Come and Take It: Canadians Aren’t Complying with New Gun Law

Well, good on ya, Canada. It seems the motto ‘come and take it’ isn’t unique to just Americans. Our neighbors to the north have a new gun law. It’s something that anti-gun liberals want here nationwide. All Canadians that owned firearms that have been included in the nation’s latest ban on so-called assault weapons must turn them over to authorities. The only problem is that they’re not doing it (via The Reload):

Few gun owners are turning in weapons recently been made illegal by the Canadian government.

That’s according to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). They said Canadians had only turned in 160 of the recently-outlawed firearms for destruction since the announcement of the ban.

“The Canadian Firearms Program (CFP) can confirm that, as of December 9, 2021, 18 firearms (formerly classified as restricted) affected by the May 1, 2020 Order in Council (OIC) have been deactivated,” Sgt. Caroline Duval, an RCMP spokesperson, told iPolitics on Friday. “In addition, there have been 142 OIC-affected firearms recorded as surrendered to a public agency for destruction since May 1, 2020.”

The announcement comes as the April 2022 deadline for the “assault weapon” confiscation order rapidly approaches. The Canadian government’s plan to collect the affected weapons has been rife with problems since it was announced. Consulting fees and enforcement planning have resulted in a bloated budget before even a single weapon has been “bought back,” and a concrete plan for the buyback program is yet to be finalized. It now appears affected gun owners are hesitant to give up their guns.

The difficulties experienced by the Canadian effort and a similar gun confiscation effort in New Zealand may impact the debate over implementing a similar policy in the United States. While gun-control advocates have shunned confiscation policies in the past, some Democrats have warmed to the idea of taking AR-15s and similar guns in recent years. Congressman Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.) wrote an op-ed in favor of confiscation in 2018. Vice President Kamala Harris said she supports a mandatory buyback scheme similar to Canada’s policy during a 2020 presidential primary forum hosted by gun-control group March for Our Lives. Beto O’Rourke garnered much attention when he declared, “hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47” during the same campaign. He has stuck with the policy since entering the 2022 Texas gubernatorial race despite the idea polling poorly.

It seems the only people who have willingly turned over their firearms are the Australians. As the publication noted, buybacks are hardly a guarantee—they mostly fail as well. These are also commonly owned firearms in the United States. Millions own AR-15 rifles for hunting, target practice, and for self-defense. There are millions of so-called high-capacity magazines as well which makes laws against those items illogical as well. Liberals deem a 15-round magazine to be high-capacity. It’s commonplace. In a year where the credibility around government authority has been shattered by serial abuse due to the COVID pandemic, I don’t blame anyone who is just finished complying with mandates.

So once it became clear that covid was not in fact a pagan god visiting vengeance on the unwashed Trump voters alone, the media and Democrats are now willing to admit the following:

1. Cloth masks are ineffective against omicron (Leanna Wen, CNN);
2. The vaccinated can spread and get covid;
3. The death rate is comparable to the flu (Chris Hayes);
4. Many people are entering hospitals with covid, not from covid (Fauci);
5. Natural immunity is a reason omicron hasn’t been as virulent (Fauci);
6. We have to take into account societal needs, not just spread prevention (CDC);
7. The asymptomatic should not be tested (NFL);
8. We should focus on hospitalizations and deaths, not case rate (Biden);
9. Children are not at risk and schools should remain open;
10. Covid is predominantly an illness affecting the immunocompromised and elderly and we should not shut down society.

Those of us in reality have been saying all this for months and most of it since May 2020. But your political priors were more important than the data. You had to have your demonization narrative.
So welcome to reality. And f*** all y’all for pretending you didn’t know this so you could have fun crapping on Trump and DeSantis and all your red state relatives.
And btw, AOC and all you Leftist covid fanatics — those whose virtue signaling authoritarian lockdown nonsense that has resulted in millions of lives destroyed — stay in your states and leave mine alone.
We chose data and freedom. You chose alarmism and unearned moral superiority. Stay in NY, NJ, CA, and the rest — and enjoy the actual paranoid nanny state you created among your friends who reward you for telling them they will kill their kids and grandma if they don’t panic.
Oh yes, and Happy New Year to all.

