Just anecdotal, nothing to see here folks. Move along. You mustn’t be distracted by your observations and personal experiences. #followthescience https://t.co/V49wVWs2N4
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) November 10, 2022
Category: Bureaucraps
BLUF
The American Founders, in their quest to create a limited government to prevent this evil, created the First Amendment. It plainly states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…”
We now know the DHS has now been working quietly for years to abridge free speech, and it has done so with no explicit legal authority; the laws Congress passed speak not a whisper about regulating speech.
The Department of Homeland Security needs to be put in check, and it reminds us of an ancient question: quis custodiet ipsos custodes (who guards the guardians)?
Who Authorized the Department of Homeland Security to Police Online Speech? Not Congress
Newly published documents obtained by the Intercept show the US government is actively shaping online discourse and policing speech. This invites a question: who gave them this authority?
When George W. Bush signed the Homeland Security Act in 2002, the goal was to improve national security by strengthening government at various levels and helping them identify and respond to threats, particularly terrorism.
”The continuing threat of terrorism, the threat of mass murder on our own soil, will be met with a unified, effective response,” said Bush. ”Dozens of agencies charged with homeland security will now be located within one cabinet department with the mandate and legal authority to protect our people.”
The law contained “severe privacy and civil liberties problems,” the ACLU argued, but the legislation enjoyed broad bipartisan support. Only nine Senators voted against it (eight Democrats and one Independent).
Bush tapped Tom Ridge as the first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, but public policy experts admitted it was unclear precisely what the new department would do.
”The first challenge is to lower expectations,” Paul C. Light of the Brookings Institution told The New York Times. ”People should think they will be safer, but remember we have a long way to go.”
‘Platforms Got to Get Comfortable With Gov’t’
One thing not mentioned in the Homeland Security Act is free speech. The word “speech” does not appear on even one of the law’s 187 pages.
Nevertheless, newly-published documents published by The Intercept show the extent to which the DHS is now actively involved in using the power of the US government to shape online discourse and police speech by pressuring private platforms behind closed doors.
“In a March meeting, Laura Dehmlow, an FBI official, warned that the threat of subversive information on social media could undermine support for the U.S. government,” The Intercept wrote of one message. “Dehmlow, according to notes of the discussion attended by senior executives from Twitter and JPMorgan Chase, stressed that ‘we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.’”
Docs show Facebook and Twitter closely collaborating w/ Dept of Homeland Security, FBI to police “disinfo.” Plans to expand censorship on topics like withdrawal from Afghanistan, origins of COVID, info that undermines trust in financial institutions. https://t.co/Zb3zmI1dQF
— Lee Fang (@lhfang) October 31, 2022
The FBI will not be forgiven after Tuesday.
The House Republicans’ bruising report is a statement of intent
It is said that towards the end his life as he sank into dementia, Maurice Ravel was tormented by the theme from Bolero playing over and over in his head. I would not be surprised to hear that Christopher Wray, head of America’s Staatspolizei (also known as the FBI) is suffering from a similar torment as the theme from the movie Jaws plays over and over in his noggin.
In fact, I suspect that John Williams’s minatory masterpiece is playing at Democratic redoubts all across the country. Merrick Garland hears it, as do Raphael Warnock, Tim Ryan, Mark Kelly, Catherine Cortez Masto, Katie Hobbs and Gretchen Whitmer. I decline to speculate about the music bouncing around in John Fetterman’s head, but I know it is loud and distressing. As one commentator noted, Tuesday’s red wave in the midterm elections is going to be like the red elevator scene in The Shining. I had to look that one up but, yep, it seems like an appropriate metaphor for what is about to happen.
Some hapless scribe called Emily Oster recently wrote an article for the Atlantic called “Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty.” That’s not bloody likely, Emily. The fallen angel Anthony Fauci and power-hungry apparatchiks throughout the land destroyed businesses, ruined nearly two years of education and socialization for children, made it impossible to visit your dying grandmother, go to the beach or to church or celebrate your favorite nephew’s birthday. Meanwhile, they forced millions to wear pointless masks and undergo experimental vaccinations whose safety, it now emerges, is highly questionable. The spectacle of the coercive power of the state being wielded against ordinary citizens going about their lives was frightening and outrageous.
“Amnesty” comes from the Greek word ἀμνηστία, whose primary meaning is “forgetfulness.” In common parlance, the word carries a suggestion of forgiveness as well. But neither forgetfulness nor forgiveness is on the docket. People are not about to forget what the politicians and their bureaucrats just did to them. And if they do not forget, neither will they forgive.
Nor are they going to forget what the FBI has done and is doing to us. The dawn raids against non-violent political rivals of the regime and pro-life activists, the nationwide dragnets to nab people who protested against the 2020 election, the spying on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, manufacture of forged evidence in order to mobilize the awesome surveillance apparatus of the state against American citizens and undermine Trump’s presidency. The bill of indictment is long and damning. How long? More than a thousand pages in its first iteration, which GOP members of House Judiciary Committee dropped on Friday under the title “FBI Whistleblowers: What Their Disclosures Indicate About the Politicization of the FBI and Justice Department.”
