Category: Goobermint

Taking guns away from lawful owners isn’t practical

RALEIGH — When officers from the U.S. Marshal Service, the N.C. Department of Adult Correction, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, and other agencies approached a home in eastern Charlotte on April 29, their purpose was to serve warrants on a fugitive named Terry Clark Hughes Jr.

The fugitive fought back, costing four men their lives: Adult Correction officers Alden Elliot and Samuel Paloche, Deputy U.S. Marshal Thomas Weeks, and CMPD’s Joshua Ayer.

Hughes was a habitual felon. In 2011, he was convicted in Person County of breaking and entering. In 2012, he was convicted in Alamance County of speeding to elude arrest — having fled a checkpoint at more than 100 miles an hour — and possessing a firearm, which as a felon he lacked the right to do.

So, when the task force arrived at the Galway Drive house on April 29, among the charges Hughes faced was the illegal possession of guns. Alas, he still had guns. He used them to murder four men before his outrageous conduct cost him his own life.

The officers were there, in other words, to enforce a gun-control law with nearly universal acceptance. And yet, in the aftermath of this horrific incident, progressive politicians couldn’t help themselves. Rather than tailor their reactions to the facts of the case, they engaged in a robotic plug-and-play.

In his April 29 statement, for example, Joe Biden called the officers “fallen heroes.” Yes, they are.

But the president also said this: “We must do more to protect our law enforcement officers. That means funding them — so they have the resources they need to do their jobs and keep us safe. And it means taking additional action to combat the scourge of gun violence. Now. Leaders in Congress need to step up so that we ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, require safe storage of guns, and pass universal background checks and a national red flag law. Enough is enough.”

Several days later, after President Biden met with family members of the fallen heroes as well as others wounded in the firefight, he insisted lawmakers needed to “keep the weapons of war” out of the wrong hands.

The hands of habitual felon Terry Clark Hughes certainly had no business holding firearms of any kind. But it was already illegal for him to do so. That was one of the main reasons the officers were there to arrest him in the first place.

As for the funding of state and federal law enforcement, I see no evidence it played any role here. Safe storage of guns? While the North Carolina General Assembly has already legislated on this matter, it also had no relevance to the case. Nor did the absence of red flag laws (since any report to authorities by family members that he possessed a gun would already have triggered yet another warrant for his arrest) or broader background checks (since he already knew he was precluded from owning a gun and wouldn’t have tried buying firearms from anyone required to use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System).

That leaves only Biden’s stated desire to ban all assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Assuming he means semiautomatic rifles such as the AR-15 — automatic weapons are already illegal for the vast majority of Americans to own — there are tens of millions of such rifles currently in private hands across our country. Most have magazines holding more than 10 rounds.

To put the matter bluntly, there is no practical way of confiscating these weapons from their lawful owners. Let’s focus on actual criminals like Terry Clark Hughes.

John Hood is a John Locke Foundation board member. His latest books, Mountain Folk and Forest Folk, combine epic fantasy with early American history (FolkloreCycle.com).

Sometimes, you wonder if corrupt crap like this isn’t done on purpose, simply to test the opposition’s mental acuity.

Judge Aileen Cannon is a Heroine
She is scheduled on June 21st to hear oral argument on whether special counsel Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed

The liberal news media is full of false stories about how Judge Aileen Cannon of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida has delayed former President Donald Trump’s trial unnecessarily for allegedly mishandling classified documents. But, in fact, the Biden Administration and its Attorney General, Merrick Garland, are themselves to blame for the current delay. Special Counsel Jack Smith claims to be an inferior officer of the United States, but in fact he holds no such office. Smith is a mere employee of the Department of Justice, and he lacks the power to initiate prosecutions. Lucia v. Securities and Exchange Commission, 585 U.S. __ (2018) holds that only officers of the United States can take actions that affect the life, liberty, and property of citizens.

Judge Cannon has asked for oral argument on June 21, 2024 on former President Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment on the ground that Smith was unconstitutionally appointed to his current job because he is not an inferior officer. Washington, D.C. super-lawyer, Gene Schaerr, has filed an amicus brief in United States v. Trump on behalf of former Attorney Generals Edwin Meese III and Michael B. Mukasey, as well as me and Professor Gary Lawson, arguing that Jack Smith was unconstitutionally appointed to be an inferior officer, and Judge Cannon has asked Gene Schaerr to participate in the oral argument, which he has agreed to do.

The Appointment Clause of Article II, Section 2 provides that: “the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.” Jack Smith claims to be an inferior officer of the United States appointed by the Head of the Justice Department, but he is instead a mere employee.

