Remember; he has the launch codes.
Biden: “You’re not gonna get COVID if you get vaccinated”
(He says this as fully vaccinated WH staff are testing positive) pic.twitter.com/IPEhv0HTAv
— Jewish Deplorable (@TrumpJew2) July 22, 2021
How does he not know this is completely untrue?
He’s brain dead, that’s how.
Question:
When will children under 12 be able to get ‘vaccinated’?
Answer:
Duuuuuuuhhhh
Crushing it pic.twitter.com/DI21CUSp7k
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 22, 2021
The LA Times Gets It Wrong on Gun Rights
The Los Angeles Times had an editorial yesterday whose title pretty much says it all: “18-Year-Olds Shouldn’t Have the Right to Buy Guns.”
So, let me see if I correctly understand the Times’s position. An 18-year-old woman is walking down a dark street at night. She is accosted by a much bigger, stronger man who violently grabs her. He is armed with a gun and threatens to kill her if she resists. She isn’t armed because of the Times‘s gun-control law that prohibits 18-year-olds, including women, from buying guns. He proceeds to tear her clothes off and rape her. Hoping that she won’t be killed, she submits to the rape.
Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, in its editorial the Times failed to answer an important question: How is that 18-year-old woman supposed to defend herself against that rapist?
What the Times is essentially advocating is a law that prevents people from defending themselves against rapists and murderers. That 18-year-old woman might not be physically strong enough to resist that rapist, but with one Glock 19 that she pulls out of her purse, things are now equalized. Now it doesn’t matter how much bigger and stronger her rapist is. She can stop him from raping her with just one bullet fired into his abdomen.
Why shouldn’t that 18-year-old woman have the right to defend herself against that rapist? Why should she be required to submit to the rape or else be murdered?
The Times writes:
True, the right to puff on cigarettes or drink alcohol is not written into the U.S. Constitution. But neither is a guarantee that the right to bear arms goes with being a particular age.
Lamentably, those two sentences reflect a woeful lack of understanding of people’s rights and the Constitution. Rights don’t come from the Constitution. They preexist both the Constitution and the federal government that the Constitution called into existence.
Remember: We just celebrated the Fourth of July, the day on which the Declaration of Independence was published in 1776. That document expressed the revolutionary truth that people’s rights come from nature and God, not from government and not from some document that calls government into existence.
The Constitution never purported to establish people’s rights. It simply called into existence a government whose powers were limited to those few powers that were enumerated in the Constitution itself. If a power wasn’t enumerated, it could not be exercised.
Extremely leery about this new government, the American people demanded the enactment of the Bill of Rights, which expressly protects the citizenry from the federal government. Contrary to popular belief, however, especially in the mainstream press, people’s rights also don’t come from the Bill of Rights. The First and Second Amendments, for example, do not give people the rights of free speech, religious liberty, freedom of assembly, and the right to keep and bear arms. Instead, they prohibit the federal government from infringing on these fundamental rights.
In fact, what many in the mainstream press fail to recognize is that if the Bill of Rights had never been enacted, people would still have the rights of free speech, religious liberty, freedom of assembly, and the right to keep and bear arms. That’s because people’s natural, God-given rights preexist government.
Oddly, in its editorial the Times didn’t advocate a minimum age of 21 for military service. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the military permit 18-year-old men to handle guns and even orders them to use automatic weapons to kill people in faraway lands who have never committed any act of violence against the United States? Why does the Times trust those 18-year-olds with guns and not private 18-year-olds?
Finally, in its editorial the Times unfortunately failed to call for an end to the root cause of much of the violence in American society — the much-vaunted war on drugs that unfortunately much of the mainstream press continues to support, notwithstanding the massive violence it has been producing for some 50 years. Rather than prohibit 18-year-olds from defending themselves, why not end this horrific government program and then see if gun violence is still a major problem in America?
This week’s global warming predictions.
Every single day, there is something alarming in the news about climate change. Click on any headline about a natural disaster like a forest fire or a flood or a hurricane, and there will be dire warnings in the article about how this particular phenomenon is worse than ever before because of climate change. Google the words “climate change,” and you can learn about how it is making poison ivy itchier, glaciers smaller, and the world generally less pleasant to live in. It is even being theorized that there could be a connection between earthquakes and climate change.
What I don’t understand is why climate change is seen as a bad thing. It’s normal for the climate to change. Millions of years before the dinosaurs, the Earth was a solid ball of ice. During the time of the dinosaurs, there was no ice at all. The planet continued to cool off and warm up, all without human intervention, and when humans did come along, they adapted to changes in the climate. Up until the 20th century, nobody thought that a change in the weather warranted prophesying the end of the world.