What they indicate is an agency that has gone rogue and should be dismantled. This has been a theme sounding for more than a years now. Roger L. Simon, writing for the Epoch Times, said that the FBI, like ancient Carthage, must be destroyed. Holman Jenkins, writing for the Wall Street Journal, said that the agency had to be abolished. I’ve argued the same case several times, here, for example, and here. In my column for the December Speccie, I suggest that FBI be relocated to Kansas City and have its budget cut by 75 percent. “Then,” I write, “it should be taken apart altogether,” not least because “a national police is probably unconstitutional certainly un-American”
With few exceptions, the consensus is that the Bureau is beyond reformation or reclamation. Friday’s lengthy J’Accuse underscores the moral bankruptcy and corruption of the FBI.
Its opening statement provides a bracing summary:
Comment O’ The Day
No government has ever seen an area of human activity they couldn’t make worse given sufficient budget. This is an important first step in misallocating vast oceans of human and monetary capital.
Soon we will look back fondly at today’s straightforward and streamlined regulatory environment as “The good old days, when it was fast and easy to get stuff done”.
FCC proposes new bureau for space activities
WASHINGTON — The chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission announced plans Nov. 3 to reorganize the agency and create a bureau devoted to the its increasing work with space systems.
In a speech at a Satellite Industry Association event, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced her intent to reorganize the commission’s International Bureau into a new Space Bureau and a standalone Office of International Affairs. That reorganization, she said, would give satellite licensing and regulatory work greater prominence and access to more resources.
“The organizational structures of the agency have not kept pace as the applications and proceedings before us have multiplied,” she said, saying that the FCC has applications under consideration for systems totaling 64,000 satellites. “You can’t just keep doing things the old way and expect to lead in the new.”
Having a bureau devoted to space, she said, would go hand-in-hand with efforts to increase staffing and develop new regulations for space systems. “This organization will help ensure that the new Space Bureau and the Office of International Affairs stay relevant, efficient and effective over time.”
‘Politicized bureaucracy’ has FBI ‘rotted at its core,’ GOP charges in shocking report.
The FBI is “rotted at its core,” has a “systemic culture of unaccountability” and is full of “rampant corruption, manipulation and abuse,” according to whistleblowers cited in a damning report released Friday by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee.
The report, which runs 1,050 pages with appendices, amounts to a preview of coming investigations should Republicans win back the House in the Nov. 8 midterm elections.
“America’s not America if you have a Justice Department that treats people differently under the law,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Friday morning. “It’s supposed to be equal treatment under the law. That’s not happening and we know it’s not happening because 14 brave FBI agents came to us as whistleblowers and told us what exactly is going on here.”
In the document, GOP lawmakers accuse the bureau’s top brass of pursuing a “woke, leftist agenda” by artificially inflating the number of domestic extremism investigations, burying the investigation into first son Hunter Biden, and forcing out conservative employees.
“Quite simply, the problem — the rot within the FBI — festers in and proceeds from Washington,” the report’s introduction read. “[T]he FBI and its parent agency, the Justice Department, have become political institutions.”
ATF, Enforcer of Gun Laws, Lost ‘Thousands of Firearms, Firearm Parts’ to Thieves
The agency should be abolished and its employees sent to seek jobs in the private sector.
With inflation, prices are up pretty much across the board, but if you’re looking for a new gun for recreation or self-defense, here’s a hint: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is offering them at an absolute steal. Seriously, the federal agency tasked with enforcing firearms regulations has such poor security that thousands of guns and gun parts once in its possession disappeared in the hands of thieves. And it has yet to fully implement recommended reforms.
“Since September 2015, the ATF has utilized the National Disposal Branch (NDB), formerly the National Firearms and Ammunition Destruction (NFAD) Branch, to centralize and streamline the disposal process of forfeited and ATF-owned firearms. Each year, the ATF destroys thousands of firearms at the NDB,” the U.S. Justice Department’s Inspector General noted in announcing a recent report. “The DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) undertook this audit following the discovery that thousands of firearms, firearm parts, and ammunition had been stolen from NFAD from 2016 to 2019.”
So, for three years, the agency that enforces every petty and intrusive federal regulation regarding firearms (as well as alcohol, tobacco, and explosives) let its own security personnel (“a DHS contract security guard was convicted in connection with these thefts”) pilfer its inventory.
Strictly speaking, the report isn’t about the thefts themselves, which were discovered by accident during a traffic stop. The recent report delved into the ATF’s progress in implementing anything resembling the security procedures it requires of the private gun dealers it oversees—or maybe just something more challenging than leaving “intact weapons … in unsecured boxes and unlocked containers.” So, how is the ATF doing at storing firearms at least as securely as you might expect of private businesses?
