Category: Goobermint

Well, I’ve found that a lot of prosecutors, even purportedly Republican prosecutors, don’t like it that self defense is legal.

Prosecutor labels Missouri self-defense bill “Make Murder Legal Act”

One of the most basic tenets of our criminal justice system is that you are considered innocent until your guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In a criminal case, it’s not up to the defendant to prove they didn’t commit a crime. It’s up to prosecutors to prove to the jury that they did.

Yet in Missouri, individuals charged with a crime of violence who acted in self-defense don’t start with the presumption of innocence. Instead, self-defense is considered an affirmative defense, which puts the burden on the defendant to prove they’re not guilty of the charges levied against them. Some Republicans in Missouri are hoping to change that, but prosecutors, sheriffs, and police chiefs are attacking the bill and calling it a license to murder.

I refer to it as the ‘Make Murder Legal Act,’” said Stoddard County Prosecuting Attorney Russ Oliver, a Republican representing the Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys.

“What we are doing with this bill is … basically saying the 6,500 assaults that are committed every single year in Missouri — that every single one of those are automatically presumed to be self defense,” Oliver said.

Well, why wouldn’t you start with the presumption that someone was acting in self-defense, and then see where the evidence takes you?

“Right now, you have a right to defend yourself,” Oliver said. “There’s no one saying you can’t defend yourself. But you do have the burden of injecting the issue.”

The bill “shifts that burden into a presumption that you are automatically engaged in self defense,” he said. “So long as the person is dead … you automatically have immunity because there’s not someone else to even say what had happened.

This argument doesn’t make any sense to me. The bill shifts the burden of proof onto prosecutors, which is exactly where it’s supposed to lie. As for Oliver’s claim that, so long as the person who was assaulted dies, there’s automatic immunity, that’s just ridiculous. Would police lose access to any potential forensic evidence, eyewitness testimony, or other factors that could help lead to a conviction if the bill being debated becomes law? No they would not.

The only thing that would change under SB 666 is that it would be up to the prosecutor to prove that the defendant committed a criminal offense, instead of the defendant having to show they acted in self-defense. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. Frankly, I think that’s what the law should have been from the get-go.

While the bill’s critics were out in force, there were some supporters testifying in favor as well, including Mark McCloskey, the candidate for U.S. Senate who became nationally known after he and his wife displayed firearms on the lawn of their home as a crowd of rowdy protesters marched through their gated community on their way to demonstrate outside of the home of St. Louis’ mayor in the summer of 2020.

“The bill before the Senate now turns the Castle Doctrine into a bar to prosecution,” McCloskey said. “We were shocked to find out when we were charged that the Castle Doctrine can only be raised as an affirmative defense. “You have to have the jury decide the issue of whether or not you committed a crime, and then whether or not the Castle Doctrine provides you with a defense,” McCloskey said. “That’s backwards.”

Completely backwards, but I hope that the Missouri legislature can turn things around this session and place the burden of proof back where it belongs; on the prosecution, and not on the defense.

While testimony on the bill was heard in the state Senate’s Transportation, Infrastructure, and Public Safety Committee on Monday, the legislation didn’t come up for a vote and it’s unclear when the bill may move to the Senate floor. The lobbying by prosecutors and law enforcement may sway some Republicans to keep the status quo in place, but frankly, the laws aren’t supposed to it easier for the state to obtain a conviction in criminal cases… at least not at the expense of the rights of the defendant. I understand why prosecutors like Oliver want to keep the status quo in place, but that doesn’t mean I agree with them.

BLUF:
Arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence. Not a pretty cocktail of personality traits in the best of situations. No sirree. Not a pretty cocktail in an office-mate and not a pretty cocktail in a head of state. In fact, in a leader, it’s a lethal cocktail.

Joe Biden, enemy of America.

From the moment Joe Biden stepped into the Oval Office as president, it became clear that he had stolen the job in order to destroy America from within.  He stopped the construction of the Keystone Pipeline on day one, costing thousands of good-paying jobs.  He stopped the construction of the southern border wall, costing more jobs and leaving millions of dollars worth of equipment rotting in the desert.

