Category: Goobermint

St. George Tucker, a member of the Continental Congress, an officer in the Virginia militia during the revolution, and a professor at the College of William and Mary, before becoming a state and then federal judge, wrote a book about the Constitution, where he observed that people in government  were working as hard as possible to evade its restrictions almost before the ink was dry.
Is it within reason to legitimately conclude that the Constitution was ‘inadequate’ from the start?
Could be……….

BLUF:
If morality is the defining quality for our form of self-government, we may no longer be qualified to self-govern.  The Framers understood this.  Our new immorality is the prescription for the constitutional system to fail.  It is not that society cannot be formed by immoral people.  It certainly can.  However, that society’s governance will reflect the people’s (im)morality, and that rule will be centered on command and control without a moral basis.  It will be tyranny.

Are we still a moral people capable of self-governance?

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” —John Adams

John Adams was not alone in understanding that our Constitution functions only if people have a shared morality derived from Judeo-Christian principles.  James Madison wrote that our Constitution requires “sufficient virtue among men for self-government”; otherwise, “nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another.”  It’s not clear that 21st-century America has that necessary virtue.

The Ten Commandments are at the center of Judeo-Christian moral teaching.  (I have written before about the connection of virtue and morality as it relates to First and Second Amendment rights.)  Even non-religious people once understood that these principles are useful guides for moral living in a functioning society.  Much has changed in just a few years, though.

The first few commandments are about man’s relationship with God and are not relevant to this discussion.  What matters here are the commandments that concern our relationships with others, which define morality as our Framers understood it.  They have societal value independent of the precepts about the relationship to God.  No religious beliefs are necessary to accept their value as moral principles.  It was this morality that the Framers saw as essential to constitutional self-government.

Today, many on the left no longer consider these principles a standard for moral behavior.  They have become a standard to avoid.  A significant part of our society believes we should actively defy the moral truth of these principles.  This belief has serious political implications.

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Bu, bu, bu but ghost guns can’t be traced!

4 Men Accused of Buying ‘Ghost Guns’ to Sell in Philadelphia
Four men are accused of buying “ghost guns” from a gun show in Berks County, Pennsylvania, with the intent of illegally selling them in Philadelphia. It’s part of a trend that’s fueling the city’s gun violence epidemic

Police said Najaye Davis, 19, of Philadelphia, purchased multiple 80% receiver-made gun kits with large amounts of cash at the Morgantown Gun Show in Morgantown, Pennsylvania, back on Feb. 27.

After buying the weapons, Davis and a second suspect left the venue and drove eastbound towards Philadelphia, according to investigators. Agents with the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General (OAG) believe the two men were illegally making and selling ghost guns in Philadelphia. Davis is prohibited from purchasing or possessing a handgun in the city.

OAG Agents obtained a search warrant for Davis’ Philadelphia home and executed it Friday. During the search, they found three fully functioning unserialized ghost guns, one 80% receiver, $8600 in cash, additional firearm parts, including trigger assemblies, more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition and multiple extended magazines, both loaded and unloaded, officials said

Biden sued by 12 states over climate executive order: ‘Enormous expansion of federal regulatory power’
Lawsuit argues that Biden does not have the authority to set a ‘social cost’ for greenhouse gases

A coalition of 12 states is suing President Biden’s administration over a climate executive order that they claim has the potential to have a serious economic impact across the country through the expansion of federal regulatory power.

The suit, which is being led by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, was filed on Monday. State attorneys general from Arkansas, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah also joined the action.

It alleges that Biden’s Executive Order 13990, titled “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” does not have the authority to issue binding numbers for the “social cost” of greenhouse gases to be used in federal regulations.

The breakdown of the social costs shows $269 billion for carbon dioxide, $990 billion for methane, and $8.24 trillion for nitrous oxide – totaling approximately $9.5 trillion, according to the lawsuit, which cited interim values determined by an interagency working group that was created by Biden’s order.

Schmitt said that those potential regulations will stifle manufacturing and harm agriculture in Missouri, where state figures show that hundreds of thousands of people work in those industries.

“Under President Biden’s executive order, which he didn’t have the authority to enact, these hard-working Missourians who have lived and worked this land for generations, could be left in the dust,” Schmitt said in a written press release.

But the suit claims that the impact from the $9.5 trillion “social cost” of greenhouse gases will stretch farther than just Missouri.

