Category: Bureaucraps

Trump Assassination Attempt Task Force Determines ‘Failures’ with Secret Service Leadership

On Tuesday, the Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump released its final official report, determining that there were “failures in the planning, execution, and leadership” of the United States Secret Service (USSS) leading up to both attempts on the President-elect’s life.

As reported by Breitbart, the task force’s five-month investigation focused on both the attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania on July 13th and the second attempt in West Palm Beach, Florida on September 15th. In the former attempt, President-elect Trump was wounded by gunfire in his right ear, while one rallygoer was killed and two others were critically injured, before the gunman was killed by the Secret Service. In the second attempt, the gunman was spotted by Secret Service and fled before firing a shot, and was arrested later the same day.

“The report text, unanimously approved by the Task Force on December 5, highlights significant failures in the planning, execution, and leadership of the Secret Service and its law enforcement partners,” the task force declared in a press release summarizing its findings. “The Task Force-approved report also proposes 37 actionable recommendations related both to the security failures on July 13 and to overarching structural changes that the Secret Service and Congress must consider to strengthen security measures and prevent similar security failures in the future.”

With regards to the July 13th attempt, the task force’s report noted that, rather than any one singular moment that allowed the gunman to nearly assassinate the then-former president, there had instead been “various failures in planning, execution, and leadership” which created “an environment in which the former President” and the audience at the rally were “exposed to grave danger.”

Almost immediately after the first attempt, the Secret Service faced widespread and bipartisan condemnation for the obvious security failures that allowed the 22-year-old gunman to gain access to a nearby rooftop with an entire rifle in hand. Multiple civilians spotted the armed and suspicious-looking man and tried to point him out to law enforcement, who apparently did nothing in response to these warnings. His motives remain unknown.

By contrast, the response to the second attempt in Florida was much swifter. An agent noticed the barrel of the gunman’s rifle protruding from the bushes at the Trump International Golf Course, where then-candidate Trump was playing a round of golf. The Secret Service opened fire, scaring the gunman away, before he was apprehended later by local law enforcement. The second would-be assassin, Ryan Wesley Routh, had become a fanatical supporter of Ukraine since the start of their war against Russia, and was apparently motivated by what he perceived as insufficient support for Ukraine by former President Trump.

Should We Get Ready For a NFA Amnesty?

For the past several weeks, President Trump has been very busy naming his cabinet appointments.  One that is still uncertain is his choice to become the new BATFE Director. The current director, Steven Dettelbach, is a clueless anti-gun buffoon who can’t give congressmen a straight answer.  Many American gun owners are hopeful that DJT will appoint 07/02 FFL holder, gun designer, and pro-gun pundit Brandon Herrera as the new Director.  If that happens, it will surely inspire some boisterous celebration. In addition to his vows to slash the ATF’s budget and operations, Herrera has also promised to begin a series of National Firearms Act (NFA) registration amnesty periods.  There was a provision for tax-free amnesty periods written into the Gun Control Act of 1968. But thusfar, just one 30-day amnesty was held, back in 1968.  That amnesty was very poorly publicized, and not many gun owners took advantage of it.

Today, there are probably hundreds of thousands of unregistered full autos in the country. And there are parts in civilian hands to quickly make a million or more. What can I say, but: Americans just love to tinker.

Under the Hughes Amendment to the Firearms Owners Protection Act (FOPA) of 1986, the number of Federally transferable machineguns was arbitrarily frozen.  As of November 2006, the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record (NFRTR) held registrations for 1,906,786 weapons. These included 1,186,138 destructive devices, 391,532 machine guns, 150,364 silencers, 95,699 short-barreled shotguns (SBSes), 33,518 short-barreled rifles (SBRs), and 48,443 weapons categorized as “any other weapons,” (AOWs.) Since then, the number of SBRs, SBSes, and suppressors has risen sharply, but the number of registered transferable machineguns has hardly changed at all.

Not only did the Hughes Amendment freeze cause the prices of full auto guns to inflate radically, it also left Americans with no opportunity to legally build and register any new $200 tax stamp machineguns. Many did so in defiance of the law, risking Federal felony prosecution. Most of those guns are kept very well hidden, mostly underground.

