Category: Goobermint

Great Divide: As Cal. Enacts Retail Code Law, Four Other States Say ‘No’

It is the latest warning sign of a great divide in the U.S.; a political and philosophical chasm growing wider in an election year which appears headed toward a collision of monumental proportions between the woke far left and traditional conservatives, with guns and the Second Amendment in then eye of this brewing storm.

As noted by News Nation, California’s new law requiring mandating the creation of specific retail codes that credit card companies provide to banks so the sales of firearms and ammunition at gun stores can be tracked just took effect.

At the same time, four states—Georgia, Iowa, Tennessee and Wyoming—have prohibited the use of such retail codes.

Next year, similar retail code requirements are scheduled to take effect in Colorado and New York.

There is more division on the table, with the U.S. Supreme Court declining to review two cases—one in Maryland and the other in Illinois—challenging their bans on semi-auto rifles, leaving the country divided with ten states and the District of Columbia banning the guns and the other 40 states allowing ownership. Presently, 29 Republican-controlled states allow permitless carry, and the remaining 21 states controlled by Democrats still require licenses or permits.

The retail code issue could be a Fourth Amendment cause as well as a Second Amendment because critics say it violates the privacy of gun owners, and lays the foundation for gun registration, despite what CBS News is reporting.

“The idea behind a gun merchant code is to detect suspicious activity,” the CBS report explained, “such as a person with no history of buying firearms suddenly spending large sums at multiple gun stores in a short period of time. After being notified by banks, law enforcement authorities could investigate and possibly prevent a mass shooting, gun control advocates contend.”

Larry Keane, senior vice president and general counsel at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, was quoted by the Associated Press stating, “We view this as a first step by gun-control supporters to restrict the lawful commerce in firearms.”

Many activists have already decided to pay only cash for their gun and ammunition transactions as a result of these tracking laws.

There is also a legitimate concern among gun owners that the California law equates all gun purchasers to criminal behavior.

This was illustrated in a remark by Hudson Munoz, executive director of Guns Down America, a gun prohibition lobbying organization, which states on its website, “Guns Down America is successfully building a future with fewer guns by weakening the gun industry and building political and cultural support for policies that will keep us safe from gun violence. Small but mighty, Guns Down America has led the gun violence prevention movement by ending the NRA’s lucrative insurance program, pushing major American banks to end their business relationships with irresponsible gun manufacturers, and forcing large retailers like Walmart to dramatically shrink gun sales.”

In his view, the new California law is as “first step.”

“The merchant category code is the first step in the banking system saying, `Enough! We’re putting our foot down,’ Munoz told News Nation. “You cannot use our system to facilitate gun crimes.’”

So the question arises, how can there be any progress when one side treats the other side as criminals? Eventually, that philosophy could collide with common sense, plus the Constitution.

Biden’s Physician Met with Parkinson’s Disease Expert at White House, Visitor Logs Show.

A top Washington D.C. neurologist had a meeting with President Biden’s personal doctor at the White House earlier this year, visitor logs reviewed by The Post show.

Dr. Kevin Cannard, a Parkinson’s disease expert at Walter Reed Medical Center, met with Dr. Kevin O’Connor, and two others at the White House residence clinic on Jan. 17, according to the records, which emerge as questions continue to swirl about the 81-year-old president’s mental health in the wake of his debate debacle last week with former President Trump.

Dr. John E. Atwood, a cardiologist are Walter Reed, was also in the 5 P.M. meeting, the White House visitor logs show.

Dr. Kevin Cannard, a Parkinson’s disease specialist, met with President Biden’s personal physician at the White House in January.

The fourth person has not been identified in the logs from that day, when Biden was at the White House and hosted House and Senate leaders to press them for more Ukraine funding, according to his official schedule.

Cannard is an authority on Parkinson’s who has worked at Walter Reed for nearly 20 years.

Since 2012, he has served as the “neurology specialist supporting the White House Medical Unit,” according to his LinkedIn.