“In practice, this enormous figure will be used to justify an equally enormous expansion of federal regulatory power that will intrude into every aspect of Americans’ lives— from their cars, to their refrigerators and homes, to their grocery and electric bills,” the suit states.

The lawsuit argues that Biden’s order does not have the authority to set values for the social costs of carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide that will be used by regulatory agencies.

“It will be used to inflict untold billions or trillions of dollars of damage to the U.S. economy for decades to come,” the suit states.

In claiming that Biden’s order cannot set these values, the suit claims that the action violates the separation of powers, “the most fundamental bulwark of liberty.”

And now something of interest to our friends in Sudamérica

Deadly Funnel: The Darien Gap

Michael Yon:

Capurgana, Colombia—Dicey place. Don’t come here. This a funnel-mouth from the world, North to America.

Many people from countries like Bangladesh, around Africa, and the Middle East, cannot get any closer to America without visa than South America. Specifically, someone from India or Nepal may first transit Dubai, Netherlands, then down to Chile. Bus through places like Peru and Ecuador, then to Colombia. There is no road at all connecting Panama and Colombia, thus the infamous Darien area is called the Gap. Or the Darien Gap. Reminds me of the Desert of Death in Afghanistan, only this is mountains, jungle, and murderers. And so, they must go on foot for roughly 4O miles and six days. Many are arriving wearing sandals and carrying small children on hip. Parents often die along the way.

The osmotic human pressure has dramatically increased since January. The Biden administration established a Green Zone in D.C., unfurled a welcome-to-hell carpet across our Southern border, and now people are flooding through Darien. Communist Guerrillas and drug smugglers, along with naked tribesmen, fill the Darien. Even the Armies stay clear.

After Inauguration, I was down on the Texas and New Mexico borders, and across the border in Mexico. Wall construction stopped even as America marches into civil war. These brave souls coming north need help. This is not the way to do it.

Some are criminals heading north just as American criminals head South. Others are simply good people brave enough to bring children to a better place. Even if they make it to Darien, and through Darien, they face more struggles every step. Panama , Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala — a fine tour through Communism—and into the dangers of Mexico.

Baited by Washington. Sick, sick Washington. When they land by boat here at Capurgana, they are sprayed with foul smelling “disinfectant.” Even the children.

The photo of woman holding baby was made by my friend Chuck Holton yesterday. I made the rest. We are here with intrepid Japanese journalist Masako Ganaha. She will take this news back to Japan. Meanwhile, the communists in neighboring Venezuela have destroyed what could be one of the nicest countries on earth. Venezuelans have flooded into Colombia where they ply every trade to eat, including mass prostitution. While Washington baits children through hell instead of helping in place.

I gotta go. Sorry for no editing. I don’t even have computer with me. This all on phone.

Thank you for all help. I need it, too. After Colombia, may go to Panama to interview those who make it through Darien. And then back to Texas.

Terrible situation.

They’ve always been the ‘tax and spend‘ party, so nothing’s new here.

Democrats Just Snuck a $1 Billion Tax Hike on Workers Into Their COVID Bill
A tax expert warned that IRS penalties ‘can destroy a person’s life’ and said many gig economy workers won’t be able to afford this sudden tax hike.

When the economy is struggling to recover from a pandemic and crushing government lockdowns, that’s probably the worst time to impose $1 billion in new annual taxes on the working class. But that’s exactly what a new provision quietly slipped into the Democrats’ sweeping $1.9 trillion COVID legislation would do.

“A last-minute insert by Democrats looking to offset the cost of their coronavirus aid package would send tax collectors into the gig economy, eventually costing Uber and DoorDash drivers, Airbnb hosts and others about $1 billion annually,” Roll Call reports.

Under current tax law, earnings data for gig economy workers only needs to be reported to the IRS once it reaches $20,000. This means that small earners pursuing gig work to supplement their income aren’t hit by crushing federal taxes. However, the Democrats’ provision would nearly eliminate this benchmark, and instead require all income above $600 to be reported to the IRS.

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GOA, Defense Distributed and JSD Supply, open letter to President Biden.

Wayne is still the story, thus he still needs to go.

