Category: Goobermint

THIS IRS EMAIL CORROBORATES WHISTLEBLOWER’S CLAIMS ABOUT BIDEN DOJ INTERFERENCE IN HUNTER PROBE.

A senior IRS official corroborated a whistleblower’s bombshell allegation that Biden Justice Department officials meddled in the Hunter Biden tax probe, according to internal IRS emails released this week.

Whistleblower Gary Shapley’s boss confirmed Shapley’s account of a key meeting that occurred on October 7, 2022, between IRS agents and DOJ prosecutors handling the Biden probe. After the meeting, Shapley wrote to his boss, Darrell Waldon, that U.S. attorney David Weiss indicated he was prohibited from bringing charges against Biden in Washington, D.C. Weiss said that he requested special counsel status but that Justice Department headquarters had denied that request.

“Weiss stated that he is not the deciding person on whether charges are filed,” Shapley wrote.

Waldon, who attended the meeting with Shapley, signed off on his subordinate’s characterization of the meeting. “Thanks, Gary. You covered it all,” Waldon wrote.

The email is powerful evidence supporting Shapley’s claims that the Biden Justice Department interfered in the investigation into the embattled first son and that, contrary to statements from Attorney General Merrick Garland and others, Weiss could not operate freely.

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Joe Biden Proclaims That He ‘Sold a Lot of State Secrets’ During White House Meeting.

Joe Biden is either the most shameless person ever to hold the presidency or he’s mentally gone. That’s the story after a video surfaced on Monday showing the president proclaiming “I sold a lot of state secrets” during a meeting at the White House.

As RedState reported, Biden hosted Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi last Thursday, and things were as awkward as ever. At one point, the president faced confusion during the Indian national anthem, apparently mistaking it for his country’s own. The next day, a state dinner was held in which Biden brought along Hunter Biden, fresh off his guilty plea, despite the fact that AG Merrick Garland was there.

But if that wasn’t enough to convince you that nothing matters to the current administration, the president decided to announce the following in front of Modi and others.

Remarks by President Biden and Prime Minister Modi of the Republic of India in Meeting with Senior Officials and CEOs of Technology Companies

He didn’t even have to get to the second part before things went haywire, with Biden once again saying “anyway” after obviously losing his train of thought in public. That happens very often to the president. Physically, his voice and pacing sound frail, almost as if he’s tired or on medication. Then he just blurts out that he’s “sold a lot of state secrets.”

Well, alrighty then. I suppose there are a few possible explanations here, some more likely than others. The first possibility is that Biden’s dementia is hitting him so hard that he just accidentally admitted to doing what he’s credibly accused of, which is mishandling classified national security information and accepting bribes from foreign entities. Certainly, the president has had a bad case of advanced age throughout his tenure, and with his condition comes a tendency to just blurt out things he shouldn’t. Who can forget him searching the room for a deceased congresswoman at an event set to honor her?

I suspect that’s not what happened here, though. It’s more likely that his ongoing senility caused him to deliver another one of his patented “jokes” that leaves everyone in the room perplexed, wondering just what the heck is going on. I’d challenge you to look at Modi’s reaction in the video and try not to laugh. The Indian PM isn’t taking anything that comes out of Biden’s mouth seriously.

Even still, it certainly takes a bit of chutzpah to make such a joke when you are currently under investigation for accepting bribes and you’ve already been shown to have illegally held classified documents in your garage. Biden doesn’t care, though, because as I said earlier, nothing matters. He knows he can say whatever he wants and the press will shrug. Compare that to the allegations of a Freudian slip that would be raging had this been a Republican president saying what he said.

Past that, how does any of this help the United States? If you were Modi, having formed a strong, dependent relationship with Russia, would you change course to ally with Joe Biden? What comfort is offered in doing so? The White House isn’t a retirement community, and there are real consequences to having a president who is so obviously out of it. I suspect we’ll keep suffering those consequences until voters make a change.

Analysis: What the Pistol-Brace Ban Repeal Defeat Means

The Senate voted against undoing President Joe Biden’s pistol-brace ban. That probably won’t have a direct practical impact on the ban’s fate, but it will have a political and, potentially, even a legal one.

On Thursday, the Senate voted 50 to 49 against a resolution to repeal the ATF’s brace rule. The vote was entirely along party lines. Not a single Democrat or Republican crossed over in either direction.

Now, it might not seem like a Senate controlled by the party of the President that instituted the policy refusing to undo it isn’t that unexpected. But there are a couple of reasons this move was surprising.

For starters, this resolution isn’t a standard piece of legislation. If it were, Senate Democrats could have kept it from getting a vote at all or added a bunch of amendments to it. But, since this was a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution, it was privileged and got an up or down vote instead.

CRA resolutions have been the primary way Republicans have scored political points against President Biden via legislation since they retook the House in 2022. They’ve managed to push five different resolutions through the House and garner enough Democratic support in the Senate to send them to Biden’s desk. The President has managed to kill all the resolutions by vetoing them, which would require a two-thirds vote of both houses to overcome.

Still, those previous five resolutions pitted Biden and his administration against at least a few Democrats in both houses. The same can’t be said of the pistol-brace ban resolution. While two Democrats in the House voted for it, every Democrat in the Senate rallied to the President’s side.

That may cause political pain for some members who are up for reelection in red or purple states. The rule change effectively bans millions of pistol-brace-equipped firearms, many of which were likely bought years ago, since the vast majority of affected guns have not been registered. So, getting vulnerable Democrats on record supporting it could have some electoral value.

But, as it stands now, the repeal failure is a clear political loss. Instead of making President Biden and Democrats appear divided, it does the exact opposite.

It’s also a potential setback for the legal case against the pistol-brace ban. At the very least, it’s the less ideal outcome because Congress’s opinion of the ATF’s rule is particularly relevant to the challenges.

