Category: Goobermint

February 1st, 2013

Biden concedes new laws won’t end gun massacres

Vice President Joe Biden, who spearheaded the White House’s effort to find ways of reducing gun violence, admitted to reporters Thursday that any measures passed by Congress would fail in totally eliminating gun deaths.

Biden was speaking on Capitol Hill after meeting with Democratic lawmakers to build support for gun control legislation currently making its way through Congress. While he said no law could ever eliminate gun deaths, the vice president stressed that attempts must be made to prevent gun violence, particularly as Americans are demanding an answer from the government on how to end tragedies like the December massacre in Connecticut.

“Nothing we are going to do is fundamentally going to alter or eliminate the possibility of another mass shooting or guarantee that we will bring gun deaths down,” Biden said, echoing remarks President Barack Obama made in January when he said “there is no law or set of laws that can prevent every senseless act of violence completely.”

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These Are the Three American Cities the Biden Admin Is Planning to Start Releasing Migrant In

The Department of Homeland Security will begin phase one of the Biden administration’s new approach to immigration and asylum seekers on Friday by releasing thousands of migrants in three American cities over a two-week period.

The new plan, in stark contrast to the Trump administration’s “Remain In Mexico” policy, will have DHS start releasing illegal aliens in San Diego, California; El Paso, Texas; and Brownsville, Texas, according to Breitbart and the Associated Press. Around 25,000 migrants will be let into the country through the first phase.

DHS plans to process and release about 300 migrants a day in both San Diego and El Paso, with plans to release about 100 migrants a day in Brownsville.

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A Global Leader in Obsolete Technology.

*****

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg wants to make the United States the “global leader” in high-speed rail. That’s like wanting to be the world leader in electric typewriters, rotary telephones, or steam locomotives, all technologies that were once revolutionary but are functionally obsolete today. High-speed trains, in particular, were rendered obsolete in 1958, when Boeing introduced the 707 jetliner, which was twice as fast as the fastest trains today.

Aside from speed, what makes high-speed rail obsolete is its high cost. Unlike airlines, which don’t require much infrastructure other than landing fields, high-speed trains require huge amounts of infrastructure that must be built and maintained to extremely precise standards. That’s why airfares averaged just 14 cents per passenger-mile in 2019, whereas fares on Amtrak’s high-speed Acela averaged more than 90 cents per passenger-mile.

Highways require infrastructure but not this level of precision. While a four-lane freeway costs about $10 million to $20 million a mile, California ended up spending $100 million a mile building its abortive high-speed rail line on flat ground, and it predicted building in hilly territory would cost at least $170 million per mile.

The Year of No Science.

Remember “The Year of Living Dangerously”? That was a 1982 film based on a 1978 novel about a love affair during the year Sukarno was overthrown in Indonesia, 1967.

2020 and now 2021 might be called the Year or Years of No Science… or maybe Phony Science… or Pretentious Science… or, perhaps most accurately, Political Science (but not with the usage commonly employed).

Yes, I know we have seen the extremely rapid appearance of COVID-19 vaccines from several companies, but we have no way of knowing if they work long term or, more importantly, if they were necessary.

(FULL DISCLOSURE: I have taken both Pfizers myself, largely because it will undoubtedly soon be required by our government to able to travel.)

It’s quite possible this pandemic would have run its course the way all others have without intervention—or that it was highly exaggerated in the first place.

No one has fully explained that not that many more Americans died in 2020 than in previous years, when the pandemic was supposed to have killed hundreds of thousands, nor has anyone a satisfactory theory for why countries and states without lockdowns often do as well as those with the most stringent regulations.

And this is not even to mention the amount of extraordinary and endless contradictions (mask/no mask… hydroxychlorquine yes/no… ivermectin yes/no and so on) we have had from medical experts, sometimes apologizing to us for their mistakes but other times changing their minds in full view as if we never noticed.

Add to that the mystery surrounding the Wuhan laboratory with all the various explanations cum communist Chinese propaganda augmented by the duplicitous World Health Organization about how this came about, including the odd involvement of Dr. Anthony Fauci with that lab over the years.

And all this is adjudicated by politicians many, if not most, of whom could not now easily pass a high school chemistry test. Does anyone think our president could?

They speak of “settled science,” but they don’t even know what science is.

But none of this should be a surprise.

I am writing this locked in my Nashville house, not by COVID, but by snow and ice that do not allow me to drive my car down my driveway without landing in a ditch.