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Who are they trying to kid? SloJoe has been POTUS (Puppet of the United States) since day one.

BLUF  The President Has Lost All Independence

Biden staff “miserable,” alarmed as pressure builds

Many White House, Biden campaign and Democratic officials are increasingly worried that President Biden isn’t up to continuing his campaign or finishing a second term, despite his insistence that he won’t be pushed out.

Why it matters: Outside pressure for Biden to drop his re-election bid grew wider and louder on the Fourth of July, especially from major donors. Doubts also are rising inside the house.

The big picture: “Everyone is miserable, and senior advisers are a total black hole,” a White House official told Axios. “Even if you’re trying to focus on work, nothing is going to break through or get any acknowledgment” from bosses.

  • A high-ranking Democratic National Committee official told Axios: “The only thing that can really allay concerns is for the president to demonstrate that he’s capable of running this campaign.”
  • “Everything else feels like ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ by his inner circle to prop him up.”

Between the lines: Some Biden aides believe those closest to the president have created a cocoon around him that initially seemed earnestly protective, but now appears potentially deceptive in the debate’s aftermath.

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BLUF
Imagine what could happen if the enemies of our country, our freedoms, and our way of life were to gain access to military bases. It’s a frightening situation to think about, so it’s a good thing we don’t have to because the sentries at the gate (unlike many in the current administration) know the stakes and won’t kowtow to DEI, political politeness, or whatever the sucker-punch game of the day is. Beyond those gates are the very reasons they are willing to give their lives.

Concerning Trend: Foreign Nationals Probing Military Bases While Commander-in-Chief Naps.

We won’t soon forget KJP saying it’s “inappropriate” for anyone to assume that the President needs a nap, especially because Joe Biden himself told Democratic governors two days ago that he was no longer scheduling events after 8 p.m. so he can sleep, according to CNN. While President Biden catches up on his ZzZs, America’s enemies are actively working to bring death and destruction to America.

It’s been a month since the public became aware of a disturbing trend: foreign nationals attempting to penetrate U.S. military bases and surveil the homes of high-ranking officers. Acknowledged by the Navy when Admiral Daryl Caudle, U.S. Fleet Forces Commander, sat down with Fox News’ Bill Hemmer on America’s Newsroom:

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Gun Rights Groups Challenge California’s New Firearm Tax

The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), along with several other gun rights groups and individual plaintiffs, has filed a lawsuit in San Diego County Superior Court challenging California’s recently implemented 11% tax on firearms, gun parts, and ammunition.

The lawsuit, named James v. Maduros, targets Nicolas Maduros, director of the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration.

Gun Owners of America Files Suit Against New Jersey’s “One Gun a Month” Law

The pro-Second Amendment group Gun Owners of America (GOA), along with its sister organization the Gun Owners Foundation, filed suit against New Jersey’s Attorney General Matthew Platkin, challenging him to defend the latest attack on Second Amendment rights in the Garden State.

The attack, clearly an act of derision for and challenge to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bruen (New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen) in 2022, was instigated by anti-gun Democrats who used a thinly disguised excuse to pass the law: straw purchases.

BLUF
So there you are.  A return to the rule of law, being treated as just the opposite.  Par for the course in today’s political discourse, alas.

The Supreme Court, Chevron, and the Political Class’s Worst Nightmare: Accountability.

Goodbye, Chevron deference.  Larry Tribe is already mourning the Supreme Court’s overturning of NRDC v. Chevron, in the Loper Bright and Relentless cases, as a national catastrophe:

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Oh, the humanity!

Well, speaking as a professor of Administrative Law, I think I’ll bear up just fine.  I’ve spent the last several years telling my students that Chevron was likely to be reversed soon, and I’m capable of revising my syllabus without too much trauma.  It’s on a word processor, you know.  As for those academics who have built their careers around the intricacies of Chevron deference, well, now they’ll be able to write about what comes next. And if they’re not up to that task, then it was a bad idea to build a career around a single Supreme Court doctrine.