The key questions at the center of most brace ban lawsuits are not about the Second Amendment. Instead, they’re about the ATF’s power to regulate braced guns and the public’s ability to understand the regulations they hand down. Had Congress been united in passing a resolution declaring the ATF is wrong in how it has reclassified braced guns, that it had overstepped the power granted to it by Congress, that would have provided more ammunition to the groups challenging the legality of the rule on those very grounds.

Instead, Congress is divided on that question. Plaintiffs in the case can point to that division as evidence the ATF doesn’t have clear authority to enact its rule, but the argument is weaker than it otherwise would have been.

Still, that doesn’t mean the pistol-brace ban is going to survive. The cases against it were going well before the repeal resolution passed the House, and the repeal effort losing a 50-49 vote in the Senate is unlikely to sink its legal prospects.

Four federal courts have already issued injections blocking the ATF from enforcing the rule against millions of Americans. A Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel got the ball rolling just before the ATF’s grace period for registering the affected guns ended at the beginning of the month by protecting Firearms Policy Coalition members from arrest and prosecution as it prepared to hear the case on the merits. A second court in the same circuit followed up by blocking enforcement against Second Amendment Foundation members. A third extended an injunction to all Gun Owners of America members. The National Rifle Association, which has a separate case in the Eighth Circuit, has asked for a Fifth Circuit judge to extend protections to its members.

The number of people protected under those injections has already grown since they were handed down. The affected gun-rights groups have seen their membership numbers rise, with the Second Amendment Foundation claiming 20,000 new members in the first week after it got its injunction.

A ruling on the merits of the case will probably still come soon. To issue a preliminary injunction against the rule, the Fifth Circuit panel had to conclude that the ban was likely unconstitutional. The Senate’s repeal rejection probably won’t force them to reconsider that conclusion as they begin to hear oral arguments on June 29th. And, as much as it doesn’t help things, the safe money is still on the panel striking the rule down.

Legal action still is, and always was, the most viable path for gun-rights advocates to bring down the brace ban. But the failure to get the repeal resolution through the Senate, even if it would have been doomed by a veto anyway, represents a notable setback nonetheless.

SloJoe’s relationship with the truth was always nonexistent but now his lies don’t even make sense.

Joe Biden Is Not OK.

There is nothing unique about being a scatterbrained 80-year-old. But a scatterbrained 80-year-old should not be president.

The other day, Joe Biden ended a big gun-control speech in Connecticut with the words, “God save the queen, man.” Why did the president express adoration for the departed Brit monarch? Was he confused about royal succession? Is he a Sex Pistols fan? Who knows.

When asked about the incident, White House aides offered nonsensical and conflicting answers — because they have absolutely no idea, and neither does the president. It’s likely that the octogenarian spontaneously used a cool-sounding phrase, much like when your elderly neighbor tells you to “keep on truckin,’” for no apparent reason. It happens.

Yet, Axios writer Alex Thompson points out that Biden “has an arsenal of wacky phrases.” And the president’s “quirky aphorisms,” he contends, “are sometimes weaponized by Republicans to insinuate the 80-year-old president is in mental decline.”

There is no need for insinuation. Biden’s mental acuity, never impressive, has considerably deteriorated. Sure, he also tends to botch “old-timey” sayings like, “lots of luck in your senior year,” which he says is a gibe from his Corn Pop days. But most reporters who pretend perceptions of Biden’s decline are due to his propensity for homespun maxims or previously unknown stuttering problems almost surely wouldn’t find him fit enough to babysit their kids.

Every week, the president of the United States says something completely bonkers, and everyone goes on with their day. We’re not talking about his propensity to lie about politics or his blustery lifelong fabulism (his “folksiness,” The New York Times recently explained, “can veer into a personal folklore” with “the factual edges shaved off to make them more powerful for audiences.”) We’re talking about his inability to articulate simple ideas without notes — and often with notes. There are rarely any fact-checks of these statements. How can there be? They don’t even make sense as lies. There is no handwringing about the role of competency in our democracy. There is no discussion about the 25th Amendment.

Just listen to any one of his speeches. “Put a pistol on a brace, it turns into a gun — makes it more — you can have a higher-caliber weapon, higher-caliber bullet coming out of that gun,” the president explained before wishing Her Majesty his best. This was also complete gibberish. There is so much gibberish.

Only a couple of days before his “God save the queen” comment, Biden informed a crowd gathered for a League of Conservation Voters endorsement that “we” have “plans to build a railroad from the Pacific all the way across the Indian Ocean,” which must have really impressed everyone in attendance. “We have plans to build in Angola one of the largest solar plants in the world,” Biden went on. “I can go on, but I’m not. I’m going off-script. I’m going to get in trouble.”

A few days before the railroad comment, Biden couldn’t remember Winston Churchill’s name when speaking to the prime minister of Britain. Listen, I’m not great with names myself, and I’m sure as an 80-year-old I’d have trouble recalling world leaders … but I’m confident I wouldn’t think myself competent enough to be the most powerful man in the world. Nor should Biden.

That same week, when asked why a Ukrainian FBI informant referred to Biden as the “Big Guy,” the president lashed out for being posed “dumb questions.” He does this often in frustration. When the president isn’t flubbing canned lines to the rare tough question, he yells things like “c’mon, man!” A few years ago, this kind of rhetoric was considered democracy-shattering. Now, it’s quirky and folksy.

The week before he couldn’t remember Churchill’s name, the president also tripped and fell on stage after a commencement speech at the Air Force Academy. Biden’s surrogates pointed out that there had been a sandbag right there, as if no one, whether young or old, could possibly be expected to walk over a small bag without falling to the floor.

You might recall that after the former president gingerly navigated a ramp after giving a speech at West Point in 2020, The New York Times’ headline the next day was: “Trump’s Halting Walk Down Ramp Raises New Health Questions.” The president, the Times went on, “also appeared to have trouble raising a glass of water to his mouth during a speech at West Point a day before he turned 74, the oldest a president has been in his first term.”
The sitting president is now six years older than Trump was at the time — he would be a decade older should he finish a second term.