We argue in our amicus brief that Congress has never by law vested in the Attorney General as the Head of a Department the power to appoint inferior officers even though Congress has explicitly vested that power in the Heads of the Departments of Energy, Health and Human Services, Transportation, and Agriculture. The only power, which Congress has given to the Attorney General is the power to make a sitting U.S. Attorney a Special Counsel with jurisdiction to prosecute cases nationwide and outside his or her home district. Thus, the Delaware U.S. Attorney, David C. Weiss, currently has nationwide jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute Hunter Biden as a Special Counsel, and this appointment is completely constitutional. Similarly, former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald, was quite legitimately given nationwide jurisdiction to prosecute former Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, in Washington, D.C. Fitzgerald got Libby convicted and sentenced to time in jail.

Jack Smith, however, was a private citizen, and not a sitting U.S. Attorney, when Attorney General Merrick Garland named him to be the Special Counsel who would investigate and prosecute Donald Trump. Smith’s appointment as an inferior officer was thus unconstitutional, and therefore the cases against former President Donald Trump, which Smith is prosecuting in Florida and in Washington D.C. must be dismissed. Again, Congress has never by law vested in the Attorney General the power to appoint inferior officers

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Joe Biden’s Weapons ‘Pause’ Will Get More Israeli Soldiers, Civilians Killed

President Joe Biden’s reckless halt of weapons to Israel will result in countless Israeli soldiers being killed in buildings that would otherwise have been destroyed.

According to a military source, Israeli soldiers will have to take cover in buildings as Hamas continues its attack in Rafah as the Biden Administration revealed it withheld 2,000-lb. and 500-lb. bombs. 

D.C. bureaucrats have urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to refrain from invading Rafah without defense for its civilians. The PM has long insisted that ground invasion into the region is necessary in order to remove Hamas from power. Biden’s halt of a weapons shipment to the Jewish state made that near impossible. 

During a CNN interview this week, Biden warned that the U.S. would stop supplying weapons to Israel if the IDF attacks Rafah.

The source claimed that everything in Rafah is rigged to blow up, including all of the buildings. He also warned that Hamas has been preparing for Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) to enter the region. 

“We are being engaged in numerous buildings, and tunnels rigged in a manner we have not yet encountered,” the source said. 

Hamas had plenty of time to prepare after Biden’s opposition forced Israel to delay an operation in Rafah for three months. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) practice in Gaza has often been to identify buildings where Hamas has hidden, warn residents to leave, and then bomb the buildings.

Dozens of soldiers died earlier in the war in booby-trapped buildings. The IDF is prepared for a slow, methodical campaign in Rafah. But that also means Israel will have to accept a higher number of military casualties than it otherwise would have. Via Breitbart News. 

In a soon-to-be-released report from the Biden Administration, it does not indicate that Israel violated terms for its use of U.S. weapons. According to two U.S. officials and a third person briefed on the situation, the report is expected to be critical of Israel. 

Congressional aides claim the delay in bomb shipment’s value as “tens of millions” of U.S. dollars.

In addition to Republicans demanding answers from the Biden Administration on its efforts to withhold weapons from Israel, 26 Democrats sent a letter to U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan expressing concerns over the situation. 

In a rare unison, Republicans and several Democrats believe the U.S. should not abandon its top ally. 

“With democracy under assault around the world, we cannot undermine our ally Israel, especially in her greatest hour of need. America’s commitments must always be ironclad,” the letter read. 

Day Before Biden Admin Announced It Would Withhold Weapons From Israel, It Issued Sanctions Waiver To Allow Arms Sales to Qatar and Lebanon.

Less than a day before the Biden administration announced its intent to cut off U.S. arms sales to Israel, it issued a sanctions waiver to bypass congressional prohibitions on arms sales to a host of Arab nations that boycott the Jewish state, including Hamas ally Qatar and Iran-controlled Lebanon, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.

On Tuesday—just a day before President Joe Biden threatened to withhold key weapons deliveries from Israel if the country moves forward with an incursion in the Gaza Strip’s Rafah neighborhood—the State Department informed Congress that it intends to bypass laws that bar the United States from selling weapons to nations that boycott Israel, according to a copy of the notification obtained by the Free Beacon.

The Biden administration, which has waived these sanctions in the past, said in the notification that it intends to extend the waiver through April 30, 2025, allowing weapons to be sent to a host of nations that work closely with the Hamas terror group and other Iran-backed terror proxies.

While the administration determined that these countries engage in Israel boycotts, a condition that triggers American anti-boycott laws, bypassing these restrictions remains “in the U.S. national interest” to maintain regional stability, according to the waiver. But this justification is drawing scrutiny on Capitol Hill as the Biden administration threatens key arms shipments to Israel in a bid to force it into abandoning its campaign to eradicate Hamas.

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Well, it is political Kabuki Theater, but it’s better than summer reruns…

Joe Biden Faces Impeachment Calls After Threatening to Withhold Weapons From Israel

Republicans are calling for immediate disciplinary action against President Joe Biden after he threatened to withhold ammunition from Israel. 

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) suggested that Biden should be impeached for caving to pro-Hamas agitators and halting the shipment of offensive weapons to Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in an attempt to prevent the Jewish state from attacking the terrorist group in Rafah.