Today, there is constant alarmism. The media trumpet melting glaciers and how the rising sea levels will wipe out whole countries, ignoring the fact that 30% of the Netherlands was once underwater. Is it only in the Netherlands that water management can maintain human habitation? I think not. Polar bears are seen to be of special concern, with fears that melting ice will cause them to go extinct, yet according to the World Wildlife Fund, they still exist in their original habitat, range, and natural numbers. Such being the case, I take leave to doubt that climate change is wiping out polar bears.
In short, not a single horror that has been predicted for the 21st century because of a changing climate has come to pass. The human race is adapting, as it has always adapted, to new weather conditions. The planet may warm up, as it has done in the past, and after it warms up, it will cool off, as it has done in the past. There’s nothing frightening about that simple fact of nature. The only thing I’ve ever found disconcerting about climate change is the number of people who accept the distressing predictions, without noticing how those predictions get pushed back several decades when they don’t come to pass.
“Americans have never really understood ideological warfare.”
Wokeness is sabotaging the military academies.
Professor Lynne Chandler Garcia recently published an op-ed in the Washington Post in which she defended indoctrinating her students on the concepts of critical race theory, or CRT.
Normally, this wouldn’t raise any eyebrows. A member of the intelligentsia teaching her students a boutique academic theory? Hardly shocking. What did get people’s attention was Garcia’s place of employment. None other than the U.S. Air Force Academy.
CRT presents a nebulous set of beliefs that encourage people to look at every issue through the prism of race. Its next step is to sort individuals into groups of “oppressors” and “oppressed.” It’s a poisonous ideology that accuses white people of being oppressors and asserts that minorities cannot succeed in America without perpetuating white supremacy.
At its core, CRT is a race-based way of looking at the world. Which is somewhat ironic for a philosophy ostensibly about “anti-racism!” It essentially advocates burning down those basic American structures, norms, and institutions that CRT theorists deem unacceptable. The goal? Undermining and ultimately replacing these norms and institutions.
One of those institutions on which CRT theorists have set their sights is the United States military.
As my Heritage colleagues Mike Gonzalez and Dakota Wood have previously explained, the creeping influence of CRT on the military jeopardizes the health and strength of the armed forces. Introducing CRT’s racial division and resentment will erode camaraderie. CRT will undermine the instrumental unity that is essential for the U.S. military to successfully protect our national interests. But CRT theorists are not content to just push these radical concepts on the force at large. They are working to indoctrinate the next generation of officers, as Garcia makes plain.
To be clear, informing cadets about controversial concepts is not the issue. Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton echoed this sentiment at a recent Heritage event, saying that he would be surprised if a Western philosophy class did not cover Karl Marx and communism, given the impact of Marx’s ideology on world history.
The same is true of CRT. Making cadets aware of the concept is not the problem. Indoctrination and extensive academic focus is the problem. Just as professors at the service academies should not be endorsing communism in the classroom, they shouldn’t be endorsing CRT. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what is happening.
BLUF:
The report concluded: ‘A major peer-level conflict in the 21st Century will likely play out largely in the naval theaters of operations; unlike the surface Navy’s last major war, which concluded 76 years ago, such a conflict will likely proceed swiftly and not permit significant time for organizational learning once it is underway.’
‘Unless changes are made, the Navy risks losing the next major conflict.’
But I guess that won’t matter as much as the fleet’s diversity index being up to date?
A scathing new report commissioned by members of Congress has claimed that the Navy’s surface warfare forces have systemic training and leadership issues, including a focus on diversity that overshadows basic readiness skills.
The report prepared by Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Schmidle and Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, both retired, came in response to recent Naval disasters, including the burning of the USS Bonhomme Richard in San Diego, two collisions involving Navy ships in the Pacific and the surrender of two small craft to Iran.
The authors conducted hour-long interviews with 77 current and retired Navy officers, offering them anonymity to identify issues they wouldn’t feel comfortable raising in the chain of command.
The report found that a staggering 94 percent of the subjects believed the recent Naval disasters were ‘part of a broader problem in Navy culture or leadership.’
‘I guarantee you every unit in the Navy is up to speed on their diversity training. I’m sorry that I can’t say the same of their ship handling training,’ said one recently retired senior enlisted leader.
The report focused on issues within the Navy’s surface warfare forces, as opposed to submarine and aviation, and suggested that issues in the surface fleet could be unique due to better funding and training for submarine and aviation units.
One of the key issues raised by the officers interviewed for the report was a concern that Navy leaders spend more time focusing on diversity training than on developing warfighting capacity and key operational skills.
‘Sometimes I think we care more about whether we have enough diversity officers than if we’ll survive a fight with the Chinese navy,’ lamented one lieutenant currently on active duty.
‘It’s criminal. They think my only value is as a black woman. But you cut our ship open with a missile and we’ll all bleed the same color,’ she added.