In about an hour, another six to eight hours of non-stop snow and ice are predicted. Neither my wife nor I are likely to able to leave home to shop for food for several days. (We have emergency supplies.)

I gather things are worse in Texas, to the South of us, where millions are without power in freezing weather.

Fifteen years ago, Al Gore, in his Oscar-winning film “An Inconvenient Truth” predicted “Within the decade, there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro.”

We all know how ridiculous that sounds now (well, everyone but John Kerry and Joe Biden and an endless stream of miseducated social justice warriors who have never read, nor heard of, Bjorn Lomborg).

Of course, those were the days of “global warming,” before it morphed conveniently into the factually meaningless “climate change.”

After all, you can’t get the lusted-after political power and financial gain if you say the sun is vastly more important to our weather and climate (a distinction, we are told, is important, so I put them together) than human endeavors.

So maybe we have been living in the Year of No Science for a long time, since the days people thought the world was flat, which was most of history by far.

It could be that people today are equally ignorant about the truth—or nearly. The idea of “settled science” is an oxymoron and those who speak of it are only making fools of themselves.

Climate and COVID are much the same. We should be humble before making definitive statements. And we should always be skeptical of politicians who say they are “trusting the scientists.” Which scientists and why?

Meanwhile, since I wrote the paragraph nine above this one, the snow and ice storm has returned, about a half hour earlier than predicted. The temperature is 25 Fahrenheit, about another 25 to 30 degrees below normal for February in Nashville.

People on my NEXT DOOR app are warning our neighbors not to go out jogging or even to walk their dogs on the streets for fear the cars will not be able stop and run them over. They are sharing pictures of many autos in ditches.

But not to worry. We are reentering the Paris Climate Accords. All will be saved.

What’s worse?
That the Chinese Commies were making spychips and putting them in computers?
Or that Uncle has known about this for over a decade, but still let who knows how many computers made for the commercial/home market with these spychips be imported into the country and sold to the public?
(maybe because they figured out a way to tap into the chip’s transmissions so as to have another channel to spy on the U.S. public themselves?)

China Used Secret Microchip to Spy on US Computers

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Defense found thousands of its computer servers sending military network data to China — the result of code hidden in chips that handled the machines’ startup process.

In 2014, Intel Corp. discovered that an elite Chinese hacking group breached its network through a single server that downloaded malware from a supplier’s update site.

And in 2015, the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned multiple companies that Chinese operatives had concealed an extra chip loaded with backdoor code in one manufacturer’s servers.

Each of these distinct attacks had two things in common: China and Super Micro Computer Inc., a computer hardware maker in San Jose, California. They shared one other trait; U.S. spymasters discovered the manipulations but kept them largely secret as they tried to counter each one and learn more about China’s capabilities.

China’s exploitation of products made by Supermicro, as the U.S. company is known, has been under federal scrutiny for much of the past decade, according to 14 former law enforcement and intelligence officials familiar with the matter. That included an FBI counterintelligence investigation that began around 2012, when agents started monitoring the communications of a small group of Supermicro workers, using warrants obtained under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, according to five of the officials.

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Sound more and more like a pack of petty tyrants scared to death someone is going to get fed up with them and TCOB.

Biden White House Plan to Keep Occupying Troops in DC Through End of Year

The Biden National Security Council is planning on having National Guard troops continue to occupy the nation’s capital through the end of the year, according to a report by WTTG-TV Fox 5 in Washington, D.C. Additionally, active duty and reserve troops are being considered for deployment.

WTTG excerpt:

The National Security Council is asking the Department of Defense to engage Capitol Police on planning for post-March 12th support, according to the e-mail.

…Robert Salesses who began Performing the Duties of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Global Security on January 20, 202, wrote in the e-mail:

“If it’s not possible to sustain at the current level with NG personnel, we need to establish the number of NG personnel (DCNG and out-of-state) we can sustain for an extended period – at least through Fall 2021 – and understand additional options for providing DoD support, to include use of reserve personnel, as well as active component.”

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My question is: Why didn’t the Goobernor fire him the day after this wanna-be tyrant opened his yap?

EMBATTLED MASSACHUSETTS CLIMATE OFFICIAL DAVID ISMAY RESIGNS ‘IMMEDIATELY:’

David Ismay, the Baker administration $130,000-a-year climate change undersecretary, has resigned “immediately” citing his incendiary comments.

In a resignation letter he shared with the Herald today, Ismay writes: “It is with great regret that I submit my resignation, effectively immediately, from the  position of Undersecretary for Climate Change in the Executive Office of Energy and  Environmental Affairs.”