Wayne at CPAC

Best line from the CPAC conference?
Gov. Kristi Noem: COVID Didn’t Crush Economy, Government Did

Hailing her state as the only one in the U.S. that did not declare shelter-in-place orders, mask mandates, business closures, or defining essential business, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem fired back at the national failing of U.S. health experts during the pandemic.

“I don’t know if you agree with me, but Dr. [Anthony] Fauci is wrong a lot,” Noem said during her CPAC speech Saturday, pointing to the top U.S. infectious disease expert who told her South Dakota would get up to 10,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations in a day.

Her state never got over 600, she said.

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‘Ghost Gun’ Bans Are Doomed from the Start
The DIY firearms movement specifically evolved to put personal armaments beyond the reach of the government.

The problem with imposing legal restrictions intended to stop a practice that is designed to evade legal restrictions is that you were outflanked before you even started. That’s the challenge for President Joe Biden and lawmakers around the country as they consider limits on “ghost guns”—homemade guns that are created, owned, and used off the government’s radar. Do-it-yourself manufacturing has always hobbled authorities’ ability to control things they don’t like, and the modern ghost gun movement specifically evolved to put personal armaments beyond the reach of the state.

“The White House is weighing a number of gun safety proposals as it looks to deliver on President Joe Biden’s campaign promises,” Politico reported this week. “Among the executive actions under consideration by the administration is one that would require buyers of so-called ghost guns — homemade or makeshift firearms that lack serial numbers — to undergo background checks, according to three people who have spoken to the White House about their plans.”

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Millions of American Jobs Under Biden Regime Won’t Come Back…democrat Officials Warn of Consequences as Biden Prepares to Give Unearned Amnesty to Millions

The far-left, Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post published an article today warning that millions of jobs will not be coming back once the Chinese virus pandemic is no longer a threat.

Conservative Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) mocked the Democrats and their plan to offer unearned amnesty to millions of non-citizens living in the United States, “Millions of working-class jobs lost. Nothing that a giant amnesty can’t solve!” he tweeted.

From the WaPo article- Millions of jobs that have been shortchanged or wiped out entirely by the coronavirus pandemic are unlikely to come back, economists warn, setting up a massive need for career changes and retraining in the United States.

The coronavirus pandemic has triggered permanent shifts in how and where people work. Businesses are planning for a future where more people are working from home, traveling less for business, or replacing workers with robots. All of these modifications mean many workers will not be able to do the same job they did before the pandemic, even after much of the U.S. population gets vaccinated against the deadly virus.

Microsoft founder-turned-philanthropist Bill Gates raised eyebrows in November when he predicted that half of business travel and 30 percent of “days in the office” would go away forever. That forecast no longer seems far-fetched. In a report coming out later this week that was previewed to The Washington Post, the McKinsey Global Institute says that 20 percent of business travel won’t come back and about 20 percent of workers could end up working from home indefinitely. These shifts mean fewer jobs at hotels, restaurants and downtown shops, in addition to ongoing automation of office support roles and some factory jobs.

“We’re recovering, but to a different economy,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell said in November.

It’s curious that the Biden regime would be laser-focused on stopping construction on our border wall and giving unearned amnesty to millions of non-Americans, as economists warn of the loss of millions of jobs, post-COVID pandemic.

As of 2020, FAIR estimates that approximately 14.5 million illegal aliens are residing within the United States. This number is marginally higher than FAIR’s previous estimate of 14.3 million in 2019.

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The President is the Commander in Chief of the military and since Truman has the sole power to authorize National Command Authority. Now we see that they know this authority is in the hands of a person who should be under fulltime skilled nursing care and they’re scared. Their hatred for Trump overpowered their duty to provide for the common defense.

Gun Ownership It’s Not Insurrection, It’s Patriotism, Try Telling That to Gun Banners

The Democrats fake narratives of their political reality changed daily, as they needed.

After years of carefully crafted, and bought political and judicial positions, the Democratic Party created, from the get-go, bizarre lies about Donald J. Trump which have been proven false, we are now we’re expected to believe that former President Trump committed insurrection against our country while making a speech which only referenced PEACE and PATRIOTISM.

The Democrats forced a Second Trump Impeachment, even though he was OUT OF OFFICE, as the left does not want another Trump term. But that fiasco yielded a NOT GUILTY, and rightly so.

What is it that the Democrats want? They want power! They need to keep their own criminal acts covered up. Many of these crimes may rise to the level of sedition, which could merit jail time.

