Category: Deceit O’ The Day

The author makes a small mistake:
“There are no NEWLY MANUFACTURED ‘assault rifles’ [machineguns] being sold to private individuals in the United States.” is wrong.
All the ones that were transferable before May 1986 are still transferable and – at increasingly higher prices due to the market principle of ‘supply and demand’- are still being bought and sold. Other than that, he’s written well.

After 30 Years Of Lies, NY Times Admits “Assault Weapons Are A Myth”

In a stunning op-ed released Friday, the NY Times finally admitted that “assault weapons” are a made-up political term fabricated by anti-gun Democrats.

Op-ed writer Lois Beckett also admitted that once the term was manufactured and used to outlaw a class of weapons that dishonest anti-gun Democrats had used to con an entire nation, nothing happened.

It was much the same in the early 1990s when Democrats created and then banned a category of guns they called “assault weapons.” America was then suffering from a spike in gun crime and it seemed like a problem threatening everyone. Gun murders each year had been climbing: 11,000, then 13,000, then 17,000.

Democrats decided to push for a ban of what seemed like the most dangerous guns in America: assault weapons, which were presented by the media as the gun of choice for drug dealers and criminals, and which many in law enforcement wanted to get off the streets.

This politically defined category of guns — a selection of rifles, shotguns and handguns with “military-style” features — only figured in about 2 percent of gun crimes nationwide before the ban.

Handguns were used in more than 80 percent of murders each year, but gun control advocates had failed to interest enough of the public in a handgun ban. Handguns were the weapons most likely to kill you, but they were associated by the public with self-defense. (In 2008, the Supreme Court said there was a constitutional right to keep a loaded handgun at home for self-defense.)

Banning sales of military-style weapons resonated with both legislators and the public: Civilians did not need to own guns designed for use in war zones.

On Sept. 13, 1994, President Bill Clinton signed an assault weapons ban into law. It barred the manufacture and sale of new guns with military features and magazines holding more than 10 rounds. But the law allowed those who already owned these guns — an estimated 1.5 million of them — to keep their weapons.

The policy proved costly. Mr. Clinton blamed the ban for Democratic losses in 1994. Crime fell, but when the ban expired, a detailed study found no proof that it had contributed to the decline.

They created and then banned a class of weapons.

“Assault weapons” is a made-up term, used to scare citizens into thinking that military weapons were commonly being sold and used on the streets of the United States. Thanks to a dishonest and incompetent media, millions of Americans thought (and still think) that machine guns could simply be purchased at the local gun store. The reality that the Hughes Amendment to the Firearm Owners Protection Act outlawed the manufacture of automatic weapons for the civilian market in 1986, was always hushed up.

Yes, it has been 28 years since a single machine gun was manufactured for the American public. There are no assault rifles being sold in the United States. There are only firearms that look like weapons of war, but which lack their ability to fire multiple shots with a single pull of the trigger.

These firearms—AR-15s, AKMs and similar rifles—while incredibly popular with America’s law-abiding gun culture, simply aren’t used in many crimes. This should be surprising, since they are now among the most popular firearms sold in the United States in the past decade. The AR-15, in particular, is the most popular rifle sold in the United States year after year, and there are ten times as many in civilian hands as there are visually similar M4/M16 assault rifles in the entire U.S military.

But career criminals don’t want long guns. They want firearms that are compact and easy to conceal.

The op-ed concludes that violent homicides are primarily a poverty issue disproportionately concentrated among small groups of particularly violent young men, a stunning and rare admission that poverty and the drug trade are the primary problem driving murder, not access to firearms.

Don’t expect this sort of stunning admission of the facts to mark a change in cover from the Times, however. The brief bout of lucidity will quickly fade behind the veil of Alzheimer’s liberalism, and we’ll hear the rest of the deranged gaggle of op-ed writers to quickly fall back into the mantra of “Guns are bad, the NRA is evil, we need more taxes, government, citizen control, etc.”

Still… it’s nice to see that every once in a while a real and honest thought can escape from the morass of Manhattan, however fleeting that honest thought may be.

Will the ‘Unvaxxed’ Have the Last Laugh?