I am hopeful that Brandon Herrera will indeed become the new ATF Director.  And I am fully confident that he will keep his promise and consult with the new Attorney General to open at least one six-month-long amnesty period, with tax-free registration of machineguns, partly or fully-finished machinegun receivers, autosears, and other NFA-restricted items. Once that amnesty window opens, the clock will begin ticking.  So owners of semi-auto firearms who wish to become legal registered full-auto owners will have to get busy. They will need to either drill existing receivers or bring any unfinished receiver blanks or tubes up to a recognizable level of completion and apply serial numbers, so that they can be registered before the amnesty period expires.

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FOIA Shows the Extent of ATF Monitoring Americans Through FBI’s NICS System

In April of 2021, AmmoLand News learned from a source inside the FBI that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was using the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to monitor Americans’ gun purchases.

These Americans were not prohibited people and were not guilty of any crime. Many of the subjects were not even suspected of a crime. The ATF monitored people for their associations and the feeling that the target might commit a crime in the future. The NICS monitoring program was open to all ATF agents and departments that wanted to monitor someone. The subjects of the surveillance were never notified by either the ATF or FBI.

After the story went public, the FBI admitted that the program did exist but spun it as a key tool for law enforcement to prevent straw purchases. Most privacy advocates pushed back and believed that it was an overreaching government hellbent on violating the gun buyers’ privacy. One unknown thing was the exact number of people the FBI was monitoring for the ATF.

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“I’m doing my part!”

Despite ATF Roadblocks, Nearly 5 Million Suppressors Legally Owned

The NSSF reported that the total number of legally owned suppressors was 4.86 million at the end of July 2024. img NSSF

The number of legal suppressors in the USA is almost certainly over five million. The National Shooting Sports Federation (NSSF) revealed a Freedom of Information Act request submitted to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which was finally answered this summer. The total number was 4.86 million at the end of July 2024. From the NSSF:

In a recent Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA), NSSF received from ATF the additional number of silencers from May 2021 to July 2024. An incredible 2,193,123 more suppressors are protecting the hearing of hunters and shooters. That means a whopping 4.86 million silencers and counting are in possession by law-abiding Americans.

The number of tax stamps issued for silencers, also commonly referred to as suppressors, had to be pried out of the ATF with a FOIA. The ATF has gained a reputation for long waits and poor responses to FOIA requests. Before the Biden administration took power, detailed information on all National Firearms Act items was publicly available in an annual report called Firearms Commerce in the United States.  Once the Biden administration took control of the ATF, the annual report was, without notice, discontinued. The ATF would not publish the information. They slowly responded to FOIA requests, which is how the NSSF finally obtained the numbers. The numbers show an accelerating demand for legal silencers, with an average of nearly 60,000 tax stamps being issued each month.

The average does not tell the whole story. Demand has been accelerating. Information shows there were 3.5 million silencers through January 2024. Thus, 1.4 million silencers were added in the six months from January 2024 to the end of July 2024. It is virtually certain there are over 5 million legal silencers in the USA today.

Much of the increase has come from the ATF streamlining the tax stamp approval process for commercially made silencers while complicating the process of making your own silencer. Another part of the increase comes from the major inflation created by the Biden administration in the last 3.5 years. While everything else has become more expensive, the tax stamp remains the same as it was when created in 1934: $200. In 1934, $200 was roughly four months wages for a common laborer. Today, it is one or two days wages. In 1934, a silencer might cost $5-10. Today, they can cost $200 – $2,000, so the tax stamp becomes a fraction of the total cost instead of 95% of the cost.

Sales of silencers/suppressors may slump with the election of President Trump. The possibility of something like the Hearing Protection Act is plausible. One of the giants in the silencer/suppressor industry is not worried. Brandon Maddox explained there is such a pent-up demand for silencers that his business will only increase if the regulatory hassles are eliminated.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are looking for programs to cut, to increase efficiency. Moving silencers out of the NFA would take legislation. President Trump could declare an amnesty, as is allowed under federal legislation. An amnesty might incentivize Congress to reform the NFA and pass the Hearing Protection Act.

More incentives to remove items from the NFA exist in the courts. The case in Illinois looks promising.