Several GOP lawmakers, including Cotton, say Biden deliberately did it as a “political decision” ahead of the 2024 presidential election. 

“The House has no choice but to impeach Biden based on the Trump-Ukraine precedent of withholding foreign aid to help with reelection,” Cotton wrote on X. “Only with Biden, it’s true.”

In response to Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL) drafting impeachment articles against the president, Kash Patel, former DoD Chief of Staff, drew comparisons of Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan to his threatening to cut off aid to Israel. 

He noted that Biden’s reckless actions have abandoned the nation’s allies that have resulted in the release of terrorists. 

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Ignore the Shocking Number of Rapes Committed by ‘Newcomers’ or You’ll Be Punished, You Bigot

As I’ve written before, the globalists have spent decades indoctrinating Westerners to believe that legitimate criticism of people with darker skin is a sign of racism, if not “proof” of so-called “white supremacy.” That includes speaking out against the epidemic of illegal immigrants, or asylum-seekers — call them what you will — committing unspeakable levels of sexual assault against Western women.

Most Americans have no idea what has been happening in Europe for two decades. But as I’ve warned in the past, the United States is only five to seven years behind the UK. Watch our Brit friends if you want to see what the pinkos have planned for “The Great Satan,” otherwise known as We the People.

Gang rapists in Britain, a vast majority of whom are/were Pakistani Muslims, had been sexually assaulting thousands of young girls and women with near impunity. How was such a heinous, nationwide calamity allowed to take place? Once the “woke” British cops realized most of the rapists were Muslims, they tucked their cowardly tails between their smooth, Ken-doll legs and said nothing for fear of being called “racists.”

When it comes to an alarming and fairly secret wave of crimes being committed by “diversity delegates,” England isn’t alone. Danish crime stats from 2010-2021 revealed the dirty little secret that “asylum seekers” committed far more crimes than citizens born in Denmark. Roughly 58% of the sexual assaults in Malmo, Sweden, considered the “rape capital” of Europe, were committed by minority “foreign-born” attackers.

FACT-O-RAMA! Gropey Joe Biden referred to Laken Riley’s murderer as an “illegal.” Realizing his faux pas, he apologized to the woke gods for his insolence, claiming he should have referred to the animal as “undocumented.”

Merely being quiet about the tens of thousands of Western women being raped seems not to be working anymore, so the globalists allowing the carnage have begun punishing those who speak out.

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US says no aid entered Gaza via Kerem Shalom; IDF releases footage showing trucks crossing

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller says that while Israel reopened the Kerem Shalom crossing this morning, no trucks carrying humanitarian aid actually went through the gate today due to logistical and security concerns.

Hours earlier, though, the IDF released drone footage showing the entry of trucks carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip today via the crossing.

Miller also says at the press briefing that despite assurances from Israel, the Rafah crossing into Gaza wasn’t opened to fuel shipments either, and urges Israel to immediately ensure the delivery of aid into Gaza.

Defense sources tell The Times of Israel that the Rafah crossing with Egypt will remain closed amid the ongoing IDF operations on the Gazan side of the crossing. The IDF hasn’t given any timeline regarding its operation in eastern Rafah or what will subsequently happen with the border crossing with Egypt.

Trump Classified Docs Trial Postponed Indefinitely.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon indefinitely postponed Trump’s classified documents trial.

“The Court also determines that finalization of a trial date at this juncture—before resolution of the myriad and interconnected pre-trial and CIPA issues remaining and forthcoming—would be imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court, critical CIPA issues, and additional pretrial and trial preparations necessary to present this case to a jury,” Judge Cannon wrote.

“The Court therefore vacates the current May 20, 2024, trial date (and associated calendar call), to be reset by separate order following resolution of the matters before the Court, consistent with Defendants’ right to due process and the public’s interest in the fair and efficient administration of justice.”

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case against former President Donald Trump has been on shaky ground lately. On Friday, Smith’s team admitted to misleading Cannon and tampering with the evidence that had been used as the basis for his case against Trump.

Last month, Cannon unsealed a trove of new documents in the case that also revealed that an FBI agent had testified that the General Services Administration (GSA) was in possession of Trump’s boxes in Virginia before ordering Trump’s team to come get them. The same boxes that the GSA had been holding and ordered Trump’s team to retrieve ended up being the boxes that contained classified markings, raising questions about whether the Biden administration had set up Trump.

“So an entire pallet full of boxes that had been held by GSA somewhere outside of DC is dumped at Mar-a-Lago,” independent journalist Julie Kelly noted. “Apparently these are the boxes that ended up containing papers with ‘classified markings.'”

The Supreme Court also heard oral arguments over Trump’s claims to presidential immunity, which may affect this cause.