Biden would not even let Texas use the construction materials themselves; any wall would impede the Biden plan to import over two million migrants from around the world, to be given funds and to spread them throughout the nation into unsuspecting cities.

The Democrats voted unanimously that these illegal invaders would not be required to be vaccinated or even tested for COVID.  That should tell us everything we need to know about how seriously the left really takes this phony pandemic.  The leftists know that it is phony because it’s worked for their advantage from the outset.  They had to do something to derail President Trump.

So, with a stroke of Biden’s pen, the energy independence Trump had achieved was gone.  Biden removed Trump’s sanctions on the Nord Stream pipeline, making Germany now dependent on Russia for gas and making Russia infinitely wealthier!  What a colossally stupid thing to have done.  Natural gas prices for Americans have doubled.  Fuel gas prices have gone up by at least forty percent.  Biden and his DOJ are canceling other pipelines and oil leases on federal land and offshore.  This is allegedly in the name of the environment, but that is a lie.  It is to bring the middle and working classes to their knees.  This administration wants runaway inflation, the better to punish the deplorables, to make them more compliant.

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He Pulled a Biden!

Trudeau Tries to Distract from Anti-Mandate Trucker Protests with Ukraine Panic

The government of far-left Prime Minister Justin Trudeau withdrew nonessential personnel from Canada’s embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, this weekend and sent the nation’s defense minister to the capital to discuss an alleged potential Russian invasion of the country.

The extensive focus on Ukraine for Canada follows nearly two weeks of elevated coverage of the eight-year invasion of Ukraine by Moscow that became a global priority after President Joe Biden hinted that America would not aid its allies in Kyiv if Russia engages in a “minor incursion” of the country. Tensions between the Biden administration and its counterpart under Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have escalated since the “minor incursion” remark, culminating with an exasperated Zelensky telling reporters during a press conference Friday that his country has lost nearly $500 million in foreign investment since Biden predicted a further invasion of the country.

It also follows a tumultuous week of domestic politics in Canada. After nearly two years of onerous pandemic lockdown policies under the Trudeau government, a protest convoy organized by truckers across Canada arrived in Ottawa this weekend, flooding the capital with thousands of peaceful protesters demanding the restoration of basic civil rights stripped from Canadians in the name of public health. Police following the event documented no incidents of violence, injuries, or any major disturbances following the peaceful protests.

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One More Time: It’s Not ‘Gun Violence’ It’s Gang Violence.

Every time you hear a politician or a media personality mention “gun violence,” you should mentally translate that phrase to “gang violence.” Not only that, but ask yourself if that politician or media outlet has an agenda by mislabeling gang violence as something entirely different.

Obviously politicians who have enabled the “criminal justice reforms” that have directly resulted in the out-of-control increases in violent crime across America don’t want to talk about criminals and gangs. In fact, California’s Gov. Newsom even went so far as to actuall apologize for using the word “gang” when describing the organized groups of criminals who commit crimes (otherwise known as ‘gangs’).

Rather than correctly identify those who commit the majority of violent crimes in this country, countless failed and inept politicians like the Land of Lincoln’s Governor J.B. Pritzker and Murder City, USA’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot instead blame law-abiding gun owners.

They continue to promote more gun control laws and more government spending to redirect peoples’ attention away from the failures of their feckless policies and misplaced spending priorities.

As for the media, there’s a reason the great majority of Americans don’t trust them any more. Nine percent of Americans now have “a great deal” of trust in what they hear in the media. To put that into perspective, roughly four percent of the population think lizard people “control our societies by gaining political power.”

Too many of today’s media members are nothing more than Democrat party operatives with bylines who dutifully spout leftist talking points. They willfully ignore stories that are bad for their political allies and their agenda. Or they cover them…with a pillow. Until they stop moving.