President Trump is moving much faster this term. He has put together an incredible team, well in advance of taking office. He now understands the treachery inherent in the bureaucracy. Top level bureaucrats have monetary and power incentives to oppose him. They may have significant crimes to hide which may be revealed.

He who cuts the first deal to reveal potential criminal actions usually gets the best deal. There are thousands of people in the bureaucracy who know where good information is to be found about criminal activity. They have jobs, pensions, and perks to protect. Some of them are already talking. Many of them know how practices can be streamlined and where positions can be cut.

Feds using banks to surveil Americans’ financial data without warrants, House Judiciary says
The committee reported that Feds asked banks to search private transactions for terms like ‘MAGA,’ ‘Trump,’ and ‘Biden’

FIRST ON FOX: Federal law enforcement has been manipulating the Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) system to gain access to Americans’ financial information without warrants or probable cause, the House Judiciary Committee said Friday.

The panel and its Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released its interim report, first obtained by Fox News Digital, which details its findings.

The committee said in the report that the FBI “has manipulated” the SAR’s filing process to treat financial institutions “as de facto arms of law enforcement, issuing ‘requests’ without legal process, that amount to demands for information related to certain persons or activities it considers ‘suspicious.'”

“With narrow exception, federal law does not permit law enforcement to inquire into financial institutions’ customer information without some form of legal process,” the report states. “The FBI circumvents this process by tipping off financial institutions to ‘suspicious’ individuals and encouraging these institutions to file a SAR — which does not require any legal process — and thereby provide federal law enforcement with access to confidential and highly sensitive information.”

The committee said that, in doing so, the FBI “gets around the requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act,” which specifies that it is a bank’s responsibility to file a SAR whenever it identifies a “suspicious transaction relevant to a possible violation of law or regulation.”

The committee acknowledged that “at least one financial institution requested legal process from the FBI for information it was seeking,” but noted that “all too often the FBI appeared to receive no pushback.”

“In sum, by providing financial institutions with lists of people that it views as generally ‘suspicious’ on the front end, the FBI has turned this framework on its head and contravened the Fourth Amendment’s requirements of particularity and probable cause,” the report states.

The committee added that their oversight of “financial surveillance” had shed “new light on the decaying state of Americans’ financial privacy and the federal government’s widespread, warrantless surveillance programs.”

The committee began their investigation into government-led financial surveillance earlier this year, after a whistleblower disclosed that following the events of Jan. 6, 2021, Bank of America “voluntarily and without legal process” provided the FBI with a list of names of all individuals who used a Bank of America credit or debit card in the Washington, D.C., region around that time.

Fox News Digital first reported in March that federal investigators had asked banks to search and filter customer transactions by using terms like “MAGA” and “Trump” as part of an investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, warning that purchases of “religious texts” could indicate “extremism.”

The committee also obtained documents that indicate officials suggested that banks query transactions with keywords like Dick’s Sporting Goods, Cabela’s, Bass Pro Shops and more.

A source familiar with the documents told Fox News Digital at the time that while Jan. 6 was the “impetus” for the queries and searches, none of the documents the committee had obtained revealed any specific time frames or limitations for banks searching for customer transactions with the terms. The source said the federal government used the information for investigations beyond Jan. 6.

“In the days and weeks after January 6, 2021, the FBI coordinated with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network to encourage financial institutions across the country to scour their data and file SARs on hundreds of Americans, if not more, without any clear criminal nexus,” the report says.

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Biden’s FBI Reportedly Altering Murder Data to Suit Gun Violence Narrative.

In October, Dr. John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) broke the news that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had stealth-revised its reported violent crime data for 2022 to show a 4.5% increase, rather than the originally reported 2.1% decrease, for that year. Among other things, that adjustment added 1,699 more murders for 2022. Given that the vast majority of murder crimes are reported, Lott asks, “How do you miss 1,699 murders?”

Now, another source, Just Facts Daily (JFD), a “research institute dedicated to publishing facts about public policies,” has done a dive into homicide reporting and uncovered what appears to be an unusually large number of “homicides recorded on death certificates that are not reported as murders by Biden’s FBI.”