Comment O’ The Day
Taibbi has a point. Politicians can falsely claim to be a climate, crime, or economics expert and the average voter isn’t going to offer stiff resistance to that claim. But if a politician claims high school graduation shouldn’t depend upon proficiency in reading, writing, and arithmetic you are going to get their attention. It’s something everyone capable of reading is going to have a fair amount of expertise in. And the ruination of our education system has reached the point where it’s impossible to ignore.
The remarkable thing is that when called out on this the politicians don’t admit they were wrong. They double down.

The Democrats’ Education Lunacies Will Bring Back Trump
Terry McAuliffe lost the Virginia governor’s race by saying, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what to teach.” If that was no gaffe, Democrats have a lot more significant losing ahead.


(it was no gaffe. It was a ‘freudian slip’ where you inadvertently tell a truth about yourself you wanted kept concealed)


On Meet the Press Daily last week, Chuck Todd featured a small item about the 23 Democrats not planning on running for re-reelection to congress next year. Todd guessed such a high number expressed a lack of confidence in next year’s midterms, and his guest, University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato, agreed. “This is just another indicator that Democrats will probably have a bad year in 2022,” said Sabato, adding, “They only have a majority of five. It’s pretty tough to see how they hold on.”

On the full Meet the Press Sunday, Todd in an ostensibly unrelated segment interviewed 1619 Project author and New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones about Republican efforts in some states to ban teaching of her work. He detoured to ask about the Virginia governor’s race, which seemingly was decided on the question, “How influential should parents be about curriculum?” Given that Democrats lost Virginia after candidate Terry McAuliffe said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what to teach,” Todd asked her, “How do we do this?”

Hannah-Jones’s first answer was to chide Todd for not remembering that Virginia was lost not because of whatever unimportant thing he’d just said, but because of a “right-wing propaganda campaign that told white parents to fight against their children being indoctrinated.”
This was standard pundit fare that for the millionth time showed a national media figure ignoring, say, the objections of Asian immigrant parents to Virginia policies, but whatever: her next response was more notable. “I don’t really understand this idea that parents should decide what’s being taught,” Hannah-Jones said. “I’m not a professional educator. I don’t have a degree in social studies or science.”

I’m against bills like the proposed Oklahoma measure that would ban the teaching of Jones’s work at all state-sponsored educational institutions. I think bans are counter-productive and politically a terrible move by Republicans, who undercut their own arguments against authoritarianism and in favor of “local control” with such sweeping statewide measures. Still, it was pretty rich hearing the author of The 1619 Project say she lacked the expertise to teach, given that a) many historians agree with her there, yet b) she’s been advocating for schools to teach her dubious work to students all over the country.

Even odder were her next comments, regarding McAuliffe’s infamous line about parents. About this, Hannah-Jones said:

We send our kids to school because we want our kids to be taught by people with expertise in the subject area… When the governor, or the candidate, said he didn’t think parents should be deciding what’s being taught in school, he was panned for that, but that’s just a fact.

In the wake of McAuliffe’s loss, the “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what to teach” line was universally tabbed a “gaffe” by media. I described it in the recent “Loudoun County: A Culture War in Four Acts” series in TK as the political equivalent of using a toe to shoot your face off with a shotgun, but this was actually behind the news cycle. Yahoo! said the “gaffe precipitated the Democrat’s slide in the polls,” while the Daily Beast’s blunter headline was, “Terry McAuliffe’s White-Guy Confidence Just Fucked the Dems.”

However, much like the Hillary Clinton quote about “deplorables,” conventional wisdom after the “gaffe” soon hardened around the idea that what McAuliffe said wasn’t wrong at all. In fact, people like Hannah-Jones are now doubling down and applying to education the same formula that Democrats brought with disastrous results to a whole range of other issues in the Trump years, telling voters that they should get over themselves and learn to defer to “experts” and “expertise.”

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Washington State Democrats  demoncraps! Push Bill Reducing Penalties for Drive-By Shootings

Washington state Reps. Tarra Simmons (D) and David Hackney (D) are pushing legislation to remove drive-by shootings from the list of crimes that elevate first degree to murder to a higher degree of murder carrying a mandatory life sentence.

FOX News reports that “drive-by shootings were added to the list of aggravating factors for murder charges in 1995.” At the time, drive-by shootings were one of a number of crimes that would elevate charges and Simmons and Hackney are now working to remove such shootings from the list.