“The ATF has implemented several new control procedures to reduce the risk of firearm thefts,” the report found. “However, the ATF has not implemented all improvements to NDB operations recommended over three years ago.”
Among other challenges, even well after the disposal facility was identified as a grab-bag for the firearms black market (the convicted security guard, Christopher Lee Yates, sold what he stole), the Inspector General “identified several ATF policies regarding firearm storage and evidence tracking with which the NDB is not in compliance.” Of course, implementing new security measures doesn’t matter much when “staff does not consistently adhere to established operating procedures in place to mitigate the risk of firearms being lost or stolen. Specifically, we observed, in the NDB facility surveillance footage, staff occasionally circumventing controls pertaining to facility and vault access solely for the sake of convenience.”
Staff stored guns on top of vaults instead of inside them, left keys lying around, propped exterior doors open, didn’t sign people in and out, and otherwise engaged in more sloppiness than you might expect of people who had already been caught with their pants down and were told to tighten things up. Then again, government workers aren’t generally held to the same standards as the private sector.
The ATF has long had an adversarial relationship with gun owners and sellers, but last year, the Biden administration deliberately stepped up the hostilities.
“The Justice Department is announcing a new policy to underscore zero tolerance for willful violations of the law by federally licensed firearms dealers that put public safety at risk,” the White House announced in 2021. “Absent extraordinary circumstances that would need to be justified to the Director, ATF will seek to revoke the licenses of dealers the first time that they violate federal law.”
The ATF was obviously listening and eager to please the administration.
“The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives revoked gun store licenses at a higher rate in 2022 than in any year since 2006,” The Trace, “the only newsroom dedicated to covering gun violence,” trumpeted earlier this month. “The total more than triples the number of licenses revoked in 2021, when a similar number of dealers were inspected.”
But, while some of the violations that could get a license to sell firearms revoked are potentially serious, many are of the sort best described as bureaucratic missteps.
“At the direction of the Biden administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) appears to be revoking the licenses of firearm dealers for even minor paperwork violations,” AmmoLand, which covers shooting sports, observed in May. After reviewing the list of criteria for targeting gun dealers, AmmoLand pointed out that “‘falsifying records’ is a very broad category that can include making simple errors on Form 4473, and ‘failing to respond to a trace request’ could result from simply missing an attempted contact by ATF.”
In particular, it should be noted, the ATF requires that “Any Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) who has knowledge of the theft or loss of any firearms from their inventory must report such theft or loss within 48 hours of discovery to ATF and to the local law enforcement agency.” These reports must “be made by telephone and in writing to ATF.”
The ATF also publishes a flyer on “Loss Prevention for Firearms Retailers” that includes handy tips about records-keeping, locking stuff up, and not employing sketchy people. You have to wonder what the ATF would say about a private facility that was ripped off for years on end by its own staffers and still failed to implement serious security measures after the fact. I expect that the consequences would be a bit more serious than a single arrest and then business as usual despite a tut-tutting reprimand.
The nicest thing you can say about the ATF is that it’s an unserious and unaccountable bureaucracy. Often it’s explicitly contemptible, such as during the Fast-and-Furious gun-walking scandal, and its setting up mentally disabled youths to take the fall during gun-and-drug stings. After those abuses of individual rights and public trust, the failings of the National Disposal Branch almost pale by comparison.
The theft of “thousands of firearms, firearm parts, and ammunition” from the federal body tasked with enforcing firearms regulations on the private sector is just further evidence that the ATF has no good excuse for existing. Like so many other government agencies, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives should be abolished, and its employees sent into the world to seek honest jobs in the private sector, if anybody will have them.
Enhanced Background Checks Discriminating Against 18-20 Year Olds to Start Nov. 14
Washington, DC – -(AmmoLand.com)- As a result of the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) of 2022, the NICS Section has been working towards the implementation of an enhanced background check process for persons between the ages of 18-20.
The enhancement provides the opportunity for additional outreach and research to be conducted regarding the existence of any juvenile adjudication information and/or mental health prohibition. As a result, transactions on persons between the ages of 18-20 will initially be delayed allowing for the additional outreach. To conduct this outreach and research, the address of the individual will be collected so that the appropriate local law enforcement entities may be contacted.
For all FFLs conducting checks through the FBI, the enhanced process for persons under the age of 21 will begin on November 14, 2022.
NICS transactions for persons under the age of 21 could be extended for a period up to ten business days. As a result, it is possible for an FFL to be contacted with an updated Brady Transfer Date in certain scenarios. In these situations, NICS staff will be calling to advise of the change. For now, any updated Brady Transfer Date received from the NICS Section should be notated in Block 32 of the ATF Form 4473. Please remember when telephonically contacted by the NICS Section, you will be asked to verify your FFL license number and codeword. In preparation, this may be information you want to have handy for your staff and/or remind them of. If you are a NICS E-Check user, please note calls related to any change to the Brady Transfer Date will be a temporary solution until the NICS can be updated to automatically send the change in date via the E-Check.