Of course, everyone ages differently — John Fetterman, only 53, can barely put together a thought while some septuagenarian is out there writing his literary opus right now. Nor is there anything wrong with or especially unique about being a scatterbrained and tired 80-year-old. In this case, maybe Americans who elected a scatterbrained and tired 80-year-old deserve to be governed by him — good and hard, as Menken might say. But please stop pretending Biden is OK. He’s not.

Is the international Counterterrorism Law Enforcement Forum a work-around of Americans’ rights?

The Second Annual Counterterrorism Law Enforcement Forum occurred on Tuesday June 6th, 2023, which the United States co-hosted. Last year was the inaugural event in Berlin, Germany and the 2023 forum took place in Oslo, Norway. The idea of multiple law enforcement agencies getting together to think tank their way around some of the world’s problems with terrorism, or any crime for that matter, is not that radical. Where things get concerning are when we read between the lines. The DOJ release masqueraded the forum as a meeting of the minds on combating acts of terror, however remarks from the U.S. Assistant Attorney General show a clear focus on “domestic” terrorism.

The Justice Department’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT) and the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Counterterrorism (State CT) co-hosted the second annual meeting of the Counterterrorism Law Enforcement Forum (CTLEF) with the Government of Norway in Oslo from June 6 to 7.

The CTLEF, which focuses on countering the global threat of racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism (REMVE), brought together law enforcement, prosecutors, and other criminal justice practitioners from Europe and North and South America, as well as specialists from INTERPOL, Europol, the International Institute for Justice and the Rule of Law and other multilateral organizations to discuss how to effectively address and counter REMVE threats.

Drilling down on what REMVEs there are, our Assistant Attorney General, Matthew G. Olsen, did not hold back on discussing his ideas when he delivered the opening remarks for the forum.

Last May, we gathered in Berlin, for our inaugural meeting. I departed the forum daunted by the scale of the problem, but heartened to see the partnership of so many likeminded countries.

I returned to D.C. from Berlin on a Thursday. Two days later, on Saturday afternoon, I received the first alerts from the FBI that there was an active shooter in Buffalo, New York. What we would come to learn over the next hours and days was that an individual espousing white supremacist ideology took a semiautomatic weapon into a grocery store and murdered 10 people.

This tragedy in Buffalo – just over one year ago – is part of an alarming trend.

What’s the alarming trend that Olsen is really talking about? What were some of the threats that Olsen identified in his speech? “In particular, we face an increasing threat from racially and ethnically motivated violent extremist groups, including white supremacists and anti-government groups,” Olsen said. Who are classified as “anti-government groups”? Would people that are critical of the United States Government, in particular overreaching agencies, be considered anti-government?

Doubling down Olsen identified obstacles to being able to effectively police these groups of individuals.

The simple truth is that the ability of violent extremists to acquire military-grade weapons in our country contributes to their ability to kill and inflict harm on a massive scale. A recent article in The Washington Post noted that about a shocking number of Americans – one in 20 adults, or roughly 16 million people – own at least one AR-15 assault rifle.
…
It is important to be clear, the Department of Justice investigates violent extremists for their criminal acts and not for their beliefs or based on their associations, and regardless of ideology. In the United States, upholding our core values means respecting First Amendment rights and safeguarding the exercise of protected speech, peaceful protests, and political activity. We hold those rights sacred.

Olsen had no problem pairing the roughly 16 million law-abiding citizens with violent extremists, lumping them into the same category of hateful and murderous actors. The numbers should be staggering to Olsen that we do have 16+ million alleged owners of AR variant – not “assault” – rifles, and have such an incredibly small amount of issues with those arms.

The other obstacle naturally is the First Amendment. It’s grand that Olsen says that the DOJ et.al. respects and holds “those rights sacred,” but he really means that for only some people. It’s clear that if there’s an individual or group that does not align with the ideologies of the current swamp, they become an enemy of the state. When there’s “mostly peaceful” acts of extremism, that’s alright as long as it’s the correct flavor of extremism.

Whatever may stand in the way between the government and combating domestic terrorism, Olsen has the solution.

We have to be united in confronting domestic extremism within our countries. Collaboration and information sharing is essential to understanding and countering the threats that terrorist and violent extremist groups pose.

International partnerships are especially important where we observe transnational linkages in domestic violent extremism. We have seen some U.S.-based supporters of domestic terrorism attempt to establish links with likeminded foreign individuals and organizations. In some cases, U.S.-based domestic terrorists have traveled overseas to link up with counterparts who espouse the same beliefs.

These trends are one reason why international forums like this are so valuable. This is an opportunity to hear from foreign partners about the violent extremist groups and networks that are most concerning; where transnational linkages exist; how these actors are raising and moving funds; how groups are recruiting and training new members; how they are communicating and spreading their messages and propaganda; and the sources and drivers of radicalization to violence.

The Assistant Attorney General of the United States stated that in order to combat domestic extremism it’s important to “establish links with,” collaborate with, and find out how groups are “raising and moving funds; how groups are recruiting and training new members; how they are communicating and spreading their messages and propaganda,” from foreign governments. In short, Olsen wants foreign countries to do what our CIA can’t do; spy on Americans. There are no Fourth Amendment protections for American citizens when it’s a foreign entity doing the infringing.

Who all could this reference though? Bad guys, right? Those “anti-government” types. Olsen brought up the events that transpired on January 6th. Regardless of one’s view on what happened during January 6th, what occurred was not as bad as it’s been purported by mainstream media, nor were the actions completely benign.

Olsen spoke extensively about all the arrests and charges that sprung up in the wake of that day, “The January 6 investigation is the largest in the history of the Justice Department. We have arrested and charged more than 1,000 individuals who took part in the Capitol assault. Nearly 500 people have pled guilty or been convicted at trial.”