The 1995 language that Simmons and Hackney want to specifically strike from the aggravating factors list says: “The murder was committed during the course of or as a result of a shooting where the discharge of the firearm… is either from a motor vehicle or from the immediate area of a motor vehicle that was used to transport the shooter or the firearm.”

Simmons says she believes the language surrounding drive-by shootings “was targeted at gangs that were predominantly young and Black.”

She added, “I believe in a society that believes in the power of redemption. Murder is murder no matter where the bullet comes from but locking young people up and throwing away the key is not the answer.”

Simmons points to Kimonti Carter as a example of why she wants to remove drive-by shootings from the aggravating factors list. Carter was convicted in a drive-by shooting that left two people dead in 1997. He received a 777-year sentence and Simmons said, “If he had been standing outside of the vehicle at the time, he would’ve faced 240-320 months in prison. Instead, he was sentenced to life in prison with no opportunity for parole because of this law.”

770 KTTH points out that Simmons and Hackney’s pushed to strike drive-by shootings from the aggravating factors list is posited as a pursuit of “racial equity in the criminal legal system.”

On July 22, 2021, KIRO 7 noted a surge of gun violence in Seattle and quoted Seattle Police Chief Adrian Diazwas saying, “We’ve seen more than a 100% increase in drive-by shootings this year alone.”

CCRKBA: BIDEN’S YEAR-END POLL NUMBERS EXPLAIN STRONG GUN SALES IN 2021

BELLEVUE, WA – A new Rasmussen poll showing Joe Biden has lost ground among likely U.S. voters for his handling of crime and law enforcement issues helps explain the continued interest in private gun ownership, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today.

According to Rasmussen’s survey, 51 percent of likely voters give Biden a poor rating for his ability to handle rising crime. Back in July, 48 percent of poll respondents gave the president bad marks on this subject. Rasmussen revealed 77 percent of Republicans and 56 percent of Independents rate the president’s handling of crime and law enforcement issues to be poor.

According to the FBI National Instant Check System (NICS), more than 35.7 million background checks have been initiated so far this year, and while that number does not reflect actual gun sales, it does indicate a strong continuing interest in gun ownership.

“Since Joe Biden took office,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “millions of Americans who had never before owned a firearm bought one. During the week leading up to ‘Black Friday’ in November, there were more than 687,000 NICS checks initiated, and we anticipate strong numbers for December when the final tally is available.

“Since Biden took office,” he continued, “police agencies have continued to lose personnel, crime has spiked upward and increasing numbers of Americans have taken more responsibility for their personal safety and that of their families. For a guy who came into office promising more restrictions on legal firearms ownership, Joe Biden has only stoked gun sales because his policies are making Americans feel less safe, because, in fact, they are .

“Joe Biden and his handlers need to face reality,” Gottlieb observed. “Their policies and performance do not resonate with the majority of citizens. When you throw in Rasmussen’s revelation that 67 percent of likely voters think the country is headed in the wrong direction, you have a disaster on your hands, people have lost faith in their ability to lead, and they are preparing for the worst. It’s a signal that Biden should leave gun rights alone for the remainder of his time in office.”

Year-End Musings on COVID, Science, and Chainsaws

COVID-19 has provided a best-of-times, worst-of-times experience for expertise. The science has been spectacular, but discourse on that science has often been abysmal.

The same-year development, testing, and approval of vaccines was remarkable. The mRNA platform behind the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines could become the Swiss army knife of therapeutics. It’s already being mobilized against cancer and genetic illnesses.

I’m no virologist or geneticist, but experts I respect persuaded me of the vaccines’ safety and efficacy. I got jabbed as soon as possible and regret that others chose not to. I wear masks in some situations, and not others. I see people socially but avoid large crowds. I favored lockdowns and school closings in early 2020 but think they lingered too long. My guess is that jurisdictions focused on the most vulnerable populations (elderly, immunocompromised, etc.) will seem wiser in hindsight than those that applied draconian mitigation strategies over their entire populations.

I think I’m right on these things, though I recognize that future evidence might say otherwise. I’m grateful for the scientists who developed the vaccines but strive to maintain an open mind on all scientific matters, along with a sense of humility and a generous spirit toward those who disagree with me. A proper understanding of science demands no less.

The history of medicine offers ample reasons to avoid smug certitude which, unfortunately, is abundant on social and traditional media. Science is always about likelihood and never about certainty, though word apparently hasn’t reached Twitter and TV news.