And that wasn’t the only important Supreme Court decision targeting the administrative state, a situation that has pundit Norm Ornstein, predictable voice of the ruling class’s least thoughtful and most reflexive cohort, making Larry Tribe sound calm.

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Sure, Norm, whatever you say.

But how about let’s look at what the Court actually did in Chevron, and in the Loper Bright and Relentlesscases that overturned it, and in SEC v Jarkesy, where the Court held that agencies can’t replace trial by jury with their own administrative procedures, and in Garland. v. Cargill, where the Court held that agencies can’t rewrite statutes via their own regulations.  I don’t think you’ll find the sort of Russian style power grab that Ornstein describes, but rather a return to constitutional government of the sort that he ought to favor.

At root, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council is about deference.  Deference is a partial abdication of decisionmaking in favor of someone else.  So, for example, when we go out to dinner, I often order what my son-in-law orders, even if something else on the menu sounds appealing.  I’ve learned that somehow he always seems to pick the best thing.

Deference doesn’t mean “I’ve heard your argument and I’m persuaded by it,” (though something like that is misleadingly called “Skidmore deference, “ but isn’t actually deference at all).  Deference means “even if I would have decided this question differently, I’m going to go with your judgment instead.”

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The Dangers of a Desperate Biden Campaign

After Thursday night’s disastrous debate performance, Democrats are officially gameplanning how to get Biden to step aside as the Democratic candidate for president, even though Biden’s surrogates claim he’s not going anywhere. If Biden does decide to stay atop the Democratic ticket, he’s going to be desperate to keep his base of support as intact as possible, and desperate people do dangerous things.

That’s especially true when we’re talking about politicians. So what steps could Biden take between now and November to ensure the gun control lobby spends tens of millions of dollars to promote his doomed candidacy?

We’re not going to see a gun ban or any other gun control bill approved in Congress between now and November. Biden’s options are really limited to executive branch actions, and thankfully the Supreme Court has taken a big step toward reining in executive branch overreach by overturning the Chevron Doctrine. That doesn’t mean, however, that Biden can’t propose new ATF rules, nor does today’s decision prevent the ATF from putting those rules in place. Loper Bright makes it much easier to invalidate agency overreach after the fact, but it won’t stop abuses from being implemented or enforced.

So what, if anything, could Biden do to thrill his anti-gun allies ahead of Election Day? As retired ATF deputy assistant director Pete Forcelli told Bearing Arms just a few days ago, his sources within the agency have informed him that Bidens’ White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention is putting pressure on ATF director Steve Dettelbach to go after Glock by reclassifying the company’s semi-automatic pistols as “machine guns” because of the rise in illegal switches that allow semi-automatic firearms to function as fully automatic arms.

I have heard from some good sources that the White House, and don’t forget that the Office of Gun Violence Prevention is run by Rob Wilcox, who’s formerly from Everytown.

He has a lot of influence at ATF now, and I know that from a number of sources because I didn’t retire from there all that long ago. One of the things they kicked around was trying to force ATF to reclassify Glocks as machine guns, because they’re so easily converted, in their minds, to a machine gun through the use of a switch.

And people within ATF pushed back and Dettelbach didn’t bite into that fishhook and get caught on that… yet. Who knows what happens if the Biden administration has nothing to lose.

I think we’re officially at the stage of Biden not having anything to lose… at least if he doesn’t drop out of his re-election campaign altogether. Dettelach too might be more inclined to go for broke if Biden remains the nominee, knowing that he’ll be removed from his post if Donald Trump wins election.

They also contemplated putting out a ruling to gun manufacturers stating that if you sell to government entities, then you would be prohibited from selling to the civilian markets. So, think about that for a second.

