Category: Goobermint

People Can Win.
We’ve been trained to think that endless rule by tiny minorities of really horrible people is the natural order of things, but that turns out to be just another lie

Earlier today Susan Schmidt and I published an article about a series of changes at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), a creepy sub-division of the Department of Homleand Security. It turns out that CISA, which just a week or so ago was busted for scrubbing embarrasing text from its website by the Foundation for Freedom Online, quietly eliminated its so-called “MDM” or “Misinformation, Disinformation, and Malinformation” subcommittee.

Just a year ago, the Department of Homeland Security was going all-in on the fight against “MDM.” The notion that America is fatally infected with “Misinformation, Disinformation, and Malinformation” was in fact the animating idea begind the asinine plan the Biden administration announced last April to institute a “Disinformation Governance Board,” which was to be headed by Nina Jankowicz, a self-styled Mary Poppins of digital rectitude:

America took one look at Jankowicz and at most a few fleeting moments considering the “Disinformation Governance Board” plan before concluding, correctly, that it was a beyond-loathsome expression of aristocratic arrogance that needed shutting down before the first Jankowicz presser. Characteristically, the press lied about the public reaction, claiming that the only displeasure was heard from the “GOP.” In fact, all sane people across the spectrum were instantly nauseated, their distress loud enough that the DHS hit “pause” on Jankowicz and the batty MinTruth plan after just three weeks.

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We only saw “fact checkers” appear when the truth started getting out.

The Crusade Against ‘Malinformation’ Explicitly Targets Inconvenient Truths.

The legal challenge to censorship by proxy highlights covert government manipulation of online speech.

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According to an alliance of social media platforms, government-funded organizations, and federal officials that journalist Michael Shellenberger calls the “censorship-industrial complex,” I had committed the offense of “malinformation.” Unlike “disinformation,” which is intentionally misleading, or “misinformation,” which is erroneous, “malinformation” is true but inconvenient.

As illustrated by internal Twitter communications that journalist Matt Taibbi highlighted last week, malinformation can include emails from government officials that undermine their credibility and “true content which might promote vaccine hesitancy.” The latter category encompasses accurate reports of “breakthrough infections” among people vaccinated against COVID-19, accounts of “true vaccine side effects,” objections to vaccine mandates, criticism of politicians, and citations of peer-reviewed research on naturally acquired immunity.

Disinformation and misinformation have always been contested categories, defined by the fallible and frequently subjective judgments of public officials and other government-endorsed experts. But malinformation is even more clearly in the eye of the beholder, since it is defined not by its alleged inaccuracy but by its perceived threat to public health, democracy, or national security, which often amounts to nothing more than questioning the wisdom, honesty, or authority of those experts.

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So when an LEO has one it’s called a “patrol rifle”.
But when a citizen has one it’s a called an “assault rifle”. Got it.

Observation O’ The Day
This is a perfect example to show how media purposely directs the narrative instead of simply reporting facts. They would have called the exact same rifle an “assault rifle” if had been stolen from a non-cop, and there would have been discussion about how unsecured firearms in people’s possession are how criminals obtain guns and that private ownership of these “weapons of war” makes us all less safe as a result.

Patrol rifle stolen from trooper’s cruiser overnight in Malden, Massachusetts State Police say

MALDEN, Mass. — A department-issued rifle was stolen from a Massachusetts State Police cruiser overnight in Malden, according to the State Police.

The burglary happened with the Ford Explorer cruiser was parked in a garage of a residential complex in Malden, state police said.

“A Department-issued patrol rifle was stolen from the cruiser,” State Police spokesman David Procopio said in a statement, adding, “the cruiser was locked and the rifle secured in a mount.”

Forced entry was made into the cruiser, Procopio said. Sources tell WCVB the incident was not a smash-and-grab, but a professional break-in.

“At this time, we have no indication of the rifle being used subsequent to its theft,” Procopio said.

The incident is under investigation. Police are focusing on security cameras in the garage — but they’re not sure they were working overnight — and Malden city cameras outside the garage.

The cruiser was towed from the scene on a flatbed.

Legislators considering Constitution before passing laws? THE HORROR

When laws are challenged, they’re challenged on constitutional grounds. Is this law in keeping with the Constitution or is this a case of legislative overreach?

In fact, lawmakers are supposed to at least consider such things before passing laws. After all, they swear to support and defend the Constitution, which one would imagine requires them to consider it at a minimum before passing some bill.

But it seems that the folks at the Huffington Post are upset that lawmakers are considering court rulings before passing gun control. They made this pretty clear recently.

In fact, they’re so upset, they said it all over again.

Left In The Legislative Lurch

Eight more states have laws similar to California’s assault weapons ban that could be affected if the Supreme Court ultimately weighs in.

The expectation that these laws may be doomed is already complicating the politics of passing new ones like them.

In New Mexico, Democratic Gov. Michelle Luján Grisham has repeatedly urged the legislature to send her an assault weapons ban to sign this session, but lawmakers tabled the effort — partly over concerns that it wouldn’t withstand scrutiny in federal court.

“There’s absolutely no point to passing new laws which federal courts will strike down and which are clearly going to be deemed unconstitutional,” state Sen. Joseph Cervantes, a Democrat, tweeted last month.

With those lawsuits still playing out, the future of gun policy remains in flux. But that legal panorama makes it hard to imagine clear lanes for reform in the near future.

“We’re in a very difficult spot with that Bruen ruling,” said Miranda Viscoli, co-president of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence. “Even though it was only about concealed carry, it’s just made everybody afraid who wants to pass common sense gun violence prevention legislation.”

Now, in fairness, this is only one part of a much longer piece lamenting the rulings and the impact they’re having on gun control.

Still, it’s interesting that they’re still complaining about states not passing gun control because they figure it’ll be tossed by the courts.

I’m sorry, that’s not a bug. It’s a feature.

Huffington Post can be big mad all they want, but the truth of the matter is that gun control isn’t constitutional. The author tries to get hung up on the militia clause at one point–a matter that has been thoroughly and completely debunked–and then laments the text and history test laid down in Bruen, but at no point can they actually make a legitimate case that gun control is within keeping behind the text or spirit of the Second Amendment.

