
Answer O’ The Day:
Yes

If we can thank Senator McConnell for one thing, it’s keeping this moron hack off the Supreme Court

AG Garland slams dismissal of Trump’s classified documents case: ‘Do I look like someone who would make that basic mistake?’

Attorney General Merrick Garland suggested Tuesday that his lengthy legal career makes it unlikely that he illegally appointed Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate alleged crimes committed by former President Donald Trump.

Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the federal classified documents case against Trump earlier this month, ruling that the special counsel was not lawfully appointed by Garland – a determination that made the Biden administration official bristle.

“For more than 20 years I was a federal judge. Do I look like someone who would make that basic mistake about the law? I don’t think so,” Garland said in an interview with “NBC Nightly News.”

The attorney general noted that his “favorite room” in the Justice Department is its law library to hammer down the point.

“Our position is, it’s constitutional and valid. That’s why we appealed,” Garland added.

“I will say that this is the same process of appointing special counsel as was followed in the previous administration, Special Counsel [John] Durham and Special Counsel [Robert] Mueller, in multiple special counsels over the decades going back to Watergate and the special prosecutor in that case,” he said.

“Until now every single court, including the Supreme Court, that has considered the legality of a special counsel appointment has upheld it.”

In her July 15 order, Cannon ruled that Congress was required to appoint “constitutional officers” and the legislature was also needed to approve spending for such a prosecution.

“That role cannot be usurped by the executive branch or diffused elsewhere — whether in this case or in another case, whether in times of heightened national need or not,” she wrote in her 93-page ruling.

The judge determined that “Special Counsel Smith’s investigation has unlawfully drawn funds from the Indefinite Appropriation.”

“The Special Counsel’s office has spent tens of millions of dollars since November 2022, all drawn unconstitutionally from the Indefinite Appropriation,” Cannon wrote.

Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the classified documents case against Trump earlier this month, arguing that the special counsel was unlawfully appointed by the attorney general.

“For more than 18 months, Special Counsel Smith’s investigation and prosecution has been financed by substantial funds drawn from the Treasury without statutory authorization, and to try to rewrite history at this point seems near impossible. The Court has difficulty seeing how a remedy short of dismissal would cure this substantial separation-of-powers violation, but the answers are not entirely self-evident, and the caselaw is not well developed,” she added.

Smith’s team is expected to file a brief related to their appeal in the case, which charged the 78-year-old Republican nominee for president with improperly hoarding sensitive and classified White House documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence after his presidency, by the end of August.

Trump faced up to 450 years in prison if convicted on all counts in the case.

House Oversight Chairman Investigating White House Collusion in Chicago’s GLOCK Balk

The head of the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight Committee isn’t playing games when it comes to The White House avoiding answers to questions about potential collusion with antigun groups to target GLOCK, Inc., with a frivolous lawsuit.

Last week, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee James Comer (R-Ky.) fired off a letter in response to The White House’s political gamesmanship. In short, Chairman Comer demanded that Stefanie Feldman, the Director of The White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, quit stalling and provide answers over “potential collaboration” between Biden administration officials and Everytown for Gun Safety.

Chairman Comer announced an investigation into potential collusion between the Biden administration, gun control groups and the City of Chicago to bring a lawsuit against GLOCK, Inc., alleging the company is responsible for the criminal misuse of firearms when criminals unlawfully attach an illegal “switch” to handguns. The Oversight Committee learned that White House officials met privately with GLOCK representatives to demand a design alteration to their handguns.

Special-Interest Backed Lawfare

“On the very day the suit was filed, Everytown for Gun Safety President John Feinblatt posted on X, ‘Federal officials recently contacted Glock to discuss implementing new ways to modify Glock pistols to make it harder for Glock switches to be installed. Rather than help, Glock falsely insisted there is nothing they can do.’”

Chairman Comer said this indicates that Everytown had inside access to White House meetings. The White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention is staffed by a former Everytown lobbyist, Rob Wilcox. Letters demanding more information were sent to Steven Dettelbach, Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention Director Stefanie Feldman.