For over a year now, the messaging from our “health experts” and government leaders has been as dreary as it has been monotonal: Take the covid “vaccine” or die.

That talking point was reiterated by President Biden* just a few weeks ago when he warned the “unvaxxed” would face “a winter of severe disease and death.” And that was before New Jersey’s resident rodent meteorologist, Milltown Mel, shuffled off this mortal coil just prior to Groundhog Day. So I guess that means, in New Jersey at least, another six weeks of severe disease and death.

Originally, of course, we were told the mRNA injections would prevent people from contracting the disease. “If you get vaccinated, you won’t get covid” was the mantra recited for months, in various forms and multiple forums, by Drs. Fauci, Walensky, and Murthy, President Biden*, and many others. We were also assured that sufficiently jabbed people don’t spread the virus, with Fauci claiming the injections constitute a “dead end for covid.”

It’s important not to forget those statements, as the same people now insist they never promised any such thing. Perhaps that’s because, in the face of overwhelming evidence, they’ve been forced to admit jabbed people can and do get covid and can and do give it to others. Said Walensky just a few weeks ago, “what [the vaccines] can’t do anymore is prevent transmission.” Even Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla was forced to acknowledge that his products now offer “limited, in any, protection.”

But what about the vaunted “death benefit” from the mRNA injections? They still protect against serious illness and death, right? Well, yes, that does seem to be the case—but the effect is waning fast. Moreover, the claim itself comes with several asterisks.

There have always been questions about how we count “covid deaths,” as both the CDC and the UK’s National Health Service have recently acknowledged. But if anything, those problems have been amplified in the way we differentiate between “vaccinated” and “unvaccinated” deaths.

For one thing, the most commonly cited number to prove “vaccine efficacy”—“90 percent of covid deaths are among the unvaccinated”—is fundamentally flawed because it goes back to the earliest days of the injections when almost no one had gotten them. Obviously, nearly all who died of (or with) covid in January and February of 2021 were “unvaccinated.”

Moreover, our health officials have been engaged for over a year in a kind of statistical sleight of hand, categorizing people who have taken the injections as “unvaccinated” up until 14 days after their second shot, which means at least five or six weeks have passed since their first shot. In doing so, they ignore evidence that the shots actually make people more susceptible to the virus in the short term. So if you contract covid after getting both shots, but prior to the closing of the 14-day window, and then die, you are considered an “unvaccinated” death. (They’re playing this same trick with the booster shots, too.)

This method also does not account for those who die as a result of immediate adverse reactions to the shots. Such deaths are generally numbered among the “unvaccinated,” even though it was the “vaccine” that killed them. But that’s a topic for another day.

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Well, he’s a politician which means he’s a professional liar.

Beto’s about-face on AR-15s: “I’m not interested in taking anything from anyone”

Virtually every poll in the state of Texas shows Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke’s gubernatorial campaign is in serious trouble, but the biggest sign that the Democrat is failing to make inroads with Texas voters came on Tuesday, as O’Rourke was stumping for votes in Tyler.

Here we are in 2022, and suddenly O’Rourke has a very different message for Texas voters.

Speaking to reporters, O’Rourke also took a question about his controversial stance on guns and remarks made in 2019 about taking away AR-15s and AK-47s.

“I’m not interested in taking anything from anyone. What I want to make sure that we do is defend the Second Amendment,” he said. “I want to make sure that we protect our fellow Texans far better than we’re doing right now. And that we listen to law enforcement, which Greg Abbott refused to do. He turned his back on them when he signed that permitless carry bill that endangers the lives of law enforcement in a state that’s seen more cops and sheriff’s deputies gunned down than in any other.”

So the guy who said he was coming for our guns now claims he wants to defend the Second Amendment, yet in the same breath declares that protecting our right to keep and bear arms means criminalizing carrying a gun without a government permission slip? Does he actually think anyone is going to buy his supposed newfound respect for the Second Amendment when he keeps belittling it?

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‘Mayoral Myth’ Exposed—Most States Have Preemption Laws

UPDATED, 2/7/22 @ 5:56 P.M. – Bruce Harrell, the recently-installed mayor of Seattle, tried to invent a myth when he told reporters—without challenge—that Washington is one of a handful of states with a firearms preemption statute, a claim that is demonstrably false.