Olsen further observed concerning January 6th:

We have brought serious charges, including seditious conspiracy against numerous defendants – members of extremist groups who plotted to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power in our country.
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We believe our success in this case serves as a stark warning to those who would seek to violently attack our government and our democracy. It makes clear our determination that the rule of law will prevail.

Not that we needed any confirmation that the DOJ would aggressively go after those that don’t help serve the bigger picture of what’s desired of the Biden-Harris administration, but this is the Assistant Attorney General saying as much in black and white. The “members of extremist groups who plotted to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power in our country” includes a whole lot of people that got arrested, charged and in some cases convicted, for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The issues involving anything January 6th are so multi-faceted, to even bring the date up is flirting with disaster. Do what we say or you’ll end up like them.

On a small scale, Olsen found it problematic that 16+ million people have access to semi-automatic rifles. He clearly pegged that as an obstacle to being able to do the proper police work needed to fight “extremism” or those who are “anti-government.” Olsen further opined that our civil liberties are an issue, as there’s nothing they can do about people expressing their opinions, which the government “respects.” But alas, they found their solution in the form of partnerships with other countries, id.est., having other nations do the spying on the American people.

These events and little get-togethers that American officials attend sure seem like they’re “for the better good.” Really, no one wants extremism or terrorism, domestic or otherwise. However, if we read between the lines, eh, I’m going to say that maybe these trips on the taxpayers’ dime are not in the best interest of the people. Could this be a misread? Sure. But they kind of make it clear that they’ve adopted a Conan approach; “crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.” But, clearly it’s the AR’s that are the problems…

No morals. No ethics. No self respect. No respect for others…
Standard Leftist LIEberal

Fact Check: White House Press Secretary Falsely Claims ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban Lowered Gun Violence

CLAIM: White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the 1994-2004 federal “assault weapons” ban lowered gun violence while speaking from Air Force One on Monday.

VERDICT: False. The Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ) issued a report, noting that any impact the ban had on crime was negligible.

Jean-Pierre said, “You’ve heard the President say this, and I’ll just repeat what he said. When he was able to get this done, in the 90s, to ban “assault weapons,” you saw it have an effect on lowering…violence in that first ten years.”

On February 19, 2018, Breitbart News referenced the NIJ study, which was written just as the federal “assault weapons” ban was ending.

In 2004, the Washington Times quoted University of Pennsylvania professor Christopher Koper, an author of the NIJ report, saying, “We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence.”

The authors of the NIJ report observed that “The ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.”

They further explained that the “assault weapons” ban was not impactful because “assault weapons” are not the firearms of choice for day-to-day criminals.

On October 10, 2022, Breitbart News reported FBI figures showing that over two times as many people were stabbed to death with knives and cutting instruments than were shot and killed with rifles of any kind. And on January 18, 2013, Breitbart News reported that “assault weapons” were “tied to less than .012 percent of [U.S] deaths in 2011.”

Jean-Pierre’s claim that the “assault weapons” ban lowered gun violence is false.

Chicago shootings:75 shot, 13 fatally, in weekend gun violence across city

CHICAGO (WLS) — Chicago shootings over the holiday weekend have left more than 75 shot, 13 fatally, police said.

The latest shootings attacked groups of teenagers.

Gunfire erupted in the West Garfield Park as three teens were standing on a front porch in the 3800-block of West Gladys Avenue when someone in a dark-colored car opened fire, police said.

A 17-year-old girl was rushed to the hospital in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the right eye. A 17-year-old girl was shot in the leg and buttocks and a 19-year-old man was shot in the arm and both were transported to hospitals in good condition.

Just a few hours earlier and less than two-miles away, police said a 14-year-old boy walking down the block in the 100-block of North Francisco Avenue when an unknown gunman opened fire on him. He was struck in the right arm and right leg and transported to a hospital in fair condition.

On the South Side, 32-year old father of four Brian Ross, was gunned down along with another men during a large Father’s Day gathering at Smith Park in the Roseland community.

Relatives said he was not the intended target.

“They literally stopped where they were at, open fired on them, didn’t care about the kids being around or nothing. And, by the grace of God, no kids get hit,” Kandace Ross, the victim’s husband, said. “They didn’t care about nothing or nobody because there were kids out there. There were women out there, there were grandmas, anybody. They just came and just shot it up just so they can, I don’t know, brag about it.”

Police are looking into if social media played a role in the attack.

The violence happened on almost every side of town including the Bucktown neighborhood

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Saving Our School Children from Tennessee Politicians

Tennessee politicians left our students defenseless, and we have to save them. A celebrity-seeking mass murderer killed students in a Nashville private school. That should be a wakeup call that the Republican controlled legislature and Governor have failed us again. We need angry parents to change the status quo and save our kids. As grim as this sounds, there is plenty of good news. We also know how to reduce and to prevent mass murder in our schools. Tennessee parents have been ignored for too long.

The gun-control politicians say we should disarm honest citizens to protect our children. Other politicians say they will put armed deputies in the schools to save our kids. Both have been lying to us for years. Gun-control fails and the legislature never funds enough school resource officers to protect our kids. I understand the problem because mass-murders are rare and even a small school needs several defenders. The solution is simple, but it is not politically easy.

I want our children protected at school the same way our kids are protected by their parents at home. I want our children protected the way our politicians are protected at the capital, and I want it now. Unlike some proposals that sound good in theory, we know this solution stops mass-murderers. Don’t listen to what politicians and celebrities say they want. Instead, look at what they do.

Politicians are protected by men with guns. Celebrities are protected by men with guns. The spouses and children of politicians and the spouses and children of celebrities are protected by men with guns. When a celebrity-seeking mass-murderer comes to school, even the advocates of gun-control shout that we should call men with guns. The only debate is about when the armed defenders should arrive. I want our kids defended now.