One of the more common tactics of anti-gun extremists is to make some dramatic statement comparing our nation’s gun laws with some other aspect of everyday life. Every time—not usually or often, but every time—the comparison is wildly inaccurate. One of the more outrageous claims was made in 2016 by then-president Barack Obama (D), who claimed, “We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book.”
Obama’s statement ignored many obvious facts, including that it would be illegal for any teenager to purchase a Glock, such firearms are far more expensive than books (even when purchased through illegal channels), and books are available through innumerable legal outlets—including for free at the more than 100,000 public libraries in America. Even PolitiFact, the “fact-checking” website many consider to favor liberals and Democrats, gave Obama’s statement a “Mostly False” rating.
Last week, Virginia Democrat gubernatorial nominee, Terry McAuliffe, got in on the game of comparing guns to other activities by making a ridiculous, and false comment that puts him in the company of Obama.
“Call me crazy, but I think it should be easier to vote than to buy a gun,” McAuliffe tweeted.
For a response to candidate McAuliffe, please refer to the title of this article. And based on the response to his ill-informed message, we are not alone.
So, where to begin with this latest entry in the competition for stupidest comments about guns?
First, when comparing two constitutionally-protected rights, neither should really be considered “easier” to exercise than the other.
But what of McAuliffe’s implication that it is currently easier to buy a gun than it is to vote? If he truly believes this, then maybe he is crazy.
Disturbing Reports From US Troops and ROTC Cadets of “Woke” Military Priorities
Woke priorities are now trickling down to our troops, and reports are surfacing about some humiliating drills and exercises that boost neither morale nor preparedness among our service personnel.
Professor Jacobson published an outstanding analysis of the “ideological capture” of our military, which featured chilling testimony from General Mark Milley (Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff) and Admiral Michael Gilday (Chief of Naval Operations).
The woke priorities are now trickling down to our troops, and reports are now surfacing about some humiliating drills and exercises that boost neither morale nor preparedness among our service personnel.
To begin with, active duty members of the Navy in San Diego were recently forced to take part in a mandatory ‘diversity hike’ during which they flew LGBT flags. Of course, American flags were nowhere to be seen.
“A woman whose husband is active duty Navy sent me this. His command held a “diversity hike” in honor of Pride Month. Attendance was mandatory. They hiked while waving a rainbow American flag,” tweeted Matt Walsh.
As Chris Menahan explains, the event was promoted by the Construction Battalion Maintenance Unit 303, which celebrated “Pride Month” with a “Pride Hike” at Sunset Cliff last week.
The servicemembers were made to carry a version of the LGBT flag which incorporates the stars and stripes, although no actual American flag was flown.
A woman whose husband is active duty Navy sent me this. His command held a “diversity hike” in honor of Pride Month. Attendance was mandatory. They hiked while waving a rainbow American flag. pic.twitter.com/ctx66HNoi5
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) June 29, 2021
Earlier this year, about 15 ROTC cadets from Temple University participated in a school-sponsored Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event, during which men stumble through a pre-set route while sporting high heels, supposedly as as a way to raise awareness for sexual assault victims.
Several cadets walked while wearing Army Combat Uniforms, as did the school’s professor of military science, Lt. Col. Greg Nardi, who runs Temple’s Red Diamond Brigade.
Military blogs like This Ain’t Hell reported on the cadets weeks later. Around that time, another high-heel walk, this one sponsored by the ROTC brigade at Arizona State University, drew attention when a screen shot of a message allegedly from an ASU cadet complaining about his school’s event landed on Reddit’s Army channel, the Facebook page of U.S Army W.T.F! Moments, and other sites.
This is your US military pic.twitter.com/PgDgLLptQz
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) March 14, 2021
It is highly doubtful that either of these activities enhanced our military’s preparedness, or contributed to unit cohesion.
For decades, a hallmark of the military has been building up its personnel (physically and mentally) via physical training and conditioning. However, this effective method of strengthening our troops is now being quashed in favor of high-heels and diversity stunts.
The Air Force announced Monday it will allow walking and modified push ups in its revised fitness test, according to Task and Purpose.
The fitness test, which to this point featured a 1.5-mile run with sit-ups and push-ups, will now allow members to walk instead of run, and do raised-hand push-ups instead of traditional push-ups.
As for the core, service members have the option to do planks instead of traditional sit-ups.
Lt. Gen. Brian Kelly, the branch’s deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services told Task and Purpose the Air Force will also set up a sprint-test alternative to walking and running.
But can the Air Force personnel do those push-ups in high-heels while waving the LGBTQ flag…that is the important question!
What is Behind Gen. Mark Milley’s Righteous Race Sermon? Look to the New Domestic War on Terror.
The overarching ideology of Pentagon officials is larger military budgets and ongoing permanent war posture. Their new war target, explicitly, is domestic “white rage.”