The resignation letter is addressed to his boss, Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs Kathleen Theoharides, and is dated Wednesday, Feb. 10.

Ismay heads out the door after a series of questionable comments about forcing homeowners, motorists and fishermen to prepare for hard times as the state pushes for so-called Net Zero emissions in the years to come.

Even Gov. Charlie Baker bristled at Ismay’s rhetoric, saying the undersecretary does not speak for him.

Ismay laded on the hot seat after MassFiscal posted a video of the undersecretary saying the state needs to “break their will” and “turn the screws on” ordinary people to force changes in their consumption of heating fuels and gasoline. Ismay described the ordinary people as the “person across the street” and the “senior on fixed income.”

That didn’t sit well with the governor.

“First of all, no one who works in our administration should ever say or think anything like that — ever,” Baker said late last week. “Secondly, Secretary Theoharides is going to have a conversation with him about that.”

Such a tactic could easily backfire on demoncraps. The old line about ‘the straw that broke the camel’s back’ was thought up for instructional purposes.

Senate Democrats Eyeing Reconciliation For Gun Control Bills

With the U.S. Senate split 50-50, the chances of gun control legislation passing through the normal legislative process are slim at best. Unfortunately, there are a couple of legislative tricks that anti-gun Senators could use to get around the fact that 60 senators are needed to close off debate and approve bills.

In a newly released interview conducted by the Las Vegas Sun in January of 2020, then-candidate Joe Biden said he planned on using “must pass” legislation as a vehicle for his gun ban; attaching it as an amendment to a budget authorization bill, for instance.

Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, on the other hand, tells the Michael Bloomberg-funded anti-gun news outlet The Trace that he believes another parliamentary procedure could help shepherd gun control legislation through the Senate.

Senate Democrats could advance gun reform legislation via the budget reconciliation process, which allows the Senate to pass tax and spending bills with a simple majority vote. Blumenthal says Ethan’s Law has a good chance of passing that way.

Budget reconciliation has never been used to pass a gun measure before, so it would set a precedent if Democrats go this route. As [Pro. Stephen] Smith put it: “Democrats are thinking far more creatively about this process than they have in the past.”

The “Ethan’s Law” that Blumenthal referenced would require all firearms be kept under lock and key when they’re not in use or “under the control” of the gun owner. It’s one of several gun storage bills that have already been filed in Congress this session, but I think it would actually be questionable as to whether reconciliation could be used for that particular piece of legislation. As The Trace‘s Jennifer Mascia noted, reconciliation is generally used for budgetary measures, and Blumenthal’s bill doesn’t require any new government taxes or spending.

Honestly, Biden’s gun ban would be a better fit for an attempt to use reconciliation as a way to get the bill to his desk, but even then I think the vote would be close. Would Joe Manchin sign on to Biden’s gun ban? In 2012 Machin sounded supportive of the idea, telling MSNBC that he didn’t know “anyone in the sporting or hunting arena that goes out with an assault rifle.”

In a 2018 appearance on the same network, however, Manchin was singing a slightly different tune.

“They’re sold now legally, I’m not going to weigh in on that at this point in time,” he said. “I don’t have a desire to buy one, I don’t own one. I have a lot of friends that have sports cars, 200 mph on the speedometer, do you think they’re going to go 200? But they think they can or it will if they wanted to. That is a difficult one, there is not enough votes to repeal that.”

Asked once again how he would vote on a proposal to ban AR-15s, Manchin said: “I don’t have any friends that own the gun right now, I don’t know anyone who’s committed a crime with it so I wouldn’t take their gun away.”

Manchin is no Second Amendment stalwart, but he’s a pretty decent politician who’s managed to get re-elected as a Democrat even as West Virginia has become one of the reddest states in the nation. If Manchin were the deciding vote for Biden’s gun ban, it would spell not only the end of his political career in the state but would devastate the Democrat party in West Virginia for a decade or more.

By the way, I do need to correct The Trace‘s Mascia on one part of her story:

A more formidable obstacle to gun reform is the filibuster, which allows lawmakers to delay a vote on a bill. If the filibuster were abolished, Democrats could pass gun reform with a simple majority. But not every Democrat is on board — including West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin, a longtime proponent of expanding background checks. As long as the filibuster stands, Democrats need 60 votes for most legislation — 59 senators and the vice president.

That’s simply not true. The vice-president only casts a vote in her role as the President of the Senate when there’s a tie. If the vote is 59-41, Kamala Harris doesn’t get to vote on the bill. Article I, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution is clear that “the Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.”