Please note, if no potentially prohibiting information is located, the transaction will be proceeded as soon as possible. All descriptive information, including address, will follow normal purge requirements (i.e., deleted from NICS within 24 hours of the FFL receiving a proceed status.)
If you have store locations in states serving as a Point of Contact (POC) state, meaning a state entity conducts the NICS checks, please note the enhanced process for persons under the age of 21 may have already been implemented and/or will be implemented as soon as practicable.
The NICS Section is working in collaboration with numerous other entities in the implementation of all aspects of the BSCA and will keep you informed as additional information and/or guidance becomes available.
Pfizer’s original vaccine trial which contained 1200 participants with evidence of prior infection, showed no benefit from their shots for those who had evidence of prior infection. @CDCgov lied, said study showed it was 92% efficacious for those w/ evidence of prior infection. pic.twitter.com/cu6STvvg2f
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) October 31, 2022
What's it gonna be?https://t.co/apdByBZGp7 👈 pic.twitter.com/79hyGB987Y
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) October 31, 2022
BLUF
COVID has been the tool that the Elites™ have used to bully Americans into complying with the most absurd rules, beating us into submission. It would be ironic indeed if we could turn the tables and use the likelihood that the United States helped fund the development of the virus that has literally plagued us as a tool to dismantle the bipartisan transnational clique who have been driving the West into the ground.
The COVID coverup begins to unravel.
UPDATE: Vanity Fair has a detailed story on the investigation into the COVID virus’ origin:
Breaking: A new Senate report concludes that SARS-CoV-2—the virus that causes COVID-19—likely resulted from “a research-related incident.” The report includes evidence of alarming biosecurity issues at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. https://t.co/xZUnzDxptc
— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) October 28, 2022
COVID likely started circulating in China is late 2019–now 3 years ago–and its effects have dominated our lives for 2 1/2 years.
Yet for much of that time the Establishment™ has been gaslighting us about its likely origins. You know that. The Establishment™ knows that you know. And now the Senate Republicans on the health committee are laying the facts out on the table. COVID almost certainly was released accidentally from a Chinese research lab.
It was remarkable how quickly the Narrative™ settled on the zoonotic origin of the virus, since warning signs that the virus didn’t originate naturally were everywhere. Even scientists who confidently declared in private their belief that the virus was engineered publicly stated the opposite–after having been directed to by Anthony Fauci, the keeper of the keys to the kingdom’s treasury when it comes to research dollars. Fauci in recent months has been backtracking on whether or not the virus could have been engineered, but he sure expended enormous effort maintaining the fiction that an animal origin was certain.
There is a simple reason for Fauci’s reluctance to consider a lab leak hypothesis–if it came from the Wuhan Institute for Virology, the US government likely funded the research. Obviously nobody wants that on their record, and Fauci has quite the pension to protect, as well as an unearned reputation as The Science™.
From the Wall Street Journal:
WASHINGTON—The Covid-19 pandemic that has killed millions worldwide “was most likely the result of a research-related incident” in China, and not natural transmission of a virus from animal to human, a new report by Republicans on the Senate health committee concludes.
The study cites details about the early spread of the SARS-COV-2 virus, which causes Covid; the fact that no animal host has been identified nearly three years into the pandemic; and troubled biosafety procedures at labs in the Chinese city of Wuhan to buttress its conclusion.
The 35-page report by Republican committee staff acknowledges that definitive conclusions about the pandemic’s origins are impossible without more evidence. But, it says: “The hypothesis of a natural zoonotic origin no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt, or the presumption of accuracy.”
The report is largely based on information already publicly available but is likely to bolster calls in Washington for further investigations into the origins of the virus. Republicans have vowed to launch more aggressive Covid-19 probes if they regain control of one or both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections.
Previous zoonotic disease outbreaks—in which a pathogen jumps from animals to man—have occurred in multiple locations as a virus circulates in animal populations, while the Covid virus is known to have emerged only in Wuhan, home to laboratories conducting research on coronaviruses, the report notes. In addition, it says, no animal has been identified as infected with the virus before the December 2019 pandemic outbreak.
I have always suspected, based upon the balance of the evidence I have access to, that the virus was accidentally leaked from a lab. But I freely admit that biological research is not in my wheelhouse.
FBI and DOJ must ‘remove’ records on people pressured into waiving away gun rights, Republicans say
EXCLUSIVE — Republicans are demanding the Justice Department and FBI confirm they have removed database records on people who secretly signed forms waiving away their rights to own, buy, or use firearms.
The firearms rights group Gun Owners of America in September called on the DOJ and the FBI to remove records related to the forms, which the Daily Caller reported were presented by FBI agents to at least 15 people. Republican members are now re-upping GOA’s request and urging Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray to hand over proof the FBI has halted usage of the “illegal and unconstitutional” form and removed signatory records, according to a Monday letter obtained by the Washington Examiner.