Cannon’s decision is a major win for President Trump, who has repeatedly sought to delay the case until after the presidential election in November. In early April, Cannon rejected Trump’s previous attempt to dismiss the case, which he based on the argument that the documents found at his estate were personal records. Trump had filed multiple motions for dismissal back in February, employing various arguments, such as asserting presidential immunity and questioning the legitimacy of Smith’s appointment.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden had classified information that he was never entitled to have stored in boxes in his garage for years but was not charged. In February Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report concluded that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen” and that his actions “present[ed] serious risks to national security.” However, Hur wouldn’t bring charges against him because Biden “would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Because of this, Hur concluded it would be “difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him […] of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.” Hur found that Biden’s memory was “significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017 and in his interview with our office in 2023” and that he couldn’t remember the years he was vice president or when his son Beau died.

John Kirby Says Israel Can’t Eliminate An Ideology With Force. History Disagrees.

In the 12th century, the Christian dualist movement Catharism began spreading across northern Italy and southern France. It was neither the first nor the last heretical challenge to orthodox Christianity in medieval Europe — as Catholics can surely attest.

In any event, the Cathars essentially believed, among many other heresies, in two gods: one of eternal heaven and another of worldly evil. The belief became so popular that Pope Innocent III, apparently not a fan of religious liberty, was compelled to launch the Albigensian Crusade to stamp out this theological perversion. Hundreds of thousands likely perished. In one French Cathar city, 20,000 people were reported slaughtered under papal legate.

I thought of the Cathars, as one does, when Kirby responded to a question about the United States’ support for Israel’s goal of eliminating Hamas with his popular trope — “You’re not going to eliminate an ideology through military operations.” Unlike the Albigensian Crusaders, of course, Israel is taking unprecedented precautions to protect the civilian life of their enemies — even though Hamas, unlike medieval Christians, hides behind them.

The worst part of Kirby’s platitudinous nonsense, however, is that it creates the impression Israel is trying to eliminate an entire “ideology” rather than trying to eradicate an organized military and cultural force that uses theology for violent political aims. Of course Israel can’t bore into the souls of Gazans and transform them into right-thinking people. It can destroy Hamas’ hold on territory and render its ideology largely useless. It can bring the purveyors of Hamas ideology to justice and eradicate their military capabilities. For now, that’s good enough.

Moreover, if fighting wars to defend enlightened ideas against nefarious ones is really such a waste of time, why are we sending hundreds of billions to Ukraine to fight Putinst aggression? We are incessantly assured that the European war is a battle between “autocracy” and “democracy.” These are ideological camps. If Volodymyr Zelensky could strike a debilitating blow to Putin’s political power, would Kirby contend it was a waste of time?

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With ‘friends’ like this, we need no enemies.

Cornyn Engages in Damage Control on ATF New Rule

The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act wouldn’t have passed without the help of one Sen. John Cornyn.

Cornyn championed the bill in the Senate, getting enough Republicans to sign on in order to get it out of that chamber and onto the House where there was never a chance at stopping it.

Which, honestly, might not have been too big of a deal were it not for this one bit that changed the definition of gun dealer, removing the requirement that someone attempt to make a livelihood out of selling firearms.

It seemed a small thing, but now it’s opening up things for the ATF where they can essentially push through universal background checks without going through Congress.

And Cornyn is now trying to do something about it.

The U.S. Justice Department rolled out a new policy last month requiring background checks for people who informally sell firearms at gun shows or on the internet. The rule, which is set to take effect on May 20, is based on a revised definition of gun dealers put forth in Cornyn’s so-called Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

Previously, gun dealers were defined under federal law as those who sell firearms with the “principal objective of livelihood and profit.” Under the revised definition, gun dealers are any people who “predominantly earn a profit” from selling firearms.

“Under this regulation, it will not matter if guns are sold on the internet, at a gun show, or at a brick-and-mortar store: if you sell guns predominantly to earn a profit, you must be licensed, and you must conduct background checks,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said last month. “This regulation is a historic step in the Justice Department’s fight against gun violence. It will save lives.”

Cornyn has vowed to file a congressional resolution of disapproval over the policy, and he said the Biden administration’s efforts to tie it to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act is “an outright lie.”

“This rule has long been on Democrats’ wish list, and for the Biden administration to say it’s a result of our school safety and mental health law is a shameless attempt to hide their real goal: to take away the firearms of every law-abiding American,” Cornyn said in a joint statement with North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis. “We will fight this unconstitutional rule tooth and nail, and look forward to overturning it in the Senate as soon as possible.”

I’m sorry, but Cornyn doesn’t get to play savior here.

He’s the reason we’re in this mess to begin with. Were it not for him crossing the lines for BSCA, the definitions wouldn’t have changed enough for the ATF to even begin to try this. He cajoled and pushed for the precise legislation that opened the door.

Now, he’s trying to engage in damage control, hoping he can keep his job by being aggressive in his rhetoric about the Biden administration’s efforts.