Even with the filibuster in place, however, reconciliation and Biden’s threat to pack “must pass” legislation with his anti-gun agenda are genuine concerns for those of us opposed to sweeping infringements on our right to keep and bear arms. Second Amendment activists are going to have to be vigilant in watching Congress over the next two years, even as we work to replace the narrow anti-gun majorities in the House and Senate with politicians who recognize and respect our right to keep and bear arms.

In any other administration, such a relationship would be disqualifying for the nation’s chief spook. But with SloJoe?

Biden’s CIA Pick Is China’s BFF — What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

If the media of 2021 cared about the threat posed by China as the media of 2017 cared about the perceived Russian threat, we might have some genuine reporting… if only. Biden CIA pick

But we’re stuck here in the harsh light of day where we face the realization that the Democrat-aligned ‘Media(D)’ will bend over backward to shield any Dem ally from even the slightest scrutiny. Especially if it involves their very generous and influential friends from China.

Biden has already put forward a few Cabinet picks with warm relations or favorable views toward the one hostile nation that could pose a serious economic, political, or military threat. China has been open about its desires to overtake America and project international dominance and doesn’t care about ‘playing fair’ to accomplish those goals.

William J. Burns, who is President Joe Biden’s nominee for director of the CIA, is president of a think tank that has received up to $2 million from a Chinese businessman as well as from a think tank with close ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

As president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Burns also invited nearly a dozen congressional staffers to attend a junket to China, where they met with a communist party operative and a president of a Chinese front group.

…During Burns’ tenure at Carnegie, a businessman named Zhang Yichen joined the think tank’s board of trustees.

…Zhang is a member of two organizations linked to the Chinese Communist Party, according to his biography at CITIC Capital: the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the Center for China and Globalization.

CPPCC is an advisory group for the Chinese Communist Party that is affiliated with China’s united front system, which promotes Chinese government initiatives abroad.

It is described on the website of one Chinese embassy as “a united front organization under the leadership of the Communist Party of China and an organ for various other political parties, mass organizations and personages of various social circles to take part in the running of the state.” — DailyCaller

Fortunately, Biden hasn’t been dogged by any accusations of improper relationships between himself and his inner circle and the Communist Chinese… right?

Oh, that’s right. It was reported, but the Media(D) and Big Tech worked together to silence those stories in the run-up to the election. Can’t possibly imagine why that might have been.

Do we really need to scrutinize this position? After all, how sensitive of a job could ‘CIA Director’ POSSIBLY be?

If Joe was claiming to take a strong stand against international tyrants, he would need to throw out his old strategy and start fresh. He could start by recalibrating his benchmarks, including what ‘strong’ looks like.

Environmentalism Is the New War on the Working Class.

“There should be a real liberal party in this country, and I don’t mean a crackpot professional one.” – Harry Truman.

John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s new climate czar, took a private jet to accept an environmental award in Iceland in 2019. “It’s the only choice for somebody like me, who is traveling the world to win this battle,” he unironically told a reporter when asked about it.

If this sounds like a clueless joke, it’s not. President Biden’s chief environmental officer took the least carbon-efficient means of travel known to man because it was “the only choice” he could think of for a member in good standing of the indulged upper classes.

But this is no anomaly when it comes to liberal climate activism; it is a perfect encapsulation of what it has become: a vanity project of the jet set that directly harms working-class interests. And it’s this green agenda that directly threatens the working class that Biden has prioritized as he has taken command of the federal government.

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The Problems Biden-Harris and Congress Won’t Solve In 2021

We elect our presidents and Congresses to fix, repair and solve our national problems. As we enter 2021, however, we will discover that they won’t solve any of our major problems in the next 52 weeks. Why is that? Answer: they didn’t solve those problems in the past 52 weeks.

What problems need fixing, but won’t get fixed?

First off, we’ve been at war in Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 years at $6 trillion in spending. We’ve accomplished nothing to secure our freedoms or ensure our safety. Both countries remain ‘goat herder’ third world nightmares with no foundation for any kind of civil or 21 st century advanced societies. Yet, the new president and Congress will continue spending something like $4 billion every 30 days to keep those ‘forever wars’…forever. Note that since those two wars started in 2001, 114,000 active duty and retired military veterans committed suicide. In other words, we killed more of our own BECAUSE we allowed those wars to cause insanity in our own troops, enough so, that those kids killed themselves. But you never hear about such an insane number of suicides by the mainstream media. But you can count on the Military Industrial Complex boys to talk Biden and Congress into continuing those wars.

