Category: Politics

Biden’s Climb to Institute Gun Restrictions Gets Steeper

The President’s gun agenda has been having a hard time through the first year of his term, and it’s only getting worse.

The House has passed two background-check expansion bills, but they aren’t going anywhere in the Senate. His plan to ban “assault weapons,” including the AR-15, hasn’t even gotten a vote in the House. Neither has his stated top priority of repealing legal protections provided to gun makers and dealers for third parties’ criminal misuse of their products.

He couldn’t even convince the Democratic Senate caucus to vote for the ATF director nominee he was counting on to shepherd his executive-branch efforts to implement gun restrictions. And it’s now unlikely he’ll get another opportunity to confirm a director before the end of his first term. That’s especially true after the new polling we saw this week.

As Americans continue to sour on the President’s handling of guns, his political capital will sink alongside his approval numbers. His approval on the issue dropped 10 points in the Economist/YouGov poll since June. It has fallen by half since the Associated Press measured it back in May.

In an atmosphere where Biden already can’t sway moderate Democratic Senators to vote for a nominee they never publicly opposed, it’s difficult to imagine how he’ll be able to convince them to vote for gun-control policies they have come out against in the past–especially while his standing with the public continues to deteriorate. Senators Angus King (I., Maine), Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.), Jon Tester (D., Mont.), and Kyrsten Sinema (D., Ariz.) wouldn’t go along what Biden wanted when he was polling 10 points better on the issue. Why would they budge on any of the gun bills he wants to pass now?

The odds get longer when you consider how low voters rank the issue of guns on their priority list. The Economist/YouGov poll found only 3 percent of Americans listed guns as their most important issue. That puts it in a tie for the 3rd-least-important issue out of thirteen polled.

As you might imagine, voter apathy tends not to generate action in DC.

So, the President is left with executive action to implement some semblance of the restrictions he seeks. He won’t have his chosen manager to push through those actions, which will handicap him to some degree. But, that doesn’t mean he won’t be able to enact sweeping changes that affect millions of American gun owners.

In fact, his administration appears to be pushing ahead with the effort to increase the ATF’s power by significantly broadening the definition of what constitutes a firearm and the effort to ban possession of nearly all of the millions of pistol-brace-equipped AR-15s in circulation. That’s despite the hundreds of thousands of mostly negative public comments on the proposals. The aggressive executive action hasn’t helped keep his approval on the gun issue up among Democrats, and it has likely driven some of the disapproval among Republicans and Independents.

But, unilateral action is the only viable approach left for him at this point. And, it’s not clear where else he’ll be able to find room to pull it off in a meaningful way. Though, it’s safe to expect him to try and do so.

Chipman says his ATF nomination was a ‘gangster move’ by the White House

During his confirmation process for ATF director, David Chipman said very little publicly – even turning his Twitter account to private. Now that the White House has withdrawn his nomination, Chipman can’t seem to shut up, and he’s got nothing good to say about Biden’s team, who he claims left him hanging out to dry.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Chipman said he felt abandoned by the administration and on “an island” when pro-gun groups began attacking him. No one from the White House, he claimed, even bothered to call.

“Either this was impossible to win, or the strategy failed,” Chipman told the newspaper, adding, “This was a failure.” Later in the interview, Chipman described nominating someone like him – a lifelong anti-gun activist – as a “gangster move” by White House staff.

Once his nomination fizzled, Chipman found it “unusual” that no one from Biden’s team offered any options. “In the back of my mind, I always thought that there would be a Plan B, but so far there hasn’t been,” Chipman told The New York Times.

In the interview, Chipman confirmed he has returned to work at Giffords – which we revealed in a story published Monday. The story also showed how Giffords are using Chipman as a fundraising tool.

Delusional

Many pro-gun groups contributed to Chipman’s demise, including the National Shooting Sports Foundation but, ultimately, his nomination was killed by hundreds of thousands of American gun owners who contacted their senators and told them to reject Biden’s pick.