ATF agents use the Glock. If Glock wanted to sign on and sell guns to the ATF or to the military, they would be prohibited from selling to the civilian market. Again, that did not happen, but these are the things that the White House is trying to push the ATF to do. It may be gently now, but once there’s no worry about being re-elected maybe it’s not such a gentle nudge.

Conversely, if there’s a huge worry about being re-elected, then maybe Biden and Dettelbach decide to roll the dice and release this proposed rule as well. Again, desperate times call for desperate measures, and Biden’s reelection bid is in dire straights right now.

Heck, even if Biden does decide to fall on his walker and allow for a candidate who can complete a sentence to replace him as the nominee, he may very well decide to give the gun control lobby these parting gifts before he leaves office. The gun control groups have been very good to him, and I’m sure he’d like to repay the favor while he still has the chance.

Whether Biden remains the Democratic candidate for president or steps aside and allows for a chaotic race to replace him, gun control activists like Wilcox are almost certain to push Biden to go big on their issue between now and Election Day, and it’s crucially important for Second Amendment advocates to keep up with their machinations behind the scenes.

Justices rule for Jan. 6 defendant

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-5572_l6hn.pdf

The Supreme Court on Friday threw out the charges against a former Pennsylvania police officer who entered the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, attacks. By a vote of 6-3, the justices ruled that the law that Joseph Fischer was charged with violating, which bars obstruction of an official proceeding, applies only to evidence tampering, such as destruction of records or documents, in official proceedings.

Friday’s ruling could affect charges against more than 300 other Jan. 6 defendants. The same law is also at the center of two of the four charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith against former President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C.

The Supreme Court heard oral argument on April 25 on Trump’s claims of immunity and has not yet issued its decision in that case. But Smith has argued that even if the court were to rule for Fischer, the charges against Trump could still go forward because they rested, in part, on efforts to use false electoral certificates at the joint session of Congress.

The law at the center of Fischer’s case is 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), which makes it a crime to “otherwise obstruct[], influence[], or impede[] any official proceeding.” U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols concluded that because the previous subsection, Section 1512(c)(1), bars tampering with evidence “with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding,” Section 1512(c)(2) only applies to cases involving evidence tampering that obstructs an official proceeding, and he dismissed the obstruction charge against Fischer.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed Nichols’ ruling, concluding that the “meaning of the statute is unambiguous,” so that it “applies to all forms of corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding, other than the conduct that is already covered by” the prior subsection.

On Friday, the Supreme Court vacated the D.C. Circuit’s decision, interpreting the law more narrowly to apply only to evidence tampering.

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Despite Strict Gun Laws, California Leads Nation in Mass Shootings

New figures from the FBI reveal that California, despite having some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, led the country in active shooter incidents in 2023. AWR Hawking’s over at Breitbart News called out the obvious fact after the FBI documented 48 active shooter incidents across 26 states last year, with California accounting for eight of these incidents. That number was the highest for any state.

The FBI defines an active shooter as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” The report highlights that open spaces, including roads, neighborhoods, parks, and outdoor venues, were the most common locations for these shootings, Fox News and ABC News reported.

California’s eight active shooter incidents in 2023 occurred in various settings, including open spaces, businesses, and educational centers. This marks a continuation of a troubling trend, as the state also led the nation in 2021 with six such incidents.

Federal investigators reported a total of 105 deaths and 139 injuries from these incidents nationwide. Texas and Washington state followed California, each with four incidents.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has frequently touted the success of his state’s gun control measures while criticizing the more lenient laws of other states. In a tweet on May 13, 2023, Newsom remarked, “It HAS to be the humidity. Why else would California’s gun violence rate be 57% lower than Florida’s?” However, FBI data shows that Florida had only two active shooter incidents in 2023, a quarter of California’s total.

Newsom’s comments highlight a paradox in California’s approach to gun control. While the state has implemented some of the nation’s toughest gun laws, it continues to experience a high number of mass shootings. Something clearly isn’t working. Will Newsom and his fellow anti-gun politicians ever figure it out?