At the same time, they’re quick to castigate law-abiding gun owners for the actions of actual criminals, terrorists, and lunatics who commit crimes with firearms.

The next time you see some politician or candidate talking about the problem of so-called “gun violence,” call them out on it. Pols usually squirm if you make them address the real issue that drives the majority violent crime in cities: gangs.

In centers of corruption like Chicago, they may aggressively deflect the discussion away from gangs because a lot of gangs in places like Chi-town have some very cozy relationships with local elected officials to provide votes in exchange for the politicians avoiding discussions about gang-related crimes.

As for the media, do the math. If they’re trumpeting talking points like “gun violence,” they’re probably gaslighting you about other topics too. Look deeper to see what else they’re lying to you about.

Ukraine’s President Just Blew Up Joe Biden’s Spot on the Whole Situation With Russia

Katie wrote about this earlier today. President Joe Biden had a chat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and it did not go well at all. The rumor is that Biden had to be told to calm down and that Kyiv was not about to be sacked. There are only bits and pieces of information, but if true—this call was a train wreck. Also, where’s the transcript? For now, it’s a flurry of anonymous sources leaking portions that make Biden look terrible:

During a phone call Thursday afternoon, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly told President Joe Biden to tone down the messaging as he continued to claim Russia was going to invade the country. The call is being described as one that “did not go well.”

The White House is pushing back on this interpretation of the call but has not released a transcript.

Earlier this week Ukrainian officials criticized the State Department’s directive for family members of U.S. diplomats to depart Kyiv, saying it was a premature overreaction.

And now, President Zelensky seems to confirm the reports of a bad call by telling the media today that he’s the president, he’s based here in Ukraine, and that he knows the details of the situation better here. At any rate, he blew up Biden and the State Department’s position of an imminent invasion. As for the Russian threat, Zelensky noted that it’s been here for years. It’s always present.

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The narrative, the whole narrative, and nothing but the narrative

Daily Caller Reporter Asks Why Biden Admin Doesn’t Stress Living Healthier Lifestyles. Psaki Starts Talking About Masks.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki didn’t say whether The White House was going to push for Americans to live healthily to reduce their risk of severe COVID-19.

During the press briefing, Daily Caller White House correspondent Shelby Talcott asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki if President Joe Biden and his medical advisors have considered telling Americans to live healthier during the pandemic. Psaki did not directly answer and instead told Americans to get vaccinated and wear masks.

“We have seen an effort from a few other countries to include a push for living a healthier lifestyle as part of its pandemic response. There’s been studies indicating efforts like weight loss can help prevent some of the more serious effects of COVID-19,” Talcott said. “Why hasn’t the president included a push for healthier lifestyles in his COVID messaging, in addition to pushing Americans to get vaccinated?”

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The left-wing dark money behind the push to kill the filibuster

Sixty left-wing groups led by Fix Our Senate recently issued a letter demanding the Senate abolish the filibuster so “democracy legislation” will pass and the party now narrowly controlling Congress can rewrite all 50 states’ election laws.

Two big secrets lie behind this push to kill the filibuster and, supposedly, protect “voting rights.” First, this lobbying campaign is driven not by grassroots groups of ordinary people but by left-wing megadonors and the AstroTurf groups they fund. The second secret: This scheme isn’t about “protecting Democracy” because overwhelming majorities of our democracy’s citizens support the state election laws that these deep-pocketed special interests want snuffed out.

This fight is about the 2022 and 2024 elections, which liberal activists fear will go badly for them unless all the dubious changes in election laws and practices they finagled in 2020 are repeated. Nse Ufot, who leads a get-out-the-vote group founded by Stacey Abrams, confessed to Politico, “If there isn’t a way for us to repeat what happened in November 2020, we’re f***ed.”

Ufot’s “we” doesn’t refer to all in this democracy but only to the partisans she’s serving.