Did he not see this coming? Did he even read the bill?

To be fair, I don’t actually think Cornyn intended for this to happen. I think he just didn’t think through the ramifications of his actions.

Yet let’s also remember that we don’t give people a pass on the results of their actions. How many people are held culpable for the accidents they get into while driving drunk? They don’t intend to hit other cars or pedestrians, but they do, and we hold them accountable.

The Crumbleys didn’t intend for their child to carry out a mass shooting, but the lack of intention didn’t absolve them in the eyes of the court.

Hannah Guiterrez-Reed didn’t intend for a live round to end up in the gun that killed Halyna Hutchins, but she’s going to do time for it just the same.

We hold people accountable for the outcomes of their actions, and in this case, Cornyn’s actions directly led to the ATF’s proposed rule. While we can argue that even with the BSCA’s changes, it’s still overreach, it’s overreach that wouldn’t be remotely possible had Cornyn not bent the knee to Biden on it in the first place.

BLUF:
From what I can gather, the problem in cities is usually not that the police department itself is unwilling to assist, but that they are under orders from the mayor, afraid of upsetting far left constituents, to stand down.

Well, of course that’s what’s going on. Police usually do exactly what their city’s management tells them to do. Geez……

DAVID BERNSTEIN

Hans Bader on Selective Law Enforcement
Police in some major cities are refusing to enforce the law against protest “encampments”
I have been increasingly aware of, and disturbed by, instances of local police declining the requests of universities to help the universities–which generally do not have law enforcement officers capable of dealing with hundreds of people resisting arrest–arrest  protestors and remove their protest encampments. I was preparing to write a blog post about this, but Hans Bader beat me to it. So rather than reinvent the wheel, with permission, below is a shortened version of Hans’ post:

You have a right to free speech, but that doesn’t give you a First Amendment right to camp out on my lawn with protest signs. That’s trespassing. But government officials sometimes allow trespassing when they sympathize with the trespasser’s viewpoint. Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC have refused to remove progressive anti-Israel protesters camping out at private universities — Johns Hopkins University, the University of Pennsylvania, and George Washington University.

Law professor David Bernstein notes that “Baltimore police will not assist in removing illegal encampment at Johns Hopkins University. Worse, they actually praise the illegal encampment as a valid exercise of First Amendment rights, which is complete nonsense. It’s especially nonsensical because most of the protesters are trespassers with no connection to the university.”

“The City of Baltimore strongly stands with every person’s First Amendment rights. Barring any credible threat of violence or similarly high threshold to protect public safety, BPD currently has no plans to engage solely to shut down this valid protest or remove protesters,” said the Baltimore police department in a statement apparently dictated by the mayor’s office.

Contrary to what this statement claims, there is no “First Amendment” right to camp out on public property, much less private property like the campus of Johns Hopkins University, which can tell trespassers to leave regardless of whether they are engaged in First Amendment activity. Camping out on someone else’s property is not a “valid protest,” even if the protesters have not yet made any “threat of violence.” The Supreme Court ruled that protesters do not have a right to camp out even on public property devoted to public use, like national parks, in Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence (1984).

Yet Neetu Arnold of the National Association of Scholars notes that Philadelphia is similarly refusing to clear out a protest camp at the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League university: “Philadelphia Police ignores Penn’s request to disband unauthorized encampment. The university has to provide proof that the encampment poses an imminent danger. Penn students have received multiple warnings to avoid the immediate area.” The Daily Pennsylvanian reports that the “Philadelphia Police Department declines to disband encampment after Penn requests immediate help.”

As a University of Pennsylvania alumnus notes, these illegal protests are only being allowed by progressive officials because of the viewpoint they are expressing. If the protesters were “white nationalists waving nazi flags and telling black people they should go back to Africa I’m sure [police] would be out there pretty quickly” to remove them.

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Week in Review: Gun Owners Targeted

The wannabe gun-grabbers on the Pima County, Ariz., Board of Supervisors have been looking to pick a fight over the state’s firearm statutes.

They picked the wrong one. Now, the Goldwater Institute is suing the county on behalf of Air Force veteran Chris King over an illegal mandate that slaps $1,000 fines on residents who fail to report a lost or stolen firearm to the government within two days.

Arizona law prohibits cities, counties, and other local government entities from passing almost any type of firearm-related regulation. But public records obtained by the Institute reveal the board has been gearing up for this fight for years, coordinating with left-wing activist groups, attorneys, and other elected officials to undermine Arizona’s broad protections for the rights to keep and bear arms.

They’ve bitten off more than they can chew—and now, they’ll have to defend their illegal ordinance in state court.

“We’re a nation of laws,” Chris says. “Why do Pima County officials think they’re above the law?”

The Goldwater Institute will always defend constitutional rights and keep rogue government entities in check when they thumb their nose at the law.

Read more here.

If the prosecution lied about this, what else did they lie about?