Second, we’ve been battling to secure our borders for 30 years from the Mexican, Central America and Asian invasion…well, we citizens have asked, begged, protested and marched to secure our borders from an excess of 25 million migrants who have jumped them since 1990. Have you seen one bill, one president or one Congress stop the onslaught of all those people? E-Verify? Enforce US Code 8, Section 1324? Actually guard the borders? Arrest illegal employers? Nope! Instead, you pay for their kids, education, housing, food, medical and babies. Do those people in Congress take that money out of their $180,000.00 a year salaries? Good luck with your guess.

In fact, Biden expects to grant amnesty to every illegal migrant, and in fact, all of DACA, and then, all of the migrants marching toward our southern border as you read this column. Instead of solving the problem, Biden promises to enlarge it, expand it and encourage it. Expect more drugs, anchor babies and criminal syndicates to rampage throughout America’s cities and our kids.

Third, since Reagan with his Trickle-Down Economics in the 1980’s, our national debt jumped from $3 trillion to $26 trillion in 2021. Do you see one single Congressional Critter attempting to pay it down, stop it from growing or solving it for the American taxpayers? As Mark Twain said, “Suppose you were an idiot, and supposed you were a member of Congress…ah, but I repeat myself.”

Fourth, have you traveled to Seattle, Washington with 6,000 people living in tents in the city streets and under bridges? How about the 11,000 homeless in tents in San Francisco? What about the 62,000 subsisting in tents in Los Angeles? They leave needles, human waste and trash all over the streets. Repeat that in Chicago, Miami, Houston, Denver, New York City, etc., with no solution in sight.

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Military ‘Extremism’ Purge May Lead to Communism: Former Navy Lt. Commander

Former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Steven Rogers said on Thursday that an order by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin for the military to stand down to address “extremism” is unprecedented, unnecessary, and a dangerous road that leads to “communist China.”
“This to me, dangerous, it looks like a political litmus test, and it’s a road that you would only find in communist China or in the former Soviet Union,” former Lieutenant Commander Rogers told NTD.
Austin ordered a DOD-wide stand down to address extremism in the ranks on Wednesday.
Secretary of Defense
Secretary of Defense Retired Army Gen. Lloyd Austin answers questions during his confirmation before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington, on Jan. 19, 2021. (Greg Nash/Pool via Reuters)
Rogers said that the United States military has been a role model in addressing discrimination, extremism, radicalism, which has made the U.S. military the greatest on the earth.
He expressed concern about whether conservatives would be singled out.
“I believe it’s the Defence Secretary under the Biden administration. Are they now going to purge conservatives? Are military members who have conservative views and values—are they the ones that are going to be targeted?” Rogers asked.

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BLUF:
The issue isn’t climate change. The issue is changing human nature and under our Constitution, no man has the right to force changes upon our free will. If people vote for heat it’s because they like being warm in the winter. The will of the voter is intended to be the most powerful voice in the nation. As with the Time article, here we see unabashed, admitted proof that there is a concerted effort to circumvent the will of voters.

These people despise the existence of anyone outside their elitist bubbles. That’s all you need to know.

Massachusetts Climate Czar Says the Quiet Part out Loud in Private Meeting: We Must ‘Break Your Will.’

The progressive crowd has been saying the quiet part out loud quite a bit lately.

Time Magazine released an article on Thursday extolling the praises of a shadowy cabal of industry higher-ups who conspired to manipulate the election and oust Donald Trump.

 

The article shocked a lot of people for its brazenness. Mere days earlier, conservative outlets — including our own — were subject to page removals, suspensions, and outright bans for even suggesting such a thing.

In yet another stunning “quiet part out loud” moment, a New England government official revealed the left’s endgame in fighting the climate in an online meeting he assumed would remain private. Massachusetts Undersecretary for Climate Change David Ismay participated in a meeting with the Vermont Climate Council back in January, where he admitted that when it comes to the big climate “offenders” in their region, there are no bad guys left to break. Ismay went on to say that now the only ones left to “break” are the people.

I know one thing that we found in our analysis is that 60% of our emissions come from – as I have it started to say you and me, except you guys are in Vermont – 60% of our emissions come from residential heating and passenger vehicles. Let me say that again …60% of our emissions that need to be reduced come from you, the person on your street, the  senior on fixed-income. Right now there is no bad guy left, at least in Massachusetts, to point the finger at and turn the screws on and no break their will so they stop emitting. That’s you . We have to break your will.