For two hundred forty years, American generals have not exactly been defined by adamant public advocacy for left-wing cultural dogma. Yet there appeared to be a great awakening at the Pentagon on Wednesday when Gen. Mark Milley, the highest-ranking military officer in the U.S. as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified at a House hearing. The Chairman vehemently defended the teaching of critical race theory at West Point and, referencing the January 6 Capitol riot, said, “it is important that we train and we understand … and I want to understand white rage. And I’m white.”
In response to conservative criticisms that top military officials should not be weighing in on inflammatory and polarizing cultural debates, liberals were ecstatic to have found such an empathetic, racially aware, and humanitarian general sitting atop the U.S. imperial war machine. Overnight, Gen. Milley became a new hero for U.S. liberalism, a noble military leader which — like former FBI Director Robert Mueller before him — no patriotic, decent American would question let alone mock. Some prominent liberal commentators warned that conservatives are now anti-military and even seek to defund the Pentagon.
It is, of course, possible that the top brass of the U.S. military has suddenly become supremely enlightened on questions of racial strife and racial identity in the U.S., and thus genuinely embraced theories that, until very recently, were the exclusive province of left-wing scholars at elite academic institutions. Given that all U.S. wars in the post-World War II era have been directed at predominantly non-white countries, which — like all wars — required a sustained demonization campaign of those enemy populations, having top Pentagon officials become leading anti-racism warriors would be quite a remarkable transformation indeed. But stranger things have happened, I suppose.
But perhaps there is another explanation other than righteous, earnest transformation as to why the top U.S. General has suddenly expressed such keen interest in studying and exploring “white rage”. Note that Gen. Milley’s justification for the military’s sudden immersion in the study of modern race theories is the January 6 Capitol riot — which, in the lexicon of the U.S. security state and American liberalism, is called The Insurrection. When explaining why it is so vital to study “white rage,” Gen. Milley argued:
What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? What caused that? I want to find that out. I want to maintain an open mind here, and I do want to analyze it.
The post-WW2 military posture of the U.S. has been endless war. To enable that, there must always be an existential threat, a new and fresh enemy that can scare a large enough portion of the population with sufficient intensity to make them accept, even plead for, greater military spending, surveillance powers, and continuation of permanent war footing. Starring in that war-justifying role of villain have been the Communists, Al Qaeda, ISIS, Russia, and an assortment of other fleeting foreign threats.
According to the Pentagon, the U.S. intelligence community, and President Joe Biden, none of those is the greatest national security threat to the United States any longer. Instead, they all say explicitly and in unison, the gravest menace to American national security is now domestic in nature. Specifically, it is “domestic extremists” in general — and far-right white supremacist groups in particular — that now pose the greatest threat to the safety of the homeland and to the people who reside in it.
In other words, to justify the current domestic War on Terror that has already provoked billions more in military spending and intensified domestic surveillance, the Pentagon must ratify the narrative that those they are fighting in order to defend the homeland are white supremacist domestic terrorists. That will not work if white supremacists are small in number or weak and isolated in their organizing capabilities. To serve the war machine’s agenda, they must pose a grave, pervasive and systemic threat.
Viewed through that lens, it makes perfect sense that Gen. Milley is spouting the theories and viewpoints that underlie this war framework and which depicts white supremacy and “white rage” as a foundational threat to the American homeland.
Our Woke Military Is a Disaster on Every Level
Hi, everybody! Welcome to the latest edition of “Stream of Kurtiousness,” the Townhall VIP special feature where I sit and talk about stuff, things, and do-ins. So here we are. Let’s go. What do we got?
We got drag queen shows at Air Force bases. Not just any Air Force base. No, it’s Nellis Air Force Base, home of the fighter pilot training school where you’re supposed to forge on the anvil of combat training the world’s greatest fighting force. They had a bunch of dudes dressed like chicks walking around, and this was an official sponsored event, and it’s like, what the hell is going on? A drag show, folks. A drag show.
Want to know what else is a drag? Not having won a war in 20 years. That’s a super drag. And it’s really, really annoying. It’s getting old. It’s getting tiring.
Let’s face it; our military is in a really bad way. It’s a disaster on every level.
Did you see Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday, Four Stars, get up before Congress, and they start asking him embarrassing questions like why are you having our guys read Henry Kendi Ibram Rogers whatever the hell his name is?
Here’s the thing, everybody goes, “Well, Kurt, aren’t generals conservative?” Well, they’re conservative as an adjective, not conservative as a noun. Okay? They’re not like you and me. Keep in mind, they’re at the top of the pyramid in a socialist organization where they tell you what to do, where to go, what to say, what to wear, who you’re doctor is going to be; they tell you everything. And if you’re a general, you really like that.
