Category: Goobermint

Why Burn Books When You Can Bury Them? The White House Pressured Amazon to Target Dissenting Books

The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Monday revealed yet another facet of the Biden Administration’s sprawling censorship system that targeted dissenting books. It appears that, as with social media companies, it succeeded in getting the company not to promote disfavored books.

Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan revealed on X that the White House was directly involved in the censorship campaign. That includes a 2021 email from one Biden official asking to discuss “the high levels of propaganda and misinformation and disinformation of [sic] Amazon?”

Amazon in turn appears to ask only how high the Biden White House wants it to jump on censorship: “[i]s the [Biden] Admin asking us to remove books, or are they more concerned about search results/order (or both)?”

After the meeting, Amazon confirmed in an email that it was actively doing what the government demanded in suppressing sales by not promoting disfavored books: “As a reminder, we did enable Do Not Promote for anti-vax books whose primary purpose is to persuade readers vaccines are unsafe or ineffective on 3/9, and will review additional handling options for these books with you.”

This effort notably parallels demands from Democratic leaders who have called for enlightened algorithms to frame what citizens access on the internet. In 2021, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) objected that people were not listening to the informed views of herself and leading experts. Instead, they were reading views of skeptics by searching Amazon and finding books by “prominent spreaders of misinformation.”

Continue reading “”

BLUF
In other words, look at how consistently inconsistent AI already is in its biases, without the intervention of powerful government actors. Imagine just how much more biased it can get — and how difficult it would be for us to recognize it — if we hand the keys over to the government.

A Tale of Two Congressional Hearings (and several AI poems)

We showed up to warn about threats to free speech from AI. Half the room couldn’t care less.

Earlier today, I served as a witness at the House Judiciary Committee’s Special Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which discussed (among other things) whether it’s a good idea for the government to regulate artificial intelligence and LLMs. For my part, I was determined to warn everyone not only about the threat AI poses to free speech, but also the threats regulatory capture and a government oligopoly on AI pose to the creation of knowledge itself.

I was joined on the panel by investigative journalist Lee Fang, reporter Katelynn Richardson, and former U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic Norman Eisen. Richardson testified about her reporting on government funding the development of tools to combat “misinformation” through a National Science Foundation grant program. As FIRE’s Director of Public Advocacy Aaron Terr noted, such technology could be misused in anti-speech ways.

“The government doesn’t violate the First Amendment simply by funding research, but it’s troubling when tax dollars are used to develop censorship technology,” said Terr. “If the government ultimately used this technology to regulate allegedly false online speech, or coerced digital platforms to use it for that purpose, that would violate the First Amendment. Given government officials’ persistent pressure on social media platforms to regulate misinformation, that’s not a far-fetched scenario.”

Lee Fang testified about his reporting on government involvement in social media moderation decisions, most recently how a New York Times reporter’s tweet was suppressed by Twitter (now X) following notification from a Homeland Security agency. Fang’s investigative journalism on the documents X released after Elon Musk’s purchase of the platform has highlighted the risk of “jawboning,” or the use of government platforms to effectuate censorship through informal pressure.

Unfortunately, I was pretty disappointed that it seemed like we were having (at least) two different hearings at once. Although there were several tangents, the discussion on the Republican side was mostly about the topic at hand. On the Democratic side, unfortunately, it was overwhelmingly about how Trump has promised to use the government to target his enemies if he wins a second term. It’s not a trivial concern, but the hearing was an opportunity to discuss the serious threats posed by the use of AI censorship tools in the hands of a president of either party, so I wish there had been more interest in the question at hand on the Democratic side of the committee.

Continue reading “”

White House Wants Schools to Gaslight Parents About Guns

The White House wants to enlist school officials to help hoodwink parents about its gun control plans, according to a statement issued last week.

The reason is simple: They want to take advantage of the officials’ credibility, which the White House lacks, especially when it comes to guns.

Teachers and administrators, the White House said in the statement, “can be trusted, credible messengers when it comes to providing guidance on gun violence prevention and safe firearm storage options.”

The new program, which is one of three executive orders Joe Biden issued last week, will be spearheaded by Jill Biden, White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention Director Stefanie Feldman and Education Secretary Miguel Cardona.

“This issue matters to the President. It weighs on his heart every day. And he’s not going to stop fighting until we’ve solved it,” Jill Biden said last week while touting the plan at a “Gun Violence Prevention Event,” which was held in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

From a civil rights perspective, the most worrisome portion of the White House plan is a customizable “communications template,” which school officials “can use to engage with parents and families about the importance of safe firearm storage and encourage more people to take preventive action by safely storing firearms.”