Still, Chipman remains fixated on the NSSF and its senior vice-president for government and public affairs, assistant secretary and general counsel, Larry Keane.

“Larry Keane put up a photo of me that he knew was false, trying to get me killed,” told the newspaper. The photo purportedly showed Chipman posing on the burnt remains of the Branch Davidian compound after the bloody siege in Waco, Texas. Once NSSF and dozens of other websites discovered the agent in the photo was not Chipman, the photo was taken down. Keane told the Times Chipman’s death threat allegations were “categorically false.”

Personally, I believe the allegation that Keane, the NSSF or anyone else tried to get him killed is evidence that Chipman is in dire need of serious psychological help.

Gangster?

 To be clear, nominating a paid anti-gun activist to oversee the lone federal agency tasked with regulating the firearms industry was not gangster. It was stupid and meant to send a message.

Chipman’s nomination – likely the brainchild of Susan Rice – was intended as an insult to American gun owners, and that is exactly how it was received. Of course we responded forcefully – what did the White House expect? This is our lifestyle they have chosen to attack.

The Chipman saga reminds me of when I was a young boy on my uncle’s farm and accidentally touched an electric fence. I got zapped and learned never to do that again. By nominating Chipman, the Biden-Harris administration touched the fence and got zapped hard. Unfortunately, I doubt they learned a lesson. If they continue to target gun owners, they’re destined to get zapped again and again.

May be just me, but it appears everybody is pointing their fingers at everybody else trying to throw them ‘under the bus’.

Comment O’ The Day:
As soon as Nancy Pelosi contacted General Milley about nuclear weapon procedures, he should have politely referred her to the Secretary of Defense and immediately reported the call to his boss,[actually that’s the President, and then to ] the SecDef. 

Because of civilian control over the military, the decision to employ WMDs is a political decision… the military carries out the orders. Therefore, Pelosi as a civilian should only be talking to DoD civilians about defense procedures.

She was WAY out of line making the call, and Milley was derelict in answering her questions.

Milley Details Nancy Pelosi’s Attempt to Take Over the Chain-of-Command

During his opening statement in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee Tuesday morning, General Mark Milley denied inappropriate phone calls with the Chinese military and tried to reassure Americans he is dedicated to civilian control of the military.

“I am specifically directed to communicate with the Chinese. These military to military communications at the highest level are critical to the security of the United States,” Milley said. “My loyalty to this Nation, its people, and the Constitution hasn’t changed, and will never change, as long as I have a breath to give. My loyalty is absolute, and I will not turn my back on the fallen.”

“I firmly believe in civilian control of the military,” he continued.

Milley also stressed that he does not believe President Donald Trump planned to attack the Chinese in the final days of his presidency.

In his remarks, Milley also addressed a phone call from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on January 8, 2021, in which she pressed him about the process to launch a nuclear weapon. Milley says he informed her that while launching such a weapon requires multiple people in the chain of command, the president is the sole authority to launch an attack.

“Speaker of the House Pelosi called me to inquire about the president’s ability to launch nuclear weapons. I sought to assure her that nuclear launch is governed by a very specific and deliberate process. She was concerned and made various personal references characterizing the president [President Trump]. I explained to her the president is the sole nuclear launch authority and he doesn’t launch them alone and that I am not qualified to determine the mental health of the President of the United States,” Milley said. “There are processes, protocols and procedures in place and I repeatedly assured her there was no chance of an illegal, unauthorized or accidental launch. By presidential directive, and Secretary of Defense directive, the chairman is part of the process to ensure the president is fully informed when determining the use of the world’s deadliest weapons. By law, I’m not in the chain of command and I know that. However, by presidential directive and DOD instruction, I am in the chain of communication to fulfill my legal, statutory role as the president’s primary military advisor.”

Milley said after the call from Pelosi, he convened a meeting with his staff to go through the process and procedures. He also told Acting Secretary of Defense Mark Miller about Pelosi’s call.

“At no time was I trying to change or influence the process, usurp authority or insert myself in the chain-of-command,” Milley said.