Now, I was Guard as well as Army. I was active duty and Guard, so I kind of had both of those worlds, but when you’re Guard, you tend to, I don’t know, have a freaking life. And you know, we would get attitude from the active duty guys, “You’re not a real soldier.” And I’m like, “Well, I had to meet every standard you did to become a Colonel.” Every single one, including War College, which you didn’t need to be a Colonel, but it still helped. So, I did that, and I was successful. And I was successful at an entirely different career, too.
There was a little healthy competition, but now, it’s a total sh**show.
These guys are socialists; they are not conservatives like you or me. In fact, they distrust it, because as conservatives, we believe in empowerment. We believe in pushing down to the lowest decentralized level the authority of people to run their own lives. That’s everything generals hate!
Army Finally Defines ‘Extremism’ When It Comes to Screening Out ‘Hate Group’ Members.
The Army has decided to ask all applicants for enlistment a question about an association with “extremist/hate groups” in the screening process. This requirement might seem reasonable. However, according to the latest communication, extremism is defined in terms of individual belief and advocacy.
In a recent congressional hearing, Senator Tom Cotton questioned Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin regarding racially-charged exercises and training content presented during the 60-day stand-down to root out extremism. Austin disavowed the concepts that members of the military reported receiving training on. Representative Jim Banks (R-Ind.) also questioned Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Michael Gilday about placing How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi on a recommended book list for sailors. From Gilday’s answer, it is doubtful he ever read the book that some social justice warrior lackey probably placed on the list.
Yet social justice content is leaking its way into the military through some mechanism. Now, the Army Recruitment Command uses subjective and easy-to-politicize criteria to identify potential “extremists” who wish to enlist. This change comes amid the Pentagon considering ways to intensify social media scrutiny in background investigations.
On June 22, an Ops Flash instructed Army recruiters that the inclusion of a question regarding any association with “extremist/hate” organizations must be answered and uploaded for all applicants for commissioning in the Army before testing, before the physical exam, and before military entrance processing. The required form updated the gang participation question that has been asked since the 1990s:
Suspecting that the definition of a gang is more commonly held than that of an “extremist/hate organization” in the current political environment, I reached out to the Army Press Desk for clarification asking three questions after reviewing the Ops Flash and new question:
A Biden minion blames America’s crime spike on the NRA.
Well, I’ve never yet found a demoncrap that made sense anyway, so…
What a Top Biden Staffer Said About the NRA and the Spike in Crime Makes No Sense
As Katie wrote yesterday, the Biden gun grab is coming. They’re prepping it. They’re doing a test-run with this regulation tweak on pistol stabilizers that will place 10-40 million law-abiding Americans in legal jeopardy. These people did nothing wrong, but the firearms they own must be registered, disassembled, or turned over to authorities to avoid legal action. It will be the largest gun confiscation and registration effort ever. And now, Biden announced new initiatives for gun dealers concerning background checks. It’s not new, by the way. It’s already illegal to conduct straw purchases, falsify your background check form, and knowingly sell to criminals or other prohibited persons.
And now, top Biden adviser Cedric Richmond went on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to blame the National Rifle Association (NRA) for the spike in violent crime. Well, first, he picked the right network because MSNBC is only meant to stroke the fragile egos of liberal America. It does well to keep their moral superiority complex well fed. Second, he said that the NRA has governed the country for too long. Uh, what? As Chris Martin of America Rising notes, Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress. What the hell is he talking about?
I almost just spit out my coffee.
Cedric Richmond (senior Biden advisor) is blaming the skyrocketing crime rates in America on… the @NRA
They've apparently been "governing our country for far too long"
Spoiler: Democrats control the House, Senate, and White House pic.twitter.com/DbnZ6XNf2e
— Chris Martin (@chrisjdmartin) June 23, 2021
It’s the same old tired game. With the NRA in serious legal and financial trouble, Richmond is doing his part to drive the stake into the heart of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization.
Just look in the mirror, man. Your party’s embracing of defunding the police, passing disastrous bail reforms, and letting hundreds of rioters, looters, and arsonists from last summer go is what’s causing this crime spike. You’re telling them they’ll get away with it. This isn’t hard, sir. When a major party decides to adopt a pro-crime stance, mayhem will ensue in the areas this party dominates politically, which would be the cities.
Biden’s Gun Control Speech Was A Mistake
Joe Biden had one real goal in Wednesday’s speech announcing a five-point plan to address the rising violent crime rate in many American cities; reassure voters that Democrats have a strategy that will reduce the increasing lawlessness and reverse the spike in crime that began last year.
Instead, the big takeaway from his rambling and semi-coherent remarks was his off-topic warning to Americans that if they want to take on the government, they’ll need F-15s and nuclear weapons. An address that was supposed to show that the president was focused on violent crime turned into a half-hearted stump speech for gun control, and maybe cannon control as well.