As context, the federal Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics explains that the United States relies on “two national data collection systems to track detailed information on homicides: the [FBI’s] Supplementary Homicide Reports and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Fatal Injury Reports.” The Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR) are part of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, while the Fatal Injury Reports are developed from the National Vital Statistics System (NVSS), a public health-based resource maintained at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

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BREAKING: NIH Chief Admits COVID Global Health Initiatives Were “Completely Made Up;” Reveals COVID Vaccines Don’t “Stop You From Getting COVID”.

Raja Cholan, Chief of the Health Data Standards Branch at the U.S. National Library of Medicine for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has raised eyebrows with his candid remarks on COVID vaccines, global health strategies, and their broader implications.

Cholan admitted he has chosen not to receive the latest COVID vaccine boosters, citing mixed evidence of their efficacy: “I haven’t gotten the latest COVID shots, and I’m not going to… there’s mixed evidence about if it really does anything.” He also expressed concerns over the risks the vaccine poses to younger individuals, saying, “For people that are 30 or under, it really increases your risk for heart conditions. The data does show that… I’m close enough to 30 to where I don’t want to have a heart attack.”

Cholan further questioned the vaccines’ effectiveness, stating, “I don’t even know if these vaccines stop you from getting COVID. They don’t.”

Cholan also linked the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to funding research in Wuhan, China, alleging, “There is some evidence out that the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases… they might have funded Wuhan, a lab in Wuhan, China, to make COVID.” He pointed to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s former role at NIAID, claiming, “That’s where Fauci was the director. Like they might have funded some labs to do vaccine studies and disease, like to prepare for an outbreak.”

Criticizing the expedited vaccine approval process, Cholan noted the contrast with the measles vaccine, which requires multiple rounds of testing: “The measles vaccine requires several rounds of approval, but the COVID-19 vaccines were accelerated through the approvals for all of us to get our boosters.” He also highlighted the financial motivations behind the vaccines, saying, “Pfizer and Moderna are just getting a bunch of money from it.”

Cholan concluded by commenting on the difficulty of implementing reform, even under an administration led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He pointed to the entrenched relationships between federal agencies and pharmaceutical companies, adding, “Anything that RFK would want to do probably would just, like, wouldn’t happen.”

O’Keefe Media Group reached out to Cholan for comment regarding his statements but did not receive a response. On release day of the first installation of the NIH Tapes, Cholan deleted his LinkedIn account, sparking further speculation about his involvement in the issues raised.

Tom Cotton slams ‘partisans and obstructionists’ in DOD reportedly plotting to block Trump plans

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., blasted anyone within the Defense Department working to safeguard certain norms or policies that they expect the incoming Trump administration to target.

“It appears that partisans and obstructionists inside the Department of Defense are laying groundwork to defy or circumvent President Trump’s plans for both military and civil-service reform,” Cotton wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in reference to reports of such strategizing among DOD employees.

“These actions undermine civilian control of the military and our constitutional structure of government.”

Earlier this month, it was reported that there were “informal discussions” occurring among Pentagon officials on what the department would do if Trump ordered the military for a domestic purpose or if he fired a significant number of employees, per CNN.

One anonymous defense official was quoted in the report saying, “Troops are compelled by law to disobey unlawful orders.”

“But the question is what happens then – do we see resignations from senior military leaders? Or would they view that as abandoning their people?” they reportedly asked.

President-elect Trump promised during his campaign to shake up the federal government, whether it be through staffing changes or reorganization. Some reports have indicated specific people are being looked at for termination once he enters office again. An ally of Trump, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, has been vocal about his belief that the federal government must be shrunk in size.

Ramaswamy has been tapped by Trump, along with billionaire business magnate Elon Musk, to lead his planned Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in his new administration. The proposed department has the goal of reducing the size of government, cutting spending and increasing efficiency.

Cotton criticized Lloyd in his letter for “promulgating false claims that the incoming administration plans to arbitrarily fire uniformed leaders.”

Further, he slammed the secretary for a message after the election that the military would specifically follow “lawful orders” from Trump. Cotton said this was “a thinly veiled and baseless insinuation that President Trump will issue unlawful orders.”