The template is designed so school officials can insert the name of the school and their letterhead to make it appear as though the document came from the school and not the White House. In fact, neither the White House nor the Biden-Harris administration are even mentioned in the document.

and

Sincerely, [INSERT NAME OF SCHOOL OR SCHOOL DISTRICT ADMINISTRATOR]

“We encourage all school leaders to consider taking steps to build awareness in your school community about safe firearm storage, such as:

  • Share information about safe firearm storage with parents and families in your school communities. You can use the enclosed letter as a resource for parents, families, guardians, and caregivers—as well as teachers and school staff—to help build awareness around safe firearm storage, including what people can do to safely store firearms in their homes and spaces that children may occupy. You can also customize the letter to better meet your community’s needs.
  • Partner with other municipal and community leaders to help improve understanding of safe firearm storage and broader gun violence prevention efforts.
  • Engage other organizations and partners within your community, such as parent organizations, out-of-school time program leaders, nonprofit agencies, and other community-based youth-serving entities who routinely interact with children, teens, families, guardians, and caregivers, to inform them about the importance of safe firearm storage.
  • Integrate information about safe firearm storage into your communications with families, guardians, and caregivers about overall emergency preparedness and school safety.”

Propaganda

There is a lot going on here, and none of it is good.

The White House’s template is classic propaganda, in which a target audience is unaware they are being influenced and unaware of the true source of the message.

It is a psychological operation, or psyop, which targets unsuspecting Americans. Before the Bidens moved into the White House, that wasn’t supposed to happen. Nowadays, it’s become commonplace.

That the White House and its gun control office would publicly propose such a plan proves they do not fear exposure from the legacy media. This, too, is telling. They know who their friends are and don’t worry about repercussions.

School officials will have little choice but to participate in this scam. Secretary Cardona’s letter will see to that.

Joe Biden, or more likely his handlers and puppeteers, have rewritten the rules to further their war on our guns. Now, anything goes, including psyops and other forms of gaslighting and deception.

The White House statement also mentions that faith leaders and law enforcement have credibility in their communities.

There’s little doubt the Biden-Harris administration will make a run at the nation’s clergy next.

Democracy in Decline: The Subversion of Rule of Law

A friend recently wrote me to offer a sharp formulation of a distinction I have often written about myself. Regular readers know that I am fond of distinguishing between “democracy”—a political arrangement in which the demos, the people, rule—and “Our Democracy™,” a counterfeit or masquerade of democracy in which not the people but an elite nomenklatura rule. To an increasing extent, I believe, the United States is gradually subsisting into the latter, with all the political, social, and moral deformations that such anxious oligarchical arrangements entail.

True enough, the United States was never really a democracy—a form of government, as James Madison observed in Federalist 10, that tended to be “as short in its life as it is violent in its death.” Rather, the United States was, from the beginning, a democratic republic. Ultimately, the people were sovereign—that was the point of the phrase “We the People.” But their sovereignty was mediated through the agency of representation. The point of my distinction, however, still holds. The Founders bequeathed us a democratic republic and a Constitution whose chief purpose was to define and limit the power of government. Their modern successors have inhabited that political dispensation, slyly perverting and emptying it out of its original signification while maintaining the names and rituals of the original.

If you believe that the words “perverting” and “emptying it out of its original signification” are extreme, I invite you to contemplate the tenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” To what extent is the letter or spirit of that instruction followed today?

The answer is: not at all. What was originally a document designed to limit government and protect people from its coercive intervention has mutated into a reliquary containing the desiccated remains of a once-potent, now mostly quaint and antique admonition.

Which brings me back to my friend’s crisply formulated distinction. There are, he noted, two forms of law: rule of law and rule by law. The first, he wrote, the rule of law, “is based upon neutral rules that are in place and applicable to all without regard to political belief or status, economic class, religion, etc. That is or was the aim of classical liberal politics—to erect a limited system of laws applied to all as a foundation for liberty.” That’s precisely what the Framers intended to bequeath us.

The alternative, rule by law, describes the antithesis. Indeed, it is

a system of rules applied at the discretion of ruling elites, who exempt themselves and allies from those rules, and apply them to others on an arbitrary basis. The rule by law comes into play when the state has evolved into a large-scale enterprise and has formulated laws in scale and number that are capture citizens in a web of rules. In that circumstance, it is not difficulty to enforce rule by law, where the laws or rules can be applied politically or arbitrarily.

Continue reading “”

The Truth About the COVID Vaccine Is Finally Becoming Known

Mark Twain famously said that a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth even starts putting on its shoes. Here is Exhibit A in contemporary proof of the most famous American writer’s maxim.

It only took four years, the courage of a handful of independent medical experts who risked their careers by contradicting the federal government, the mainstream media, and the medical establishment, and the fact that something resembling the free press remains viable in this country, thanks largely to the internet.

Now, finally, the truth about the COVID-19 vaccine is beginning to be made known to the public. It confirms the many previous warnings such as these: here, here, and here.

It’s a research paper entitled “COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines: Lessons Learned from the Registrational Trials and Global Vaccination Campaign” that appeared on the internet at the Cureus Journal of Medical Science. The abstract bears your close reading and then re-reading, especially if you are one of the millions of Americans who did what public health gurus like Dr. Anthony Fauci incessantly told us to do and “followed the science.”

Here’s the abstract, but I’ve broken it into multiple paragraphs to aid your reading, and I’ve included my own emphasis of highlights (it is one long paragraph on the website):

Our understanding of COVID-19 vaccinations and their impact on health and mortality has evolved substantially since the first vaccine rollouts. Published reports from the original randomized phase 3 trials concluded that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines could greatly reduce COVID-19 symptoms. In the interim, problems with the methods, execution, and reporting of these pivotal trials have emerged.