That’s unsurprising, of course.

I’m glad to see legislatures hold up a bit before infringing on people’s rights. I’m upset that they’re only starting to do it just now, but this is a case of better late than never.

If they’re holding up, that’s great, but as the piece also notes, a lot of places aren’t. In truth, that is the real problem, not those exercising a bit of caution and, dare I say, common sense.

Then again, it’s Huffington Post. What can you really expect?

 

Trump Grand Jury Session Abruptly Canceled.

On Wednesday morning, Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that Bragg was having problems with the grand jury. “The Rogue prosecutor, who is having a hard time with the Grand Jury, especially after the powerful testimony against him by Felon Cohen’s highly respected former lawyer, is attempting to build a case that has NEVER BEEN BROUGHT BEFORE AND ACTUALLY, CAN’T BE BROUGHT,” he claimed. “If he spent this time, effort, and money on fighting VIOLENT CRIME, which is destroying NYC, our once beautiful and safe Manhattan, which has become an absolute HELLHOLE, would be a much better place to live!”

Trump was clearly on to something. The Wednesday session of the grand jury has been canceled, according to a report from Business Insider.

Two law enforcement officers have informed Insider that the grand jury in the Trump case has been instructed not to report for duty on Wednesday — the day previous reports suggested there would be a possible indictment vote against former President Donald Trump. Although there is no confirmed schedule beyond Wednesday, one of the sources, speaking anonymously, indicated that it is doubtful the grand jury will convene at all this week. The grand jury typically meets on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, and Fox News reports that the grand jury is on standby for Thursday.

Former Michael Cohen legal advisor Robert Costello, a surprise witness this week, was touted by Trump as having conclusive and irrefutable evidence to exonerate him. Amongst other testimony damaging to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s efforts to nab Trump, it was revealed that Bragg, who is already the target of a House GOP investigation for abuse of power, may have concealed exculpatory evidence from the grand jury.

This latest development raises new doubts as to whether the indictment will happen at all, especially in light of a previous report that sources close to the investigation believe it is possible that Bragg may end up not indicting Trump at all, and that Trump’s team has not been formally notified of an imminent indictment.

It’s not clear why Bragg, who has been presenting “evidence” against Trump since mid-January, suddenly halted the grand jury from convening. This has led to speculation that recent developments may have further weakened his already fragile case, and may even result in the failure of any potential indictment.

On Monday, constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley called Bragg’s case against Trump “legally pathetic,” and observed Bragg is “struggling to twist state laws to effectively prosecute a federal case long ago rejected by the Justice Department against Trump over his payment of ‘hush money’ to former stripper Stormy Daniels.”

Bragg’s case against Trump may be falling apart, thanks to the efforts of alternative media calling out his abuse of power and partisan motives.

Biden Wants To Emulate California’s (Failed) Gun Laws

By John R. Lott Jr. for RealClearPolitics

President Biden traveled to Monterey Park, California, the site of a mass public shooting that left 11 dead in January, to announce new executive actions on gun control. He touts the proposals as necessary “to reduce gun violence and make our communities safer.” But California already has all the gun control laws that Biden put forward, and yet it has a higher per capita rate of mass public shootings than the rest of the country.

Measures already in place include background checks on all transfers of firearms, “red flag” gun confiscation laws, and an assault weapon ban. Even if Biden’s ideal background check law had been in effect and perfectly enforced, it wouldn’t have stopped one mass public shooting this century.

Biden exaggerated the support for his background check proposals. The surveys he cites compress long, complicated proposals into one-sentence summaries. But when people are told that these laws would turn someone into a felon just for temporarily lending a handgun to a woman who is being threatened by a stalker, survey respondents answer that they oppose the regulation. 

One proposal would force people who sell or transfer only a few guns to obtain a federal firearms license. But even licensed dealers face an uphill regulatory battle. Biden’s zero-tolerance (zero tolerance for what?) policy drives licensed dealers out of business. The end effect is to stop gun sales.

But Biden has another goal. Despite federal law explicitly forbidding a national gun registry, the President has begun putting together a national database on gun ownership. By the beginning of last year, there were almost a billion entries.

Forcing gun transfers to go through licensed dealers will help create a more complete registry. And that’s about all it will do, since gun licensing and registration doesn’t solve any crime. The bottom line is to drive up the price of guns for law-abiding citizens and therefore stop gun sales altogether. In other countries, and even in parts of the United States, registration is consistently used to eventually take away people’s guns, and given Biden’s constant call to ban all semi-automatic weapons, which make up about 85% of all guns sold in the U.S., that is a real concern here.

Biden wants to “improve public awareness and increase” use of red flag laws (Extreme Risk Protection Orders). But this diverts focus from better laws already on the books in all 50 states. Involuntary commitment laws provide for evaluations by mental health experts, an emergency court hearing, and a lawyer. These laws give judges more options, such as mandatory outpatient mental health care, driver’s license suspensions, or taking away their guns.

By contrast, red flag laws only take away a person’s guns. If a person is truly suicidal – almost all the red flag cases involve concerns over suicide – there are so many other methods that are just as likely to be successful (hanging oneself, walking in front of a train, jumping from a height). Simply taking away someone’s legally owned guns isn’t a serious solution.

Gun control advocates claim that California’s 1990 assault weapon ban is responsible for its 55% drop in firearm mortality from 1993 to 2017. But California’s murder rate peaked in 1993 at 13.1 per 100,000 people, rising from 10.9 in 1989, the year before the state enacted its assault weapons ban. So why did the murder rate fall by 10%  in 1994 and not in 1990, and continue falling by 53% by 2000? California’s tough three-strikes criminal punishment law started on March 7, 1994.

Biden says we need national gun control laws to protect states like California, but that ignores the fact that the guns used in California’s mass public shootings were from California. Indeed, the firearms in all but two mass public shootings over the last 25 years were from the state where the attack occurred.