The same partisanship afflicts the Fix Our Senate nonprofit group that made a splash with its 60-group letter. The legacy media kept the secret, calling Fix Our Senate just a “pro-reform group.” Actually, though Fix Our Senate claims it “represents millions of Americans,” it’s a pop-up group, one of hundreds of fiscally sponsored projects in the “dark money” empire operated by Arabella Advisors, the in-house nonprofit groups of which took in $1.7 billion last year.

Here’s more of the secret: Another letter-signer, Evergreen Action, is yet another front group Arabella operates via its Sixteen Thirty Fund, which Politico called a “liberal dark-money behemoth.”

At least 17 additional nonprofit groups that signed the letter have received $10 million from Arabella’s coffers, Capital Research Center reports . In other words, the dozens of groups demanding the Senate overturn 50 states’ elections laws don’t represent millions of people in those states. They represent a handful of billionaires who liberally fund AstroTurf activism. As Arabella brags , it serves “clients representing more than $100 billion in assets.”

Those clients spent handsomely in 2020. They helped orchestrate victories for left-of-center candidates, including by backing groups involved in a left-wing network Time called a “cabal” that changed how elections are run. Now, they want to be paid back for their investment. But the Left’s agenda has stalled in Congress. Rather than compromise, the megadonors have set their sights on the filibuster.

That leads to the second big secret in the filibuster fight: It is fundamentally anti-democratic. Most want it to be easy to vote but hard to cheat.

Last year, states such as Texas and Georgia passed reforms that expanded early-voting opportunities, streamlined absentee ballot procedures, and improved protections for mail-in ballots. Georgia now offers more early-voting days than deep-blue New York or New Jersey.

The policies in those bills are popular. In fact, public support for photo ID laws, the Left’s most hated election integrity provision, grew last year. More than 3 in 4 black and Hispanic voters, 67% of Democrats, and 82% of independent voters back them. That’s real grassroots support.

Arabella and its dark money backers are using groups such as Fix Our Senate to create the illusion of popular outrage. They want to give narrow partisan majorities in Congress cover to junk the filibuster and impose unpopular, and likely unconstitutional, laws that would make elections harder to run and jeopardize public trust in voting.

H.R. 1 , for instance, directs taxpayer funds to politicians’ campaigns, eliminates voter ID laws, and legalizes vote trafficking, the practice with which political operatives approach voters and collect their mail-in ballots without supervision.

If the media stopped hiding the big secrets in this scam, we’re confident large majorities would recoil in horror at the prospect of either party’s members of Congress, or D.C. bureaucrats, setting election rules nationwide, much less eliminating safeguards the public favors, such as voter ID.

The left-wing push to take over elections poses a grave danger to our democratic institutions, even if it doesn’t succeed. Activist groups and the megadonors backing them have convinced millions that future elections will be rigged through “voter suppression.”

If they truly want healthy democracy, they should face voters honestly, not hide behind dark secrets.

This?

Video: Fauci Decrees Kids Under Four Years Old Will Get Three COVID Vaccines

Appearing during a White House press briefing Wednesday, Anthony Fauci decreed that children under the age of four will eventually be subjected to a “three-dose regimen” of COVID vaccines.

“Dose and regimen for children 6 months to 24 months worked well, but it turned out the other group from 24 months to 4 years did not yet reach the level of non-inferiority, so the studies are continued,” Fauci noted.

He added, “It looks like it will be a three-dose regimen. I don’t think we can predict when we will see an EUA [Emergency Use Authorization] with that.”

Then this?

Horowitz: Whistleblowers share DOD medical data that blows vaccine safety debate wide open

Data, transparency, and surveillance. That is what has been missing from the greatest experiment on humans of all time throughout this pandemic. Now, military medical whistleblowers have come forward with what they claim is perhaps the most accurate and revealing data set on vaccine safety one could possibly find.

The pro-pharma politicians and media claim the CDC’s pharmacosurveillance tool “VAERS” is not good enough to trigger investigations into the shots because anyone can supposedly submit a vaccine adverse event entry. Thus, all the concerning safety signals from VAERS are being ignored, even though that system was put in place as a consolation to the public for absolving vaccine manufacturers of liability. Well, now some military whistleblowers are coming forward to present data that, if verified, would signal extremely disturbing safety concerns about the vaccine that make the VAERS data look like child’s play. Continue reading “”

It’s a Potemkin office for a Potemkin president

Why Did Joe Biden Build His Hollywood Oval Office Set?
An Answer Emerges.