It is unclear who the people who signed the forms were since the FBI redacted names in documents GOA obtained as part of its lawsuit to compel the disclosure of records. The forms were provided to people at their homes and elsewhere between 2016 and 2019 by bureau agents in Maine, Michigan, and Massachusetts.
“Due to the recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests submitted by Gun Owners of America (GOA), and the resulting article from Gabe Kaminsky in The Daily Caller, Congress has been made aware of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) illegal usage of a form entitled ‘NICS Indices Self-Submission Form,'” the 15 Republicans, led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), wrote in the letter.
“We, the undersigned elected members of the United States House of Representatives, demand full accountability from all law enforcement agencies, including the FBI,” they added. “No government official — unelected, appointed, or even elected — has the right to infringe upon Second Amendment rights.”
Signatories, who were investigated for things including alleged violent threats in online chat rooms, were asked to identify as a “danger” to themselves or others or as lacking the “mental capacity adequately to construct or manage” their lives. They were also registered with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, according to the form.
Even though the form claims signing it was done “voluntarily,” Second Amendment attorneys previously told the Daily Caller there is a sense of pressure any time people must deal directly with FBI agents. The FBI told the Daily Caller on Sept. 16 that usage of the form was “discontinued” in December 2019, failing to clarify why such a decision was made.
The Bump Stock Court Case Coming Up: Cargill v Garland.
U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)-– On October 3, 2022, the Supreme Court denied a writ of certiorari to two promising bump stock cases, one in the Tenth Circuit, another in the Sixth Circuit. The appeals process for those two cases is finished.
Another bump stock case Cargill v. Garland, is in the Fifth Circuit and may tip the balance. It’s being considered en banc and is a well-argued and supported case.
The case was filed on March 25, 2019, originally titled Cargill v. Barr.
In all three cases, the arguments are not about the Second Amendment. They are about the ability of bureaucrats to make law and the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches of government.
In Cargill v. Garland, supported by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, the district court decided in favor of the government on November 23, 2020. The case was appealed to the Fifth Circuit, and a three-judge panel upheld the district court.
A three-judge panel issued an opinion on the case in the Fifth Circuit on December 14, 2022.
The three judge panel refused to consider either the separation of powers issues, or the Chevron doctrine, claiming they were irrelevant because the panel ruled bump stocks were machine guns.
The Fifth Circuit was asked to consider the case en banc, which is to say, before the entire court, by a member of the Court. A majority of the members of the Fifth Circuit agreed to hear the case, en banc.
The trend of the case follows the GOA case in the Sixth Circuit. The Sixth Circuit agreed to hear the bump stock case en banc. The Sixth Circuit split evenly, with eight members voting to rule the bump stock regulation invalid and eight-member voting to rule for the government. In the case of a tie vote, the district court ruling was upheld. The GOA case was denied a writ of certiorari on October 3 of, 2022.
The Cargill v. Garland oral arguments were heard by the Fifth Circuit, en banc, on September 13, 2022.
There is a good chance the Fifth Circuit will reverse the opinion of the district court. A majority of the Court agreed to hear the case, starting fresh, en banc. If the Fifth Circuit reverses the opinion and finds for Cargill, the case will create a split in the Circuits between the Tenth, the Sixth, and the Fifth circuits.
This gives the Supreme Court a strong incentive to hear the case.
There is an Owellian quality to the circumstances. For over a decade, the ATF assured Americans that “bump stocks” were *not* machineguns.
About half a million Americans purchased the devices on the assurance they were legal.
DOJ Allocates $200k for ‘High-Quality’ Arts Program for ‘Justice-Involved Youth’
The Golden Horseshoe is a weekly designation from Just The News intended to highlight egregious examples of wasteful taxpayer spending by the government. The award is named for the horseshoe-shaped toilet seats for military airplanes that cost the Pentagon a whopping $640 each back in the 1980s.
This week’s Golden Horseshoe is awarded to the Department of Justice for a $200,000 grant for a “high-quality arts program” to “help address emotional and problem behaviors for at-risk justice-involved youth.”
Posted by the DOJ’s Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), the grant will “support high-quality arts programs for justice-involved youth,” according to the synopsis, “to reduce juvenile delinquency, recidivism, and/or other problem and high-risk behaviors. Arts programs include but are not limited to painting, sculpting, drama, digital media, film, music, dance, singing, and creative writing.”
If minors should find themselves entangled in the juvenile justice system, OJJDP hopes to make it a positive experience for them.
“OJJDP envisions a nation where children are free from crime and violence,” the announcement explains. “If they come into contact with the justice system, it should be rare, fair, and beneficial to them.”
OJJDP defines “justice-involved youth” as those who are in detention, correctional or other residential facilities, on probation, or in court-ordered programs.
The DOJ office cites research showing the positive social impact of the arts, including the promotion of community cohesion, while acknowledging uncertainty regarding how art can produce positive effects in youthful offenders.