Gun control measures aren’t just ineffective against mass public shootings – they actually encourage attacks. The shootings keep occurring in places where people can’t have concealed handguns. In Los Angeles County, where two mass public shootings occurred in January, there is only one permit for every 5,660 adults. In San Mateo County, where another attack occurred, there is one permit per 24,630 adults. By comparison, there is one permit holder for every nine people in the 43 right-to-carry states.

Concealed handgun permit holders make a difference in those 43 states. Indeed, people legally carrying guns stopped at least 37 mass public shootings since 2020. And when Americans are allowed to legally carry concealed handguns, they stop about half of the active shooting attacks in the U.S.

Mass public shooters purposefully pick targets where they know their victims cannot protect themselves. The perpetrator of a mass shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., last year wrote in his manifesto: “Areas where CCW [carrying a concealed weapon] are outlawed or prohibited may be good areas of attack ... Areas with strict gun laws are also great places of attack.” Other mass murderers have made similar statements.

These killers may be crazy, but most aren’t stupid. Yet, states like California, New York, and New Jersey are moving to create more gun-free zones, where mass murderers won’t have to worry about victims protecting themselves.

Unfortunately, the gun control Biden pushes won’t stop mass public shootings and will only make problems worse. Gun control failures are used to call for more gun control laws. The solutions that would actually work aren’t being discussed.

Cert. Petition on the First Amendment and Coercive Government Threats in NRA v. Vullo.

William Brewer, Sarah Rogers & Noah Peters of Brewer Attorneys & Counselors and I filed a petition earlier this month asking the Supreme Court to review the Second Circuit decision in NRA v. Vullo; I think many of our readers will find it interesting (my apologies for the delay in passing it along).

I generally tend to agree with the NRA’s ideological views, to a considerable extent, but I would have been glad to be engaged to argue a similar case on behalf of groups I disagreed with as well; it’s a pretty important First Amendment question that can affect groups with all sorts of views. (Note that the ACLU filed an amicus brief on NRA’s side in the District Court.) Here’s our Introduction:

The Second Circuit’s opinion below gives state officials free rein to financially blacklist their political opponents—from gun-rights groups, to abortion-rights groups, to environmentalist groups, and beyond. It lets state officials “threaten[ ] regulated institutions with costly investigations, increased regulatory scrutiny and penalties should they fail to discontinue their arrangements with” a controversial speaker, on the ground that disfavored political speech poses a regulable “reputational risk.”

It also permits selective investigations and penalties targeting business arrangements with disfavored speakers, even where the regulator premises its hostility explicitly on an entity’s political speech and treats leniently, or exempts, identical transactions with customers who lack controversial views. In sum, it lets government officials, acting with undisguised political animus, transmute “general backlash” against controversial advocacy into a justification for crackdowns on advocates (and firms who serve them), eviscerating free speech rights.

Reaching this result, the Second Circuit disregards basic pleading standards and undermines fundamental First Amendment freedoms. It also departs from this Court’s precedent in Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan and from the Seventh Circuit’s precedent in Backpage.com, LLC v. Dart.

This case arises from a series of actions—including press releases, official regulatory guidance, and contemporaneous investigations and penalties—issued by or on behalf of New York’s powerful Department of Financial Services (“DFS”) against financial institutions doing business with the NRA. Among other things, the Complaint states that Superintendent Maria Vullo: (1) warned regulated institutions that doing business with Second Amendment advocacy groups posed “reputational risk” of concern to DFS; (2) secretly offered leniency to insurers for unrelated infractions if they dropped the NRA; and (3) extracted highly-publicized and over-reaching consent orders, and multi-million dollar penalties, from firms that formerly served the NRA. Citing private telephone calls, internal insurer documents, and statements by an anonymous banking executive to industry press, the Complaint alleges that numerous financial institutions perceived Vullo’s actions as threatening and, therefore, ceased business arrangements with the NRA or refused new ones.

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More Caught Illegally Crossing Southern Border in 1 Year of Biden Than Entire Trump Presidency.

“Our top priority is to keep terrorists and their weapons from entering the United States.” So says the website of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The same webpage that makes this declaration includes a table that provides some relevant data for the fiscal years from 2017 to 2023. It lists how many individuals on the Terrorist Screening Dataset (commonly known as the “terrorist watchlist”) were encountered by the Border Patrol as they were trying to illegally sneak into the United States between the ports of entry on our southern border.

The Terrorist Screening Dataset, says the webpage, “originated as the consolidated terrorist watchlist to house information on known or suspected terrorists (KSTs) but has evolved over the last decade to include additional individuals who represent a potential threat to the United States, including known affiliates of watchlisted individuals.”

In fiscal year 2017, when Donald Trump was inaugurated as president, the Border Patrol encountered just two individuals on the terrorist watchlist trying to sneak across the southern border between the ports of entry. In fiscal year 2018, it encountered six. In fiscal year 2019, it encountered none; and, in fiscal year 2020, it encountered three.

In fiscal year 2021, the year President Joe Biden was inaugurated, there was a substantial shift in the trend. That year, the number of individuals on the terrorist watchlist that the Border Patrol encountered trying to sneak across the southern border increased fivefold to 15.

Then, in fiscal year 2022, it climbed to 98. So far in fiscal year 2023, which isn’t even half over yet, the Border Patrol has encountered 69 individuals on the terrorist watchlist trying to sneak across our southern border between the ports of entry.

How many on the terrorist watchlist have actually succeeded in illegally crossing our southern border into the United States? There is no way to know.

What we do know is that it only took 19 foreign terrorists who had made their way into the United States to hijack four domestic flights on Sept. 11, 2001.

While the Border Patrol managed to catch 98 on the terrorist watchlist trying to illegally cross our southern border between the ports of entry last year, is it possible there were 19 the Border Patrol did not catch?

There has also been a massive upward trend in the number of aliens the Border Patrol has “apprehended” or “encountered” as they tried to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border between the ports of entry.