President Joe Biden participates in a virtual meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate on Friday, September 17, 2021, in the South Court Auditorium of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House. (Official White House Photo by Erin Scott) From Flickr

One year ago, Reuters and all the rest of the mainstreams released their minion fact-checkers to debunk the notion that Joe Biden had a fake Oval Office from which he was doing the American people’s business.

Stories and speculations of a fake movie set Oval Office were declared to be fake news.

The bright lights at Snopes “debunked” the existence of a fake Oval Office where Joe worked, with this headline: “Is This Biden on a Movie Set Resembling the Oval Office? The reality won’t stop it from happening.” The “fact-checkers” found that a photo claiming Joe was sitting in a fake office was “miscaptioned.”

Politifact: “NEW: A conspiracy theory circulating online says Joe Biden’s inauguration was fake, and that his Oval Office is really a movie set. Nope.” Combining claims, changing facts, and then fact-checking what people don’t say is Democrat outfit’s favorite trick to find something wrong and rewrite a narrative, but click on the story and find they instead checked “claims that the inauguration was fake or that Joe Biden is not the real president.”

NEW: A conspiracy theory circulating online says Joe Biden’s inauguration was fake, and that his Oval Office is really a movie set. Nope. https://t.co/urJ8I3RSxk

— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) January 29, 2021

Reuters was aghast that anyone would dare say their candidate built a Potemkin Oval Office, calling the claim of a “fake White House set” “misleading.”

But the fake fact-checkers were wrong. All wrong.

In Sept. 2021, when Joe got his COVID booster in his Potemkin White House office, the Left’s fake fact-checkers pretended their previous protestations, guffaws, and “fact checks” to the contrary were no big deal. Nothing to see here.

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Florida Doctor: Families Sneak Ivermectin to Loved Ones in Hospitals With COVID-19, See Improvement

A Florida doctor says families of loved ones hospitalized with COVID-19 are resorting to desperate measures when approved treatments have failed.

And when it’s not too late, some have seen tremendous success by sneaking medications prohibited by hospitals to patients, says Eduardo Balbona, an independent internist in Jacksonville.

He’s helped dozens of seriously ill patients recover using ivermectin and other drugs and supplements not officially approved in the treatment of COVID-19, he says.

Hospitals receive payments from the federal government for treating patients with COVID-19. But those payments are tied to their use of approved treatments only, as outlined in the CARES Act. When there’s nothing left to try under those protocols, families naturally research alternatives,  Balbona says, often learning about treatments touted by independent physicians around the country.

Hoping to try anything that might work, families around the country have filed lawsuits asking judges to intervene.

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The old line from a James Bond movie is;
Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action
Paul will affirm that I don’t believe in ‘coincidence’, and I allow for ‘happenstance’ only in very limited instances.
From that, take what you will about what is termed ‘mistakes’ here.

Florida case shows inherent flaw with red flag laws

Red flag laws are a particularly onerous piece of gun control legislation. While a number of states have such laws on the books, all of them have serious problems. Part of that is because they start from a presumption of guilt and then you have to essentially prove your innocence.

But there tend to be layers to problems, and red flag laws aren’t uniquely devoid of those, apparently.

Take this case from Florida recently highlighted by USA Carry:

A case in point. The Lakeland, FL police department petitioned for a Red Flag Risk Protection Order through the Florida Statute 790.401(3)(a) and (b), in May 2020. Under the Order, a man I will call “E.P.” (identity protected because it is an active case) was taken into custody and his firearms and ammunition were seized.