Chairman Comer sent these letters demanding answers on June 14. Instead of answering those questions, White House Deputy Counsel Rachel Cotton responded by making counteraccusations that Chairman Comer was shilling for the gun lobby. Cotton provided no answers, only listing off the Biden administration’s gun control efforts and goals, adding Congress “should open a real investigation into an actual danger to our communities: the proliferation of illegal devices that convert handguns into machineguns in a matter of seconds.”

That’s a purposefully misleading attack on not just the House Oversight Committee but also GLOCK. The illegal devices are “autosears,” which are illegal to possess, illegal to attach to a firearm and illegal to use without compliance with the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA). Cotton, as an attorney, should know that these aren’t produced by GLOCK or any other firearm manufacturer. In fact, they are largely illegally imported from China or illegally manufactured by individuals.

Continue reading “”

NRA Trial Reveals Reformers Have More Work to Do

When a slate of reform-minded candidates won election to the NRA’s board of directors earlier this year, there was genuine hope that it would make a turning point for the organization, which has seen both membership and revenue plummet over the past few years. But testimony delivered during this week’s civil trial in New York has revealed that the board’s old guard still holds at least some sway over the direction of the organization, and there is much more work to be done to get the NRA back on track.

Take, for instance, the testimony of new NRA president Bob Barr, who was not the reformer’s pick to serve as the top elected official of the organization. While most of the reform-minded board members were cautiously optimistic that Barr would go along with the necessary changes to renew members’ confidence in the organization, Barr revealed that the NRA hasn’t even tried to collect the millions of dollars that Wayne LaPierre owes the group.

It wasn’t just the misspending on the part of top NRA officials like former executive vice president Wayne LaPierre that have caused many gun owners to let their memberships lapse or refuse to donate, it’s definitely a major factor. So why hasn’t the NRA tried to claw back the money the jury says is owed to the group? It’s not like they couldn’t use the cash.

Barr made another revealing comment; this one about new EVP Doug Hamlin, who was the choice of reformers. As John Richardon of Only Guns and Money relayed, Trace reporter Will Van Sant quoted Barr calling Hamlin a “placeholder” during testimony.

The National Rifle Association’s new chief executive Doug Hamlin is a placeholder, according to the testimony of former NRA president Charles Cotton that points to fault lines in the gun group’s leadership.

In May, board members chose Hamlin, who led the NRA’s publications arm, as Wayne LaPierre’s replacement. Hamlin is allied to a small, self-described reform bloc at the group.

“The intent is to try to get, frankly, some high-powered person to take it over,” testified Cotton, a LaPierre defender whom the reformers consider part of an old guard. Cotton made his remarks in a New York courtroom where the final phase of New York Attorney General Letitia James’s lawsuit against the NRA is underway. —Will Van Sant

When I spoke to Hamlin on Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co a few weeks after his election, I asked him about whether he considered himself to essentially be a placeholder, or whether he planned on sticking around. Hamlin replied that he served at the pleasure of the board, but he certainly didn’t sound like someone who took the job on a short-term basis.

Hamlin and Barr have both taken the stand in New York this week, and Hamlin was far more willing to criticize his predecessor for his misuse of NRA funds.

The New York attorney general called each to the witness stand to show how their differences could hold the NRA back from making progress toward financial transparency — part of the state’s broader goal of having a court-appointed monitor oversee the NRA and banning LaPierre from its leadership for life.

For instance, Hamlin was more willing to criticize LaPierre’s reign during his testimony.

“Mr. LaPierre breached the trust of the NRA and its members, correct?” state attorney Monica Connell prodded.

“Yes,” Hamlin replied, adding that he agreed LaPierre’s conduct placed the NRA in a “very difficult decision” and was partly responsible for the group’s declining membership.

Meanwhile, Barr maintained that LaPierre discharged his duties to the NRA in good faith, conceding that LaPierre may have made a few mistakes along the way. He took issue with the attorney general calling LaPierre “corrupt” following the verdict against him in February.

“I believe it was, shall we say, a mischaracterization,” Barr testified Wednesday.

Hamlin and Barr also appeared to be on different pages about the NRA’s potential relocating of its headquarters, a move that Knox and other board members believe should only be done with significant input from the board.