“I have to observe that these actions and reports only prove the need for reform and fundamental change at the Department of Defense. And, of course, while inappropriate and annoying, these tactics are also useless because no action by the outgoing administration can limit the incoming president’s constitutional authority as commander-in-chief,” the Arkansas Republican wrote.

Cotton was recently elected to serve as chairman of the Senate Republican conference in the new Congress. He is also expected to take Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s place as the head of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The DOD did not immediately provide comment to Fox News Digital for purposes of this story.

And This Is Why the Public Doesn’t Trust the DOJ

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ)’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has released its annual report identifying the top management and performance challenges currently facing the federal agency.

Among the OIG’s findings, a lack of public trust in the DOJ remains a “longstanding” problem, Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz announced Monday, and strengthening such trust poses “a significant challenge.”

However, in its 59-page report highlighting incidents that have contributed to the department’s confidence crisis, the DOJ watchdog largely overlooked transgressions under the Biden-Harris administration, which still reigns. Instead, the OIG looked farther back to Trump’s time in office, his first term, as we head into the president-elect’s second.

Based on the OIG’s oversight work, the inspector general’s office blames a medley of Trump-era episodes as reasons why public trust in the institution has eroded over time.

First, the OIG report points to public statements that former federal prosecutor David Freed, a Trump-nominated U.S. attorney, made about an ongoing criminal probe into alleged ballot tampering during the 2020 presidential election.

Freed had said several mail-in military ballots, mostly cast for Donald Trump, were discarded (tossed into the trash) at a Pennsylvania election office in pro-Trump Luzerne County.

Ultimately, the OIG concluded that Freed’s comments “unnecessarily inserted partisanship into the investigation” and “created a false impression” that the incident was “much more serious than DOJ leadership knew it to be.”

The report also calls attention to another OIG inquiry into claims that senior DOJ appointees placed “political pressure” on the trial team prosecuting Roger Stone, a close confidant of Trump, so that they lowered their sentencing recommendations.

While the OIG did not find evidence that the prosecution’s revision was the result of “improper political considerations,” the report chastises the “unusual substantive involvement,” though not prohibited by law or policy, of then-Attorney General Bill Barr and other high-level DOJ officials in the second sentencing recommendation’s preparation and filing.

Their embroilment in the case against the president’s political ally “affected the public’s perception of the Department’s integrity, independence, and objectivity,” the OIG says.

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Well, we need to eliminate NFA-34, FFA-38, GCA-68 & 18 U.S. Code  Chapter 44, as well, or some other bunch of bureaucraps will simply start enforcing those laws & regulations.

As Trump Heads to White House Rep. Burlison Pushes Plan to Abolish ATF

With President-elect Donald Trump heading to the White House and Congress under Republican control, Rep. Eric Burlison (R) is pushing ahead with plans to abolish the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, commonly known as the ATF.

FOX News quoted Burlison describing the ATF as “a disaster.”

He said, “For several decades they’ve been a disaster agency [which has] been violating the Second Amendment.”

Burlison wants a scenario in which states handle their gun law enforcement without federal agencies breathing down their necks.

He re-posted an X post from Ted Nugent on Friday:

The ATF issued numerous rules during the Biden/Harris administration, one of which criminalized owners of legally purchased AR-pistol stabilizer braces. Another one of the ATF’s rules declared that 80 percent complete firearm frames are firearms and therefore can only be acquired via background checks.

The ATF also issued a rule instituting, for all intents and purposes, universal background checks.

Lawsuits filed by Gun Owners of America, the Firearms Policy Coalition, and the Second Amendment Foundation, have rendered many of these and other ATF rules unenforceable or otherwise moot. Legal action on some of the rules continues and Rep. Burlison wants an America in which the lawsuits would not be necessary because the ATF would not exist.

The Honeymoon Is Over: Trump’s Pick for Labor Secretary Is a Teachers’ Union Fave

Well, that didn’t last as long as I would have liked. President-elect Donald Trump had been on a roll with his choices for roles in his next administration. On Thursday, he ruined the good vibes with one horrible, horrible Cabinet pick.