Re-analysis of the Pfizer trial data identified statistically significant increases in serious adverse events (SAEs) in the vaccine group. Numerous SAEs were identified following the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), including death, cancer, cardiac events, and various autoimmune, hematological, reproductive, and neurological disorders. Furthermore, these products never underwent adequate safety and toxicological testing in accordance with previously established scientific standards.

Among the other major topics addressed in this narrative review are the published analyses of serious harms to humans, quality control issues and process-related impurities, mechanisms underlying adverse events (AEs), the immunologic basis for vaccine inefficacy, and concerning mortality trends based on the registrational trial data.

The risk-benefit imbalance substantiated by the evidence to date contraindicates further booster injections and suggests that, at a minimum, the mRNA injections should be removed from the childhood immunization program until proper safety and toxicological studies are conducted.

Federal agency approval of the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines on a blanket-coverage population-wide basis had no support from an honest assessment of all relevant registrational data and commensurate consideration of risks versus benefits.

Given the extensive, well-documented SAEs and unacceptably high harm-to-reward ratio, we urge governments to endorse a global moratorium on the modified mRNA products until all relevant questions pertaining to causality, residual DNA, and aberrant protein production are answered.

The authors of this research paper are highly qualified experts, including, according to Liberty Counsel, “biologist and nutritional epidemiologist M. Nathaniel Mead; research scientist Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D.; biostatistician and epidemiologist Russ Wolfinger, Ph.D.; immunologist and biochemist Dr. Jessica Rose; biostatistician and epidemiologist Kris Denhaerynck, Ph.D.; Vaccine Safety Research Foundation Executive Director Steve Kirsch; and cardiologist, internist, and epidemiologist Dr. Peter McCullough.”

Don’t be surprised when the inevitable assaults are launched in the cooperating mainstream media on these courageous individuals’ ethics, training, and research methods. There will be no forgiveness for them because they have stepped in front of a criminally flawed historical narrative and yelled, “Stop!”

Liberty Counsel President and Founder Mat Staver put it well when he said in a statement: “In this exhaustive review paper, these scientists confirm what sound scientific research has been showing for years, that these shots have never been safe nor effective. The FDA and the CDC are supposed to protect the people, but they have become the lapdog of the pharmaceutical industry. This must change.”

And change it will because, sooner or later, the families of many of the legions of victims of the COVID-19 vaccine scam are going to find smart trial lawyers who are willing to file the litigation and hold those responsible legally accountable. The jury awards that will follow will dwarf anything seen before.

Democrat Cori Bush Funnels Another $17,500 in Campaign Cash to Husband, Docs Show

Radical Democrat Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) has funneled another big chunk of campaign cash to her husband, bringing the total to $120,000 so far, new filings have revealed.

Bush paid her husband an additional $17,500 from her committee in recent months.

The payments are for private security for the congresswoman, who leads the “defund the police” movement and campaigns for fewer police officers to protect the public.

The Democrat “Squad” member’s new filings, submitted to the Federal Election Commission late Wednesday night, show that her campaign made seven additional payments for $2,500 each to her husband, Cortney Merritts.

The payments were made between October 1 and December 31.

The new payments maintained the steady flow of checks to her husband over the past two years.

After it emerged that Bush and Merritts secretly married in February 2023, her office admitted they had been together since before she entered office in 2021.

Merritts initially gathered money for security services starting in January 2022.

However, Bush’s committee switched their description to “wage expenses” in April 2023 as they continued to bring headaches to the campaign.

The latest payments have emerged as the Justice Department launched a criminal investigation into Bush earlier this week over the use of campaign funds, as Slay News reported.

Merritts has now collected $120,000 from Bush’s campaign coffers.

Politicians can pay family members from their committees as long as they provide “bona fide” services at fair market value.

He pocketed the money as Bush’s campaign simultaneously spent significantly more with St. Louis-based companies such as PEACE Security for private detail.

She’s spent over $770,000 on private security services, despite demanding fewer police officers to protect the American people.

Meanwhile, Merritts, whose online accounts and posts have indicated he worked at a railroad company for years before starting a moving company, did not have a private security license as of late February 2023.

He also did not appear in a Washington, D.C., database of licensed security specialists.

The ordeal triggered at least two complaints from watchdog groups in the following weeks.

The first complaint, filed to the FEC in March 2023 by the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, is still pending.

The ethics committee has since cleared Bush in a second complaint from the Committee to Defeat the President.

In October, Merrits was confronted by a Fox News reporter as the couple left a D.C. fundraiser for California Democrat candidate Derek Marshall.

During the exchange, Merritts appeared to backtrack about his role on the campaign.

“I have a question for you,” the reporter said.

“What’s your role on the campaign right now?”

“I don’t have a role in the campaign, man,” Merritts responded.

“You don’t have a role at all?” the reporter countered.

“They were reporting you had wages on the campaign for security, and then it was a general wage.

“I was just wondering what you’ve been doing on the campaign?”

“Yeah, I mean you can Google what it is,” Merritts replied.

“You can also Google what happened with the FEC report came back 5-0, that it was all completely above board.”