Then there is the flagrantly political demeanor of so many COVID experts. I’m not at all prepared to say whether red states or blue states were wiser in their public policies. Too many confounding variables. I’ll make one exception, which is to say that the press and others besoiled themselves by relentlessly lionizing ex-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Today, few Democrats or Republicans quote his tweet from May 5, 2020: “Look at the data. Follow the science. Listen to the experts. … Be smart.”

Here’s why they shouldn’t. Science, like a chainsaw, is an exceedingly powerful and useful tool. But “follow the science” makes no more sense than “follow the chainsaw.” The chainsaw doesn’t know the safest way to cut a tree, and science—let alone some anthropomorphic vision of it—can’t weigh the tradeoffs between slowing COVID and shutting down schools and cancer surgeries.

Science informs individual and collective choices, which depend not only on those scientific findings but also on subjective preferences and one’s degree of confidence in those scientific findings. As for “listen to the experts,” Cuomo wrote the book on COVID expertise, and that book’s fall has been as spectacular as its author’s plummet.

Medical history is littered with experts who were spectacularly wrong. When Ignaz Semmelweis suggested that doctors employ antiseptic medical procedures (e.g., washing hands in maternity wards), medical experts were offended and conspired to destroy Semmelweis. When Stanley Prusiner suggested that misfolded proteins could cause mad cow disease and its human equivalent, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, he was pilloried as a heretic—a pejorative that didn’t entirely vanish when he received a Nobel Prize for his work. As physicist Max Planck said, “Science progresses one funeral at a time.”

In October, novelist and essayist Ann Bauer wrote a poignant column, “I Have Been Through This Before,” on her discomfort with the parade of cocksure COVID experts issuing ever-changing diktats and pronouncements. When vaccines didn’t end the pandemic, she wrote, “doctors and officials blamed their audience of 3 billion for the disease. The more the cures failed, the greater the fault of the public.”

The title of her column referred to her personal experience as the mother of an autistic son born in the late 1980s. Psychologist Bruno Bettelheim had hypothesized that autism was caused by “refrigerator mothers” who failed to show their children sufficient love—a theory we now know to be nonsense. But for a time, Bettelheim’s ideas were gospel-truth, showering mothers of autistic children with guilt and opprobrium. Today, he is regarded as something of a charlatan, but back then, he was a pop icon and celebrity expert on television. One questioned Bettelheim at one’s own peril.

During the pandemic, yard signs have sprouted with the message, “Science Doesn’t Care What You Believe.” For what it’s worth, chainsaws don’t care what you believe, either.

It’s called ‘sowing to the wind’, as in reaping exactly what you asked for, good and hard.


How Defund the Police backfired.

Over the last two decades, progressives have established a new consensus on crime. Nonviolent felonies like shoplifting and drug possession should be reclassified as misdemeanours. Cities should defund the police and spend the money on nurses, psychologists and social workers instead. Offenders should have minimal involvement with the justice system — and be kept out of jail wherever possible.

But now, rising crime is rapidly undermining the progressive consensus. Homicides rose 30% in 2020, and over two-thirds of America’s largest cities will have had even more homicides in 2021 than in 2020. At least 13 big cities will set all-time records for homicides, including Philadelphia, Austin, and Portland. Meanwhile property crimes in California’s four largest cities rose 7% between 2020 and 2021. Car break-ins in San Francisco declined temporarily in 2020, because Covid emptied the city of tourists, but they have since skyrocketed, reaching 3,000 in November. Many residents have stopped bothering to report crime.

Of course, many crime rates are still below what they were in the Eighties. And progressives are right to say that we shouldn’t panic about rising crime, since past panics contributed to cruel and crude responses, including overly long prison sentences with little in the way of real rehabilitation programmes. That’s why, in the late Nineties, I worked for George Soros’s foundation, among others, advocating for drug decriminalisation, reduced sentences for nonviolent crimes, and alternatives to incarceration.

But today it’s clear that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction. In 2000, when I stopped working on criminal justice policy, progressives were advocating mandatory rehabilitation as an alternative to incarceration. Now, progressive prosecutors are simply releasing criminal suspects from custody without requiring rehab or extended probation. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for instance, a man who had run over the mother of his child with his SUV was released on $1,000 bail. Neither he nor his SUV were put under electronic surveillance. Soon after, he killed six people and injured another three dozen — by running them over with his SUV.