Former President Trump must be proven guilty of something, anything, and prevented from ever running again for high office because he might just win.

Democrats Are Terrified Of The Possible Outcome.

Now that Joe Biden is the Resident of the White House, the Socialist Democrats must mitigate the strength and resolve of Trump’s core constituents. So to this end, the Democrats employ many historical methods, from the Bolshevik Revolution to the NAZI agenda, to ‘evilize*’ us Trump supporters.

* Yes, we made up the word ‘evilize.’ We use it as ‘To be made evil’.

That my friends, is us, America’s conservatives and civilian gun owners. Not only must Americans accept that Trump is an insurrectionist, but they must also believe gun owners are insurrectionists, too.

Until U.S. gun owners are neutralized, the left cannot take total power. We must now be transformed from racists into violent, dangerous revolutionaries; Media and Big Tech have the dominating power to make that real in the eyes of ignorant Americans.

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Favoring renewable energy over natural gas investment has led to the mess.

I’m writing from Texas, so I’ll try to finish this column before the electricity goes out.

As you may have heard, we’ve had an unusually powerful winter storm down here and, in spite of the fact that every third household has a four-wheel-drive super-duty pickup truck, Texas has come to a standstill. When a little bit of ice settled on the freeway, a half a dozen people lost their lives in the ensuing 135-car pileup.

Meanwhile, after years of mocking Californians for their self-imposed energy troubles, Texans are experiencing rolling blackouts — and a whole lot of blackouts that refuse to roll on but instead sit obstinately in place — because our power grid cannot keep up with the spike in demand.

As in California, Texas’s energy scarcity is largely artificial: The state produces an extraordinary amount of natural gas, but there has been a woeful underinvestment in infrastructure ranging from pipelines to winterizing equipment at utilities. You may as well not have the fuel at all if you can’t get it to where it’s needed or use it once it’s there.

What Texas has invested in is renewables, especially wind. These have performed especially poorly: The state’s electric-grid regulator reports that though wind and solar still make up a relatively small share of the state’s overall energy mix, they accounted for 40 percent of the capacity shut down by the storm: Out of the 45 gigawatts that went dark, 18 gigawatts were from wind and solar.

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Did Wind Power Fall Hard During the Great Texas Storm? Yep. Twice.

Texas is that rare state that has everything: oil, natural gas, coal, space for wind and solar, rare-earth minerals, great food, good-looking people, and abundant humility.

Maybe not that last one. And we haven’t had a Super Bowl champion in much too long a time.

Anyway, Friday morning I pulled electric power generation data by source from the United States Energy Information Administration. EIA is reputable and authoritative, to the extent that any government agency is. Insert shrug emoji if you wish. I mostly trust their data. It’s EIA’s data everyone cites when they, accurately, say the United States reduced carbon emissions faster than other developed nations and ahead of the Paris Accords targets over the past few years. EIA’s data attributes that to the rise of natural gas as a cheap, reliable, and clean power source. So you’ve probably trusted their data too, whether you were aware of it or not.

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Leaked: Congressional Research Service Report on Firearms Stabilizing Braces

WASHINGTON, D.C. –-(Ammoland.com)- AmmoLand News has obtained a report dated February 12th, 2021 sent by the Congressional Research Service to Congress members about pistol braces. (embedded below)

Congressional Research Service Issues Report on Stabilizing Braces for Congress

Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a non-partisan government think tank that works with Congressional members on reports about different issues. The service consists of 600 government employees, including lawyers, economists, reference librarians, and social, natural, and physical scientists. It is the policy counterpart to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

William J. Krouse, Specialist in Domestic Security and Crime Policy, #ad wrote the report for members of Congress detailing the ATF’s long saga with stabilizing braces. This report can be a sign that Congress is once again looking into the brace issue. The CRS confidentially works with members of Congress, so AmmoLand News hasn’t been able to determine what member requested the document.

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BLUF:
We can laugh at the antics, but the terrible reality is that this crap is going to get a bunch of our young people killed. Let’s be very clear – when your priority is social justice nonsense instead of preparing to fight and win, you are opening up a lane for the enemy and the enemy is going to drive right through it.

But look on the bright side. When something horrible happens – maybe the Chinese will send a carrier to the bottom, for example – we can all take comfort in the fact that our sons and daughters, because it’s us patriots’ sons and daughters who usually fight and die in America’s wars, perished because our leadership failed to prepare, but at least they died fully aware of trans intersectionality.