MAKE OR BREAK WEEK FOR BIDEN

This is likely the make-or-break week for President Biden’s progressive domestic agenda, and he’s looking more and more like Jimmy Carter II with every passing day. The House is supposed to vote today on the $1 trillion “bi-partisan” infrastructure bill, but the “progressive” Democrats are still holding it hostage until they get their $5 trillion wish-list passed first. I’m not sure the complete bill is even written down fully yet, but I am sure Speaker Pelosi will say it doesn’t matter because we should pass the bill to find out what’s in it. The debt ceiling needs to be raised by Friday as well as a continuing resolution to keep the government funded through December, and we are faced with the prospect of a government shutdown on Friday even though Democrats control both houses of Congress.

Biden resembles Carter in more than just rising inflation and foreign policy ineptitude. When Carter became president in 1977, Democrats had 62 Senators (in other words, a filibuster-proof Senate) and a large majority in the House. Anybody remember his legislative priorities? They were a huge energy bill, incremental health care reform, and tax and entitlement reform. Democrats on Capitol Hill wanted a lot more: they floated the openly-socialist Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Bill, which aimed for an unemployment rate of no more than 3%, and a federally-guaranteed job for anyone who wanted one. The bill that eventually passed was watered down into little more than a nuisance reporting requirement for the Federal Reserve, but even at that first-term Delaware Senator Joe Biden voted against it, saying that the bill was not “cognizant of the limited, finite ability government has to deal with people’s problems.”

House Speaker Tip O’Neill is reported to have groaned when the Carter White House (which he despised) handed him the NY phonebook-sized energy proposal, and it took two years to finally pass a much stripped-down version, even with the huge Democratic majorities in Congress. Carter’s tax reform plans (which meant tax increases of course) got nowhere, such that by 1978 he was signing tax cuts, including cuts that a guy named Biden also voted for. And his belated “hospital cost containment” plan (which meant price controls) got nowhere in Congress.

Biden looks poised to repeat this feat of legislative failure.

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As Biden’s Presidency Crumbles, Democrats in Congress Lose Hope

In 2009, Barack Obama came into office with a filibuster-proof Senate supermajority—255 Democrats in the House to just 179 Republicans. Obama ended up frittering away his time those first two years trying to pass Obamacare — an ill-advised move that ended up quickly costing him his majority.

For Joe Biden and the Democrats in 2021, there is no margin for error. A 50-50 Senate and a margin of just three House seats has required a nearly unprecedented level of partisan cohesion. To get anything passed in a Congress with a united Republican Party in opposition means that virtual unanimity of opinion is necessary to achieve the party’s lofty — and ruinously expensive — goals.

Perhaps a more energetic president would have made a difference. Perhaps a smarter president would have been able to pass something from the party’s wishlist.

Alas for the Democrats, Joe Biden isn’t energetic or smart. As a result, his presidency is failing.

It’s beginning to dawn on Democrats in Congress that Joe Biden is not the sort of leader who can wrangle a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill through both chambers.

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AZ Gubernatorial Hopeful Kari Lake: ‘We Do Not Have a Country Without the 2nd Amendment’

Breitbart News sat down with Arizona gubernatorial hopeful Kari Lake this week and she stressed “we do not have a country without the Second Amendment.”

Lake talked to Breitbart News about the change she witnessed in the country during the 2020 gun buying surge, noting, “I know people who didn’t even understand the Second Amendment a year and half ago, and now you could almost call them gun nuts.”

She said, “You know, I know, they are trying to take away our rights, our freedoms, our liberties, and the only thing that is keeping us America, and not turning us into Australia, is our guns. If we did not have our guns right now they would have taken our power  and we would be powerless. We would not be America.”

Breitbart News asked Lake what she would do, as governor, to protect the Second Amendment rights of Arizonans.

Lake responded, “We’re really fortunate here in Arizona. The freedoms we enjoy have been well-protected.” She noted how Texas just adopted constitutional carry on September 1 of this year, something that Arizona adopted in 2010.