If you are shocked that a public official would not only admit out loud that they happily broke the back of a job-producing industry in their state, but that they now need to break the back of the average American, you’re not alone. Ismay himself seemed surprised at the words coming out of his mouth, and in a stunning admission told attendees that he knew that was not something he could say out loud in public.

I can’t even say that publicly.

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Nevada bill would allow tech companies to create governments

CARSON CITY, Nev. —

Planned legislation to establish new business areas in Nevada would allow technology companies to effectively form separate local governments.

Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak announced a plan to launch so-called Innovation Zones in Nevada to jumpstart the state’s economy by attracting technology firms, Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Wednesday.

The zones would permit companies with large areas of land to form governments carrying the same authority as counties, including the ability to impose taxes, form school districts and courts and provide government services.

The measure to further economic development with the “alternative form of local government” has not yet been introduced in the Legislature.

Sisolak pitched the concept in his State of the State address delivered Jan. 19. The plan would bring in new businesses at the forefront of “groundbreaking technologies” without the use of tax abatements or other publicly funded incentive packages that previously helped Nevada attract companies like Tesla Inc.

Sisolak named Blockchains, LLC as a company that had committed to developing a “smart city” in an area east of Reno after the legislation has passed.

The draft proposal said the traditional local government model is “inadequate alone” to provide the resources to make Nevada a leader in attracting and retaining businesses and fostering economic development in emerging technologies and industries.

The Governor’s Office of Economic Development would oversee applications for the zones, which would be limited to companies working in specific business areas including blockchain, autonomous technology, the Internet of Things, robotics, artificial intelligence, wireless, biometrics and renewable resource technology.

Zone requirements would include applicants owning at least 78 square miles (202 square kilometers) of undeveloped, uninhabited land within a single county but separate from any city, town or tax increment area. Companies would have at least $250 million and plans to invest an additional $1 billion in their zones over 10 years.

The zones would initially operate with the oversight of their location counties, but would eventually take over county duties and become independent governmental bodies.

The zones would have three-member supervisor boards with the same powers as county commissioners. The businesses would maintain significant control over board membership.

The governor’s economic development office did not respond to questions about the zones Wednesday.

Attacks on the Second Amendment Will Send Us Down a Dangerous Road

On a cool Massachusetts morning, April 19, 1775, a group of farmers, tradesmen, and other “Minutemen” led by Captain John Parker, gathered on Lexington Commons to…express umbrage, at the British Crown’s illegal attempt to confiscate Colonial Weapons

“Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war let it begin here,” declared Parker.

No one knows who fired the first shot, but at the end of the bloodletting, eight Americans lay dead and as many wounded. This came to be known as the “shot heard ‘round the World” and the de facto beginning of our American Revolution.

So, how close are we to this type of situation today? The leftist media (I know, redundant) keeps trying to gaslight us by constantly screeching, Nobody is coming for your guns! Except, it looks like they are. In the run-up to the 2020 Presidential Election, both candidates Biden and Harris made some pretty strong statements about gun control. IVPOTUS Harris, as candidate, made some especially concerning comments. From an article by my good friend and colleague Brandon Morse:

No, they are, and at least California Senator Kamala Harris is fully willing to send police to your home to take your guns from you.

According to the Washington Examiner, when asked if Harris would send law enforcement to homes to seize banned firearms, Harris answered in the affirmative

Even if IVPOTUS Harris should fail to get her way, we need not be sanguine. Our Second Amendment, the one that actually secures all the others and arguably written with Captain Parker at Lexington Commons in mind, is still the only one we need “permission” to exercise and is still under constant attack by the left. As A.R. Hawkins puts it, “No other rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights are interpreted so as to allow the government to stand between the people and that right.” I would add to that our Supreme Court seems to foster this aberrant viewpoint by its willingness to “incorporate” almost every other Amendment in the Bill of Rights except, of course, the Second.

That was before the leftists had (as a whole lot of Americans believe, stolen) the Oval Office and the Senate. Now that they control the White House and both chambers of Congress, there isn’t a whole lot to stand in their way…and they’ve already begun to move. Leading the charge comes one of our very favorite Democrats, Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, who often speaks as if she is functionally illiterate while she, each and every day, diminishes the reputation of the great state of Texas. Representative Lee has proposed the most far-reaching gun grab I’ve ever seen. Her proposed legislation demonstrates just how far the leftists will go if given complete and unopposed control over these United States. Here is a very small extract from the latest proposed theft of American rights, H.R.127 – Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act

§ 932. Licensing of firearm and ammunition possession; registration of firearms
“(a) In General.—The Attorney General, through the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, shall establish a system for licensing the possession of firearms or ammunition in the United States, and for the registration with the Bureau of each firearm present in the United States.