Hamlin, who previously ran the NRA’s in-house publishing arm, testified that he wasn’t even aware of the NRA’s intent to sell its Virginia headquarters until a few weeks ago. He axed plans to sell the Fairfax property when he took the NRA’s reins earlier this year. Barr testified that he thought Hamlin’s decision was “rushed.”

Still, these disputes weren’t an issue for Barr, a former U.S. representative from Georgia, who told the court he could “absolutely” work productively with Hamlin. “It’s similar to working in the Congress,” Barr said. “You have disagreements.”

I’m not sure pointing to Congress as a model of efficiency and comity is a great example, to be honest.

Beyond the trial, Barr has also appointed former NRA president Charles Cotton, who, as Van Sant points out, is considered one of the leaders of the old guard, to serve as chairman of several key BoD committees, including the Ethics and Audit committees. Not only that, as Richardson pointed out, Barr named just one of the Four for Reform candidates to any of these key committees.

I find this disappointing as their election is being used by the NRA in its court filings to assert that things have changed and no special monitor was needed. While Rocky’s appointment is good and proper, why was not Jeff Knox put on Bylaws and Resolutions as he probably knows more about the Bylaws than any member of that committee. Likewise, would not it have been wise to put Judge Phil Journey, the only jurist on the Board, on the Legal Affairs Committee.

With the exception of the Finance Committee which has has four known reformers on it (out of 15 total members), the remaining committees have one and perhaps two known reformers on them. If Barr wanted to signal to the members of the NRA and to Judge Cohen that things had changed at the NRA, this certainly was not the way to do it.

While I don’t have a crystal ball on what will happen in the remedial phase of the New York trial, I think the odds are better than even that a special monitor will now be appointed to oversee the NRA’s finances. It should be noted that this monitor will have nothing to do with functions and programs of the NRA including its political functions.

While this will put me at odds with some friends on the Board who are reformers, I think that the special monitor will be a requirement if the NRA is ever to crawl out of the morass it finds itself in.

I said when Barr was elected that he wasn’t my first choice, but I was hopeful that with reformers elected by the board to every other leadership position he would be a part of the effort to regain the trust of members. After the revelations over the past week, I can’t say I still harbor those hopes.

And honestly, as much as I want to see the NRA succeed, why should any individual or company donate a penny in support so long as the NRA isn’t demanding the return of the millions of dollars LaPierre owes the organization and its dues-paying members? Barr wasn’t asked that question on the stand, but everyone who’s stood by the organization or felt it was time to return to the fold deserve an answer.

Former NRA CFO Wilson “Woody” Phillips Ripped Us Off & Now Owes Back Millions

As dedicated NRA supporters, we know it’s maddening to witness the betrayal from within our own ranks. The latest news reveals the agreed-upon settlement that Wilson “Woody” Phillips, the former CFO of the NRA, confessed to unethical conduct, further deepening the trust issues we’ve had with the organization’s leadership.

Phillips’ Deceitful Contract

Without disclosing their relationship, Phillips admitted to awarding a $1.36 million contract to HomeTelos, a tech company run by his then-girlfriend Nancy Richards. This was a blatant violation of NRA policies designed to prevent conflicts of interest. It took whistleblowers raising the alarm for Phillips to finally come clean about his actions long after the contract had ended.

Shielding LaPierre’s Extravagance

Phillips didn’t just stop at self-serving contracts. Among other things, Phillips was accused of approving invoices for LaPierre’s private jet flights to the Bahamas; facilitating payments to contractors owned by LaPierre’s friends; and allowing an arrangement through which the NRA paid back its longtime advertising agency, Ackerman McQueen, for travel, makeup and other expenses it covered for LaPierre and his wife. He was a key player in hiding Wayne LaPierre’s outrageous spending from the NRA’s internal controls. LaPierre, with Phillips’ assistance, misused millions of dollars on luxury travel, and even yacht trips. This was money meant to protect our Second Amendment rights, not fund their extravagant lifestyles.