“While more research is needed to explore how and in what optimal conditions the arts can directly impact the justice-involved youths’ behavior, existing evidence shows that the arts can promote positive outcomes and achieve broader societal impacts, including a stronger sense of community,” the grant notice states. “According to OJJDP’s Arts-Based Programs and Arts Therapies for At-Risk, Justice-Involved, and Traumatized Youths literature review, the arts can help address emotional and problem behaviors for at-risk justice-involved youth.”
The grant was authorized by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022, the $1.5 trillion spending bill signed by President Biden in March. The DOJ’s Juvenile Justice Programs received $360 million in funding, including $102 million for youth mentoring and $49.5 million for delinquency prevention.
The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.
2nd Amendment Activists’ Lawsuit Forces Illinois State Police to Do Their Job
BELLEVUE, WA – -(AmmoLand.com)- The Second Amendment Foundation confirmed today its federal lawsuit against the Illinois State Police that compelled the agency to hire additional personnel in order to clear a backlog of applications for Firearm Owner Identification (FOID) cards because the issue has been resolved, and dismissed.
The case was known as Marszalek v. Kelly.
Joining SAF in the legal action, which was filed in July 2020, were the Illinois State Rifle Association and several individual plaintiffs. The lawsuit was also supported by the Goldwater Institute of Phoenix, Ariz. Plaintiffs were represented by attorneys David Sigale of Wheaton, Ill., Gregory Bedell of Chicago, Ill., and Timothy Sandedur with the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix.
“The issue was quite simple and we’re glad it is resolved,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “In 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, restrictions were put in place in Illinois that caused the Illinois State Police to completely fail in its statutory responsibility to process applications for FOID cards in 30 days. However, the state was taking up to six months, and sometimes more, to complete this process, and the result was Illinois citizens were being denied the exercise of their Second Amendment rights.”
At the time, the State Police said pandemic restrictions prevented it from hiring additional staff to process applications while the agency updated its system. Thanks to pressure from SAF, ISRA, and the court, the State Police cleared the application backlog and acknowledged its obligation to speed up the process and comply with the time frame.
“We’re satisfied with the outcome,” Gottlieb said, “and we’re especially pleased at the support from the Goldwater Institute.”
While this lawsuit is dismissed, other legal challenges in Illinois are still pending.
Senate Democrats, DOJ at odds over ATF “ghost gun” rule
More than a dozen Democratic members of the U.S. Senate have fired off a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and ATF Director Steve Dettelbach to “encourage” them to issue new guidance to law enforcement regarding the Biden administration’s recently-imposed rules on DIY gun-making kits. According to the anti-gun Senators, led by Richard Blumethal of Connecticut, the rule, which requires kits containing unfinished frames or receivers to be treated as finished firearms (including a serial number and background checks on commercial sales), is supposedly being circumvented by companies exploiting a loophole in the rule.
Notwithstanding the Ghost Gun Rule, ghost gun companies have continued to sell the parts and tools to make these dangerous firearms—contending that the final rule fails to cover them and their products. These companies have adopted the position that selling nearly-complete frames and receivers without the tools (commonly known as jigs) or instructions to complete them means that their products are not firearms under federal law. Of the 100 companies previously known to sell unserialized and nearly-complete frames and receivers, dozens remain engaged in that business—including selling nearly-complete unserialized frames and receivers as well as offering the standalone tools and equipment with directions to help purchasers complete them.
The final rule, however, is clear and unambiguous: a nearly-complete frame or receiver is a firearm. The rule does not cover only frames and receivers sold as part of a kit, but also frames and receivers that can be readily completed. Indeed, enforcing the rule only against sellers of kits would be a colossal loophole that would swallow the rule because the outcome is one and the same: both kits and standalone frames and receivers can readily be completed, assembled, restored, or otherwise converted to an operational frame or receiver. The text of the Ghost Gun Rule is consistent with other steps ATF has taken to ensure that unfinished frames and receivers are treated as firearms. For example, ATF has rescinded prior determination letters that ruled nearly-complete frames or receivers are not firearms and has required manufacturers to resubmit these parts for review.
Here’s the problem for Blumenthal and his anti-gun buddies; the Justice Department has already argued in at least one court case that the new rule does not cover, nor was it meant to cover, unfinished frames and receivers sold by themselves. A Texas company called Division 80 filed suit to block the rules from going into effect, in essence arguing that the rule was as broad as Blumenthal says it is, and would require the company to cease all operations. Not so, argued the Department of Justice.
Former FBI Official Will Testify About White House Pressure to Inflate Domestic Extremism Numbers
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee announced on Thursday that they would be calling a former top FBI official to testify before Congress to address claims that the Biden administration pressured agents to label cases as domestic extremism or a white supremacist threat even if they did not meet that criteria in order to match Joe Biden’s rhetoric.