“So you’re not doing any more work with her campaign?” the reporter asked.

“Am I doing work with the campaign?” Merrits said.

“Obviously, I am. I’m still [inaudible], right?”

“You’re still a part of it?” the report pressed.

“Am I still employed with it? Yes, so obviously, I’m going to work with it,” Merritts said.

“What’s this whole ‘gotcha’ s—? I’m not a politician, man, so ask me a question, man-to-man, and I’ll answer.

“So what’s your question?”

“That was it, about the campaign,” the reporter responded.

“I’m still in the campaign; I still do security with the campaign,” Merritts said before getting into the car with Bush.

“Have a good night, man. Be safe.”

Earlier this week, Bush confirmed the Justice Department is investigating her campaign spending on security services and said her office is “fully cooperating.”

“Since before I was sworn into office, I have endured relentless threats to my physical safety and life,” Bush said in a Tuesday statement.

“As a rank-and-file member of Congress, I am not entitled to personal protection by the House, and instead have used campaign funds as permissible to retain security services.”

“These frivolous complaints have resulted in a number of investigations, some of which are still ongoing,” Bush said.

“The Federal Election Commission and the House Committee on Ethics are currently reviewing the matter, as is the Department of Justice.

“We are fully cooperating in all of these pending investigations.”

A Lack of Deterrence Leads to More American Deaths.

President Biden, and his Secretary of Defense have announced a major change in US policy: As a result of the Iranian attack on Tower 22 that killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded scores more, they are going to begin protecting US troops! Don’t believe me? Here it is from the horse’s mouth at Secretary Austin’s February 1 press conference: “The President will not tolerate attacks on American troops, and neither will I.”

Well, that’s a relief, isn’t it? After tolerating attacks on American troops since . . . oh, about January 20, 2021, we now have a dramatic change in policy. We have gone from “Don’t, don’t, don’t!” to “We are not going to tolerate this anymore, but we don’t want a wider war.”        

But, do they mean it, or is it more pablum to placate the masses? Read on and judge for yourself.

BIDEN’S PRIOR POLICY OF TOLERATION, WEAKNESS AND APPEASEMENT

Biden true believers may claim that this is not a change in policy, that his administration really has not been tolerating attacks on our troops. To test that, we should do as Richard Nixon’s Attorney General, John Mitchell, advised: Look at what they have done, not what they say. What they have done is tolerate the more than 200 attacks on our troops that have occurred on Biden watch without any kind of meaningful response. And don’t fall into the trap of accepting just the lowball statistics by counting only the 160+ attacks since October 7, 2023, as the press has been doing.

In fact, there have been far more attacks on our troops than the press is now reporting. Between the time of Biden’s inauguration and up to October 7, attacks on our troops in Iraq and Syria were commonplace. General Jack Keane pegs it at 80 from published reports.  But that figure is low because during this administration, attacks on our forces became so commonplace that all of them were not reported in the press. They have included attacks by fire using 107 mm and 122 mm rockets, as well as UAV (drone)-delivered munitions. And although it is not widely known or reported, our forces also have been targeted with cluster munitions. Disgracefully, our troops on the ground enduring these attacks have not been allowed to engage in any meaningful response.

Continue reading “”

Sounds a lot like ‘Giving Aid and Comfort’………

Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin Nails Biden and Austin on Telegraphing to the Iranians About Strike Locations

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such an incompetent group in my lifetime as the Biden administration.

We were given fair warning about Joe Biden from Obama’s Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. In his 2014 memoir, Gates said the then-vice president had “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”  Now make that five decades, and add he’s been wrong about virtually every major foreign policy issue so far that he’s faced during his presidency. Gates doubled down on those claims during a 2021 interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” saying, “I think he’s gotten a lot wrong,” specifically mentioning the Afghanistan withdrawal.

Now we’re faced with yet another situation due to Biden’s bad foreign policy, this time with Iran and the militants they use to fight us. There have been more than 160 attacks on U.S. forces or assets, with three people killed now and dozens injured over those assaults, some with possible traumatic brain injuries. Yet, the Biden response has been largely impotent and has not cowed Iran or the militants.

Not only hasn’t Biden responded yet to the attack on the troops in Jordan by Kataib Hezbollah in which 3 American troops were killed and more than 30 were injured, but Biden’s team has listed possible targets in such detail as to raise questions about telegraphing to the enemy.

Report: Biden May Take Action As Early As Tonight Re: Iran – Officials Even List Possible Options

Joe Biden’s Stupid Plan to Avenge Fallen US Troops: Tell Iran We’re Coming, Then Provide the Target List

Since we wrote those stories, they’ve given out even more information, saying they were going to launch a series of attacks for days against targets — including Iranian personnel and facilities — inside Iraq and Syria.

As Fox News’ chief national security correspondent at the Pentagon Jennifer Griffin noted, now the IRGC commanders in those areas have left and gone into hiding.

 “The Pentagon usually does not telegraph so much if it wants the element of surprise,” she said. Yes, if. So why are they telegraphing so much now? Do they want the IRGC to flee so it looks like they’re hitting something consequential even though the IRGC leaders will be gone?