Recent polls have shown that Biden isn’t trusted to handle the crime issue, and I can’t imagine that yesterday’s disastrous turn at the podium made voters feel any better.
Polls signal growing unease over crime, a potential liability for Biden and Democrats in next year’s midterm elections. A Yahoo News/YouGov poll released in May found that nearly 50% of respondents said crime is a very big problem in the U.S. About 36% of respondents at least somewhat approved of Biden’s handling of crime, while 44% at least somewhat disapproved.
Republicans have accused the president of being soft on crime, saying he has not done enough to rebut some liberals who call for cutting spending on police departments. Biden has repeatedly said he does not favor defunding the police.
It’s true that Biden announced that cities can use hundreds of billions of dollars in COVID relief funds to spend on law enforcement efforts, but the officer shortage in many cities can’t simply be blamed on budget issues. Instead, as the New York Times reported a few days ago, officers are retiring, resigning, and joining suburban agencies because of the hostility towards law enforcement shown by many Democratic politicians and elected officials in cities from coast-to-coast.
“We have lost about one-third of our staff to resignation and retirement,” said Chief David Zack of the Asheville Police Department in North Carolina — more than 80 officers out of a full complement of 238. “Certainly with the way that police have been portrayed and vilified in some cases, they have decided that it is not the life for them.”
Those reductions in Ashville echo a nationwide trend. A survey of about 200 police departments indicates that retirements were up by 45 percent and resignations by 18 percent in the period between April 2020 and April 2021, when compared with the preceding 12 months. The percentage of officers who left tended to be larger for departments in big or medium-size cities, according to the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington policy institute that will release full data next week.
“It is an evolving crisis,” said Chuck Wexler, the organization’s executive director.
Biden could have engaged in a full-throated attack on the Defund the Police movement, but he can’t risk alienating the Democrats’ base, so instead he pilloried gun owners. He could have issued a stark warning to violent criminals that the Department of Justice is going to be coming after them, but instead he warned “rogue gun dealers” that the ATF will have a zero tolerance policy on violations of agency rules and regulations.
A speech that was ostensibly designed to make Americans feel better about Biden’s handling of violent crime instead left many of us scratching our heads. Even Biden defenders like Geraldo Rivera were less than impressed by the president’s remarks.
“Compassion aside, where was the passion? That speech was as laid back as the program he is proposing,” said Rivera.
The longtime journalist, who has reported on violent crime and other major issues throughout his career, said that Biden’s allocation of resources toward summertime social programs for urban and endangered youth and stemming illegal firearm sales will not go far toward solving the problem.
“This is the civil rights issue of our time, murder has become the leading cause of death, if this is not an emergency, what is it?” he later asked.
Now, Geraldo is wrong about murder being the leading cause of death in the United States (heart disease, cancer, COVID-19, accidents, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, and suicides are each responsible for far more deaths than homicide), but he’s right that Biden’s speech was “laid back.” I’d actually call it somnambulate, but seeing Sleepy Joe at the podium isn’t exactly a new phenomenon either.
The biggest problem for Biden is that he can’t actually acknowledge why we’re seeing a rise in violent crime. Biden wants to blame legal gun owners and federally licensed firearm dealers, when we know that the vast majority of gun owners will never commit a violent crime and that criminals are getting their guns on the illicit market or through family and friends. The White House refers to an 18-month increase in violent crime, when we all know that shootings and homicides really increased a year ago, after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and the riots and destruction that followed in many cities.
Biden’s address on Wednesday may have checked a box, but I doubt it moved the needle in terms of public opinion on his handling of violent crime. By continuing to call for more restrictions on legal gun owners at a time when millions of Americans are embracing their Second Amendment rights for the very first time and his unwillingness to get tough on those actually responsible for violent acts, the only people Biden really reassured were his gun control allies. When it comes to everyone else, Biden would have been better off politically saying nothing at all.
F-15S & NUCLEAR WEAPONS: BIDEN SHRUGS OFF 2A IN GUN CONTROL SPEECH
Just over a week before the country’s Independence Day celebrations, President Biden delivered a speech on gun control in which he ridiculed the meaning, feasibility, and intent of the Second Amendment.
In an event meant to be the kickoff for another round of anti-gun legislation and executive actions for an Administration just 155 days in the White House, Biden tried to frame the Constitutional gun rights argument to justify his proposed efforts.
“The Second Amendment, from the day it was passed, limited the type of people who could own a gun and what type of weapon you could own. You couldn’t buy a cannon,” he said.
While the first part, about the Amendment “limiting the type of people,” is somewhat true– for example, the gun rights of enslaved and in some cases even freed blacks were often denied in the Southern States from the earliest days of the Constitution despite the Second Amendment– Biden fails the fact check on cannon ownership. As we have covered before, anyone with the desire and extra cash could acquire their own battery of fully functional cannon without any government paperwork or permission until 1968.