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3 years ago, this would have gotten one smeared as a racist science denier.

It’s becoming undeniable: COVID came from a Chinese lab.

Evidence that COVID came from a Chinese lab mounted toward a conclusive level last week: “Multiple government sources” say the very first people infected by the bug were Wuhan Institute of Virology researchers, a new report reveals.

More, they were allegedly modifying a close relative of the virus with a key feature unique to it.

The report — by Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag, posted on the outlet Public — names Ben Hu, Yu Ping and Yan Zhu as WIV scientists who developed COVID symptoms as early as November 2019, a month before the world even heard of the outbreak, and who now appear to be “patients zero.”

A source said officials were “100%” certain these three were the ones who developed the symptoms.

It’s “a game changer if it can be proven that Hu got sick with COVID-19 before anyone else,” marvels World Health Organization expert Jamie Metzl. “That would be the ‘smoking gun.’ Hu was the lead hands-on researcher” in the WIV lab.

Add in all the other evidence — especially the scientists’ gain-of-function work using a close relative of the COVID bug — and it’s now impossible to ignore the extreme likelihood that a leak from the lab sparked the global pandemic behind nearly 7 million deaths and untold economic harm.

It also points a damning finger at China for having waged the greatest coverup in history of the world — abetted by Westerners from Dr. Anthony Fauci to Big Tech to countless liberals and left-leaning media voices who misled the public by pooh-poohing the lab-leak theory early on, and actively suppressing those who pointed to evidence backing the theory.

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Oh, So That’s Where Weapons Biden Left in Afghanistan Are Going

When President Joe Biden made the decision to abruptly leave Afghanistan in August 2021, he did so without the U.S. military properly exporting or destroying warehouses full of weapons. Billions of dollars worth of equipment was left behind and now, it’s showing up in the hands of terrorists attacking Israeli citizens.

“The Taliban secured a substantial arsenal of U.S. weapons and equipment, including Black Hawk helicopters, after U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021. The Israeli commander with whom Newsweek spoke said some of the U.S. small arms seized in Afghanistan have already been observed in the hands of Palestinian groups operating in the Gaza Strip,” Newsweek reports.

The Israeli Defense Force has been dealing with a number of terrorist flare ups over the past year as Palestinian groups continue to attack Israeli civilians. Most recently, Islamic Jihad engaged in multi-day rocket fire against Israeli cities, eventually ending in a ceasefire after the IDF attacked in the Gaza Strip and killed a number of top terror leaders.

On Monday IDF carried out an operation in Jenin, a city in the West Bank that has become a terror hotspot similar to Gaza and Lebanon.

While the clueless losers chant “RUSSIA! RUSSIA! RUSSIA!” , our goobermint has allowed Chinese commies to run amok in the U.S.

Chinese Intel Arm Quietly Operates ‘Service Centers’ In 7 US Cities

A Chinese intelligence agency quietly operates “service centers” in seven American cities, all of which have had contact with Beijing’s national police authority, according to state media reports and government records reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) United Front Work Department (UFWD) — which at least one U.S. government commission has characterized as a “Chinese intelligence service” — operates so-called “Overseas Chinese Service Centers” (OCSCs) that are housed within various U.S.-based nonprofits. OCSCs were ostensibly set up to promote Chinese culture and assist Chinese citizens living abroad, according to Chinese government records.

State media reports, Chinese government records and social media posts show that during a 2018 trip to China, U.S.-based OCSC representatives met with Ministry of Public Security (MPS) officials. During the meeting, state security officials demonstrated how they’re leveraging new technology to conduct “cross-border remote justice services” overseas.

MPS is China’s national police authority and has been referred to as “China’s FBI” by China experts. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) says MPS also conducts covert “intelligence and national security operations far beyond China’s borders,” including “illicit, transnational repression schemes” on U.S. soil.

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PROJECTION, BIDEN STYLE

The New York Post reports on President Biden musing to the press before he boarded the plane to hit the campaign trail in Philadelphia yesterday. The White House has helped us along with a transcript. Here we have a pure case of projection, Biden style:

President Biden kicked off his first day of campaigning for re-election by making excuses for communist China — saying that President Xi Jinping never meant to fly a spy balloon over sensitive American military sites earlier this year.

“I don’t think the leadership knew where it was, and knew what was in it, and knew what was going on,” Biden told reporters Saturday as he headed to Philadelphia for his first campaign rally of the 2024 election. “I think it was more embarrassing than it was intentional.”

Biden does everything thing but thank the Chinese Communists for taking an interest in our military installations. What do they have on him? I should like to think that no one can be this stupid without motivation.

As I noted in “Lost horizon” and again in “The Biden two-step,” the CCP regime goes out of its way to show its disrespect of Biden. “Contempt” is probably more like it. Gordon Chang shows how in the 1945 column: “Secretary Blinken’s Visit To China Is One Giant Mistake.”

Who on earth could have seen this coming?

Remember when Obammy’s communications office tried to pretend he was the anti-1984 guy?

Obama suggests ‘digital fingerprints’ to counter misinformation ‘so we know what’s true and what’s not true.’

Former President Barack Obama suggested in a new interview the development of “digital fingerprints” to combat misinformation and distinguish between true and misleading news for consumers.

Obama sat down with his former White House senior adviser David Axelrod for a conversation on the latter’s podcast, “The Axe Files,” on CNN Audio. During the interview, Axelrod noted he’s seen “misinformation, disinformation, [and] deepfakes” targeting Obama.

“As I’ve told people, because I was the first digital president when I left office, I was probably the most recorded, filmed, photographed human in history, which is kind of a weird thing,” responded Obama. “But just the odds are that I was. As a consequence, there’s a lot of raw material there.”

The former president added that the deepfakes — digitally manipulated images, audio or video that appear legitimate — started with a version of him dancing, “saying dirty limericks” and similar kinds of activity.