His Hearing on the Order was scheduled for June 12, 2020 “in the court facility located at 255 N. Broadway Ave., Bartow, FL.” This date and time were confirmed on June 3, 2020, by the police department’s attorney, and again in a court notice issued before June 12. So, E.P. arrived at the appointed date and place at 1:30 pm and waited until 3:00 pm. He testified that “he was not let into the courtroom, nor was he aware that the Hearing would take place virtually or how to attend.” The Hearing was held at a remote video conferencing event, without notice of this change to E.P.

At that hearing, the court determined, incorrectly, that E.P. had “elected not to attend” and entered a Red Flag Protection Order against him. He was prohibited from having custody or control of, or purchasing, possessing, receiving, or attempting to purchase or receive, a firearm or ammunition for up to a year, and was required to surrender any and all guns or ammo not already in the custody of the police to law enforcement. E.P. appealed the Order on the basis that it was made without giving him the chance to appear or a notice that the proceedings would take place by means other than those designated in court documents. This non-legal layman understands that a Notice of Hearing must be issued by the court, received, and followed by involved parties about the specifics given.

From May of 2020, the Order was in effect, and not until August 13, 2021, was the Order invalidated. The Appellate Court ruled that E.P.’s Due Process rights were violated by the failure to notify him that the Final Hearing would take place virtually instead of in the court facility listed in the Order. His right to be heard was deprived and the Order was reversed in his favor. I also recognize that his Second Amendment rights were violated.

Note that E.P. spent much time and money to correct the mistakes made by the government court system and to restore his inalienable rights to his guns, ammo, and property… his Second Amendment and Due Process Rights.

Now, as the above-linked piece points out, for poorer people, this simply isn’t an option. E.P. was in a position to seek legal assistance, but a lot of people really just can’t do so. That means they’re stripped of their Second Amendment rights, sometimes because of a bureaucratic screw-up and not because they represent an actual danger to anyone.

E.P. did what he was supposed to, but the state didn’t. Yet because of their mistakes, he was ordered to surrender any and all firearms he might still possess, was denied the ability to even shoot a gun lawfully, and had to spend time and treasure fixing the issue.

Nothing about that is right and there are no repercussions for those who make such mistakes.

If this were the only issue with red flag laws, that would be enough, but it’s not. Red flag laws can be used by those with a grudge against the person, and we’ve seen attempts to do just that. How many have we not heard about?

This is especially troubling since red flag laws aren’t even needed. Those who represent a risk to themselves or others can be held for psychological evaluation for up to 72 hours as it is. Those planning a mass shooting can be arrested under existing laws as well.

There’s really no reason for red flag laws, and yet, here we are.

When you’re a demoncrap and still losing the WaPost…..

Joe Bye-Done: WaPo’s Article About Biden’s Struggles Sure Does Drive a Dagger Into His Presidency

Joe Biden’s presidency is one year old—and it’s a total nightmare. The nation is still divided. Omicron is sweeping the nation. Inflation is through the roof. The grocery store has bare shelves. The supply chain crisis is ongoing. The border crisis is out of control. The Afghanistan withdrawal was a nightmare. We might see another embassy evacuation in Ukraine. The jobs reports are trash. It’s not going well. The only person who thinks all is well is…Joe Biden. That doesn’t account for much since he’s dementia-ridden. He’s old. He’s slow. He’s stupid. Three things the president of the United States cannot be in this world. The scent of weakness is present for all to see, which is why Russia and China are flexing big league right now. As Russia prepares for a possible invasion of Ukraine, China is probably smiling looking at the Taiwan Strait.