Then she said, “We need to preserve those Second Amendment freedoms. And as governor I will never, ever sign a piece of legislation that takes away one scintilla of our Second Amendment rights. As a matter of fact, we need to look at some of the laws we have on the books that might actually be infringing those rights.”

Lake pointed out Arizona is a Second Amendment sanctuary state, and noted, “If Joe Biden gets bossy with us he needs to know up front that he and his people will never take my guns away in Arizona, they will never take our daughter’s guns, my husband’s guns, or our ammo.”

She concluded, “If you haven’t woken up to the fact that our Second Amendment is holding this country together, then you need to take a close look at what this country was founded on and what our Founding Fathers saw coming; what they prepared us for with the Second Amendment.”

Demoncraps were going to sneak in a new immigration amnesty for illegal aliens by putting it in a appropriation bill that can be passed by a simple majority vote of ‘reconciling’ the differences of a bill supposedly already passed by both houses of Congress.

Senate parliamentarian deals blow to Democrats’ immigration plan

Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough on Sunday dealt a significant blow to Democrats’ plan to provide 8 million green cards as part of a sweeping spending package, warning it doesn’t comply with tight rules that determine what can be in the bill.

MacDonough’s guidance, a copy of which was obtained by The Hill, likely closes the door to Democrats using the spending bill to provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of immigrants.

MacDonough, in her guidance, called the Democratic plan “by any standard a broad, new immigration policy.”

“The policy changes of this proposal far outweigh the budgetary impact scored to it and it is not appropriate for inclusion in reconciliation,” she wrote in the ruling obtained by The Hill.

Democrats pitched MacDonough earlier this month on their plan to use the $3.5 trillion spending bill to provide 8 million green cards for four groups of immigrants: “Dreamers,” temporary protected status (TPS) holders, agricultural workers and essential workers. Getting legal permanent resident status allows an individual to eventually apply for citizenship if they can meet other qualifications.

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Yes, this is known, but it always bears repeating.

BLUF:
But that is really what Kulturkampf politics is all about: fortifying one’s own social status by exercising ritual domination over cultural rivals. That’s how you get punitive tax policies that don’t raise much revenue, “inclusiveness” policies based on exclusion, and gun-control proposals that don’t have anything to do with gun crime. It just feels good to exercise power over people you loathe or envy. That is the beginning and the end of it.

Gun-Control Laws Aren’t about Preventing Crimes

In the latest issue of National Review, I write about the lax enforcement of our gun laws and touch on a theme that is worth exploring a little more: Gun control is not about gun crime — gun control is about gun culture.

If we cared about keeping guns out of the hands of felons, we’d be locking up straw buyers. We’d be prosecuting prohibited “lie and try” buyers who falsify their ATF paperwork. And we’d be confiscating guns sold in retail transactions that were wrongly approved because of defects in the background-check system. But, for the most part, we don’t do much of any of that.

Instead of doing the hard work of enforcing the law on people committed to breaking it, we focus almost all of our efforts on the most law-abiding group of Americans there is: People who legally buy firearms from licensed firearms dealers, a group that, by definition, has a felony-conviction rate of approximately 0.0 percent. These are law-abiding people, but they also are, in no small part, the type of people who mash the cultural buttons of the big-city progressives who dominate the Democratic Party both culturally and financially. From that point of view, what matters is not that retail gun dealers and their clients are dangerous — which they certainly are not — but that they are icky.

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Anti-CRT Parents Sweep Connecticut School Board Primary, Besting GOP Incumbents

Five parents hell-bent on keeping critical race theory (CRT) out of the Guilford, Conn. school district swept the Republican school board primary Tuesday night, advancing to the general election in November.

Fending off a challenge from three old-guard Republican incumbents — who the anti-CRT parents accuse of rubber-stamping the racialized curriculum favored by the board’s progressives and the district superintendent — the cabal of five dominated the competition Tuesday, walking away with bids for the November ballot.