“We have too many guns pouring into the cities, and into our country,” Harrell asserted at just over 31 minutes into a 41-minute press event last Friday. “And you will hear this year me lead efforts on trying to get relief from the exemption RCW 9.41.290. You’ll hear me talking about that. I don’t know how many lives have to be lost before we realize we’re one of the few states that has that kind of restriction allowing the state to govern the laws we need for our city of Seattle.”

Contrary to Harrell’s claim, there are at least 42 states with preemption laws, which place sole authority for regulating firearms in the hands of the state legislature.

Harrell was referring to Washington’s nearly-40-year-old preemption law, which was adopted in 1983, strengthened in 1985 and has become a model for similar laws in other states, something the Seattle Times failed to mention in its coverage.

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US Government Left As Many As 9,000 American Citizens In Afghanistan After Withdrawal, Senate Report Reveals

As many as 9,000 American citizens were left in Afghanistan when the U.S. military withdrew from the country Aug. 31, according to a report released Thursday by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In public statements, Biden administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, claimed that only 100-150 Americans remained in Afghanistan and had contacted the U.S. government with a desire to leave. The State Department and Defense Department officials stuck to that number, even as the government publicly admitted that large numbers of American citizens were still leaving the country.
The report, signed by Foreign Relations ranking member Jim Risch of Idaho, reveals that State Department officials believed that between 10,000 and 15,000 Americans were in Afghanistan as late as Aug. 17. In the next two weeks, only 6,000 Americans were able to escape the country ahead of the Taliban takeover. In testimony in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, however, Blinken claimed that “approximately 100-150 remained in Afghanistan who still wished to depart.”

While there’s disagreement over the policy to leave Afghanistan, Americans share outrage over how the admin. withdrew, & what that failure has done to America’s reputation. This morning I released a report that details what went wrong & why.

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Racism is a Moving Target

Fortunately, the ADL is happy to continue providing new redefinitions, as events happen to require:

The definition of racism has been rewritten for a second time by advocacy group the Anti-Defamation League after actress Whoopi Goldberg claimed the Holocaust was not about race.

The organization had initially changed its definition of racism in 2020 following months of Black Lives Matter demonstrations, quietly redefining the term in what appeared to be a response to the movement to mean “the marginalization and/or oppression of people of color based on a socially constructed racial hierarchy that privileges white people.”

That was a far cry from the ADL’s original definition, which defined racism as “the belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another” or that “a person’s social and moral traits are predetermined by his or her inborn biological characteristics.”

The new ‘interim’ definition that appeared on Wednesday, however, was more closely aligned with the original description. The ADL website now explains that racism occurs “when individuals or institutions show more favorable evaluation or treatment of an individual or group based on race or ethnicity.”

How embarrassing to discover one has literally redefined Hitler as not-racist!

Sparks Fly in Must-See Exchange After Reporter Presses White House on ‘False Flag’ Claims

Skepticism is building around the White House’s narrative regarding Ukraine and Russia, and that boiled over today during the press briefing at the US State Department. In a rare act of journalism, Matt Lee of the Associated Press excoriated State Department spokesman Ned Price in a must-see back and forth.

The issue at hand involved the Biden administration’s latest claims that Russia is spreading “misinformation” and seeking to commit a “false flag” attack to offer a pretext for war. While most reporters would have just accepted the government’s word as fact, Lee was having none of it. He lit into Price, comparing the claims to “crisis actors,” and describing them as “Alex Jones territory.”

The full five minutes is worth the watch.

The context of Lee’s frustration is simple: The government has, time and time again, shown itself to be completely untrustworthy in relaying information to the public. At times, the dishonesty has come via omission. At other times, it’s manifested in outright lies. In the exchange, the AP reporter cites the lead-up to the Iraq War and the Biden administration’s claims about Kabul not being in danger as examples of past falsehoods.