What’s become clear is that one year into his presidency, Biden can’t do the job. That’s what jumps out in this Washington Post piece about Biden’s “slide” in the polls. The other thing that comes to mind is this question: how did this get published? It’s quite a searing piece, with even members of his own party slamming his performance. Even swing voters polled by Democratic pollsters see a bad word association brewing when it comes to Joe Biden, ones that are election killers. It’s why many Democrats probably cringed when Joe declared he was going to be active on the 2022 campaign trail for the midterms. Biden’s approvals are circling the drain, with numbers ranging from the 30s and 40s. He’s a cancer to his party, with its more centrist members probably hoping he just forgets where they are on the district map. Congressional Democratic leaders told their members to gamble on Build Back Better, with moderates voting for the lefty action items only to have Joe Manchin torpedo the bill. Now, their names are attached to this Bolshevik package. For progressives, Biden promised he could sway Manchin. That failed miserably. It was a disastrous push toward the end of the holiday season that pretty much captured the Biden administration as one of being incompetent and being outright blind to the political realities at hand. You can’t go hard left with a 50-50 Senate and a four-seat majority in the House.

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BLUF:
This is the true meaning of “Our Democracy”™: an oligarchy in fact but with the external trappings of democracy to provide rhetorical legitimacy. We stand at a crossroads. We as citizens will either reclaim the mantle of republican self-government or, by meekly submitting to the rule of our oligarchic elites, bid a sad farewell to the American commonwealth.

‘Our Democracy™’: Oligarchy With Democratic Trappings

Over the past few months, it has become common for Democrats and progressives to invoke “Our Democracy”™ whenever they criticize efforts to ensure election integrity or condemn the perpetrators of the January 6 “insurgency.” On one level, the phrase is just another annoying example of debasing the language by the very people who have been working overtime to rewrite the Constitution.

But on another level, the phrase suggests something even more sinister: that those who invoke it literally mean “their” democracy, i.e. a regime that belongs to them, validated by the votes of the “right people” who approve of their so-called progressive enterprise. Anyone who doesn’t approve is, by definition, an insurgent, an enemy of the state. Any attempt to limit their power—e.g., by insisting on election integrity—is therefore “anti-democratic.”

I am only one of a number of writers who have argued that the United States has devolved from a republic or commonwealth to an oligarchy. Lest we succumb to the error of progressives and simply use a word to mean something we don’t like, it is important to understand the nature and background of oligarchy. It is not just any “ruling class” but an elite and ruling class of a particular sort. In this regard, it helps to examine the taxonomy of regimes outlined by the first political scientists, Plato and Aristotle.

These writers identified three types of rule: the one; the few; and the many. Each form had a good and bad version, the former based on rule for the benefit of the entire polity and the latter rule on behalf of the ruler or ruling class alone. Thus, the good form of rule by the one was kingship; the bad form tyranny. The good form of rule by the few was aristocracy; the bad form oligarchy or plutocracy. And the good form of rule by the many was politeia or a balanced constitution, which the Romans translated as res publica and which is most properly rendered as commonwealth in English; the bad form was pure democracy or ochlocracy: that is, mob rule.

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It’d like what was said about education. If a foreign nation was forcing us to doing this, it would be seen as an act of war.

BLUF:
And Biden? His woke national-security and foreign-policy B-team seem more eager to subsidize electric cars for the rich than to provide cheap oil and gas to the American middle class or to deter America’s adversaries.

Team Biden seeks to stop yet another pipeline even as gas prices rise.

If you needed any more proof that the anti-American, pro-Russia, pro-Iran, pro-China, anti-Israel wing of the Democrat Party has captured the White House flag, last week we learned Team Biden plans to put the kibosh on a natural-gas pipeline with US involvement that would reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian energy.

The Eastern Mediterranean Gas Pipeline, which would carry Israeli and Cypriot natural gas, is yet another energy resource serving America’s strategic interests that the Biden White House wants gone. EastMed joins a long list that started on Day One with the Keystone XL pipeline, a ban on oil and gas leases on public lands and the October federal court ruling that ended drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.

All these actions, demanded by “climate change” alarmists, have reversed America’s long-sought energy independence won at great political cost by President Donald Trump.

They have not only made us dependent once again on foreign oil; they have sent oil prices skyrocketing, enriching America’s adversaries in Russia and Iran.

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Biden acts much more like Putin’s puppet than Trump ever did.

Thanks Biden! Guess Who We’re Buying More Oil From Now?