“(b) Firearm Registration System.—
“(1) REQUIRED INFORMATION.—Under the firearm registration system, the owner of a firearm shall transmit to the Bureau—
“(A) the make, model, and serial number of the firearm, the identity of the owner of the firearm, the date the firearm was acquired by the owner, and where the firearm is or will be stored; and
“(B) a notice specifying the identity of any person to whom, and any period of time during which, the firearm will be loaned to the person.

The extract doesn’t do the bill justice. There are further prohibitions on ammunition and standard magazines (30 round capacity, is standard ). There are also grossly expanded firearm prohibitions, including the AR-15 type. Then there is the federal database that has as its primary objective, listing every firearm owned by every American. What could possibly go wrong?

Read the entire bill here.

So how do we protect ourselves from all of this, at least until the midterms, where we have the possibility of some sort of legislative redress? My good friend and colleague Jennifer Oliver O’Connell has some ideas, mostly centered around where most political power originated — and should return — if we are to remain a free republic. It’s the states severally, that could provide such necessary delaying action.

In some cases, where the state governments have gone full-on dictatorial, the localities are stepping up, specifically the local Sheriffs. It’s important to know, that in most jurisdictions in these United States, local Sheriffs are elected by the folks in their jurisdiction. This is important as it puts a goodly chunk of Law Enforcement under the direct control of the people.

This can provide some form of speed bump, as seen back in 2019 and reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The “Second Amendment sanctuary” movement has taken hold in more than 100 counties in several states, including New Mexico and Illinois, where local law-enforcement and county leaders are saying they won’t enforce new legislation that infringes on the constitutional right to bear arms.

This isn’t a “one-off,” issue—we’re talking about over 100 counties across several states. This indicates widespread popular support, support that is galvanizing locally elected Law Enforcement Officials to take notice—and take action.

The article goes on,

For instance, in New Mexico, 30 of 33 county sheriffs have signed a letter pledging to not help enforce several gun-control measures supported by Democrats in Santa Fe, according to the state’s sheriff association. The sheriffs, who are elected, say they are heeding the wishes of voters in the counties they serve. More than two dozen counties in the state have enacted “sanctuary” resolutions backing the sheriffs and affirming that no tax dollars in their jurisdictions should go to enforcing the proposed laws.

Where might all of this lead? I have to tell you, I am very concerned. I’m not the only one. There are lots of folks out there who have told me that they will not meekly accept confiscation of their weapons, by licensure or by direct taking. Put that together with enough local law enforcement who revere the Constitution and it’s not all that hard to imagine a local sheriff who refuses to honor a state or federal confiscation order, being confronted by state officers, backed up by specially deputized citizens.

Such a situation could result in the sheriff and his deputies on one side, with state officers on the other. Now that the Democrats have won (in the opinion of tens of millions of Americans, by stealing) the White House and Senate, then we would likely add ATF and/or FBI agents into the mix on the side of the state. What might that look like?

New Mexico—A cool March morning, 2022, San Juan County Sheriff Shane Ferrari stood at the head of his deputies and armed local citizens, as they protected the home of Joe Q. Citizen from an unconstitutional raid designed to confiscate Citizen’s guns. “This is an unconstitutional gun-grab measure,” Ferrari said (to a reporter covering the confrontation) regarding the state law backed up by presidential executive order, supposedly authorizing such a raid—a law signed back in 2019 by then-Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, and order signed by President Joe Biden before he was unceremoniously removed by the Democrat Party, in favor of Harris.

Just as he finished talking, the lead ATF agent stepped forward and spoke into a bullhorn, “Sheriff Ferrari! You and your men are in violation of federal and state laws. By order of President Kamala Harris, You are hereby ordered to drop your weapons and surrender to federal and state authorities immediately.”

On a cool March morning—2022.

Buckle Up.

Where Are Biden’s Executive Orders On Guns?