“That technology’s here now,” continued Obama, who warned about the issue getting worse moving forward. “So, most immediately we’re going to have all the problems we had with misinformation before, [but] this next election cycle will be worse.”

He then suggested “digital fingerprints” to discern truth from misinformation.

“And the need for us, for the general public, I think to be more discriminating consumers of news and information, the need for us to over time develop technologies to create watermarks or digital fingerprints so we know what is true and what is not true,” he said. “There’s a whole bunch of work that’s going to have to be done there, but in the short term, it’s really going to be up to the American people to kind of say.”

Obama and Axelrod went on to say that today many consumers are only viewing information from sources they are predisposed to agree with and will likely believe what they see.

“Obviously, we saw that during the vaccination stuff. So, I am concerned about it,” added Obama, referring to the COVID vaccine. “And I think the best we’re going to be able to do is to constantly remind people that this is out there.”

The former president said he thinks most people are now aware that “not everything that pops up on your phone is true,” but cautioned misinformation can be used to discourage people from voting by characterizing the system as rigged and corrupt.

“That can oftentimes advantage the powerful,” said Obama. “And I am worried about that kind of cynicism developing even further during the course of this next election.”

The interview came about six weeks after the Obama Foundation on World Press Freedom Day posted a recent video of the former president lecturing about “widespread disinformation” and the need for journalists to create “an information environment” to support democracy.

Last year, Obama announced that his foundation would be launching a new initiative to combat misinformation. Days later, Obama angered conservatives with a speech at Stanford University warning of the dangers of “disinformation.”

During the speech, Obama said, “All we see is a constant feed of content where useful factual information and happy diversions, and cat videos flow alongside lies, conspiracy theories, junk science, quackery, White supremacist, racist tracts, misogynist screeds.”

Critics were quick to point out that Obama promoted the debunked narrative that former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election and that Obama infamously won Politifact’s “Lie of the Year” in 2013 by telling Americans, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” referring to the Affordable Care Act.

More recently, the Biden administration came under fire for trying to start the now-defunct Disinformation Governance Board under the Department of Homeland Security. Many Republicans argued such an initiative would act as a Ministry of Truth in a dystopian society by suppressing dissent under the guise of stopping misinformation.

Biden Spent Billions to Prosecute 31 People

It’s already saving lives. There are fewer deaths occurring,

Joe Biden
President United States of America
June 16, 2023
The US passed a landmark gun deal one year ago. Is it working?

Really? How does he know? The FBI crime numbers cannot be trusted.

And from the same article:

The event comes as available data suggests the U.S. is seeing a year-over-year decline in murders nationwide. At the same time, mass shootings appear to be accelerating.

And the numbers they do claim are very telling:

At least 31 people have been charged in 17 cases under new federal straw purchasing and trafficking criminal offenses, data from federal prosecutors through April shows.

31?!!! And strawman purchases were already illegal. Out of probably 15 to 20 million sales they charged 31 people under, what they claim, is a new law. And they think this is success?

Denials stemming from enhanced background checks for people under 21 blocked more than 130 firearm purchases between November and April, Peter Carr, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, previously told USA TODAY.

How many of those 130 blocked purchases resulted in an increase in public safety? And how many of those block purchases resulted in a decrease in public safety?

And at what cost?

It created a $750 million funding pot to incentivize states to create “red flag laws,” closed the “boyfriend loophole” by adding convicted domestic violence abusers in dating relationships to the national criminal background check system, clarified the definition of a “federally licensed firearm dealer,” made it a federal crime to traffic in firearms, stiffened penalties for “straw purchases” made on behalf of people who aren’t allowed to own guns and enhanced background checks for buyers under 21.

The law also appropriated billions in funding for schools and mental health services. That includes $150 million for a national 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, $250 million for states and territories to enhance community mental health services, $500 million to increase the number of school-based mental health providers and $500 million to train school counselors, social workers and psychologists. It also set aside $250 million in funding for community-based violence prevention initiatives.

Billions were spent to prosecute 31 people and block sales to 130 people who, almost for certain, were not a threat to anyone.

And this is even with them playing their game by their rules instead of based on whether what they are doing is a violation of the Second Amendment, which it is.

They lie, they deceive, and they ignore the specific enumerated right to keep and bear arms.

Committee approves proposal to regulate Marion County firearms, but state law has to change first

Proposal to control access to guns in Marion County

On Wednesday, the City-County Council’s Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee approved a proposal that would regulate gun access in Marion County. Nine council members voted in favor of the measure, and four against.

The proposal’s first provision would create a ban on the sale of assault-style weapons such as AR-15s. A second would increase the minimum age to purchase a weapon from 18 to 21. The third would end permitless carry of handguns.

Last month, Hogsett announced that one of his office’s top priorities during the next legislative session would be convincing the General Assembly to change state law surrounding gun regulation.

Currently, individuals do not need a permit to carry a firearm in Indiana. Indiana has a preemption statute that prevents local governments from regulating firearms.

Multiple council members said Wednesday that Indianapolis should be able to enforce its own laws on firearms.

“I implore our state legislature to remove this ban and allow our city to rule for the benefit of our people,” said Democratic council member Dan Boots.

Republican council members like Joshua Bain voted against the proposal.

”We’re going to continue to blame guns, other tools like that, for what is ultimately a spiritual issue that’s affecting our society,” he said.

But IMPD Chief Randal Taylor, who supports the measure, said more concrete solutions are needed.

“I’ve always said that I would much rather someone decide not to shoot someone, work on someone’s heart, and not do these crimes in the first place,” Taylor said at the meeting. “And I’m still all for that. However, we don’t seem to be winning that battle right now.”

‘Smart Gun’ Inventor Explains Why He’s Trying to Get a California Gun-Control Law Struck Down

The man behind the first gun with an integrated biometric lock set to come to market is backing a suit against one of California’s most restrictive gun laws.