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Fauci Caught Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud About the COVID Vaccine During PBS Special

We should all reconcile with the fact that Dr. Anthony Fauci is never going away; too many people idolize the man. He’s become a cult-like figure for the COVID freaks on the Left, the male version of Hillary Clinton. Like herpes, you may not see Fauci daily, but he’ll say ‘hey’ every few years. PBS is doing a documentary about that man who got everything wrong about the coronavirus. In some segments posted on social media, Fauci is walking around DC with Mayor Muriel Bowser, trying to increase vaccine rates among black neighborhoods. They were met with skepticism (via Fox News):

The exchange was documented by PBS for an upcoming program on Fauci as part of its “American Masters” series, which aims to help viewers “discover insightful profiles of important figures in America’s artistic and cultural life.”

In a clip from the program titled “Dr. Fauci visits D.C. to battle vaccine hesitancy,” Fauci and Bowser are shown in June 2021 walking the streets of Ward 8 of Anacostia in southeast D.C. – a historical African-American neighborhood that Fauci called “disenfranchised” with low vaccination levels. At the time of the video, Fauci was the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.…

One man challenged the renowned doctor and the Democratic mayor by saying that “the people in America are not settled with the information that’s been given to us right now.”

“So, I’m not going to be lining up taking a shot on a vaccination for something that wasn’t clear in the first place,” he said.

He pressed Fauci and Bowser about the length of time it took to develop the vaccine and said, “Nine months is definitely not enough for nobody to be taking no vaccination that you all came up with.”

Bowser defended the vaccinate by saying, “The only reason I’m talking to you right now, as close as we are, is that I’ve been vaccinated,” as she stood about six feet from the man on the front porch of his home.

“But if thousands of people like you don’t get vaccinated, you’re going to let this virus continue to percolate in this country and in this world,” Bowser said.

“Something like the common flu then, right?” the man interjected.…

“[Your] campaign is about fear. It’s about inciting fear in people. You all attack people with fear. That’s what this pandemic is. It’s a fear, it’s fear, this pandemic. That’s all it is,” he said as Fauci and Bowser walked away.

Another woman also challenged the duo, saying, “I heard that [the vaccine] doesn’t cure it, and it doesn’t stop you from getting it.”

The pure comedic aspect surfaces when Fauci blames red states for not pushing vaccination, saying they will keep COVID around as new outbreaks occur. Sir, you’re in deep-blue DC, and people are skeptical of getting vaccinated. Also, the cat was already out of the bag: COVID is endemic. The one thing that Fauci should have come away with during this little walk through DC is that he’s abysmal at messaging. He also said that Republicans needed to be broken to his whims on vaccination.

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Shot: defund the police
Chaser: I am begging for more police

Liberals are never, ever held to account.

San Francisco District Supervisor Hillary Ronen is “begging” for more police officers in the Mission District. Crime is out of control, and the city absolutely has to do something about it.

It’s a disaster! Somebody do something!

You have to sympathize with her and her constituents. Sure sounds like things are really bad out there. I wonder how any city could allow such a degradation in its policing capability?

Hillary Ronen is the one to ask. She led the fight to defund the police, after all.

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Governor says she’s going to keep pushing on crime, gun bills

As Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham started her post-session news conference Saturday, she already knew the score.

Of the roughly 40 public safety bills introduced this year, the governor said she championed 10.

“We have about a handful up, and out of 40, it’s 10 [that passed], and not all of those would really constitute what I think are strong public safety measures,” she said.

“I know that is an area that you want me to say I’m disappointed,” Lujan Grisham added. “I’m motivated. I am very motivated to find additional ways to make sure that we really do everything in our power that makes our communities and cities in our state safe.”

The Legislature passed a gun storage law named after a 13-year-old Albuquerque boy authorities say was shot and killed by a fellow student who took his father’s gun to an Albuquerque middle school. Lawmakers also passed a bill that cracks down on organized retail crime and made it a fourth-degree felony to buy a gun for another person who is prohibited from owning a firearm.

But some of the governor’s biggest priorities went nowhere, including a ban on assault weapons; a bill to raise the age to 21 to buy or possess semi-automatic firearms, including assault weapons; and a 14-day waiting period to buy guns.

Other gun-related legislation — prohibiting firearms within 100 feet of polling places and updating the Unfair Trade Practices Act to lift restrictions on the filing of lawsuits against manufacturers or distributors — passed the Senate but didn’t get a hearing in the House, where they were likely to meet stiff opposition.

The governor also pushed for establishing a “rebuttable presumption” to keep repeat violent offenders awaiting trial off the streets instead of letting them be released pretrial. The bill was tabled in committee amid concerns it was unconstitutional.

Miranda Viscoli, co-president of New Mexicans to Prevent Gun Violence, said she was “extremely disappointed” the bill to impose a 14-day waiting period on gun sales didn’t get a hearing in either chamber. Of all the violence prevention bills proposed this year, that was the bill that would’ve made the biggest difference, she added.

“The studies we looked at say it’s a game-changer in terms of suicide and crimes of passion,” she said.

But Viscoli said she was grateful the Legislature passed House Bill 9, intended to keep guns out of the hands of children and teens. The governor signed it into law Tuesday.

“We’ve been working on getting that passed since 2017,” she said.

Rep. Pamelya Herndon, D-Albuquerque, who sponsored the legislation known as the Bennie Hargrove Act, called some of the other gun bills considered by the Legislature controversial, noting some are “going to take some time.”

Lujan Grisham, who was hammered over a crime wave plaguing New Mexico as she campaigned for a second term last year, vowed to keep “pushing the Legislature” to enact more measures, including funding to put an additional 1,000 police officers on the ground.

“The Legislature should expect me to look at that again because I know we need 1,000 officers,” she said.

Asked about her strategy to get her public safety priorities across the finish line, Lujan Grisham said she has to think about “creative solutions.”

“I’m going to keep trying,” she said.

“Just look at the stats. We’ve released some folks that should never have been released and have already reoffended in Albuquerque while we’ve all been in the legislative session,” she said, referring to efforts to pass a pretrial detention bill. “I find that to be intolerable. There are states who do it better, and I don’t know why we don’t just do exactly what those states are doing. I don’t need to recreate the wheel.”