Trump Whodunnit: Prosecutors admit key evidence in document case has been tampered with
Legal experts call revelation a “serious violation” as Jack Smith’s team admits it also misled court.

In a stunning admission, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team is admitting that key evidence in former President Donald Trump’s classified documents criminal case was altered or manipulated since it was seized by the FBI, and that prosecutors misled the court about it for a period of time.

Legal experts told Just the News the revelation could prove to be a serious problem for prosecutors and a violation of court rules to preserve evidence in the state it was seized.

In a new filing Friday, Smith’s team said that the order of documents in some of the boxes of memos that were seized by the FBI from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was altered or jumbled, leaving two different chronologies: one that was digitally scanned and another the physical order in the boxes.

“Since the boxes were seized and stored, appropriate personnel have had access to the boxes for several reasons, including to comply with orders issued by this Court in the civil proceedings noted above, for investigative purposes, and to facilitate the defendants’ review of the boxes,” Smith’s team wrote in a new court filing to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon.

“There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans,” the prosecutors wrote.

Smith’s team in a footnote also conceded it had misled the court about the problem by previously declaring that the evidence had remained in the exact state it had been seized.

“The Government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what Government counsel previously understood and represented to the Court,” the footnote said.

You can read the filing here:

gov.uscourts.flsd_.648653.522.0.pdf

The organization of the documents in storage boxes at Mar-a-Lago is likely to be an important part of Trump‘s defense. His team is expected to argue the documents were stored in the White House in chronological order on the days that Trump received them, and that staff simply boxed them up and sent them to his home without him accessing them or knowing they contained classified information.

Smith’s team tried to downplay the problem and argued it’s not a reason for a delay in Trump’s case.

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O’Keefe Media Group Exposes Alleged CIA Plot Against Trump.

According to a new undercover report by the O’Keefe Media Group, high-level intelligence community executives—including former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former CIA Director Gina Haspel—withheld information from former President Donald Trump throughout his administration.

A video posted on social media by James O’Keefe features Amjad Anton Fseisi, purported to be the project manager for cyber operations at the CIA. In the video, the undercover reporter for O’Keefe Media Group gets Fseisi to admit that several intelligence agencies deliberately withheld information from Trump out of some absurd fear that he might “disclose it.” Fseisi is seen in the recording admitting that intelligence agencies “all got together and said, ‘We’re not gonna tell Trump.’”

“The executive staff,” Fseisi said in response to a question about who specifically was involved in the decision.

“We’re talking about the director and his subordinates.” That would include Pompeo and Haspel.

According to Fseisi, the intelligence agencies “kept information from [Trump] because we knew he’d f***ing disclose it.”

“There are certain people that would… give him a high-level overview but never give him any details. You know why? Because he’ll leak those details.”

And can you guess why Fseisi says Trump would leak sensitive information? Because Trump is… wait for it… a Russian asset!

“He’s a Russian asset,” Fseisi claimed. “He’s owned by the f***ing Russians.”

But there’s more.

“Amjad reveals to OMG’s Undercover American Swiper that intel agencies not only kept intelligence information from a sitting United States President and Commander-In-Chief, they also used FISA to spy on [Donald Trump],” O’Keefe says on X/Twitter. “And his team and [sic] are still monitoring President Trump according to Amjad who says, ‘We monitor everything.’ Amjad adds ‘we also have people that monitor his ex-wife. He likes to use burner phones’ – information only an insider with access to highly sensitive information would state.”

“We steal it [information]” and “We hack other countries just like that,” Amjad, who states he currently works on the CIA’s China Mission Center, explains how intel agencies obtain information. He also describes a broken intelligence system where “We don’t share information across agencies” because the CIA is “very reluctant” to share information with the “careless” NSA.

O’Keefe Media Group’s bombshell undercover footage supports earlier reports by investigative journalists Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag that revealed how the American intelligence community illegally ran a spy operation against then-candidate Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 and illegally acquired intelligence that was later used to justify the Federal Bureau of Investigation (@FBI) official probe, “Crossfire Hurricane,” which in turn led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that ultimately did not find evidence of Russia collusion by the 2016 Trump campaign. @shellenberger @mtaibbi @galexybrane

Contractors like Fseisi hold the duty to withhold sharing confidential or national security information. In denying his statements, Fseisi may have realized he could be held liable for violating internal agency provisions and federal laws like the Executive Agency ethics provisions, which restrict what he may share with others outside of his contracted-to agency.

Additionally, any government worker or agency head who withheld information from a superior (i.e. President Trump) may violate: (a) obstruction of justice by deception (18 USC 1512); (b) conspiracy to obstruct (18 USC 371); and false statements (18 USC 1001). Agency regulations may also provide offenses related to insubordination, reflecting poorly on the agency in public, or misrepresentation or dishonesty.

When O’Keefe confronted Fseisi on the streets of Washington, D.C., he denied making the statements in the above video.