In Tuesday’s Morning Briefing, I celebrated Trump’s nomination of Linda McMahon to be Secretary of Education. Her strong views on school choice rattle the people in charge of the teachers’ unions, who are the biggest obstacle to education reform because they’re powerful leftist political lobbies. I noted that substantive progress with school choice would be “a direct shot at the heart of the Democrats’ main source of funding.”

On Thursday, Trump did something to make the teachers’ unions happy.

The Wall Street Journal:

Hard to believe, but Donald Trump on Friday night nominated a favorite of teachers union chief Randi Weingarten as his Labor Secretary. Why would Mr. Trump want to empower labor bosses who oppose his economic agenda and spent masses to defeat him?

Mr. Trump’s regrettable choice is Oregon Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer. Ms. Weingarten on Thursday tweeted her support for the freshman Republican. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, who spoke at the Republican National Convention, has also been pulling for her. In a Truth Social post, Mr. Trump said she’ll work toward “historic cooperation between Business and Labor.” But Ms. Chavez-DeRemer has backed union giveaways like the Pro Act, which are not “cooperation.”

I’ll get to the Pro Act in a moment. For the moment, let us focus on the fact that Randi Weingarten is a vile human being. She was the face of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, and championed keeping them closed far longer than even the other tyrants thought was necessary. Weingarten wrecked a generation of public school children, forcing them into a brutal game of “catch up” that many will never win.

Then she lied about her role in all of that.

She’s Team Trump with the Chavez-DeRemer choice though:

When one of the most clinically insane leftists in America thinks that a Republican politician did a good thing, it means that the Republican just did a clinically insane leftist thing.

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DOD ‘Intentionally Delayed’ National Guard Deployment To The Capitol On Jan. 6

Federal bureaucrats within the Department of Defense (DoD) delayed the deployment of the National Guard on Jan. 6, 2021 and covered it up, according to a House Republican investigation of government conduct related to the Capitol riot.

On Thursday, Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., who is leading a review of the work completed by the partisan Jan. 6 probe run by then-Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, sent a letter to the inspector general for the Department of Defense demanding a correction to an agency report published in November 2021.

“This report was the final product of the DoD IG’s review into the events of January 6, and reviewed how the DoD responded to requests for support as the events unfolded,” Loudermilk, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight for the House Administration Committee, wrote. “Throughout the Subcommittee’s extensive investigation into the failures of January 6, 2021, we have discovered numerous flaws and inaccuracies in the report that your office has yet to appropriately address.”

Such flaws and inaccuracies, however, may have been part of a partisan cover-up after GOP lawmakers discovered the Pentagon was responsible for delays in guard deployment.

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Trump’s pick for FCC chairman…..

We Are Living in Interesting Times

We are living in interesting times. Tulsi Gabbard will be taking the role of Director of National Intelligence, John Radcliffe will be Director of the CIA, Matt Gaetz will (I predict) be the Attorney General, Robert Kennedy will be the Secretary of HHS, and the rumor is that Kash Patel will be Director of the FBI; if Gaetz and Patel aren’t confirmed, the rumor is they will be investigating senators’ federally-funded hush-money payments for the senators own sexual peccadilloes (which is why I predict they’ll be confirmed).

This reminds me of other interesting times.

During and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a lot of the Soviet client states own governments collapsed. Sometimes violently, as with Romania or the fission of Yugoslavia, sometimes more quietly, but pretty uniformly, the Soviet-aligned satrapies were replaced by their own people.

The unification of East and West Germany wasn’t particularly violent, but the Germans on both sides of the Wall were very interested in finding out what The German “Democratic” Republic was doing, and to whom, during its reign.

Central to that and one of the largest parts of the GDR government was the Minsiterium für Stattssicherheit, familiarly abbreviated to the Stasi. A good summary is at the link (at least now, that is, Wikipedia), but in short, the Stasi arrested upwards of 250,000 people and extended its hooks into every aspect of East German life.

The ratio for the Stasi was one secret policeman per 166 East Germans. When the regular informers are added, these ratios become much higher: In the Stasi’s case, there would have been at least one spy watching every 66 citizens! When one adds in the estimated numbers of part-time snoops, the result is nothing short of monstrous: one informer per 6.5 citizens. It would not have been unreasonable to assume that at least one Stasi informer was present in any party of ten or twelve dinner guests. Like a giant octopus, the Stasi’s tentacles probed every aspect of life.