FBI ‘Active Shooter’ Stats Shoot Holes In Biden’s ‘Mass Shooting’ Argument

President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, anti-gun legislators and gun-ban groups like to tout the number of mass shootings in America, often saying there have been more mass shootings in the country than there have been days in the year.

Of course, these anti-gun activists are using numbers from the Gun Violence Archives, a website known for using criteria that greatly inflates such numbers. And that’s very easy to see when compared to the just-released Federal Bureau of Investigation report on “active shooter” incidents.

GVA’s “mass shootings” criteria is all events where four or more people are injured in a shooting. These incidents are often drug gang attacks and the like—not at all what Americans think of as mass shootings. In fact, they would include a botched arrest where two cops and two suspects are shot, and even self-defense shootings! By their criteria, they reported 656 mass shootings in 2023.

The FBI, on the other hand, classifies an “active shooter” how most Americans likely envision it—“an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area.” By the FBI’s count, there were 48 active shooter incidents in 2023, only about 7% of the total reported by GVA and constantly regurgitated by politicians and the press.

Of course, President Biden and other gun-ban advocates have full access to the FBI report, but you never hear them talking about it. They prefer the bloated numbers from GVA, even though they aren’t a true picture of what most think of when they hear the word “mass shooting.”

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Supreme Court backs Biden administration in social media case

Held: Neither the individual nor the state plaintiffs have established Article III standing to seek an injunction against any defendant. 
[In other words, we aren’t going to rule on this because…..reasons. So the federal goobermint can go right ahead and keep on doing this slimy crap]

Respondents are two States and five individual social-media users
who sued dozens of Executive Branch officials and agencies, alleging
that the Government pressured the platforms to censor their speech in
violation of the First Amendment.

Following extensive discovery, the District Court issued a preliminary injunction. The Fifth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part. The court held that both the state plaintiffs and the individual plaintiffs had Article III standing to seek injunctive relief.

On the merits, the court held that the Government entities and officials, by “coerc[ing]” or “significantly encourag[ing]” the platforms’ moderation decisions, transformed those decisions into state action. The court then modified the District Court’s injunction to state that the defendants shall not coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to suppress protected speech on their platforms.

 

Army Admits Link Between COVID Vaccine and Soldier’s Heart Condition.

Investigative reporter Catherine Herridge is back. She’s on her own without any strings attached to biased MSM networks.

Herridge’s first report focuses on the military’s mandatory COVID vaccine, which led to at least one soldier’s heart condition.

Army Specialist Karoline Stancik suffered a heart attack right after she had the Moderna vaccine. She had pacemaker surgery earlier this month.

Stancik has had to take 27 medications a day since the first heart attack.

“I was left behind and trampled,” Stancik told Herridge.

Stancik never had a heart condition before the vaccine, noting that she could run 10 miles at one time and play basketball. Now she has trouble just standing up.

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The Message Is Plain

There are no property rights in the United States…at least, none that the State deigns to honor.

Do you remember Teresa Ghilarducci? I do. Any American who has a 401(k), an IRA, or some equivalent should know about her and her chief ambition:

     Democrats in the U.S. House have been conducting hearings on proposals to confiscate workers’ personal retirement accounts — including 401(k)s and IRAs — and convert them to accounts managed by the Social Security Administration.
     Triggered by the financial crisis the past two months, the hearings reportedly were meant to stem losses incurred by many workers and retirees whose 401(k) and IRA balances have been shrinking rapidly.
     The testimony of Teresa Ghilarducci, professor of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York, in hearings Oct. 7 drew the most attention and criticism. Testifying for the House Committee on Education and Labor, Ghilarducci proposed that the government eliminate tax breaks for 401(k) and similar retirement accounts, such as IRAs, and confiscate workers’ retirement plan accounts and convert them to universal Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) managed by the Social Security Administration….
     The current retirement system, Ghilarducci said, “exacerbates income and wealth inequalities” because tax breaks for voluntary retirement accounts are “skewed to the wealthy because it is easier for them to save, and because they receive bigger tax breaks when they do.”…
     All workers would have 5 percent of their annual pay deducted from their paychecks and deposited to the GRA. They would still be paying Social Security and Medicare taxes, as would the employers. The GRA contribution would be shared equally by the worker and the employee. Employers no longer would be able to write off their contributions. Any capital gains would be taxable year-on-year.