Our Military’s SJW-Driven Abandonment of Warfighting Is Going to Get Troops Killed

It gives me no pleasure to say that I no longer recommend that young people join the military, and I’m not alone. The non-Blue Falcon veteran community is in full revolt against the conscious decision to decline embraced by our current military leadership. After failing to win a war in the last 20 years – and don’t say Syria, because the second President * woke up in the Oval Office wondering how he got there, more of our troops were heading back into the hellscape for reasons no one has bothered to articulate – the military has decided to target an easier enemy, i.e., other Americans.

See, the problem with me and the other vets who are disgusted by the brass’s choice to focus on SJW priorities instead of, you know, successfully deterring or defeating America’s enemies, is that we actually listened to what we were taught when we were coming up. Most of us were trained by the heroes who put the shattered American military together after the Democrat war in Vietnam broke it. We learned about leadership, about putting mission first but taking care of people always, and about objectives and how to attain them.

None of that’s a thing anymore.

So, count us out from complicity with the degeneration of our proud institution into a giant gender studies struggle session. And that’s a big deal. Do you know where the military gets a huge chunk on its recruits? Legacies. These are young troops who want to be like their father or grandfather or big brother or neighbor or other role model. I was the third-generation commissioned officer in my family, on both sides. Guess what? Right now, if one of my kids goes in, it’s against my advice. And again, I am not alone. I hear this over and over and over from other vets. And it makes me furious.

Congratulations, Pentagon. This is all on you.

You put two divisions behind wire in D.C. to protect against phantom insurrections by guys who dress like Vikings. And then you can’t even feed the troops, or house them. Gosh, if only there was a great big five-sided building full of generals just a couple miles away to square that idiocy away.

Oh, wait, there is.

And now, though we have not won a war in two decades, our military has plenty of time to stop training and focus on purging the ranks of people who like the politicians the current administration opposes. I eagerly await the introduction to the new 69D MOS – political officer. A zampolit for every battalion – hell, why not every company?

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Biden pushing Congress to pass bill giving millions of illegal immigrants’ path to citizenship

Congress introduced sweeping an immigration bill on Thursday modeled from President Joe Biden’s plan and designed to give millions of illegal immigrants already in the U.S. an eight-year path to citizenship, in addition to providing those who illegally entered the country as children a quicker route to citizenship.

In their respective Congressional chambers, Democrats Sen. Bob Menendez and Rep. Linda Sanchez introduced a bill identical to Biden’s US Citizenship Act of 2021 unveiled by the White House on Jan. 20, NBC News reported.

The bill cuts the time to secure citizenship from 13 years to just eight. To be eligible, illegal immigrants would be required to have entered the country prior to January 1, 2021.

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U.S. attorney, FBI investigating Cuomo’s handling of nursing home deaths 

The U.S. attorney in Brooklyn and the FBI have begun a preliminary investigation into the way New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration handled data about Covid-19 nursing home deaths.

After early praise for his leadership when his state became the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic, the governor is now dealing with accusations of underreporting nursing home deaths.

In recent weeks, the administration revealed that 15,000 long-term care residents have died, up from the 8,500 previously disclosed.

Spokespeople for the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn and the FBI declined to comment Wednesday night.

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Texas power outages: How the largest energy-producing state in the US failed in freezing temperatures.

DALLAS — Many Texans are rightfully asking why the largest energy producing state in the country cannot produce enough energy to get through a week of below-freezing temperatures.

So, what happened? Equipment failure turned out to be a big part of the problem.

“Beginning around 11:00 p.m. [Sunday night], multiple generating units began tripping off-line in rapid progression due to the severe cold weather,” said Dan Woodfin, senior director of system operations at ERCOT, the organization that manages the state’s electric grid.

What does that mean? Equipment literally froze in the single digit temperatures and stopped working.

Then, as reserves diminished, ERCOT asked transmission providers to turn off large industrial users that had previously agreed to be shut down. But the situation deteriorated quickly, requiring rotating outages that have lasted hours for many Texans.

Electric generating plants did not properly winterize their equipment, said Dr. David Tuttle in the latest episode of the Y’all-itics political podcast. Tuttle is a research associate with the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin.

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