Continue reading “”

Whistleblowers Allege ATF Is Drafting Rule That Could Effectively Ban Private Firearm Sales

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is working on a rule that could effectively ban the sale of firearms between private individuals, agency whistleblowers told a watchdog group.

Empower Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog representing one of the Hunter Biden Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers, says that ATF whistleblowers informed it of a 1,300-page document being drafted by the agency that would require background checks for all firearm sales, including those between two private individuals. The new rule would “effectively ban private sales of firearms from one citizen to another,” according to a press release from Empower Oversight.

Empower Oversight submitted a records request to the Department of Justice seeking more information about the rule.

The rule would “violate the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution,” according to Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt. Leavitt also said the rule would “circumvent the separation of powers in the Constitution.”

Empower Oversight points out that the ATF’s rule could redefine individuals who occasionally sell guns as being “engaged in the business of dealing in firearms,” thus requiring them to acquire a Federal Firearms Licensee and run background checks on whoever they’re selling to.

In the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986, Congress established that the term “engaged in the business” of selling guns “shall not include a person who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby.”

Leavitt pointed out that the courts would likely strike down the rule and argued that it is likely a ploy to fire up the Democratic base during an election year.

Private background checks are popular with voters, according to polling data.

A poll conducted by Morning Consult and Politico in 2022 found that 81% of registered voters supported background checks at gun shows and for private transfers.

Support for background checks is lower among Republicans than among Democrats. A 2021 Morning Consult and Politico poll found that 77% of Democrats supported background checks for all gun purchases, compared to just 53% of Republicans.

While Americans are open to background checks, banning certain kinds of firearms is unpopular among Americans.

Only 27% of Americans supported banning handgun ownership as of October 2023, according to Gallup. An April 2023 poll conducted by Monmouth University found that more Americans opposed an “assault weapons” ban than supported it.

The Biden administration has consistently pushed for stricter gun laws.

President Joe Biden pushed a rule that forced people who owned pistols with arm braces to register them as short-barreled rifles, Politico reported. Pistol braces remain legal as states and gun rights groups sue the ATF over the rule.

Registering a short-barreled rifle with the ATF carries a cost of $200. The National Firearms Act, the law requiring the registration of short-barreled rifles, was last updated in 1986.

Short-barreled rifles are illegal in some states.

Biden also banned the sale of firearm parts lacking serial numbers, which can be used to construct “ghost guns,” and has continuously pushed for a so-called assault weapons ban, according to Fox News Digital.

Some gun rights groups are ready to fight the ATF’s rule should it come to fruition.

“The records of these sales will eventually end up in the ATF’s firearm registry database,” director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America (GOA) Aidan Johnston told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The ATF maintains a registry of firearms sales, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

Johnston said GOA is “actively preparing to take legal action if and when Joe Biden’s administration releases their rule change.”

Empower Oversight and the ATF did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.

How the second amendment is treated as a second class right by California Democrats.

You clearly want more innocent children to die if you don’t pass more gun-control. You can try and dress it up, but that is the basic marketing pitch for gun-control. You have to ignore the millions of violent crimes we stop and the lives we save each year for that emotional appeal to have a prayer of making sense.
What is passing strange is that the lawyers for the state of California are trying to sell a similar sales pitch to the 9th Circuit Court.

This story started last year when the US Supreme court confirmed that ordinary citizens have the right to bear arms in public. More to the point, governments violate our rights when they infringed on our right to bear arms. In reply to that federal ruling, anti-rights states like California discovered a new cause. Urged on by the campaign donations of anti-gun billionaires, the legislature made a surprising discovery. The places where trained, investigated, and licensed citizens had been carrying guns for decades were suddenly discovered to be “sensitive” places. Who knew?

California’s SB2 made almost every public place and commercial location into a new “gun-free” zone. In theory, we understand places like a jail, a prison, and a secure courtroom to be a sensitive place. We are legally prohibited from carrying a personal firearm in those rooms. The state is responsible for our physical safety in those areas because we have been disarmed as we passed through the security check point.

Now bear with me a moment as I show you a few of the places that California turned into disarmed-good-guy zones.

California said that hospitals, nursing homes, medical offices, and urgent care facilities are gun-free zones. So are their parking lots. That means honest citizens like you can’t go armed to the business that shares a parking lot with the doc-in-a-box-urgent-care office. I am positive that there isn’t a cop guarding every urgent care office. What you might not know is that people are often attacked in hospitals and their parking lots. Criminals like to rob weak people as they cross the parking lot while carrying plastic bags filled with drugs.

I know there isn’t a policeman or sheriff’s deputy at every bus, train, and ferry terminal. There isn’t a cop at every restaurant chain where you can buy a beer. There isn’t a security fence and a magnetometer screening portal at every concert or public gathering. There certainly isn’t much security at every school and playground. None of that matters and the California legislature said that honest citizens should be disarmed even though they were trained, vetted, and licensed to carry.

But its for the children! Don’t you care about them?

Unfortunately, those facts don’t matter to the California legislature. They want you disarmed anyway, and the legislators won’t be blamed for the rising rate of crime. To be fair to the Democrat legislators, those facts probably don’t matter to a majority of judges on the 9th circuit court either. I’m sorry, but these are the consequences we warned you about before the last election.