It’s been more than two weeks since Joe Biden was sworn in as president, but gun control activists are still waiting for Biden to enact any of the executive actions that he declared would be coming if he took office. March For Our Lives’ David Hogg called for action on MSNBC this past Sunday, including the creation of a cabinet-adjacent position called the Director of Gun Violence Prevention. Hogg’s comment prompted administration official Susan Rice to tell host Jonathan Capeheart in a later segment that the administration was looking forward to “partnering” with anti-gun groups.
Four days later, still no anti-gun executive orders. On Thursday press secretary Jen Psaki was quizzed about the presidential inaction by NBC White House reporter Peter Alexander, but Psaki didn’t offer much of an answer.
Psaki responded, “As Vice President, and even before that, the President took on the NRA twice and won. This is an issue he is personally committed to, many in this building are personally committed to, I think he would love to see action on additional gun safety measures to protect families and children.”
Alexander followed by asking when Biden “would he take action and put something before Congress?”
Psaki simply responded she believes there are some proposals before Congress already.
I’m not sure why Alexander was so interested in Biden’s gun control legislative agenda instead of asking why, if gun control was a “day one priority” for the president he hasn’t signed any executive orders on firearms. In fact, Alexander was pretty dismissive of any potential executive action, telling Psaki that “we know there is only so much he can do by executive action on it.”
While that may be true, it’s also going to be a lot easier for Biden to sign an executive order than get his gun ban through Congress, at least at the moment. It seems odd to me that Alexander would brush off the executive actions that Biden proposed as a candidate, including banning the importation of modern sporting rifles and directing the ATF to change the definition of a firearm to encompass unfinished frames and receivers.
It’s also odd for Alexander to have focused on legislation given the fact that gun control groups like Everytown for Gun Safety, which spent tens of millions of dollars to elect Biden, have put out their own list of demands that Biden can adopt without having to go through Congress. Everytown’s founder and chief funder Michael Bloomberg has even used his personal news network to push for Biden to impose new orders dealing with firearms.

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Michigan county prosecutor dismissing all charges related to violating Whitmer’s COVID-19 orders

The Wayne County, Michigan, prosecutor declared on Monday that she will dismiss all charges related to  the violation of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D) COVID-19 executive orders after a state Supreme Court ruling.

Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s office released a statement announcing that the almost 1,700 cases in the county involving violations of Whitmer’s coronavirus restrictions, most of which were in Detroit, would be dismissed.

The Wayne County prosecutor’s office (WCPO) cited a Michigan Supreme Court ruling that determined Whitmer did not have the authority to extend a state of emergency past April 30, 2020, meaning she could not issue or renew any coronavirus emergency orders beyond that date.

The prosecutor’s office said it and law enforcement agencies had issued violations and misdemeanors associated with breaches of the governor’s orders before the ruling, following the applicable law at the time.

The violations included disobeying orders on gatherings, business closures and Whitmer’s other emergency orders.

After reviewing the cases, “it was determined that there is not a legal basis to proceed with them,” the office’s statement said. “WCPO will be dismissing all adjudicated cases and all pending cases.”

“Governor Whitmer’s leadership has prevented many of our citizens from contracting COVID-19,” Worthy said in a statement. “However, considering the Supreme Court’s decision, WCPO will no longer use criminal prosecution to enforce the Governor’s Executive Order. It is my earnest hope that people will continue to wear face masks, social distance, and quarantine when warranted.”

The Michigan Supreme Court gave its ruling denying Whitmer the authority to extend the state of emergency in October. The governor’s office had requested that the court postpone its enactment of its decision so there could be “an orderly transition,” which the court rejected days later.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Wayne County has confirmed more than 61,000 COVID-19 cases and almost 2,000 deaths, according to state data.

Homicides in US Cities Sharply Increased 30 Percent in 2020

Homicide rates in the U.S. last year were 30% higher than in 2019, according to a new report released Monday.

The sharp jump in homicides meant an additional 1,268 deaths from the previous year in the 34 cities covered in the report, which was put out by the National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice and Arnold Ventures.

Only four cities – Raleigh, North Carolina; Baltimore; St. Petersburg, Florida; and Virginia Beach – had a decrease in homicides.

Although various researchers speculated on the influence of the coronavirus pandemic and protests against the killing of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer on the rise in homicides, Thomas Abt, senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice and an author of the report, noted:

“Homicide was up all year. It was up before the pandemic started, it was up before police violence and the death of George Floyd, and it continued throughout the year. This points to multiple factors operating at the same time.”

Despite the sharp rise in homicides, the rate in the 34 cities studied was 11.4 per 100,000 residents, which was still well below the homicide rate of 19.4 per 100,000 those same cities had in 1995.

Aggravated assaults and assaults involving a firearm also both experienced a sharp rise last year, according to the report, but property crime rates were mostly down, though motor vehicle thefts went up by more than 12% compared to 2019.