Political novices Timothy Chamberlain, Nick Cusano, Aly Passerelli, Bill Maisano, and Danielle Scarpellino outperformed their intra-party rivals by a three to one margin, according to figures provided to National Review.

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Almost forgot.
Happy Assault Weapons Ban Sunset Provision Day, Everyone!

On this day in 2004, the Assault Weapon Ban that had been enacted in 1994 reached its sunset date.
Lest anyone also forget, the NRA had a big hand in getting that 10 year sunset provision added.
Also, this law was one of the major factors in such a massive demoncrap loss in Congress when 8 Senators and 54 Representatives were sent packing.

ATF nominee’s fall is just latest defeat for gun control advocates

President Biden’s decision to pull David Chipman as his nominee to run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is a high-profile victory for pro-gun groups and a defeat for gun control advocates in what will likely be this year’s most consequential gun debate.

The withdrawal shows that even under Democratic control of Congress and the White House, efforts to tighten restrictions on guns face an uphill climb.

Chipman’s nomination fell not just because of opposition from Republicans, but also moderate Democrats.

Biden pulled Chipman’s nomination after Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats, privately said he wouldn’t support him. Democrats had no room for defections in the 50-50 Senate, and Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) also declined to endorse Chipman.

It’s just the latest defeat for gun control advocates.

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BLUF:
The bottom line: There is simply no comparison in scale, act, motivation, or anything else between Sept. 11 and Jan. 6. And yet now, a former president suggests that those two enormously dissimilar events were actually similar, both coming from “the same foul spirit.”

George W. Bush’s dreadful 9/11 speech.

President Joe Biden was silent during Saturday’s 9/11 commemoration events. So were former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Former President Donald Trump visited a New York City police precinct and fire station, where he made a few impromptu remarks.

The only president who delivered a formal speech on 9/11 was former President George W. Bush. And it was terrible.

In two ways. First, Bush’s speech was as much about decrying today’s political divisions as it was about remembering the events of Sept. 11. But Bush showed an astonishing lack of self-awareness of the role his own actions played in creating those divisions. And second, Bush helped widen those divisions by endorsing a Rachel Maddow-esque argument that an equivalence exists between the plane-hijacking, murderous terrorists of Sept. 11, 2001, and the Capitol rioters of Jan. 6, 2021 — a comparison that has no basis in fact but has done much to sour the national debate.

Bush spoke at ceremonies for Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It was the site of perhaps the most heroic of many heroic acts by Americans on Sept. 11. The passengers who fought back against the hijackers sacrificed their own lives to save the victims the terrorists were targeting. In the process, they likely also saved the Capitol, or perhaps the White House, from attack.

Bush praised their courage. He praised the courage of Americans who volunteered for the armed forces in the years that followed. And he praised the selflessness of Americans who helped one another at the time. There was great unity in that moment, Bush said. “In the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks, I was proud to lead an amazing, resilient, united people,” Bush said. But now, those days seem far, far away, and a “malign force” is at work in American life:

When it comes to the unity of America, those days seem distant from our own. A malign force seems at work in our common life that turns every disagreement into an argument and every argument into a clash of cultures. So much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear, and resentment. That leaves us worried about our nation and our future together.

How could our politics have become so angry? Bush pointed to one reason, in the briefest way possible, just a moment earlier. Hailing Americans who joined the armed forces, he added, “The military measures taken over the last 20 years to pursue dangers at their source have led to debate.” Well, yes they have! But rather than elaborate, even a little, Bush instead went on to assure veterans that their service was not in vain.

What Bushed skipped was, first, his failures in the war in Afghanistan, and second, his failures in the war in Iraq. In Afghanistan, Bush failed to find and bring to justice Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, and Mullah Omar. And with the major 9/11 player Bush did capture, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Bush failed to deliver justice through a military commission trial and execution. The architect of 9/11 remains alive and well today, imprisoned at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Also in Afghanistan, Bush set the war on a track of nation-building that was sure to fail and did, not only during Bush’s presidency but during Obama’s and Trump’s, until Biden clumsily put an end to it.