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Boo Hoo – Boo Hoo


Gun control advocates express disappointment with Biden

Gun violence prevention advocates were hopeful a year ago that the Biden presidency would make progress on gun control. Instead, as his first year in office draws to an end, they are feeling disappointed.

Advocates say Biden’s response to the recent school shooting in Michigan, when a sophomore opened fire at school and killed four students, fell short, and they are disheartened that the administration’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) withdrew.

Like his predecessors, Biden has issued executive orders on gun violence prevention while legislation to expand background checks has failed in the Senate.

“I think the biggest thing to highlight here is that the president has been a friend to the gun violence prevention (GVP) movement this year and we’re thankful, but frankly, he hasn’t really been a leader,” said Zeenat Yahya, deputy policy director at March for Our Lives.

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Joe Biden Just Absolved Himself of Responsibility for Ending COVID Like He Promised

As the omicron variant of COVID-19 spreads rapidly throughout the country, Joe Biden met with several of our nation’s governors, whom he says need to take the lead in ending the pandemic.

“There is no federal solution [to COVID],” Biden said before the meeting. “This gets solved at a state level.”

Umm, what?

I’m sorry, did I miss something? Joe Biden literally campaigned for an entire year, not only blaming Trump for COVID but also for the deaths caused by it.

“It is what it is because you are who you are,” Biden told Trump during their first debate regarding the COVID death toll.

“A lot of people died and a lot more are going to die unless he gets a lot smarter, a lot quicker,” he insisted.

“We’re eight months into this pandemic,” Biden said weeks before the presidential election, “and Donald Trump still doesn’t have a plan to get this virus under control, I do.”

Biden also promised multiple times that he would “shut down” the virus. “I’m not going to shut down the country. I’m not going to shut down the economy. I’m going to shut down the virus.”

 

Biden spent a year claiming he was the silver bullet who would end the COVID-19 pandemic. But now that cases are surging (again) Biden is now shifting responsibility for getting the pandemic under control to our nation’s governors. This change in rhetoric effectively absolves himself of any responsibility for the state of the pandemic—a very convenient position after blaming Trump for the trajectory the pandemic took on his watch.

 

Does Joe Biden really believe we’ll forget that he promised things would get better on his watch, yet they haven’t? Biden said he had a plan. Biden said he would “shut down the virus.” So why hasn’t he executed this plan and shut it down already? Instead, he’s now saying, “Hey governors, this is on you now. I’m gonna have an ice cream cone and take a nap.”

I hope the ‘a liberal is merely a conservative who hasn’t been mugged carjacked yet’ meme holds true for this one.


Carjacked congresswoman has a long history of embracing gun control

Last Wednesday, Democratic Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon had her luxury SUV stolen at gunpoint by a couple of armed men in Philadelphia. As Cam noted, five people are facing charges after this brazen carjacking that happened in broad daylight at FDR park.

Crime that happens in a dark alley at night is one thing, but this sort of daytime crime becomes common when the State abdicates its basic function in maintaining the rule of law. Philadelphia has done just that, extending its Brotherly Love to violent criminals thanks to far-Left Democrat D.A. Larry Krasner.

Those of us in the Second Amendment community know all too well how criminal-coddling policies that lead to crime spikes are used as a pretext to pass more gun control laws, which turn us – the law-abiding, tax-paying citizens who want to mind our own business – into criminals. That’s a feature, not a bug, of the gun control movement, and that’s what Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon’s campaign website showcases. Here are members of the Gun Grab Lobby who endorsed Scanlon’s congressional bid:

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In America’s violent cities, is self-defense the last civil right?

As much as I love sipping political philosophies like fine wine, now isn’t the time. Of all the important questions to be asked in this manic hour, I offer this one: In America’s violent cities, is self-defense the last civil right or a path to the last rite? As violent crime rises and the leftists’ will to fight it plummets, we who are in the midst of daily destruction must make up our minds.

I don’t care if your chosen self-defense item is a knife (a staple in majority leftist/left anarchist cities), slingshot, baseball bat (a favorite of the friend whom I call a force of nature), bow and arrow, pepper spray, fists, mixed martial arts (aka MMA) or whatever else tickles your tactical fancy, it’s clear we’ve got to have our minds made up. We must be armed, not just with the weapons, but also with the will to defend ourselves. Given current headlines on timelines, it’s a no-brainer.