Last month, current and former FBI agents came forward claiming the Biden administration has been deliberately exaggerating the danger posed by white supremacists. According to the whistleblowers, high-ranking FBI officials were pressuring field agents to fabricate domestic terrorism cases and label people as white supremacists in order to “meet internal metrics.”
“The demand for white supremacy” coming from FBI brass “vastly outstrips the supply of white supremacy,” one agent told the Washington Times. “We have more people assigned to investigate white supremacists than we can actually find.”
“We are sort of the lapdogs as the actual agents doing these sorts of investigations, trying to find a crime to fit otherwise First Amendment-protected activities,” one whistleblower said. “If they have a Gadsden flag and they own guns and they are mean at school board meetings, that’s probably a domestic terrorist.”
On December 2, members of the House Judiciary Committee will interview Jill Sanborn, a former assistant director of the FBI Counterterrorism Division and executive assistant director of its National Security Branch, who has been accused of pressuring agents to reclassify cases per the White House’s requests.
The FBI claims it only investigates those “who commit or intend to commit violence and criminal activity that constitutes a federal crime or poses a threat to national security” and that it does not target individuals or organizations based on their political beliefs.
Last year, the administration previously came under fire for using the resources of the Department of Justice to target angry parents at school board meetings and treat them like domestic terrorists. Merrick Garland authorized the FBI to investigate parents who protested school board meetings alleging a “disturbing trend” of teachers being threatened or harassed. However, PJ Media’s Megan Fox looked into those allegations and concluded that they’re mostly bunk.
In addition, the National School Boards Association (NSBA), which had prompted Garland to write the memo with a letter likening parents to domestic terrorists, eventually apologized for doing so. Despite this, Garland has not rescinded the memo. Late last year, a whistleblower revealed an internal email showing that the FBI was using counterterrorism tools to monitor parents despite Garland denying before Congress that the FBI was doing so. This summer, whistleblowers revealed that the FBI “pressured and incentivized” agents to classify cases as domestic violent extremism.
Texas Gun Dealer Sues Biden For Shuttering Firearm Stores Over Paperwork Flukes
The Biden administration changed the definition of ‘willful’ to shut down gun stores over good-faith mistakes, but one dealer is fighting back.
President Joe Biden ordered the Department of Justice in June of 2021 to enforce “zero tolerance for willful violations of the law by federally licensed firearms dealers that put public safety at risk,” but after a 500 percent increase in federal firearm license revocations for retailers over the last year, it’s clear the Biden administration isn’t just going after gun sellers who intentionally violate the law.
Punishing minor slip-ups, the lawsuit argues, draws on a drastically different interpretation of the law than the definition federal courts have held based on the Gun Control Act of 1968.
The lawsuit, to which the federal government has 60 days to respond, also argues that the Biden administration’s new policy sets an unreasonably high standard that is not applied to any other industry.
That’s why Michael Cargill, owner of Central Texas Gun Works in Austin, chose to bring this case.
“There’s no business that you walk into today in this country where they don’t make a mistake,” Cargill told The Federalist. “Everyone makes mistakes. It’s not fair — it’s not right — to single out gun stores, which is what I see this current administration doing right now.”
FBI Whistleblower Steve Friend, A Messenger Worthy Of The Message
The FBI is a threat to our civil liberties, at least with the current crop of HQ executives at the helm. Coupled with a Department of Justice, led by a Democrat party apparatchik, there has hardly been a time when the liberties enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution have endured such a subversive attack.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland is a coward. You can see it in his soft, watery eyes. He simply does the bidding of his addled master, targeting the little guy — the most at-risk among us. Garland stands with his baton extended toward school board moms and January 6th attendees while a legion of his DOJ and FBI storm troops usher from the darkened denizens of the Hoover Building, backed by his cadre of Assistant U.S. Attorneys General.
What many people do not understand is the FBI and DOJ work hand-in-glove. The FBI collects information and builds a case, while DOJ brings prosecution. Consequently, the FBI Director, Christopher Wray, is lorded over by the U.S. Attorney General, his immediate boss. A courageous FBI Director would balk at Garland’s fascism, but Director Wray has made no attempt to protest.
So, there is no calumny perpetrated by the FBI that does not have its inception within the halls of DOJ, and there is no DOJ cabal that isn’t given birth within the Oval Office. Every executive power devolves from the Chief Executive, the President. Or, from whoever is filling the role of puppeteer these days. As President Truman said, “the buck stops here.”
Under such a dysfunctional regime, the responsibility to speak out devolves to those courageous souls with fractional power and with everything to lose. Several FBI whistleblowers have made their voices heard in recent weeks, but none as thoughtfully or as professionally as Special Agent Steve Friend — a messenger worthy of the message.