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BLUF:
Welcome to Biden’s reality. The heroic period of his presidency was always a mirage, and the effort to muddle through now begins in earnest.

The Real Biden Presidency Emerges.

Not too long ago, supporters imagined Joe Biden might be the next LBJ, and perhaps they were right—just not how they thought.

Biden bears no resemblance to the Lyndon B. Johnson who entered office after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 with a 75 percent approval rating and over the next couple of years passed a raft of historic legislation. No, if there’s any comparison it is to the LBJ who by 1967 had seen his approval rating dip underwater in a deeply riven country.

After a lot of happy talk over the past half-year, the real Biden presidency has emerged. It is not a colossus bestriding the political universe, rather a middling administration, at best, that will have trouble imposing its will even on its own party in Congress.

Biden was always fundamentally a default president, elected in opposition to Donald Trump and initially buoyed by the contrast to his outlandish predecessor, who ended his time in office in the worst manner possible.

Now, he’s lost his foil in Trump, who is still issuing harsh and thunderous press releases, but isn’t driving every news cycle or occasioning mass protests against him in the streets.

The best case for Biden was that he could ride in the slipstream of good economic growth and a receding pandemic, beaten back by the vaccines that began to be administered before Biden took office. Instead, the labor market is still rocky and the Delta variant has surged, leading to headlines about overstretched health care systems that most people assumed that we’d left behind in the spring of 2020.

With his honeymoon gone, with Trump less of a factor, with economic conditions and the state of the virus not as favorable as expected, Biden had been stripped down to a more natural level of support and sliding in the polls since around June.

Then, he made the first major, historic decision of his presidency, and completely botched it. Biden has tried to deflect responsibility for his exit from Afghanistan onto Trump and his execrable deal with the Taliban. Yet, the decision to quit when he did and how he did was all on Biden.

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Democrats Sink Into Delusion After Joe Manchin Crushes Their Hopes and Dreams

As RedState reported yesterday, Sen. Joe Manchin finally put a number on his proposed “pause” regarding the Democrat reconciliation bill. Far from being on board with $3.5 trillion in inflation-inducing spending, the West Virginia senator only wants to support as little as $1 trillion.

The next question would be how Democrats respond, and as per our usual agreement, the answer is not well.

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced that he and his party are moving “full speed ahead.” And over in the House, the Bernie Sanders wing, partly led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, let it be known that $3.5 trillion is the “floor” for spending. That’s an insane contention, but that’s where we are.

What’s not discussed in either of those responses is how exactly Democrats can move forward without 50 votes? No amount of internet tough-guying will change the actual dynamics in the Senate. Further, while less discussed, there’s a margin-busting group of Democrats in the House as well who need to show themselves as moderates prior to 2022 to have any shot at re-election. These are representatives who won House seats in districts Trump won.

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BLUF:
These five items make it clear that the Democrats’ efforts to build and sustain a majority electoral coalition are not guaranteed in any way by the race-ethnic trends detailed in the Census data and dwelt on by the media. Instead the challenges faced by the Democrats have simply mutated, interacting in profound ways with class and cultural issues that have undercut—and may continue to undercut—presumed gains from rising racial diversity.

Will Census Trends Save the Democrats?
Five Reasons Why That Just Ain’t So

The latest data release from the 2020 Census, which will be used to guide decennial redistricting, has been greeted rather breathlessly by the nation’s media and has been absolute catnip for commentators and observers who lean toward the Democrats. Consider some of these headlines:

“America’s White Population Shrank for the First Time”;

“Vast Stretches of America Are Shrinking. Almost All of Them Voted for Trump”.

“Census release shows America is more diverse and more multiracial than ever”

None of this is necessarily wrong, though it’s worth noting that these findings are consistent with trends of long-standing rather than something qualitatively new. What is questionable however is the political gloss that tends to put on these results. Leftist filmmaker Michael Moore called the announcement “the best day ever in US history”, which, while over the top, fairly represents the delight among most progressives that a presumably conservative white population is in precipitous decline while a presumably liberal nonwhite population keeps growing, the harbinger of a diverse, progressive future America.