One of the first things Joe Biden did upon taking office was kill the Keystone XL pipeline. For good measure, he also aggressively sought to limit new drilling permits, and despite some legal setbacks, Biden managed to reverse Trump’s progress in making the United States energy independent.

Under Trump, the United States became a net exporter of energy for the first time in decades. Now under Biden, we’re importing more oil again, and one of the key beneficiaries of our increasing dependence on foreign oil is Russia.

“U.S. oil imports from Saudi Arabia and Russia have increased, and gasoline prices are higher than they have been in the last five years,” reports Energy Now.

And much of that is because Biden killed the Keystone XL pipeline.

“[Keystone XL] was a missed opportunity to increase North American energy security, lower costs for American consumers and reduce dependence on foreign energy sources that are hostile to U.S. interests,” Frank Macchiarola, senior vice-president with the American Petroleum Institute, told Energy Now. “The Keystone XL pipeline would have provided good-paying union jobs to American workers while delivering affordable, reliable energy to American consumers from a close U.S. ally.”

According to government statistics, energy imports from Saudi Arabia more than doubled from Dec. 2020 to Oct. 2021. And our imports from Russia more than tripled from Feb. 2019 through Sept. 2021.

While I’m sure the oil sheiks in Saudi Arabia and Vladimir Putin are thrilled to be making money selling oil and petroleum to the United States, it’s hard to imagine why any American president would have intentionally enriched them at the expense of our own prosperity and our national security.

“Safe streets worker” (replacing police) gunned down in Baltimore.

During the course of the madness that promoted “defunding” or abolishing the police, there was an emphasis placed on replacing police in some circumstances with “community safety” workers who would supposedly act as unarmed “violence interrupters” and reduce the number of lethal use of force incidents by police officers. In Baltimore, Maryland’s violent gang territories, an existing organization known as the “Safe Streets Program” gained a lot of attention and municipal support in this effort. The goal of the program is to deploy former gang members (or “former”) into areas controlled by the gangs to negotiate nonviolent resolutions to conflicts. Unfortunately, as we’ve seen with other proposed “violence interruption” programs in major cities, sending someone with a clipboard out to resolve a beef between gang members isn’t always effective. That was sadly this case this week when one of Baltimore’s Safe Streets workers was shot to death along with several other people on the East side of Charm City. (Baltimore Sun)

A quadruple shooting in East Baltimore on Wednesday night left three people dead, including a Safe Streets worker, and one person injured, police said. Three others were injured in separate shootings in West and South Baltimore.

At about 7:25 p.m., Eastern District patrol officers responded to a ShotSpotter alert in the 2400 block of E. Monument St. Once there, officers located four men suffering from apparent gunshot wounds.

A 28-year-old man was pronounced dead on the scene. Medics transported three other victims to area hospitals, where a 24-year-old man and another man were also pronounced dead.

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‘enemies, foreign and domestic‘

And this is called a ‘Freudian slip’ by one of them

BLUF:
What they want for America is rigged phony Chavista-style elections.  Jeffries just let the cat out of the bag.

Hakeem Jeffries lets the cat out of the bag about Dems’ plan for America

Sometimes, the truth gets out.

That seems to be the case with Joe Biden’s “Freedom to Vote” bill, which his fellow Democrats are shilling. Problem: One of them said too much.

Jeffries is the fifth most powerful Democrat in the House and considered the heir apparent to jurassic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  He’s a power.

His self-revision in that video, that he was talking about “César” Chávez, is total nonsense.  César Chávez was a famous labor organizer who had little to do with voting rights.  He had a job in his youth registering voters, but that’s a nothingburger compared to his claim to fame with organizing a large union and advocating for rural workers’ rights.  Hugo Chávez, by contrast, is the late, unlamented Venezuelan dictator who pioneered rigged elections under gaslighting claims, repeated on the American left, of expanding democracy for all.  Hugo was able to seize absolute power by corrupting Venezuela’s election process, starting in 2004, when he knew he was an unpopular political goner and subject to a recall referendum under his own revised constitution.

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