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Biden Admin Finally Acknowledges What’s Happening With Gaza Aid

President Joe Biden has made aid to Gaza a priority as the Israel-Hamas conflict rages on, despite the increasingly high financial cost, the threat to American troops, and how such aid has been hijacked by Hamas terrorists before. As The Times of Israel covered, which our sister site of Twitchy also picked up on, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller admitted on Thursday that Hamas was able to seize aid that was coming from Jordan to Gaza.

As the report mentioned:

According to Miller, the aid shipment was unloaded by the Jordanian military inside the Strip before being “picked up by a humanitarian implementer for distribution inside Gaza, and that aid was intercepted and diverted by Hamas on the ground in Gaza.”

“The UN is either in the process or has by now recovered that aid, but it was an unacceptable act by Hamas to divert this aid to begin with,” he said during a press briefing.

Miller added that UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, would likely issue a statement soon condemning the incident, indicating it was the organization from which Hamas stole the aid.

“If there’s one thing that Hamas could do to jeopardize the shipment of aid, it would be diverting it for their own use, rather than allowing it to go to the innocent civilians that need it,” he said, claiming this was the “first widespread case of diversion that we have seen” in Gaza.

Hamas held the aid trucks for “some time” before releasing them, according to Miller….

Israel recently stepped up efforts to deliver aid by land and opened up new ground routes, including opening Erez to aid trucks on Wednesday. Washington has said aid delivery has increased significantly in recent weeks, but that more is needed.

A temporary pier is also being constructed by the US military to increase humanitarian aid deliveries, and is more than halfway complete, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

The subheadline for The Times of Israel’s article notes, with added emphasis, that this was “the ‘first widespread case of diversion’ acknowledged by US.”

There’s been video evidence for months now of Hamas taking over aid meant for civilians and sold on the black market. The article also mentions the tricky way that the United States has tried to go about that narrative:

[Miller’s] comments follow Israel’s long-standing contention that Hamas stockpiled supplies and kept them from increasingly desperate civilians. Footage from Gaza has shown gunmen, who were reportedly linked to the terror group, stealing trucks delivering humanitarian aid from Egypt.

In February, the US diplomat who was then involved in humanitarian assistance for Gaza denied allegations that Hamas stole aid and commercial shipments into the enclave, saying that no Israeli official had presented him or the Biden administration with “specific evidence of diversion or theft of assistance.”

At the same time, he acknowledged that Hamas had used other aid delivery channels to “shape where and to whom assistance goes.”

That acknowledgment of how much control Hamas really has in the region is a pretty significant one.

When it comes to Miller expecting a statement from the UNRWA, that may be asking too much. There’s evidence that the pro-Hamas agency of the anti-Israel United Nations has actually been involved with the terrorist group, and that this includes even holding one of the captives taken as a hostage on October 7.

As of early Friday afternoon, the most recent official statement posted to the UNRWA website is from Tuesday, April 30 and highlights the introductory remarks from UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini. There’s plenty of sympathizing with Gazans and criticism about Israel’s role in the conflict, but no update on hijacked aid.

Further, the UNRWA’s X account also contains no mention of the aid that was intercepted by Gaza. Instead, the posts lament the situation in Gaza as a result of the Israel-Hamas conflict brought on from the brutal attack that Hamas perpetrated against Israel on October 7, demand more assistance for their region and agency, and call for a ceasefire.

Maine Gov. Mills Allows 3-Day Wait, Vetoes Bump Stock Ban

Maine Gov. Janet Mills will allow a bill mandating a three-day waiting period on gun purchases to become law without her signature, while she vetoed legislaton that would have banned “bump stocks” in what may have been an effort to give up something to those opposed to the gun control package.

According to News Center Maine, the waiting period bill “drew fierce opposition from Republicans” and in a state with a long tradition, and high rate of lawful gun ownership, penalizing honest gun owners for crimes they did not commit is not going over well.

It does not appear bump stocks have been a problem in Maine. The story only referenced the October 2017 mass shooting in Las Vegas—2,500 miles away—in which the killer used rifles fitted with bump stocks.

The Associated Press is reporting that Mills, a Democrat, was allowing the waiting period bill to become law “with caveats and concerns.” She plans to “monitor” any challenges relating to waiting period laws in other states.

Mills had earlier inked legislation to strengthen Maine’s “yellow flag” law and expand background checks to be required for private gun sales. The Democrat-controlled Legislature did not vote on a “red flag” proposal, which have been criticized by Second Amendment advocates because of due process concerns.

This rush to restrict gun ownership in the Pine Tree State is the Democrats’ response to last October’s mass shooting at two different locations in Lewiston. The killer was an Army reservist who had been evaluated last summer at a hospital in New York state, where he was training. After murdering 18 people, he hid in a trailer and took his own life.

There is no indication that a waiting period would have prevented the tragedy, and also no report that a bump stock was involved with the crime.