Kai Kloepfer, Biofire founder, told The Reload his company wrote an amicus letter supporting plaintiffs in a case against the state’s Unsafe Handgun Act (UHA) because it believes the law holds back firearms safety innovation. That law bans the sale of any handgun that isn’t on the state’s approved roster, which hasn’t seen a new handgun model added to it since 2013. Biofire wrote to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month urging them to strike down the law in Boland v. Bonta.

“Our argument is the roster doesn’t serve the needs of Californians because it arbitrarily restricts the options that are available,” Kloepfer told The Reload. “California is to guns as Cuba is to cars. You can’t take advantage of all the advancements in technology, including in safety, that have been made since the guns the roster grandfathered in.”

The company’s involvement in the case is at least a public relations win for the California Rifle and Pistol Association and other plaintiffs in the case. It could also help sway the appeals panel reviewing the case that the law does more harm than good in its stated goal of protecting Californians from unsafe handguns. The move also indicates how Biofire plans to convince gun buyers, who have long been skeptical of “smart gun” technology, it is working in their interests.

Kloepfer said the company, like other gun manufacturers, isn’t planning to become directly involved in general gun-rights legal activism. However, he said they do plan to pursue legal action when a law impacts their business.

“What we do engage in are areas directly involved with smart guns. And, in particular, we have this very strong stance of being against mandates of this technology,” Kloepfer said. “It doesn’t make any sense for the market. It doesn’t make any sense for our customers. It doesn’t make any sense for us. So, areas like Boland as well as, obviously, the now-repealed New Jersey mandate for smart guns and things like that. We do get involved in direct smart gun topics or topics that impact our ability to serve our customers.”

California passed the UHA in 2001. Initially, it barred the sale of any new handgun models without a loaded chamber indicator or magazine disconnect safety. In 2013, the state mandated new pistol models must include so-called microstamping technology. In theory, microstamping imprints an identifiable mark on every spent casing with the goal of helping police solve crimes. But, as Kloepfer pointed out, there has never been a production gun anywhere in the world that incorporates the technology, and critics argue the technology is impossible to implement in a practical firearm.

“Our understanding is that the roster requires microstamping, which has never been implemented in any sort of commercially available firearm,” he said. “Biofire does not have microstamping in it. Similar to every other manufacturer, we have not seen a viable approach there.”

The real-world effect of adding the microstamping requirement, which New York is now considering implementing, was a complete ban on selling any handgun models created after 2013. Outside of law enforcement officers, who are not subject to the handgun roster’s restrictions despite unrostered guns’ status as “unsafe,” Californians have been mostly limited to buying pistols first introduced to the market more than 15 years ago.

Boland v. Bonta is already changing that, though. In March, Federal District Judge Cormac J. Carney issued a preliminary injunction against the UHA because he found it likely unconstitutional.

“These regulations are having a devastating impact on Californians’ ability to acquire and use new, state-of-the-art handguns,” Judge Carney wrote. “Since 2007, when the [loaded chamber indicator] and [magazine disconnect safety] requirements were introduced, very few new handguns have been introduced for sale in California with those features. Since 2013, when the microstamping requirement was introduced, not a single new semiautomatic handgun has been approved for sale in California.”

California filed to appeal the ruling. However, it only requested a stay on Judge Carney’s ruling in regard to the loaded chamber indicator and magazine disconnect safety requirements. The court agreed to that request. That means the microstamping requirement will remain enjoined as the appeal proceeds.

Kloepfer said Biofire has a version of its gun that includes a loaded chamber indicator and magazine disconnect safety. But he argued those features shouldn’t be required either, and the company would continue to support the case against the law.

Biofire has already brought in thousands of pre-orders for its first “smart gun” model and plans to ship the first batch of $1,500-$1,900 firearms by the end of the year.

“We’ve seen really tremendous demand so far,” Kloepfer said.

The gun is only available for direct purchase through Biofire’s website at this point, but Kloepfer said the company hopes to expand in the coming months.

“We just very simply don’t have the inventory capacity to stock at distributors or things like that,” he said. “So, as we get larger and start to sort of fulfill a lot of this backlog of demand, the goal is definitely to build positive relationships with distributors, especially ones that our customers are excited about.”

Oral arguments in the Boland v. Bonta appeal have been scheduled for August 23rd.

 

Gavin Newsom’s campaign to repeal the Second Amendment

Whatever else Gov. Gavin Newsom ’s (D-CA) campaign for a 28th Amendment gets wrong about guns, at least it implicitly admits that the Democratic Party’s gun control wish list is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment .

After all, why propose an amendment if the Constitution doesn’t forbid what you want to accomplish?

Leaving Newsom’s admission aside, however, his 28th Amendment would accomplish nothing, at least nothing good. At worst, it would lay the legal groundwork for confiscating every gun in the United States.

Newsom has offered no text for his amendment, only four “principles” he wants written into it. This allows him to propose “barring civilian purchase of assault weapons” without ever having to define exactly what an “assault weapon” is.

Define it too narrowly and gun manufacturers will create new models that skirt the definition. Define it too broadly by saying it is “any semi-automatic firearm with a detachable magazine,” for example, and you outlaw almost half the handguns in the nation. If the text of Newsom’s 28th Amendment is ever written, he’ll have to choose. The first option renders his amendment useless; the second would mean it never gets the votes to become law.

Not all of Newsom’s principles are so vague. Raising the legal age to buy a firearm from 18 to 21 is an easy bright line to enforce, but there isn’t any evidence that it would reduce gun crimes at all. But how can we raise the age to 21 when people may vote when three years younger than that?

Newsom’s third principle calls for a “reasonable waiting period for all gun purchases.” What is “reasonable” is not defined. We know from existing state waiting periods that they reduce gun suicides for those over 55, but they have no effect on gun homicide rates overall.