Socialists are forever talking about “inequality” (or in their more recent argot, “inequity”) because it affords them a pretext for seizing our money and property in pursuit of their agenda. It’s well established historically that “inequality” increases under socialism, but they’d rather we didn’t notice that. At any rate, they constantly seek rationales under which to “redistribute” what we’ve earned and saved. We must all be equally poor – except for our loving rulers, of course. Anything else would be “unfair!”

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Comment O’ The Day
Are you surprised the gooberment lied in a report? – Jessica J

Citing Fake Mass-Shooting Data, US Surgeon General Declares ‘Gun Violence’ a Public Health Crisis

United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared that “gun violence” constitutes a public health crisis Tuesday but cited fake mass-shooting data from the long-debunked Gun Violence Archive to support his spurious claims.

Murthy presented his finding in a 40-page Surgeon General advisory, titled “Firearm Violence: A Public Health Crisis in America.”

“While mass shooting deaths represent only about 1% of all firearm‑related deaths in the U.S., the number of mass shooting incidents is increasing. According to data published by Gun Violence Archive, the U.S. experienced more than 600 mass shooting incidents each year between 2020 and 2023, compared to an average of less than 400 annual mass shooting incidents between 2015 and 2018,” the Surgeon General’s advisory states.

In his report, Murthy cites data from the Gun Violence Archive more than four times.

Founded in 2013, the GVA quickly became the administration’s source of choice for mass-shooting data because they hype the numbers. The small nonprofit came up with its own extremely broad definition of a mass shooting, which says anytime four or more people are killed or even slightly wounded with a firearm regardless of the circumstances, it’s a mass shooting. For example, according to the GVA there were 417 mass shootings in 2019. The FBI says there were 30, because it uses a much narrower and more realistic definition, which excludes gang-related and drug-related shootings, which the GVA includes in its data.

Murthy is not the only member of the Biden-Harris administration to use fake data from the GVA. Biden and his handlers have cited GVA’s mass-shooting data throughout his presidency in speeches, written statements and social media.

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ATF Whistleblower Applauds Bump Stock Ruling, Warns of Threats Ahead

Retired ATF Deputy Assistant Director Pete Forcelli, who helped blow the whistle on the Operation Fast and Furious gunwalking scandal, tells Bearing Arms the Supreme Court made the right decision in striking down the agency’s ban on bump stocks, but he’s still deeply concerned that the agency is going to continue to be used by the Biden administration as a way to enact new gun control laws without getting Congress involved… especially if Joe Biden gets another four years in office.

The left likes to attack things, and the problem that I have is when the ATF is tasked by the White House or the Justice Department to attack things rather than hold the people responsible [for their crimes]. It’s not an item that causes the damage. It’s the person misusing that item. How many bump stocks have been used in shootings in the United States aside from Las Vegas? I don’t know of any, to be honest.

Of course, the bump stock ban was implemented under Donald Trump’s watch, so the right can look for simplistic solutions as well, especially in the wake of a high-profile shooting like the Route 91 Harvest Festival murders that resulted in 60 deaths and hundreds of injuries. But the Biden administration has used the ATF to do an end-run around Congress on a regular basis; first by targeting unfinished frames and receivers, then pistol stabilizing braces, and most recently gun owners who offer to sell one or more of their firearms from their personal collection.

Those are just the rules the agency has implemented. According to Forcelli, the White House has been demanding even more.

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