The governor said she would continue to battle for modified pretrial detention, noting “everyone here knows I’m introducing that again. And again and again, and I might just try to change the Constitution so I can run again.”

Lujan Grisham said she was kidding but added she would continue to battle on crime legislation. And she made no apologies for her battle against guns, brushing off criticism she’s infringing on law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights.

“I have not talked to a single policymaker, not one legislator, who’s interested in preventing responsible gun owners from accessing firearms,” she said.

“What we’re trying to address is that we have a gun violence issue and that guns … get into the hands of people who should not have them,” she said. “That … takes a scalpel, like figuring out where we got a problem and taking care of that particular problem.”

The Biden administration leaked the military records for Republicans who were running for elective office to try to hurt their election chances.

House weaponization panel probes release of Air Force records to political operatives

The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is probing the Air Force over the improper release of military service records to a political opposition research group.

In a letter to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on Thursday, Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Ohio Republican, demanded that the service branch hand over all documents and communication related to the release of Official Military Personnel Files to Due Diligence Group, LLC, a research firm that obtained the records of multiple GOP candidates in the lead up to the midterm elections in 2022.

Rep. Chis Stewart, Utah Republican, co-signed the letter.

An internal Air Force investigation revealed last month that the service improperly released the military duty information for 11 individuals. The investigation was launched after the disclosure of Indiana House Republican candidate Jennifer-Ruth Green’s military records ahead of the midterms.

Several other GOP candidates have since come forward to report that their military records were improperly released.

Two sitting members of congress, Republican Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska and Zach Nunn of Iowa, were also among those whose records were improperly released.

In a letter to Mr. Bacon last month, the Air Force said a Due Diligence Group employee posing as a background investigator requested his records.

“Department of the Air Force employees did not follow proper procedures requiring the member’s authorizing signature consenting to the release of information,” Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek told CNN last month. “There was no evidence of political motivation or malicious intent on the part of any employee.”

She said the Air Force is “committed to preventing any such unauthorized disclosure of private information from occurring again” and will perform monthly audits.

Ms. Stefanek told Politico that “virtually all” of the 11 unauthorized requests for the records came from Due Diligence Group.

Mr. Jordan said on Thursday that the improper releases “may have violated Department of Defense policies and federal law.”

“While the Air Force has rightfully taken responsibility for these inappropriate OMPF disclosures, questions remain unanswered about the U.S. Air Force’s collection, maintenance, and dissemination of this sensitive information,” Mr. Jordan wrote.

New Student-Led ‘Red Guard’ Installed in Maine School District Causes Fury at Board Meeting

If you’re unfamiliar with the Red Guard instituted by Chairman Mao in China, get ready to understand it better than you ever wanted to. Critics of the sweeping transgender ideology infecting the school and medical systems have likened the ideology’s proponents to China’s Red Guard, a group of students trained to turn against their parents and other adults to usher in a brutal dictatorship. The Red Guard famously tortured its own teachers and parents in the name of the Communist cultural revolution. It was a dark and dangerous time in China for anyone who would not bow to the demands of tyrants.

A school system in Maine has instituted its own burgeoning Red Guard called the “Civil Rights Team.” This benign-sounding organization of kids is supposed to ensure that student rights are upheld. What has happened instead led to parents sounding off at the latest school board meeting to complain that the Civil Rights Team is just a bullying organization with an agenda. The Maine Wire covered the story:

Kristen Day said students affiliated with one of RSU 14’s Civil Rights Teams harassed her daughter. When her daughter refused to speak about her sexuality, two students affiliated with the club began to bully her and call her homophobic.

“They insisted she was gay because she dressed gay and listened to gay music,” Day said of her daughter, who was a 7th grader at the time of the alleged harassment.

“She was then called homophobic because she wasn’t at least bi,” Day said.

“She’s not political, but she does not want to talk about her sexuality in school,” she said.

Day went on to describe how the CRT (Is it a coincidence that their acronym mirrors Critical Race Theory?) founded by the Maine Attorney General’s office, pressured the kids into wearing pronoun pins.

Civil Rights Teams (CRTs) operate in Maine schools as a project of the Maine Attorney General’s Office, and the nominal goal of the student organizations is to reduce “bias-motivated” bullying and harassment in schools.

Day said her daughter was harassed about her sexuality by students affiliated with the school’s CRT under the pretext of opening a discussion about student sexuality.

CRT members also created surveys for their peers to take with questions about sexuality and gender, and they pressured them to don “pronoun” pins, Day said.

Windham Superintendent Christopher Howell, instead of investigating the allegations, wrote an email denying it ever happened.

“In short, the focus of [Civil Rights] teams is on helping to create a safe school environment for all,” said Howell.

“We are not aware of the Civil Rights Team being involved in the situation you’re referring to,” he said.

Using students to pressure other students into “group-think” is right out of the Commie playbook. It is not only disturbing that the Attorney General of Maine is complicit in doing this, but it should be a shocking wake-up call to parents nationwide. This threat of Communism is real. It is happening right now in this country. The question is, what are you going to do about it? If left unchecked this only ends one way: the same way it ended in China. NPR reported the sad reality in China as a result of the cultural revolution.

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BLUF
….the only person Biden is trying to save with this rhetoric is himself.

Gun Control Is Joe Biden’s Safe Space
With more economic problems looming, the president returns to an old favorite.

When things are going poorly, Joe Biden usually heads out for another gun-control push, issuing executive orders, demanding more legislation, and repeating many of his most preposterous anecdotes and claims. Because Biden’s gun rhetoric offers little more than emotionalism, it doesn’t have to make much sense — which, of course, plays to his greatest strength.

During the spring and summer of 2022, when inflation kept hitting new 40-year highs, Biden gave one cynical speech on gun violence after the next. This week, as the banking system yawned under the weight of his reckless policies, Biden was in Monterey Park, where 11 people were murdered by a 72-year-old lunatic during last year’s Lunar New Year celebration, to demand Congress pass more laws.