Finally, Newsom calls for “universal background checks” for gun purchases. But all commercial gun purchases are subject to universal background checks already. What Newsom is really calling for here is background checks for all private firearm transfers. Anytime anyone transfers gun ownership, from father to son, for example, or from neighbor to neighbor, Newsom wants the federal government to know about it.

Some states have tried this, and compliance is nonexistent. It is estimated that only 3.5% of private transfers in Oregon, for example, complied with that state’s universal background check law. The only way to achieve anything approaching effective compliance would be for the federal government to create a national gun registry and force all owners to register their firearms with the feds. That is the Democrats’ real goal with a universal background check system: a new government database that knows who owns every gun in the country and where they live.

Newsom’s gun grabbing pitch is predicated on the suggestion that mass shootings are a rational security threat and that the public, after “another few dozen of these in the next year or two,” will accept repealing the Second Amendment.

But mass shootings make up just 1% of all gun deaths each year. If Newsom wants to do something about gun violence, he should attack the George Soros district attorneys in his state and across the country who refuse to prosecute minorities charged with gun possession crimes. Democrats need to focus on enforcing existing gun laws before they try to create new ones.

‘Vigilance’ in Haiti.
Don’t think it can’t happen here, because in the past it has. And there are indications that people living in places where the local goobermint doesn’t seem to care all that much about ‘law and order’ will start taking care of business if goobermint won’t. We may not go as far as necklacing, but you never know what’ll happen if things start going kinetic.

“Fear has changed sides” in Haiti as street justice takes hold

Haiti may not be hell on earth, but it’s at least one of its suburbs. The island nation has been absolutely gutted over the decades, first by the despotic rule of the Duvalier family, and more recently by the power vacuum and near total absence of government authority in the wake of the assassination of Jovenel Moïse two years ago.

Crime is rampant, police are few and far between and in many cases, work alongside or in cooperation with the gangs that are the de facto authorities in many communities. At times the streets of Port-au-Prince have resembled a war zone; specifically a civil war pitting Haitians against Haitians in a deadly fight over control of a few square blocks of territory.

But as the New York Times reports, gang violence and violent crime has dropped dramatically in recent weeks as a new power has gained strength on the streets: the “bwa kale” movement, described by the Times as “a citizens “self-defense” movement. Over the past six weeks members have delivered their own brutal form of street justice against the gangs that are causing so many residents to live in fear, killing an estimated 160 suspected gang members.

“Before the 24th, every day someone passed by and demanded that I give him money because of my little business,” said Marie, 62, who sells shoes on the streets of Port-au-Prince. The Times is withholding her full name and those of other residents quoted in this article for their safety.

“When I had no money, they took whatever they wanted from my table, and this happened at any time of the day,” she said.

But two weeks ago, members of the “bwa kale” — crude slang for erection — burned a man believed to be a gang member alive in front of her shoe stall.

Though she sees the revenge movement as “God beginning to make things right,” Marie has misgivings.

“I support vigilance groups, but I don’t like the way they do it,” she said. “He could have been punished in another way. He could have been arrested and put in jail.”

The outbreak of mob justice is worrisome, Haiti experts say, because it could easily be used to target people who have nothing to do with gangs, and could lead to an explosion of even worse violence if the gangs seek retribution.

That it took a movement of self-appointed vigilantes to bring some semblance of calm to parts of Port-au-Prince underscores the chaos engulfing a country where no president has been elected in two years, and underpaid and outgunned police have fled in large numbers.

Even as vigilantes set people ablaze and set up checkpoints, many Haitians support them and consider them a natural consequence of an acute power vacuum.

It’s almost unfathomable to think of living in circumstances so awful that you shrug off or cheer on someone’s immolation, but I’m not sure many of us can truly comprehend what daily life is like for the average Haitian.

“People lived like rats who only came out of their holes to eat,” said Arnold Antonin, 80, a Haitian filmmaker living in the Dominican Republic who fled last year when his wife, Beatriz Larghi, was kidnapped and gangs took over his neighborhood, south of the capital. “The gangs were like the cats.” (His wife was released unharmed after three days, when a ransom was paid.)

On April 24, residents decided enough was enough. The 14 presumed gang members had been arrested and taken to a Port-au-Prince police station. Police officers watched helplessly as neighbors beat the suspects and used tires doused in gasoline to set them on fire, according to the report by the Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights, known as CARDH, which used a combination of field investigators, local authorities, witness accounts, media and verified social media reports to compile its data…

“The reaction of the population, after years of gangs imposing their law, can be attributed to self-defense,” said Gédéon Jean, the executive director of CARDH. “Gangs are supported by certain authorities, politicians and business people. At almost all levels of the police force, gangs have links with police officers. The police do not have the means to systematically and simultaneously confront the growing gangs.”

The “bwa kale” movement has led to a significant reduction in gang violence, according to the report. In May, 43 murders were recorded, most in Port-au-Prince, compared with 146 in April, Mr. Jean said, adding that there have been almost no kidnappings.

“Fear has changed sides,” Mr. Antonin said. He plans to return to Haiti in the coming weeks now that his neighborhood is back in the hands of the community.

It wasn’t white-helmeted UN peacekeepers who have the gangs trembling in fear, but pissed off and fed-up citizens who’ve been pushed to the breaking point. I can’t say I agree with every one of their tactics, but then, I’m not living in a hellhole where the police and gangs are often on the same side and law and order is nowhere to be found.

“The people who are doing this are not criminals,” said Robert Maguire, a retired professor at George Washington University who has studied Haiti for decades. “They are just ordinary Haitians who are fed up, frustrated and frightened. And they want some kind of security. If they have to do it themselves, they’ll do it.”

It may not be pretty, but life is hardly beautiful for most Haitians these days. They’re in a fight for survival, and for the moment it looks like they have the upper hand over the gangs that have been waging war on them since the country descended into anarchy.