NEWTOWN, Conn. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, denounces a joint motion for a continuance in Center for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (CBD v. USFWS) that seeks to ban the use of traditional lead ammunition and fishing tackle. Both parties filed for a joint motion to stay proceedings until Nov. 2, but that settlement agreement now includes taxpayers paying the bill for legal and court costs. This settlement proposal is a textbook example of the “sue and settle” schemes brought by activist lawyers and agreed to by government bureaucrats to enact policies that cannot survive the lawmaking or rule making process while enriching special-interest groups at taxpayer expense.
“The notion that federal agencies would work hand-in-glove with anti-hunting activists to thwart hunting on National Wildlife Refuges is maddening enough. The proposal that taxpayer dollars will be used to line the pockets of these activist groups should be infuriating to all,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “This is an egregious abuse of the courts and adds insult to injury to actual hunter-conservationists that fund and support those that actually fund wildlife conservation.”
The lawsuit seeks to expand the USFWS’s recent ban on the use of traditional ammunition that was finalized without a shred of scientific evidence. Instead, it was predicated on the theoretical possibility of detrimental population effects. It is obvious that wildlife populations are vibrant and healthy, a result of nearly a century’s worth of excise taxes paid for wildlife conservation. The firearm and ammunition industry has paid over $15.3 billion since 1937 – or over $23 billion when adjusted for inflation – that has made the North American Wildlife Conservation Model the envy of the world.
This lawsuit threatens the foundation of that model by banning the use of traditional ammunition without scientific evidence of detrimental population impacts. The plaintiffs, in a scheme the USFWS is going along with, would eliminate the use of traditional lead ammunition and force hunters to use alternative ammunition that is 3-5 times more expensive. That move would result in a rapid decline in hunting and fishing, which would hollow-out the revenue sources for wildlife conservation.
NSSF strongly supports bicameral legislative proposals that would mandate policies on the use of traditional ammunition and fishing tackle be based on sound scientific evidence. U.S. Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) introduced S. 4940 and U.S. Reps. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) and Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) introduced H.R. 9088, legislation that would prohibit the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture from prohibiting the use of lead ammunition or tackle on certain Federal land or water under their jurisdiction without scientific evidence of harm to wildlife populations.
Six Takeaways From WSJ’s Investigation Into the Stock Trades of Government Officials.
A Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that thousands of officials across the U.S. government’s executive branch disclosed owning or trading stocks that stood to rise or fall with decisions their agencies made.
Across 50 federal agencies ranging from the Commerce Department to the Treasury Department, more than 2,600 officials reported stock investments in companies while those companies were lobbying their agencies for favorable policies, during both Republican and Democratic administrations. When the financial holdings caused a conflict, the agencies sometimes simply waived the rules.
The Office of Government Ethics, which oversees the conflict-of-interest rules across the executive branch, is “committed to transparency and citizen oversight of government,” said a spokeswoman.
Among the findings of the investigation, which is the most comprehensive analysis of stock trading by officials in the executive branch of the government:
Numerous federal officials owned shares of companies lobbying their agencies:
More than 200 senior officials at the Environmental Protection Agency, or nearly one in three, reported that they or their family members held investments in companies that were lobbying the agency. EPA employees and their family members collectively owned between $400,000 and nearly $2 million in shares of oil and gas companies on average each year between 2016 and 2021.
Issues emerged at a wide array of agencies:
At the Defense Department, officials in the office of the secretary or their family members collectively owned between $1.2 million and $3.4 million of stock in aerospace and defense companies, on average, during years the Journal examined. Some owned stock in Chinese companies while the U.S. considered blacklisting the companies.
An EPA official reported purchases of oil and gas stocks. The Food and Drug Administration improperly let an official own dozens of food and drug stocks on its no-buy list. A Defense Department official bought stock in a defense company five times before it won new business from the Pentagon.
Some officials traded ahead of regulatory actions:
More than five dozen officials at five agencies reported trading stocks of companies shortly before their departments announced enforcement actions against those companies, such as charges or settlements.
Federal officials are big technology investors:
While the government was ramping up scrutiny of large technology companies, more than 1,800 federal officials reported owning or trading at least one of four major tech stocks: Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Apple Inc. and
Amazon.com Inc.
Some officials made large and risky trades:
About 70 federal officials or their family members reported using sophisticated techniques such as options trading and short selling, with some individual trades of between $5 million and $25 million. In all, the disclosure forms revealed more than 90,000 stock trades during the six-year period reviewed.
The husband of a Commodity Futures Trading Commission economist in a single year shorted nearly 3,000 stocks, betting on a drop in their price. Such trading is contrary to CFTC rules, but the agency waived them, fearing it could be sued.
The scope of the investigation was extensive:
The Journal obtained and analyzed more than 31,000 financial-disclosure forms for about 12,000 senior career employees, political staff and presidential appointees. The review spans 2016 through 2021 and includes data on about 850,000 financial assets and more than 315,000 trades reported in stocks, bonds and funds by the officials, their spouses or dependent children.
The federal government doesn’t maintain a comprehensive public database of the mandatory financial disclosures of all senior executive-branch officials. The Journal built its own.