$2 Million In Damages To The NRA

The Bigger Picture

This scandal is just the latest in a series of revelations about mismanagement at the NRA. We’ve seen how LaPierre, Phillips, and other top executives have abused their positions and our donations. The jury recently found LaPierre guilty of spending millions in NRA funds on personal luxuries and ordered him to repay almost $4.4 million. This betrayal cuts deep, especially for those of us who have invested our time, money, and trust in the NRA’s mission.

As the trial continues, Attorney General Letitia James is pushing for measures to ensure this kind of corruption doesn’t happen again. She’s seeking an independent monitor for the NRA’s finances and wants to ban LaPierre from any leadership roles in New York charities. Manhattan Judge Joel Cohen will decide the remaining issues in the case beginning July 15th, 2024, including whether former LaPierre and ex-general counsel John Frazer should be barred from charitable organizations in the state.

For us, the rank-and-file members. We need to reclaim our organization from these corrupt individuals and ensure our contributions are used to fight for our rights, not to bankroll the lavish lifestyles of a few dishonest leaders. It’s time for a thorough cleanup and a return to the principles that made the NRA a powerful defender of the Second Amendment. Let’s demand accountability and integrity from those who represent us.

The Message Is Plain

There are no property rights in the United States…at least, none that the State deigns to honor.

Do you remember Teresa Ghilarducci? I do. Any American who has a 401(k), an IRA, or some equivalent should know about her and her chief ambition:

     Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers’ personal retirement accounts — including 401(k)s and IRAs — and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration.
     Triggered by the financial crisis the past two months, the hearings reportedly were meant to stem losses incurred by many workers and retirees whose 401(k) and IRA balances have been shrinking rapidly.
     The testimony of Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, in hearings Oct. 7 drew the most attention and criticism. Testifying for the House Committee on Education and Labor, Ghilarducci proposed that the government eliminate tax breaks for 401(k) and similar retirement accounts, such as IRAs, and confiscate workers’ retirement plan accounts and convert them to universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration….
     The current retirement system, Ghilarducci said, “exacerbates income and wealth inequalities” because tax breaks for voluntary retirement accounts are “skewed to the wealthy because it is easier for them to save, and because they receive bigger tax breaks when they do.”…
     All workers would have 5 percent of their annual pay deducted from their paychecks and deposited to the GRA. They would still be paying Social Security and Medicare taxes, as would the employers. The GRA contribution would be shared equally by the worker and the employee. Employers no longer would be able to write off their contributions. Any capital gains would be taxable year-on-year.

Socialists are forever talking about “inequality” (or in their more recent argot, “inequity”) because it affords them a pretext for seizing our money and property in pursuit of their agenda. It’s well established historically that “inequality” increases under socialism, but they’d rather we didn’t notice that. At any rate, they constantly seek rationales under which to “redistribute” what we’ve earned and saved. We must all be equally poor – except for our loving rulers, of course. Anything else would be “unfair!”

Continue reading “”

ATF Whistleblower Applauds Bump Stock Ruling, Warns of Threats Ahead

Retired ATF Deputy Assistant Director Pete Forcelli, who helped blow the whistle on the Operation Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal, tells Bearing Arms the Supreme Court made the right decision in striking down the agency’s ban on bump stocks, but he’s still deeply concerned that the agency is going to continue to be used by the Biden administration as a way to enact new gun control laws without getting Congress involved… especially if Joe Biden gets another four years in office.

The left likes to attack things, and the problem that I have is when the ATF is tasked by the White House or the Justice Department to attack things rather than hold the people responsible [for their crimes]. It’s not an item that causes the damage. It’s the person misusing that item. How many bump stocks have been used in shootings in the United States aside from Las Vegas? I don’t know of any, to be honest.

Of course, the bump stock ban was implemented under Donald Trump’s watch, so the right can look for simplistic solutions as well, especially in the wake of a high-profile shooting like the Route 91 Harvest Festival murders that resulted in 60 deaths and hundreds of injuries. But the Biden administration has used the ATF to do an end-run around Congress on a regular basis; first by targeting unfinished frames and receivers, then pistol stabilizing braces, and most recently gun owners who offer to sell one or more of their firearms from their personal collection.

Those are just the rules the agency has implemented. According to Forcelli, the White House has been demanding even more.

Continue reading “”