With that being said, modern breechloading artillery is still available in the “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave,” provided it is registered with the federal government and properly taxed. Still, legacy artillery systems such as muzzleloading black powder field guns, do not require tax stamps.
Biden also went further into the woods against what the Second Amendment protects, arguing the enumerated right had something to do with hunting, although many in the gun rights community point out that Washington didn’t cross the Delaware to get to a duck blind.
“No one needs to have a weapon that can fire over 30, 40, 50, even up to 100 rounds unless you think the deer are wearing Kevlar vests or something,” he said, although magazine capacity restrictions have only been adopted in nine states– and have been recently found to be Constitutionally suspect by a federal court. Further, industry data suggests consumers in the U.S. own at least 230 million detachable magazines, with about half of those able to hold more than 10 cartridges, the traditional threshold for a “large-capacity magazine” in restricted states.
Then, Biden seemed to paint the Second Amendment’s potential check against tyranny, a concept that dates to the days of Constitutional framer James Madison, as ludicrous in the days of modern warfare, notwithstanding the realities of multi-domain modern insurgency.
“Those who say the blood of lib- — ‘the blood of patriots,’ you know, and all the stuff about how we’re going to have to move against the government. Well, the tree of liberty is not watered with the blood of patriots. What’s happened is that there have never been — if you wanted or if you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons,” he said.
The quote Biden ramblingly alluded to, drawn a 1787 letter from Founding Father Thomas Jefferson– author of The Declaration of Independence and later third U.S. President– to William Smith, John Adams’ secretary, can be argued to be directly related to the right to keep and bear arms and was penned at the time of Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts.
We have had 13 states independent 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is its natural manure.
It is not the first time that Biden trotted out the Jeffersonian quote in relation to his view on gun policy. In February 2020, while on the campaign trail for the Democratic nomination for President, he argued at a town hall event in New Hampshire that, “Those who say ‘the tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots’ — a great line, well, guess what: The fact is, if you’re going to take on the government you need an F-15 with Hellfire Missiles. There is no way an AK-47 is going to take care of you.”
States he doesn’t really know what it is, but still advocates for it.
This is the intellectual level of the current military command structure.
Yes, you read Marx, Lenin and even Mao.
You do that to – as SunTzu put it – understand the enemy as well as you understand yourself.
You do not teach a theory though that is 180° opposite to what America stands for.
Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Defends Critical Race Theory
General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, explained in a House Armed Services Committee hearing Wednesday why he supports bringing Critical Race Theory into the American military while admitting “I’ll obviously have to get much smarter on whatever the theory is.”
“I do think it’s important, actually, for those of us in uniform to be open-minded and be widely read,” Milley said. “And the United States Military Academy is a university, and it is important that we train and we understand,” he added as a rationale for teaching Critical Race Theory.
“I want to understand ‘white rage,’ and I’m white, and I want to understand it,” said the most senior military officer in America, linking the term to the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.
Understanding Critical Race Theory, according to Milley, is important to find out “what is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? I want to find that out,” he said. “I want to maintain an open mind here and I do want to analyze it. It’s important that we understand that. Because our soldiers, sailors, airman, marines, and guardians come from the American people, so it is important that the leaders, now and in the future, do understand it.”
“On the issue of Critical Race Theory…I do think it’s important, actually, for those of us in uniform.”
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General of Staff Mark Milley says he wants to understand “white rage” and CRT. pic.twitter.com/26l7mxqcgM
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) June 23, 2021
15 Years After Lauer’s BOTCHED Apocalypse Prediction: ‘Countdown to Doomsday’
One way in which journalists try and terrify viewers into endorsing every expensive environmental prescription is to constantly – and wrongly – predict the apocalypse is just around the corner. Fifteen years ago this week, the not-yet-disgraced Matt Lauer did exactly that with a two hour special outsourced to the SyFy Channel: Countdown to Doomsday. (We’re still here so the countdown must be continuing.)
On June 14, 2006, the then-NBC host declared, “We are the problem.” Demanding fast action, Lauer warned that anything less would mean the end of humanity:
Today, life on Earth is disappearing faster than the days when dinosaurs breathed their last, but for a very different reason….Us homo sapiens are turning out to be as destructive a force as any asteroid. Earth’s intricate web of ecosystems thrived for millions of years as natural paradises, until we came along, paved paradise, and put up a parking lot. Our assault on nature is killing off the very things we depend on for our own lives….The stark reality is that there are simply too many of us, and we consume way too much, especially here at home….It will take a massive global effort to make things right, but the solutions are not a secret: control population, recycle, reduce consumption, develop green technologies.