Right now, the California “gun-free” zone law is enjoined while the case is appealed. Here is the full list of prohibited places where honest citizens are disarmed.

If Anyone Needs to Explain Why They Need Guns, It’s the EPA

We don’t talk a lot about the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, all that much. For the most part, they don’t get into guns or gun politics. There’s no reason for us to talk about them here, even if they are managing to do a lot of stupid stuff in general.

But, it seems, that the EPA isn’t completely out of the discussion on guns.

You see, while there are many who lament the Bruen decision because we no longer have to justify why we want to carry, some rather bizarre federal agencies, including the EPA, have been spending a lot of money on guns.

Topline: The Environmental Protection Agency isn’t traditionally associated with ranged weaponry, but the federal government has spent almost $620,000 since 2018 to buy guns, ammunition, and more for EPA employees.

Key facts: Auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found that between 2018 and 2022, the EPA spent close to $400,000 of federal funds just on ammunition. That came after the EPA purchased 500,000 rounds of ammo and 600 guns from 2010-2017.

Over $100,000 went to buying armor for EPA employees. Funds were also used for “optical sighting and ranging equipment,” for “night vision equipment” and “security vehicles.”

Background: The EPA has a Criminal Enforcement Program, which had a budget of more than $70 million in 2023. Its goals include “protecting communities with environmental justice concerns” and curbing illegal sales of pesticides.

The EPA also has its own Office of Homeland Security, which provides “systemic preparation” for climate and environment related threats. Its budget was nearly $90 million last year.

Those divisions include 259 employees with job titles of “Criminal Investigation” or some similar variation. Those employees collectively earned almost $32 million in salary last year, with 217 of them making six figures.

Now, I don’t have an issue with a federal regulatory agency having investigators in and of itself. Whether I like regulations or not, the current status quo is violating those regulations constitutes a crime, so it makes sense for the regulators to have investigators.

But we’re talking $620,000 spent in firearms and ammo for 259 employees. That’s nearly $2,400 spent per investigator, and to be frank, I’m not sure any of them actually need to be armed.

See, the EPA is a regulatory agency, not a law enforcement agency. If they find an arrest is needed, they should be able to call the local FBI field office and get them to go in. The FBI, of course, has plenty of guns already.

What bothers me is that people want folks like you and me to have to justify why we “need” guns, but thinks nothing of federal agencies buying firearms left and right.

As the above-linked post notes, other agencies are also stocking up on guns including the Social Security Administration and the Department of Labor. This isn’t new, though, since we’ve known for more than a decade about the Department of Education having had a SWAT Team.

The truth of the matter is that I want justification why every agency in the federal government seems to have guns purchased with our tax dollars. It’s not because I disbelieve in guns, but because every penny the federal government spends comes out of our pockets. They need to justify every dime, in my book, especially as so many federal agencies try to infringe on our right to have firearms.

Remember that the ATF started as a tax collection agency and morphed over time into federal law enforcement. If we don’t start demanding answers for this waste, we’re likely to see it happen elsewhere.

And the EPA is just one example.

After all, I’m not sure I want to trust guns to an agency that thought a mud puddle counted as “navigable waters” in any way, shape, or form.

What did I mention just last week?

BLUF
Now, we’re all subjects. Last week, four fearful women and a spectacularly weak man, hiding behind their robes of office in a Court whose only constitutionally mandated member is the Chief Justice — leaving the rest to be self-aggrandized — refused to protect the nation without a word of explanation. Message: obey.

Perhaps they’ve forgotten the opening words of the Declaration: “When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another…” If so, what happens next is on them.

The Cold Civil War Gets Warmer

More than a decade ago, somewhere in the pages of National Review Online and writing under the name of my alter-ego, David Kahane, I coined the term, the Cold Civil War, and amplified the subject in my book, Rules for Radical Conservatives. 

Despite all the evidence of the past several decades, you still have not grasped one simple fact: that, just about a century after the last one ended, we engaged in a great civil war, one that will determine the kind of country we and our descendants shall henceforth live in for at least the next hundred years — and, one hopes, a thousand. Since there hasn’t been any shooting, so far, some call the struggle we are now involved in the “culture wars,” but I have another, better name for it: the Cold Civil War.

Hasn’t been any shooting so far. But with his recent rejection of federal authority, Texas governor Greg Abbott may have turned up the heat. Just as the South did during the first Civil War, Texas — supported by fully half the states now — has effectively nullified a Supreme Court order via the simple expedient of ignoring it. In this Abbott recalls another southern president, Andrew Jackson, who (perhaps apocryphally) in the case of Worcester v. Georgia (1832), said, “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.”

Or, to paraphrase Stalin, how many divisions does John Roberts have? The Court’s authority derives from the will and the respect of the governed. But when an institution turns rogue, and refuses to act in defense of the nation in the face of clear and present danger, all bets are off.