Maine is one of the safest states in the country. According to the FBI Crime Data Explorer, in 2022—the most recent year for which data is available—the state logged only 29 homicide “incidents” and 30 “offenses.” Handguns were used in nine incidents, knives/cutting instruments accounted for seven more, unidentified firearms were used in three killings and a shotgun was involved in one slaying. Maine’s crime rate is well below the national average.

AG Merrick Garland Admits That It’s *Gang* Violence, Not ‘Gun Violence’

We’ve written about it repeatedly.  It’s gang violence that’s rampant across America, not so-called “gun violence.” The problem has become so bad that even full-time partisan political hack and part-time Attorney General Merrick Garland admitted as much at an ATF “summit” just days ago. Of course, the mainstream media ignored it. What’s more, his comment even escaped most of the alternative news outlets as well.

Garland abandoned his “Christian Nationalist” and “White Supremacist” bogeymen to admit that gangs members and repeat offenders are driving the gun violence problem in America. And for the slow-witted trolls in comments, this isn’t the MAGA gang either.

Here is an excerpt from the transcript provided by the US Department of Justice:

We are using our prosecutorial and technological tools to identify the repeat offenders and gangs who are principally responsible for community violence.

And here’s the video which begins at 28:00 when Garland admits what we’ve known for a long, long time: that repeat offenders and gang members (sorry for repeating ourselves in so many instances) are driving violent crime:

Yes, the mainstream media and left-leaning pols love to redirect low-information voters from violent criminals to the tools they misuse.

I love it when soft-on-crime politicians get very defensive and very animated when you talk about gang violence in their presence or correct them when they throw out the “gun violence” talking point.

“We don’t talk about gangs,” one Illinois State Representative from Chicago said to me as I sat in his office in my role as executive director of Guns Save Life. His body language screamed his discomfort at where the conversation was headed.

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ATF’s Poorly Trained ‘Operators’ are a Threat to Public Safety

ATF Agents qualify with handguns during the two-week course to become member of ATF’s Special Response Team. (Screenshot courtesy ATF.gov)

Selection, training and leadership are vital to any special operations team, regardless of their size or mission parameters. The more rigorous the selection process, the more comprehensive the training, the more professional the leadership, the better the unit will perform.

Delta Force’s Operators Training Course, for example, is six months long, and teaches advanced CQB, precision marksmanship, counterterrorism and a host of esoteric skills needed by Delta operators to meet their worldwide mission requirements. OTC is only open to candidates who survive Delta’s arduous Selection and Assessment phase.

DEVGRU’s Green Team selection and training course is also six months long, and only Navy SEALs who have completed BUDS and spent at last five years on an SDV or SEAL team can apply.

MARSOC Raider candidates must complete a nine-month course, known as the Marine Special Operations Individual Course, or ITC. MARSOC Officers must also attend a four-week Team Commanders Course after they graduate ITC.

Army Special Forces candidates can spend six months to two years training before they earn an SF tab and a Green Beret, and the pipeline for Air Force special operators can take 15 months to two years.

Special Agents who want to join the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team must pass the New Operator Training School, which is 10 months long and extremely easy to fail.

United States Secret Service Counter Assault Team (CAT) members undergo a two-week selection course and then a seven-week basic training program. Secret Service snipers must pass a one-week selection process and then a 10-week sniper training course.

Candidates for Border Patrol’s Tactical Unit (BORTAC) undergo a three-week selection course and then a six-week training course before being assigned to a sector team. After a year, they can apply to join BORTAC’s elite national team.

By comparison, training for ATF’s Special Response Teams takes only two weeks, and ATF agents call themselves “operators” after they’ve completed the course.

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Just remember; The Process Is The Punishment™

Arizona rancher George Alan Kelly will not be retried after deadlocked jury, prosecutors announce

George Alan Kelly, the Arizona rancher charged with murder in the shooting of a Mexican national on his border property, will not be retried, prosecutors with the Santa Cruz County Attorney’s office said.

The state charged Kelly with second degree murder after he allegedly shot and killed a migrant, Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea, on his land in January 2023.

The decision not to retry Kelly comes a week after a mistrial was declared following a deadlocked jury.

Kelly’s defense confirmed to Fox News Digital that there was “one, lone holdout” juror who wanted to convict, while the remaining jurors sought an acquittal.

The jury began deliberating April 18. After days of being unable to reach a verdict, the judge overseeing the trial declared a mistrial on Monday.

Biden Defense Official Says ‘Take All the Guns’, Use National Guard

Confiscate guns

In a recent undercover video released by James O’Keefe, a Department of Defense (DoD) employee, Jason Beck, was recorded discussing the potential use of the National Guard for gun confiscation.

Beck’s assertion that the National Guard would follow orders to confiscate guns prompts questions about the military’s obligation to uphold the Constitution. The tension between obeying lawful orders and respecting individual rights underscores the complexities of military service in a democratic society.