At least that’s the story. But, as noted, these trends are ongoing, not new. Why should they now lead to progressive hegemony when they haven’t before? Many on the left appear to believe that, whatever the story up ‘til now, we have finally reached some sort of tipping point where the effects of underlying demographic trends can no longer be denied. Maybe. But then again maybe not.

Here are five reasons the Census trends may not be quite the bonus for Democrats so many want to believe (and others fear).

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It is always someone else’s fault with demoncraps

Right on Cue, the President’s Mistakes Are Our Fault Again

You can tell a Democrat is president, because we’re starting to see pieces blaming “us” for his mistakes. In The Atlantic a couple of weeks ago, Tom Nichols wrote that “Afghanistan Is Your Fault.” “American citizens,” Nichols suggested, “will separate into their usual camps and identify all of the obvious causes and culprits except for one: themselves.” Today, Max Boot makes the same argument in the Post. “Who’s to blame for the deaths of 13 service members in Kabul?” he asks. Answer: “We all are.”

This is of a piece with the tendency of journalists and historians to start muttering about how the presidency is “too big for one man” when the bad president in question is a Democrat. Under these terms, Republicans just aren’t up to the job, while Democrats are the victims of design or modernity or of the public being feckless. Last year, coronavirus was Trump’s fault. Now, it’s the fault of Republican governors and the unvaccinated (well, only some of the unvaccinated).

Still, this has happened pretty quickly with Joe Biden. Usually, it takes a couple of years before the press starts to sound like a bunch of hippies sitting around a fire saying, “you know, in a sense, you’re me and I’m you, and all of us are we — and so when the president makes a mistake, it’s really, like, the universe making a mistake, isn’t it? And, y’know, we’re in the universe, so we are the presidency. That’s democracy, man.”

Like this political grandstanding will actually go anywhere

House Republicans Introduce Articles Of Impeachment For Secretary Of State Antony Blinken

Two House Republicans introduced articles of impeachment against Secretary Of State Antony Blinken on Friday, saying he failed at his job after at least 13 U.S. service members were killed in one of the deadliest days for U.S. service members in Afghanistan in over a decade.

Republican Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Andy Harris of Maryland introduced the resolution, obtained by the Daily Caller, saying President Joe Biden and specifically, Blinken are solely responsible for the ongoing bloodshed in Afghanistan.

“The Biden Administration’s handling of Afghanistan has been an unmitigated catastrophe. This preventable tragedy rests solely on the shoulders of President Biden and his Administration, and in particular the Secretary of State. We are the most powerful nation on the planet, and we must make clear to the Taliban that we will stay to get our people out as long as that takes,” Harris said in a statement.

“Secretary Blinken’s complete and utter failure of managing this avoidable catastrophe makes him unfit for leadership, and I hope my colleagues will join me in pushing for his removal,” Harris added.

I think they are going to have to learn to live with disappointment.

Activists Urge Biden to Bypass Congress, Create Gun Violence Office

Advocacy groups are urging President Joe Biden to bypass Congress by creating a White House office of gun violence as the confirmation of his nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives remains in jeopardy, Politico reported.

Four groups send Biden a letter on Wednesday and complained the president’s actions on guns “fall significantly short of the promises you yourself made while running for the presidency,” Politico reported Thursday.

The activists said weapons had not been a Biden priority as 28,000 Americans have died from gun violence this year.

“Your administration is hard at work pursuing important priorities from infrastructure reform to reducing the disastrous impacts of climate change,” according to the letter obtained by Politico.

“But with rising gun deaths and the heightened threat of armed political extremism, gun violence can no longer be seen as a back burner issue.”

With David Chipman’s nomination to lead ATF languishing in the Senate, the groups asked Biden to establish a White House office led by a Cabinet-level aide, who would not need Senate confirmation.

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