It’s notable that all four of the women on the Court — at least two too many, but a potent indicator of the continuing feminization of the Republic — flocked together, with Roberts the deciding vote. By now, conservatives are used to getting stabbed in the back from this enduring legacy of the Bush II administration, right up there with the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security/TSA. Bush may be gone — and not all that gone, when you think about it — but the evil he did lives on:

Three former U.S. presidents – Republican George W. Bush and Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama – have banded together behind a new group aimed at supporting refugees from Afghanistan settling in the United States following the recent American withdrawal ending 20 years of war. The former leaders and their wives will serve as part of Welcome.US, a coalition of advocacy groups, U.S. businesses and other leaders.

Just what we need, another “advocacy group,” as if the U.S. government itself hasn’t already been transformed into one under these three presidents and their love child, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. But here we are, in the middle of the biggest mass invasion in American history, a tidal wave of largely penurious humanity, unvetted, unchecked, of unknown health status, many of them without passports or any form of identification, criminals upon crossing our borders, and none of them bearing any loyalty to the country — and until recently, no one raised a hand to stop it.

Continue reading “”

NSA finally admits to spying on Americans by purchasing sensitive data. Violating Americans’ privacy “not just unethical but illegal,” senator says.

The National Security Agency (NSA) has admitted to buying records from data brokers detailing which websites and apps Americans use, US Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed Thursday.

This news follows Wyden’s push last year that forced the FBI to admit that it was also buying Americans’ sensitive data. Now, the senator is calling on all intelligence agencies to “stop buying personal data from Americans that has been obtained illegally by data brokers.”

“The US government should not be funding and legitimizing a shady industry whose flagrant violations of Americans’ privacy are not just unethical but illegal,” Wyden said in a letter to Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines. “To that end, I request that you adopt a policy that, going forward,” intelligence agencies “may only purchase data about Americans that meets the standard for legal data sales established by the FTC.”

Wyden suggested that the intelligence community might be helping data brokers violate an FTC order requiring that Americans are provided “clear and conspicuous” disclosures and give informed consent before their data can be sold to third parties. In the seven years that Wyden has been investigating data brokers, he said that he has not been made “aware of any company that provides such a warning to users before collecting their data.”

The FTC’s order came after reaching a settlement with a data broker called X-Mode, which admitted to selling sensitive location data without user consent and even to selling data after users revoked consent.

In his letter, Wyden referred to this order as the FTC outlining “new rules,” but that’s not exactly what happened. Instead of issuing rules, FTC settlements often serve as “common law,” signaling to marketplaces which practices violate laws like the FTC Act.

According to the FTC’s analysis of the order on its site, X-Mode violated the FTC Act by “unfairly selling sensitive data, unfairly failing to honor consumers’ privacy choices, unfairly collecting and using consumer location data, unfairly collecting and using consumer location data without consent verification, unfairly categorizing consumers based on sensitive characteristics for marketing purposes, deceptively failing to disclose use of location data, and providing the means and instrumentalities to engage in deceptive acts or practices.”

The FTC declined to comment on whether the order also applies to data purchases by intelligence agencies. In defining “location data,” the FTC order seems to carve out exceptions for any data collected outside the US and used for either “security purposes” or “national security purposes conducted by federal agencies or other federal entities.”

Continue reading “”

Just me, but if Texas is going to buck a tyrannical DC about the border, why not about building LNG plants and drilling for more and telling DC where they can go and how to get there?

Land Commissioner Says Biden Stopped Approval of LNG Exports in Retaliation of Texas’ Defiance

The Texas Land Commissioner is accusing President Joe Biden of deliberately ending the approval of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) exports. 

Dawn Buckingham believes Biden is playing political games with Texas after the state “took a bold stand in defending our border against foreign invaders.”

Stopping the approval of(LNG) exports looks “more like retaliation than a sound policy decision,” Buckingham said. 

On January 26, Biden announced he was placing a “temporary pause on pending decisions of Liquified Natural Gas exports.” This was the same day the Department of Homeland Security sent a letter to the State of Texas demanding access to Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas. 

Buckingham called the decision “reckless,” saying that it was done in spite rather than of policy decisions. 

“I will always defend Texas’ right to energy independence and stand up for the hardworking families and countless Texas schoolchildren this move will harm,” the commissioner said.

In defense, Biden claimed his decision was aligned with his policies to “tackle the climate crisis at home and abroad. While MAGA Republicans willfully deny the urgency of the climate crisis, condemning the American people to a dangerous future, my Administration will not be complacent.”

Texas is the largest exporter of natural gas in the United States and the third-largest in the world.

Continue reading “”

We are witnessing the mass memory-holing of the lockdown era.

I would prefer to refrain from using World War II analogies to discuss the Covid hysteria era, but it serves as the greatest modern parallel to the topic of accountability for all of the crimes, sabotage, and negligence committed by the people in charge in the name of combatting a virus.

The Dossier is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Say it’s 1946 in Berlin, and you were one of the few outspoken Germans who managed to make your dissident opinions heard while escaping the wrath of the Nazi regime. You were one of the few who made your way through the Holocaust and World War II with a clean moral slate, fighting The System every step of the way.

But you were a cup of courage in a sea of cowardice, and much worse. You just witnessed the vast majority of your countrymen either moving in lockstep with the bad guys or remaining silent in the face of the Third Reich’s systematic extermination campaign.