In New Orleans, a local judge’s mother was recently wounded in crossfire and a congresswoman and state legislator were carjacked days ago in their respective cities. When mayhem touches elites, some targets (that is, ordinary citizens) wonder whether the policies those elites support will change? Let’s let that question hang in the air while we stay focused.

I understand what progressive mayors and prosecutors have done to undermine effective policing and violent career criminal convictions. I also understand change won’t happen instantly even if those same actors got religion on public safety overnight.

Targets (i.e., citizens) still face several waves of attacks from a generation that hasn’t faced consequences for its actions. After what conservatives termed “the Ferguson Effect” following Mike Brown’s death and new de-policing benchmarks set following George Floyd’s demise, we face youth who won’t magically stop rampaging on their won. Violent young people’s lifestyles change only after persistent pressure is applied over time.

Police officers, mayors, prosecutors, and judges are instrumental but not fast moving. We targets (aka citizens) must exercise our last right of self-defense, and loudly defend the right to do so, or what we call self-defense will become the equivalent of a last rite courtesy of violent offenders.

Fortunately, self-defense is instantaneous. It isn’t hamstrung by polling and debates in safe chambers. When targets (citizens) decide self-defense is our last right, we won’t be needing our last rites anytime soon.

Vax Passports: The Panzer Tank of the COVID-19 Blitzkrieg

The COVID-19 digital vax pass is the Panzer tank of the next wave of the global public health Blitzkrieg.  If a person complies and gets their COVID-19 shots, they get a personal QR code. They can show this code on their smart phone to participate in society.  This plan is being rolled out around the world and has spread from Israel to Europe to Australia, and now has been established in the most strategic U.S. cities including Washington D.C., New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.  Some people with a whole lot of power are now seizing a whole lot more power in the name of public health.

In Israel it has been used the longest.  They call it the Green Pass, also translated as “Green Mark.”  Israel first used it back in the spring and reinstated it in August. Under this program, your smart phone shows your Green Mark QR code to validate that you’re up to date on your Pfizer COVID shots.  With the pass, you’re allowed to be served at a restaurant; you can enter a library or the community pool; you can visit your elderly mom at the nursing home.  Some employers require it. Until recently in Israel, if you got your two Pfizer COVID-19 shots, your QR code would be activated.  But starting Oct. 3, shots received over six months ago, voided the passport. The 3rd shot, the booster, was required. This applies to everyone ages twelve and up.

There is an important guidance for COVID-19 vax passports that the World Health Organization published at the end of August 2021.  The title of this guidance is Technical Specifications and Implementation Guidance on Digital Documentation of Covid-19 Certificates. This “Guidance” provides direction to countries as they issue digital COVID-19 vax passes, so that all these will meet common standards and potentially function together.

Guess who paid for the work?  Under the acknowledgements, it says that the work was funded by Bill Gates’ foundation and four other funders.

Some of the things in the Guidance are pretty hard to believe — you have to read them for yourself.  For starters, everyone in the world with a vaccine passport receives their own ID number.  This is called a “globally unique identifier” on page 18 and includes an alphanumeric number and a machine scannable QR code.

The Guidance requires your COVID-19 vaccination history to be verified by the digital signatures of authorized persons, like DocuSign.  Once you’re up to schedule with your COVID jabs and your papers are in order, you get the PASS, which the Guidance defines as, “A document that gives an individual the authorization to have access to something, such as public spaces, events and modes of transport.”  If your globally unique machine scannable QR code checks out, then as long as it does, you will have permission to participate in society.

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CNN Now Openly Questioning President Biden’s Mental Health

It is widely understood that CNN trends to the left.  They don’t seem to be denying it any more, so why should anyone else?  The mainstream media in America is now widely understood to be partisan entertainment, and that’s just fine.  In many ways, it helps us gauge the truthiness of what we’re hearing, understanding that it comes through a filter of political spin.

So when the liberal-leaning network actually suggests that President Joe Biden’s mental capacity is slipping, it’s important to stand up and take notice.

A CNN correspondent said Wednesday that Joe Biden ‘seemed confused’ in his ABC News interview earlier this week, when the president appeared to mix up COVID-19 at-home tests and antiviral pills.

Biden, 79, spoke to ABC’s David Muir for 20 minutes in an interview that aired on Wednesday and defended his administration against criticism of its handling of the pandemic and readiness for the rapidly spreading Omicron variant, but also admitting that there were certain mistakes made.