Obviously, it’s all meant to be a distraction. But it also needs to be debunked.

Here is CBS News giving the White House the lead it was looking for:

President Biden issued an executive order on Tuesday that aims to increase the number of background checks to buy guns, promote better and more secure firearms storage and ensure U.S. law enforcement agencies are getting the most out of a bipartisan gun control law enacted last summer.

Biden’s executive order will direct U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to increase background checks by “cracking down on gun sellers who don’t perform them when required.” This is already the law, and there’s no evidence of any widespread problem with licensed gun sellers circumventing checks to illegally sell firearms to criminals.

Even if gun dealers were a bunch of disreputable characters, it makes little sense for them to risk their businesses when a healthy market for legal guns exists. But it is true that occasionally, as happened with the Charleston Church shooter, law enforcement doesn’t do its job. So maybe Biden should sign an executive order demanding the FBI try harder.

The attorney general is free to crack down on criminals whenever he pleases. Biden’s executive orders feed the false perception that more background checks would lead to less violence. Biden admits in his speech that goal of his new EO is “moving us as close as we can to universal background checks without new legislation.”

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Biden’s Plan To Unilaterally Expand Background Checks for Gun Buyers Is Legally and Logically Dubious
The president wants to redefine federally licensed gun dealers in service of an ineffective anti-crime strategy.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday issued an executive order that the White House says will move federal regulation of gun sales “as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation.” The order relies on a legally contentious redefinition of who qualifies as a gun “dealer” and therefore must obtain a federal license and comply with related rules, including customer background checks.

Federal law defines a gun dealer as someone who is “engaged in the business of selling firearms,” which until last year was defined as “devot[ing] time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business with the principal objective of livelihood and profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms.” The 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act excised “with the principal objective of livelihood and profit” and replaced it with “to predominantly earn a profit.”

As the Congressional Research Service explains, that change was “intended to require persons who buy and resell firearms repetitively for profit to be licensed federally as gun dealers, even if they do not do so with ‘the principal objective of livelihood.'” According to the amendment’s supporters, “there was confusion” about whether the definition of “engaged in the business” covered “individuals who bought and resold firearms repetitively for profit, but possibly not as the principal source of their livelihood.” The statutory definition still explicitly excludes “a person who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of his personal collection of firearms.”

Biden’s order does not say exactly how he intends to expand the number of people who are classified as dealers. Instead it instructs Attorney General Merrick Garland, whose department includes the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), to “clarify the definition of who is engaged in the business of dealing in firearms.” Garland may do that through “rulemaking, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.”

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BACKDOOR UNIVERSAL BACKGROUND CHECKS INCOMING

Despite GOA Warnings, Republicans Helped the Biden Administration Implement Backdoor UBCs

President Biden just announced that he would be mandating backdoor UBCs or “as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation.”[i] His claimed “authority” comes from Section 12002 of the Cornyn-Murphy Compromise.[ii] According to the White House:

Specifically, the President is directing the Attorney General to move the U.S. as close to universal background checks as possible without additional legislation by clarifying, as appropriate, the statutory definition of who is “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms, as updated by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.[iii]

Unfortunately, Gun Owners of America has been expecting this since the passage of the unconstitutional compromise on gun rights known as Cornyn-Murphy, or the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. GOA warned:

Expanding the definition of FFLs (Federal Firearms Licenses) could require anyone who sells more than one gun to do so through an FFL, resulting in a backdoor mechanism for universal background registration checks—just as the Obama Administration attempted.[iv]

Nevertheless, Congress, including 15 Senate GOP, rushed to “compromise” our gun rights away with hastily-written, secretly-negotiated legislation.[v]

Senator Cornyn’s Definition of “Engaged in the Business” Led Directly to Backdoor Universal Background Checks

Prior to Senate Republicans’ compromise, the legal definition of a Federal Firearms License (FFL) Gun Dealer read as follows:[vi]

The term “dealer” means (A) any person engaged in the business of selling firearms at wholesale or retail, (B) any person engaged in the business[vii] of repairing firearms or of making or fitting special barrels, stocks, or trigger mechanisms to firearms, or (C) any person who is a pawnbroker.

Anyone “engaged in the business” must have a license to deal in firearms, but law-abiding citizen’s private transfers were not included in this 53-year-old definition. The definition of a Federal Firearms License (FFL) was a critical boundary between the mandatory background checks performed during commercial gun sales and law-abiding private transfers and sales that take place daily in more than half of the United States. But Cornyn-Murphy added this foolish clarification, which the Biden Administration now proposes to weaponize:

The term `to predominantly earn a profit’ means that the intent underlying the sale or disposition of firearms is predominantly one of obtaining pecuniary gain, as opposed to other intents, such as improving or liquidating a personal firearms collection

Not only that, but this asinine definition even “Provided, That proof of profit shall not be required” for a violation—making President Biden’s backdoor Universal Background Check scheme even easier! Expanding the statutory definition of FFLs (Federal Firearms Licenses) allowed the Biden Administration a strong excuse to vastly expand federal regulations and require anyone who sells more than one gun to do so through an FFL, resulting in a backdoor mechanism for universal background registration checks—just as the Obama Administration attempted.[viii]

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New Mexico governor signs gun storage bill, but fate of other gun control bills still in doubt

The first gun control bill of the legislative session to get to New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has now been signed into law. The big question now is how many others will show up on her desk before the session wraps up this Saturday.

HB 9 creates the new crimes of “negligently making a firearm accessible to a minor” and “negligently making a firearm accessible to a minor resulting in great bodily harm or death”; misdemeanor and fourth-degree felonies, respectively. In practice, gun owners in the state are now expected to store their firearms locked up unless they’re being carried, at least if there are minors in the home, but the law is utterly unenforceable from a proactive standpoint. Even when the law is applied after a tragedy occurs the legal consequences are usually nothing, especially compared to the loss of a child. Take this recent case from North Carolina, for example.