“Moral courage can be lonely indeed. People don’t mind being trapped, as long as no one else is free. But stage a break, and everybody else begins to panic.” – William Deresiewicz When I look back at the times of Covid hysteria, I think most about outliers and rule followers, and what separates courageous people from cowards.

Now that this horrific era has passed, you and your allies want accountability, and you want it now. In the aftermath of the bad times, German society seems to be realigning away from the immoral horrors, and the masses have openly embraced your worldview.

But unlike what actually happened after World War II, you’re still living in a German society without a denazification program, because the war didn’t end in the defeat of your ruling class. In fact, there has been no change in government whatsoever. The structure of the Bundeskabinett is virtually identical. The same people who were in charge during the times of evil and horror remain in place today, but they’re not nazis anymore. In fact, they now oppose nazism, they say. It’s clear that they don’t want to talk about those times.

How exactly would you intend on holding these people accountable?

Structurally speaking, that’s exactly where we find ourselves in America today. The very same ruling class that panicked the masses and instituted authoritarian dictates over the rebranded flu — which also proceeded to parasitically debase the wealth and prosperity of society — remain in charge today.

Very few, if any of the people in government today continue to defend the policies they put in place from 2020 to 2022. Some of them are indeed hooting and hollering about issues we’re all passionate about, but in a way that seeks to redirect attention away from their actions during this time.

They were complicit, or worse, actively undermining our rights when it mattered, and a true inquiry would drag those Covid skeletons out of the closet for the world to see. An accountability process wouldn’t just implicate the likes of Fauci and Pharma, but the entire system itself.

And it’s not just the ruling class that doesn’t want Covid accountability.

The ugly truth is that a vast majority of our fellow Americans embraced the hysteria, and many took to aligning with the people in charge to target and demonize the small minority who spoke out against the collective overreaction to the “pandemic.” This is an era that most would simply rather not relitigate. For both the people in the halls of power and most of the population, they benefit by both recalibrating their politics to the current majority view, but also by sweeping this multi-year disgrace under the rug.

We are witnessing the mass memory-holing of the lockdown era, which will allow for the bad guys to get away with it, because nobody seems to want to look in the mirror.

OPINION: The true intent of the Democrats’ anti-militia bill is to infringe on firearm training
This bill paints a target on the back of every law-abiding gun owner.

As a law-abiding citizen of this great country, I can form my own militia if I so choose, appoint myself colonel, enlist my friends as privates or PFCs, and we can run around the woods until we all keel over from heatstroke or heart attacks — whatever comes first. It’s all perfectly legal, at least for now.

We have the right to criticize our government. We can sit around the campfire at our secret militia base nursing our sore muscles and fire ant bites and talk about how Joe walks like a penguin, or how it would take Kamala a good 20 minutes just to tell you you’re on fire. It’s all perfectly legal and protected speech, at least for now.

We have the right to train with our firearms. We can draw from a holster, shoot while moving, practice CQB and send as much lead downrange as our bank accounts will allow. It’s all perfectly legal conduct, at least for now.

However, a new bill making its way through Congress known as the “Preventing Private Paramilitary Activity Act of 2024,” would make all of this illegal or at least suspicious enough to draw scrutiny from the feds. More importantly, it would paint a target on the back of every single American gun owner, which is the actual intent of this ill-conceived and extremely unconstitutional legislation.

To be clear, if Joe Biden ever signs this bill, the second he puts down his crayon the feds will flock to local gun ranges in numbers that will make it nearly impossible for actual members to find a place just to park. This bill would give them license to investigate anyone who trains with a gun in order to determine whether they’re a militia member — and don’t think for a second that they won’t.

The FBI recently investigated law-abiding Americans whose sole transgression was shopping at a Cabela’s or a DICK’s Sporting Goods. Evidently, the FBI, the country’s so-called premier law enforcement agency, wasn’t aware DICK’s stopped selling guns and ammunition eons ago. Nowadays, the most dangerous thing on their shelves is a pickleball paddle.

When the Framers wrote the Second Amendment, militia membership was not only encouraged, it was required. All able-bodied men were instructed to own a firearm, powder and shot and to keep them clean and serviceable in the event they were ever needed. Now, under the guise that it might be militia-related, a handful of lawmakers are trying to criminalize firearm training — especially anything tactical. In my humble opinion, it is just another step toward their ultimate goal of total civilian disarmament.

Continue reading “”

Here’s the ‘executive actions‘  I roll on the floor, laughing…..
This reminds me of ‘yak items’ on union contract negotiations

  • The U.S. Department of Education will take new action on safe firearm storage by sending a letter to school principals across the country explaining the importance of safe storage and encouraging them to communicate with parents, families, caregivers, and the broader community about how safe storage can protect students in school and in their communities.
  • The U.S. Department of Education will also issue a new communications template that principals and school leaders can use to engage with parents and families about the importance of safe firearm storage, and encourage more people to take preventive action by safely storing firearms.
  • The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) will release a guide to safe storage of firearms in order to provide subject matter expertise on different types of storage devices and best practices for safely storing firearms. This is the most comprehensive guide on safe storage ever released by the federal government.