— John O. Koehler, “Stasi:The Untold Story of the East German Secret Police”

After the “Peaceful Revolution” of 1989, Stasi offices were taken over by the German people, while former Stasi officers desperately tried to destroy files and records, unsuccessfully, as it turned out.

But why did the Stasi collect all this information in its archives? The main purpose was to control the society. In nearly every speech, the Stasi minister gave the order to find out who is who, which meant who thinks what. He didn’t want to wait until somebody tried to act against the regime. He wanted to know in advance what people were thinking and planning. The East Germans knew, of course, that they were surrounded by informers, in a totalitarian regime that created mistrust and a state of widespread fear, the most important tools to oppress people in any dictatorship.

—Hubertus Knabe, German historian

The files were massive and damning. It was no wonder they were trying to destroy them. As I say, they were interesting times.

Now we’re having our own interesting times. I think we’re in nearly similar times to the German Peaceful Revolution. Oh, I don’t mean to imply that the FBI, CIA, and DoJ were as bad as the Stasi — I would be very much amazed that there were hundreds of thousands of people imprisoned for Wrongthink.

But thousands? Seems likely. And more thousands were intimidated, charged, and harassed. All of them are in government files that are now vulnerable to being disclosed. Jeremy Epstein’s passenger lists. Records of the FBI agents and informers who were supposed to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. Records of Crossfire Hurricane and DoJ cooperation with Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg, and Letitia James. And most interesting of all, files covering people we don’t know to expect. That’s the way political police work — they don’t intimidate and investigate and collude with only the people we expect.

As I say, we live in interesting times.

Matt Gaetz may scare Democrats more than President-elect Trump
Gaetz doesn’t seem to care. He has bigger things on his mind.

Last January, former U.S. Congressman Matt Gaetz [R-FL-1] introduced H.R. 374. It was a short bill that became known as the “Abolish the ATF Act.”

“The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is hereby abolished,” Gaetz’s bill said.

It was simple, really.

Unfortunately, it received the same response as other bills Gaetz had submitted, such as H.R. 9534, the National Constitutional Carry Act, or H.R.3142, the Stand Your Ground Act of 2023. The bills were introduced but never received any further attention.

Gaetz didn’t seem to care about his lost legislation. He had bigger things on his mind.

Gaetz will always be known best for leading the fight that dumped the former Republican Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, last year. But for those who really know the 42-year-old former congressman who lives in Fort Walton Beach, Florida with his wife Ginger, this too was just par for his course.

Gaetz’s critics were never the silent type. Now, they’ve become slaphappy and completely unglued.

Axios reported there were gasps in the room coming from Republican lawmakers when Gaetz name was first announced.

“It must be the worst nomination for a cabinet position in American History,” John Bolton told NBC’s Meet the Press. Gaetz is “totally incompetent” for the AG position, Bolton said, adding, “This is a nomination the Republican Party would oppose.”

“I don’t think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general,” said Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska. “This one was not on my Bingo card.”

The BBC seemed to get Trump’s Gaetz decision better than the rest of the traditional media. They said Gaetz’s “bombastic approach” meant that he has no shortage of enemies, including some of his fellow Republicans.

“And so, Trump’s choice of Gaetz for this crucial role is a signal to those Republicans, too — his second administration will be staffed by loyalists who he trusts to enact his agenda, conventional political opinion be damned,” the BBC wrote.

Gaetz recent resignation from the House brought a quick halt to the internal investigations that had plagued him for the past few years, and House Speaker Mike Johnson referred to Gaetz as an “accomplished attorney.”

“He’s a reformer in his mind and heart, and I think that he’ll bring a lot to the table on that,” Johnson said.

To be clear, Gaetz has denied every allegation made against him, which are now moot.

Critics be damned

Matt Gaetz was not available Thursday. Calls to his former congressional phone numbers went straight to voicemail. Additional phone numbers were not answered either.

Gaetz is nothing new or divisive to longtime Floridians. In fact, he’s exactly what we want from our public servants. A longtime radio host told me Thursday morning that Gaetz’s now former constituents cared about two issues: “Guns and guns.” I would strongly agree.