As Media Research Center Vice President Dan Gainor pointed out when the special aired, Lauer adopted the tired (and always wrong) trope about over population:
Had this been the History Channel instead of the SciFi Channel, someone might have pointed out to Lauer that claim has been around for more than 200 years. It traces back to 1798 and Thomas Malthus whose work “An Essay on the Principle of Population” has been proven wrong as the world population has grown.
The segment included supposedly prophetic videos, such as a teenager declaring, “It’s June 8th, 2015. One carton of milk is $12.99.” (On the actual June 8, 2015, a gallon of milk cost, on average, $3.39.) Another clip featured this prediction for the current year: “Gas reached over $9 a gallon.” (In reality, gas costs an average of $2.75.)
But don’t worry, journalist will keep predicting environmental doom. And they’ll likely keep being wrong.
Former Trump Official Slices Fauci Apart Over Hydroxychloroquine Fiasco
Donald Trump scored a major win over the liberal media. It’s a moral victory as he’s no longer president, but he can add another notch to the handle of the club that has beaten the media establishment bloody for years. Its face must be a bloody crater by this point. Hydroxychloroquine has finally been proven as an effective treatment for COVID. Russian collusion was a hoax. The Russian bounty story in Afghanistan was another whopper. Lafayette Square was not cleared for a photo op. And Hunter Biden’s laptop is real.
The hydroxychloroquine one is significant since it was weaponized heavily against the Trump administration. The president was trying to save lives and all the media did was attack him. It’s why they’re the opposition press. And Dr. Anthony Fauci’s refusal to endorse the treatment caused thousands of unnecessary deaths. That’s the allegation that Peter Navarro, Trump’s director for now-defunct Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, said he had around 60 million tablets of this stuff that could have been used to treat some 5-6 million patients. Fauci refused to budge. Navarro did not hold back, calling Fauci an “SOB,” saying that he kept to his line that hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness was based on anecdotal evidence. Not true. Navarro slapped scores of studies noting its effectiveness.
The former Trump official went into further detail on Larry O’Connor’s show:
Wow! Peter Navarro absolutely unloads on "little twerp" Anthony Fauci. This interview is 🔥🔥🔥
O'Connor & Company Interview – PETER NAVARRO – 06.11.21 https://t.co/gBgbdeB6Bx
— Larry O'Connor (@LarryOConnor) June 11, 2021
The most stupid puppet ever to hold office.
We yield our rights to goobermint?
Leeme see….
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America…..
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
May be just me, but SloJoe has it so wrong, he qualifies as what the patriots back then rebeled against.
Elder abuse.
A curious tic Biden has, which Benny Johnson pointed out: He’s always saying he would “get in trouble” with staffers if he answers a question.
He means his handlers. That’s not my supposition, it’s what he clearly means when he says “I’d get into trouble if I answered another question” or “I’d get in trouble with Jake Sullivan if I answered that.”
He’s upfront admitting he’s being run by other people, that he’s not the real president and that he is at least aware enough to know he’s not the real president.
Remember to keep telling yourself: President Kamala Harris
A Visibly Confused, Tired-Looking Joe Biden Mixes Up Libya, Syria Three Times In Speech On Russia
This is horrible. At some point his cognitive disfunction has to be considered a natl security threat if only because of the confidence it must give our enemies “President confuses Syria with Libya three times”
pic.twitter.com/R7is0yl2MR— Tammy Bruce (@HeyTammyBruce) June 13, 2021
Feinstein Introduces Federal Extreme Risk Protective Order Bill
The matter of Fourth Amendment protections for firearm owners has yet to fully have its day in court. The promising outcome from Caniglia v. Strom on May 17, 2021 does point to gun owners having protection from firearm seizure when a warrant is absent. The Caniglia case was reported nearly a month ago by Cam Edwards, and in his correct estimation, it can have effects going forward concerning due process for those trapped up in such situations, and how the high court views them:
It’s encouraging to see the Supreme Court unanimously agree that Edward Caniglia’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated when his firearms were seized without a warrant, but I suspect that a challenge to a state’s red flag laws would result in a much more divided opinion.
While this case didn’t directly involve a Second Amendment challenge, it’s also good to see that even the progressive wing of the Court concluded that the seizure of Caniglia’s legally-owned firearms infringed on his constitutional rights. It may not indicate a sea change from the liberal justices, but at least in this case they declined to treat the Second (and Fourth) Amendment as a second-class right.
While I agree with Edwards’s suspicion that “red flag” laws might yield a more divided opinion, this case will in my opinion have an impact on litigation against all of the unconstitutional seizure policies. In a concurring opinion, Justice Alito conceded the Caniglia case does not address “red flag” laws directly, but I’m sure the case will be cited in case documents filed in lower courts.