When asked about complaints that the lines to get tested for COVID-19 were excessive, with waits of over five hours in New York City as one example, Biden said that 500 million at-home tests had been ordered.

But several times he referred to the tests as ‘pills’ – potentially thinking of the Pfizer antiviral pills, which were federally approved on the same day.

CNN didn’t mince their words.

‘Repeatedly throughout this interview – President Biden seems confused and was confusing the half a billion tests that they’ve ordered with a half a billion pills,’ said Jeff Zeleny, CNN’s chief national affairs correspondent.

While the move is certainly surprising, at least in terms of CNN’s willingness to espouse such an idea, some of the confusion that we’ve seen from the President is undeniable.

Recall, Remove & Replace Every Last Soros Prosecutor

Last year, our nation experienced the largest increase in murder in American history and the largest number of drug overdose deaths ever recorded. This carnage continues today and is not distributed equally. Instead, it is concentrated in cities and localities where radical, left-wing, George Soros progressives have captured state and district attorney offices. These legal arsonists condemn our rule of law as “systemically racist” and have not simply abused prosecutorial discretion, they have embraced prosecutorial nullification. As a result, a contagion of crime has infected virtually every neighborhood under their charge.

Soros prosecutors refuse to enforce laws against shoplifting, drug trafficking, and entire categories of felonies and misdemeanors. In Chicago, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx allows theft under $1,000 to go unpunished. In Manhattan, District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. refuses to enforce laws against prostitution. In Baltimore, State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby has unilaterally declared the war on drugs “over” and is refusing to criminally charge drug users in the middle of the worst drug crisis in American history. For a time, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon even stopped enforcing laws against disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, and making criminal threats.

All of these cities have paid a terrible price for these insane policies. Last year, the number of homicides in Chicago rose by 56%, and more than 1,000 Cook County residents have been murdered in 2021. In New York City, murder increased 47% and shootings soared 97%. In 2020, the murder rate in Baltimore was higher than El Salvador’s or Guatemala’s — nations from which citizens often attempt to claim asylum purely based on gang violence and murder—and this year murder in Baltimore is on track to be even higher. Murder in Los Angeles rose 36% last year and is on track to rise another 17% this year.

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Hillary Clinton Emails Surface.

Emails have from 2009 have surfaced that reveal Hillary Clinton knew about — and possibly covered up — the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party’s Wuhan Institute of Virology while she was in office as President Obama’s secretary of state.

In a leaked State Department cable obtained from Wikileaks, Clinton warned that the Wuhan Institute of Virology could lead to “biological weapons proliferation concern.”

The email was sent in June of 2009 from the State Department to all embassies in member nations.

It is dated just before the Australia Group plenary session in Paris, which took place from September 21st to September 25th, 2009.

According to Human Events, “The Australia Group is an international export control forum organized to prevent the spread of technologies and research that could be used in chemical and biological weapons.

“All Five Eyes nations are members of the group, including the EU, India, Japan, and South Korea.

“China is not a member of the group.”

Clinton’s cable states: “We believe it is important to focus on emerging chemical and biological technologies, trends in the trade of CBW-related goods and threats.”

In reference to France, Clinton writes: “The U.S. believes participants would benefit from hearing about your experiences assisting China in setting up a Biosafety Level-4 (BSL-4) laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology from the export control and intangible technology transfer perspectives.

“We are particularly interested to know how China plans to vet incoming foreign researchers from countries of biological weapons proliferation concern.”

Broadly discussing China’s biological weapons program, Clinton’s cable noted:

“The U.S. believes AG members would be interested in any information you can share related to China and North Korea, specifically information related to:

  • China’s Institutes of Biological Products (locations in Beijing and Wuhan), to include overhead imagery analysis, if possible. 
  • Your perceptions of the CBW proliferation activities by Chinese entities. 
  • Your perceptions of Chinese government efforts to enforce its export control rules.” 

Of course, Clinton kept these concerns to herself once the coronavirus pandemic hit, even referring to allegations that it leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology — the very lab she expressed concerns about — as racist.

She even went so far as to blame the allegations for attacks on Asian-Americans, without any evidence supporting her claim.

Whether it was because she didn’t want to let Trump be correct, or because she wanted to hide the fact that she was concerned — but did nothing — about the lab leak, it is clear Clinton was lying.