A Gaston County assistant district attorney said that two parents and an uncle charged in the shooting death of a 4-year-old reached sentencing agreements on Monday.

Assistant district attorney Zach Holeve confirmed that Savannah Leigh Brehm and Hector Manuel Mendoza-Saucedo got 36-month probation sentences, while gun owner Keith Deshawn Sturghill received 24 months of probation.

Brehm, 22, Mendoza-Saucedo, 22, and Sturghill, 21, faced several charges, including felony involuntary manslaughter, felony child abuse, and the misdemeanor charge of storing a firearm in a manner accessible to a minor.

During a court hearing, prosecutors said the adults knew a loaded gun was on the home’s coffee table with the safety off. The gun belonged to Strughill.

Mendoza and Strughill left for work when the 5-year-old child and 4-year-old child found the weapon. A 5-year-old sibling shot the 4-year-old, according to investigators.

These three were charged with multiple felonies but only received probation for their negligence; presumably when their charges were reduced to a misdemeanor. Given the overwhelming number of felony cases that result in plea bargains, I doubt that New Mexico’s gun storage law is going to have much teeth to it. Encouraging responsible gun storage, either through incentivizing the use of gun safes and locks or through public safety campaigns aimed at gun-owning parents, seems like a much better approach than creating a new crime, but this is still probably the least offensive gun control bill introduced by New Mexico Democrats this session.

There are still a number of other measures that could still get to Grisham’s desk before Friday, including SB 428, which would amend the state’s Unfair Practices Act to include firearms with an eye towards encouraging lawsuits against gun makers for allegedly fueling violence through their marketing. The measure passed out of the Senate last week, but so far has not received a committee hearing in the House.

Meanwhile, a bill banning the sale and possession of unregistered “assault weapons” is sitting in the House Judiciary Committee, and Grisham has run into some behind-the-scenes opposition that could derail the measure completely, Other legislation raising the age to purchase a firearm to 21 and establish a 14-day waiting period on gun sales are also still kicking around, but haven’t seen any committee action in recent weeks.

Any bills that aren’t approved by both Houses by noon on March 18th are theoretically done for the year, though Grisham has suggested she could call lawmakers back for a special session on gun control if they don’t enact her anti-2A wishlist. Given the lack of movement on many of the governor’s demands, it may be that Democrats have just decided to kick some of these cans down the road a couple of months, but I suspect that gun owners and groups like the New Mexico State Shooting Association are also having an impact on at least some of the legislators that Grisham hoped would be reliable votes for her gun control agenda.

BIDEN EXECUTIVE ORDER: UNIVERSAL BACKGROUND CHECKS WITHOUT CONGRESS?

In what many conservatives and pro-gun groups paint as a chilling overreach by the White House, President Biden on Tuesday announced a new Executive Order aimed at guns.

The rambling EO signed by Biden on March 14, on “on Reducing Gun Violence and Making Our Communities Safer,” is multi-faceted.

Among its “whole-of-government approach” tenets are marching orders to the Justice Department to publicly release more inspection reports of licensed gun dealers, expand existing campaigns to promote the safe storage of firearms, step up the entry of ballistics data collected from crime scenes, and increase efforts to encourage the use of “red flag” gun seizure laws.

Other measures include calling on the Federal Trade Commission to issue a public report analyzing how “gun manufacturers market firearms to minors and how such manufacturers market firearms to civilians, including through the use of military imagery.” This is even though only those over the age of 18 can legally purchase a firearm at retail.

Further, the Pentagon is directed to use “principles to further firearm and public safety practices” in their acquisition of firearms, a possible reference to mandating the use of unproven so-called “smart gun” technology.

[That can also be a vague hint that the DOD should try some kind of force play on the U.S. manufacturers to make them kowtow to restricting sales of guns to the civilian market that SloJoe doesn’t like; As in: “Nice lucrative .gov contract ya got there. Be a shame to lose it by continuing to sell those eeee-vil assault weapons to the public.”]

However, one part of the executive action has struck a strong chord with those on both sides of the national conversation on guns: more aggressively defining who is considered “engaged in the business of dealing in firearms” by the ATF and Justice Department. Past guidance from federal gun regulators on the topic of selling guns without a federal firearms license has proven fuzzy, with the agency noting that “courts have upheld convictions for dealing without a license when as few as two firearms were sold, or when only one or two transactions took place.”

Biden, in prepared remarks delivered Tuesday at an anti-gun event in California, was frank that the order was a move toward controversial universal background checks without the required legal framework of going through Congress to make it a law.

“First, this executive order helps keep firearms out of dangerous hands, as I continue to call on Congress to require background checks for all firearm sales,” said Biden. “And in the meantime — in the meantime, my executive order directs my Attorney General to take every lawful action possible — possible to move us as close as we can to universal background checks without new legislation.”

Speaking of prepared remarks, while the White House, Justice Department, and ATF were quiet as to what exactly are the new qualifiers for crossing the “engaged in the business of dealing in firearms” threshold, Everytown, a national gun control organization founded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, fired off a press release hours before the Oval Office made public the executive action with a window on what could be coming from the administration.

In the statement, the group offered its vision for a proposed new rule by ATF: “Enforcement guidance and substantive rulemaking should make clear that anyone who offers a gun for sale at a gun show or pursuant to an advertisement — including online ads — is presumptively engaged in the business of selling guns and needs to run background checks.”

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NSSF REACTION TO PRESIDENT’S GUN CONTROL EXECUTIVE ORDER

WASHINGTON, D.C. — NSSF®, The Firearm Industry Trade Association, takes exception with President Joe Biden’s Executive Order to increase gun control measures. In the name of “doing something,” the Biden administration is chilling fundamental Constitutional rights and simply rehashing existing law, many of which were previously supported by the firearm industry.

“The Biden administration should demand that soft-on-crime prosecutors and lawmakers use the laws already in existence to lock up criminals that misuse firearms to prey on innocent Americans,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel. “Instead, this administration continues to scapegoat the firearm industry for its unwillingness to address crime. The failure of this administration to seriously address spiraling crime and instead focus its attacks on a Constitutionally-protected industry that works diligently to remain in compliance with laws and regulations and actively cooperates with law enforcement, especially ATF, exposes the lack of urgency Americans demand to curb rampant and out-of-control crime.”