Gaetz cares more about the Second Amendment than anyone else in Congress — especially the Democrats. So, of course they are going to attack him personally. In fact, Gaetz is currently attracting as much if not more hate and discontent from the left than President-elect Donald J. Trump.

Unfortunately, much of the press Gaetz now faces is about what you’d expect, especially the stories from NBC.

A story published by NBC News Wednesday titled, “Justice Dept. employees stunned at Trump’s ‘insane,’ ‘unbelievable’ choice of Matt Gaetz for attorney general,” sums up most of the angst that characterizes the legacy media.

“OMG,” a current senior Justice Department official said. A second department official called the selection “truly stunning,” and a third labeled it “insane,” the story claims. Of course, none of the alleged Republicans were named.

I’m pretty confident that Gaetz isn’t bothered by NBC’s stories or those of other likeminded reporters. After all, he’s got as they say in his section of Florida’s panhandle, bigger fish to fry.

Matt Gaetz has strongly supported the Second Amendment since his first day in Congress, and he will get President-elect Trump’s backing for his new job regardless of what the Democrats choose to do, even if it takes a recess appointment or some other type of maneuver.

Florida and now the entire country need Matt Gaetz.

Thousands of ICE Officers Will Be Reassigned From Desk Jobs to Field Work.

The New York Post is reporting that incoming Border Czar and former Border Patrol agent Tom Homan will reassign U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who are currently engaged in processing asylum applications and other office work to the field.

During the Biden administration, up to 70% of ICE officers from field offices were assigned to desk jobs. Most of them will be assigned and, after training in fieldwork, hit the streets of America’s sanctuary cities.

Homan put those cities on notice.

“If they’re not willing to do it then get out of the way — we’re coming,” Homan said. He noted that tougher immigration enforcement will require more manpower “so if I have to flood agents to the sanctuary cities to get the job done then that’s what we’re gonna do.”

It’s unclear how Trump’s mass deportation plan will work. It’s a good bet that people will not be randomly stopped on the street and asked for their “papers.”

But doing the job that cities refused to do — holding illegal alien criminals convicted of felonies to turn over to ICE — would be a very good start.

“If the fugitive operations street team isn’t making enough arrests, they’ll crack down on them first,” a source told the Post. He’s referring to the ICE program that helps field offices locate and arrest illegal aliens who represent a threat to national security or public safety.

“And if that’s still not enough, then they’ll probably be mandated to add more officers to the arrest team to make more arrests.”

Grandstanding Democrats are waving the bloody shirt, promising to resist the federal government’s efforts to arrest illegal aliens. One of the early frontrunners for the 2028 Democratic nomination, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, challenged Homan to enforce the law in Illinois.

“To anyone that comes to take away freedom and dignity of Illinoisans, I would remind you that a happy warrior is still a warrior,” Pritzker said.

“You come for my people – you come through me.”

The 300-pound Pritzker would certainly present a problem trying to go through him. But Homan threw down his own gauntlet in response.

“Game on. We’ve got no problem going through him. I’ve got 20,000 men and women in ICE who are going to do their job with no apology,” Homan said. “And if any governor wants to stand in the way, go ahead and do it. We’ll see what happens. We’re not gonna be intimidated.”

Homan, who served in the last Trump administration as acting ICE director, said that in his first week on the job, he plans to visit the southern and northern borders and meet with Border Patrol and ICE personnel to get a sense of their greatest needs.

He also indicated that he would prioritize making arrests of illegal migrants who pose threats to national security and public safety, and bring back worksite raids, which the Biden-Harris administration halted in October 2021.

“And look, there’s some worse than others, I get that,” Homan continued. “And even if they’re not a criminal alien, when you cross that border and you overwhelm the border patrol… that’s when the fentanyl comes across to kill a quarter-million people. That’s when you have a 600% increase in sex trafficking. That’s when you have a record number of terrorists crossing the border. Illegal immigration is not a victimless crime.”

“We’re gonna enforce the law without apology… and if any governor wants to stand in the way, go ahead and do it. We’ll see what happens. We’re not gonna be intimidated.”

I think Pritzker, Gavin Newsom, and other Democratic governors have met their match.