The question is, will she ever be held accountable for her actions?

Bill Would Give NY Gov. Authority to ‘Indefinitely’ Detain ‘Cases or Suspected Cases of Contagious Disease’

What could possibly go wrong?

That’s right — what could go possibly wrong with legislation that would, if passed into law, grant the far-left governor of New York — or any government official or entity — the unilateral authority to detain anyone “indefinitely” even suspected of posing “a significant threat to public health”? No way could that be abused.

You can read the bill on the New York State Senate website.

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New York aims big on gun control — and misses, again

In hunting, there is an old adage: “aim small, miss small.” The point is that, if you want to hit a target, aim for a small part rather than the whole target. It is often the difference between a total miss and a marginal hit. In the area of Second Amendment law, the most promising legislative measures are the ones that aim small on the edges of the constitutionally-based right — the strategy used by abortion opponents. The problem is that politicians rarely want to aim small when they are trying to score big with voters.

An example is the recent New York public nuisance law seeking to make gun manufacturers liable for gun crime. Not only is the law likely to be a large miss, it will likely deliver another blow to gun control efforts by adding precedent protecting Second Amendment rights.

I’ve discussed the New York public nuisance law aimed at gun manufacturers, a law that doubles down on a failed legal theory using torts as a substitute for direct legislative bans or barriers. As expected, gun groups like the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) as well as 14 firearms manufacturers, distributors, and retailers are now filing suit. They should have an excellent shot at a preliminary injunction.

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So, someone who has taken 2 doses and has no symptoms can give the bug to an elderly person who has already taken a 3rd booster dose, and to prevent that everyone must follow the same “safety” protocols that were recommended before the vaccines became available.

The only logical conclusion is that the vaccines are utterly useless

Peppermint Psaki goes stampy foot, just like a petulant 3 year old


White House Issues Seething Statement About Joe Manchin

The White House is fuming after Democratic Senator Joe Manchin announced on Fox News Sunday he has no plans to vote for President Joe Biden’s multi-trillion dollar spending plan and will not vote to continue working on the legislation.

In response, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki issued a seething statement and essentially called Manchin a liar.

“Senator Manchin’s comments this morning on FOX are at odds with his discussions this week with the President, with White House staff, and with his own public utterances. Weeks ago, Senator Manchin committed to the President, at his home in Wilmington, to support the Build Back Better framework that the President then subsequently announced. Senator Manchin pledged repeatedly to negotiate on finalizing that framework “in good faith,” Psaki said.

“On Tuesday of this week, Senator Manchin came to the White House and submitted—to the President, in person, directly—a written outline for a Build Back Better bill that was the same size and scope as the President’s framework, and covered many of the same priorities. While that framework was missing key priorities, we believed it could lead to a compromise acceptable to all. Senator Manchin promised to continue conversations in the days ahead, and to work with us to reach that common ground,” she continued. “If his comments on FOX and written statement indicate an end to that effort, they represent a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the President and the Senator’s colleagues in the House and Senate.”

Psaki also vowed to keep pushing Manchin to change his mind.

“Just as Senator Manchin reversed his position on Build Back Better this morning, we will continue to press him to see if he will reverse his position yet again, to honor his prior commitments and be true to his word,” she said.

But the truth is, Manchin has been saying for months Biden’s Build Back Better agenda was too big, would cause inflation to worsen and that he didn’t support the IRS snooping on Americans. Since he took office with a 50-50 split in the Senate, Biden has been governing as if he has a super majority and a mandate. He doesn’t.

Sowing to the wind….
Nearly 20 Percent Of Seattle Police Force Quits Following Defunding And Black Lives Matter Riots
MAY 19, 2021 

Reaping the whirlwind….
Seattle police ‘Unavailable’ list grows, city an emergency event away from catastrophe

The Seattle Police Department staffing emergency continues. The city is one emergency event away from a serious catastrophe. But leaders and the media remain mostly silent.

The so-called “HR Unavailable” list has grown considerably as of Dec. 10. This list features officers who are on extended leave and cannot be deployed. Officers only appear on the list after being absent for a minimum of 14 days.

Concurrently, the department continues to struggle to fill vacant patrol slots to meet minimum staffing numbers. Every single precinct, in every single watch, has open slots for nearly every single day in December.

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