The firearm industry worked with Congress to update the statutory definition of “in the business,” in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which was passed last year and signed into law by President Biden. The update defined those Americans “in the business” of selling firearms as those “predominantly earning a profit.”

Further, The White House accused industry members, without evidence, of selling firearms without required FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verifications. This is disingenuous, at best. The firearm industry was the progenitor of the point-of-sale instant background check to ensure firearms are sold only to those the law has determined can be trusted to possess a firearm. The firearm industry has been on the leading edge to improve the quality of FBI’s NICS, including supporting the FIX NICS Act of 2017 that incentivized states and required federal agencies to submit all disqualifying background information to the FBI to ensure prohibited individuals are barred from purchasing firearms. NSSF supports increasing the submission of disqualifying records to FBI NICS but rejects the Biden administration’s demand to move closer to universal background checks, which will not work without a national firearm registry, which is forbidden by federal law.

The firearm industry has also been consistently addressing compliance with federal regulations to report the loss or theft of firearms during shipping. NSSF has repeatedly held compliance seminars with members of the firearm industry and common carriers to be aware of and remain in compliance with reporting requirements when firearms go missing during shipping. NSSF has led this effort to ensure firearms are accounted for during transit from manufacturer to distributor to retailer and finally to retail sale.

NSSF welcomes the Biden administration’s renewed attention to safe storage of firearms in the home. This has been an issue on which the firearm industry has led from the front for over two decades. Every firearm shipped from the factory includes a locking device. Additionally, through NSSF’s leadership with Project ChildSafe®, over 40 million firearm safety kits, including locking devices, have been distributed to communities across America through partnerships with over 15,000 law enforcement agencies in all 50 states and five U.S. territories. This campaign has been recognized by the National Safety Council’s Green Cross Awards and the Government Accountability Office for its efficacy in reducing the criminal and negligent misuse of firearms through voluntary safe storage. NSSF welcomes the Biden administration’s support to increase the reach of this firearm-industry financed effort.

In 2013, then-Vice President Joe Biden held a White House meeting in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook tragedy. He spoke to then-NSSF CEO Steve Sanetti and referring to NSSF, the president said, “You guys are doing a lot of good things, including the gunlock thing. And this isn’t Joe Biden just blowing smoke. I mean it.”

NSSF has not opposed the use of emergency risk protection orders, or so-called “red flag” laws, so long as those laws include adequate protections for Constitutional Due Process considerations. To date, none of the “red flag” laws in the 19 states and District of Columbia include these Constitutional protections. NSSF urges the Biden administration and Department of Justice (DOJ) to address these Constitutional concerns that would encourage additional states to consider these laws.

President Biden’s demand to close “the dating violence restraining order loophole” has already been addressed and was not opposed by the firearm industry. Definitions of domestic partners were updated in the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Congress expanded domestic and dating partners to the list of prohibited individuals to include those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence. Those laws were signed by President Biden.

NSSF recognized that the Department of Defense (DoD) instructs all military members on firearm safety during entry-level training. These include the fundamental rules of firearm safety. The firearm industry welcomes the Biden administration’s acknowledgment of proven firearm safety practices that have been the hallmark of the firearm industry for over a century. To the extent that the Biden administration is attempting to politicize the acquisition for the warfighter, the only criteria should be which firearm is the best one to meet the needs of America’s warfighters. Injecting gun control politics into the process is dangerous. Gun control politics should never have a place in DoD’s selection processes.

NSSF does not oppose the reauthorization of the Undetectable Firearms Act, that requires 3.7 ounces of metal be included in a major component part of a firearm. Detection technology has improved to the point where image detectors have been able to identify polymer-framed firearms. Demands to modernize this act deserve strict scrutiny. The Undetectable Firearms Act as it is currently written should be made permanent.

NSSF rejects the Biden administration’s demands to ban Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs) and standard-capacity magazines. This demand is clearly unconstitutional, as affirmed by the Heller, McDonald and Bruen decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court that affirmed the individual right to possess firearms in common use. More than 24.4 million MSRs are in circulation today. That’s more than there are Ford F-150s on the road, the most-popular selling pickup truck. MSRs are semiautomatic firearms, which operate the same way as the most popular handguns and duck hunting shotguns. One cartridge is expended for each pull of the trigger. Likewise, efforts to ban standard-capacity magazines are an attempt to infringe on the Constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans. The courts have affirmed that magazine possession is essential to the ability to exercise Second Amendment rights. NSSF knows from government studies that banning MSRs and restricting magazine capacity will not make our communities safer.

NSSF rejects the Biden administration’s demand to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). This law is the expressed will of Congress that was passed with a wide bipartisan majority and prevents frivolous lawsuits against the firearm industry for the criminal misuse of firearms by remote third parties. This would be akin to suing Ford and Anheuser-Busch for criminal drunk driving incidents. Criminals are responsible for the crimes they commit.

NSSF rejects President Biden’s weaponization of the nonpartisan Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to squelch the First Amendment rights of firearm businesses. The heavy-handed approach is nothing short of an attempt to chill First Amendment-protected commercial free speech about products protected by the Second Amendment. The firearm industry markets firearms only to those who are legally able to possess them. Only those over the age of 18 can legally purchase a firearm at retail after submitting to an FBI NICS verification.

NSSF also rejects the Biden administration’s attempt to weaponize the “zero tolerance” policy of revoking federal firearms licenses for minor clerical errors by compounding that ill-conceived policy to expand it to a “name-and-shame” effort. Firearm retailers are the front line for ensuring firearms are sold only to those legally able to purchase them and “zero-tolerance” risks the cooperative relationship between firearm retailers and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). This weaponization of the ATF would codify the Biden administration’s efforts to transform the ATF from a law enforcement and regulatory agency to one that is a political arm of an antigun administration.