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CCRKBA: KING COUNTY, WA GUN MURDERS, SHOOTINGS PROVE ANTI-GUNNERS LIED

BELLEVUE, WA – Monday’s “Shots Fired” report from the King County (WA) Prosecutor’s Office on the number of gun-related homicides and injuries last year is more proof that gun control laws and anti-rights initiatives adopted over the past few years in Washington State have been abject failures, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms said today in reaction.

“Proponents of these laws, and especially the gun control initiatives passed in recent years, sold the public a bill of goods, and now everybody knows it,” said CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb. “Voters were told in 2014 that Initiative 594 would reduce gun-related violence, and today’s data proves they were misled. Four years later, the Seattle-based gun prohibition lobby promised Initiative 1639 would prevent gun-related homicides, and they lied again. In Olympia, anti-gun politicians are pushing more gun restrictions right now, with the same promises.

“The billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobby and their allies in Olympia claim that so-called ‘gun violence’ is an epidemic,” he said. “Frankly, the intellectual dishonesty of the gun control crowd is the real public health crisis.”

King County authorities reported Monday that 88 people were murdered and another 372 were wounded in shootings last year. Law enforcement agencies in the county reported a startling 1,405 shooting incidents, surpassing the 1,025 posted in 2020.

Gottlieb opposed both initiatives, and he has been an outspoken critic of other gun laws pushed through the Legislature. CCRKBA’s national headquarters are in Bellevue, just east of Seattle. A check of the FBI annual Uniform Crime Reports shows the number of murders in Washington, and especially Seattle, have gone steadily upwards since the current gun control crusade started eight years ago.

“We warned the public these gun control schemes were wishful thinking at best,” Gottlieb said. “The data provides all the evidence necessary to say anti-gun-rights initiatives and legislation have amounted to snake oil, giving the public a false sense of security while their rights are being steadily eroded.

“Instead of pushing more restrictions like they’re doing right now,” he said, “it is time for gun control zealots to admit they’ve been wrong all along. Extremist gun control has failed miserably for Evergreen State citizens, and the rising body counts prove it.”

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.

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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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.

‘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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*sniff*
Smells like some goobermint stooge dropped some propaganda around here

*ahhHRRMMM*

‘Lady Al Qaeda’ the woman Texas synagogue hostage-taker wanted freed: She planned chemical attacks on Empire State Building and Brooklyn Bridge and demanded juror at her trial be DNA tested to see if they were Jewish

Who is Aafia Siddiqui? Details on the woman mentioned during negotiations by the man who took a North Texas synagogue hostage

……By all accounts in the trial record, Siddiqui was a combative defendant, refusing to come to court.

“She also complained that a Zionist conspiracy existed and would prevent her from getting a fair trial,” the judge said at her sentencing. “Indeed, during the course of the proceedings, she said ‘All I did say was that Israel was behind 9/11.’”…..

Nope.  Nothing ‘related to the Jews’ here. Nope, nope, nope

FBI Makes Claims Motive of Man Taking Hostages at Synagogue Was ‘Not Specifically Related to Jewish Community’

As was covered last night, a man who is now dead took multiple people hostage for nearly 12 hours on Saturday at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas. Not only did the man take a rabbi and others hostage during shabbat services, but he demanded the release of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, who is suspected of having ties to al-Qaeda and was convicted of trying to kill U.S. military officers while in custody in Afghanistan. Yet once all the hostages had been released and were safe, the FBI said during a press conference that the man’s motive was not tied to targeting the Jewish community………..

With this as further confirmation, if you haven’t figured out by now that demoncraps are in any sense American, I can’t help you anymore.

NASA leasing bill transformed into “voting rights” legislation.

WASHINGTON — NASA’s ability to lease property at its facilities to companies or other organizations remains in limbo after a bill meant to reauthorize it was transformed in the House into voting rights legislation.

H.R. 5746 was introduced in October by Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), chair of the House Science Committee’s space subcommittee. The bill extended NASA’s authorization to enter into what are known as enhanced use leases, or EULs, of agency property to companies, government agencies, or educational institutions, for 10 years. The House passed the bill by a voice vote Dec. 8.

The Senate amended the bill, extending the EUL authorization by only three months instead of 10 years, and passed it by unanimous consent, sending it back to the House.

The Democratic leadership of the House, in an unusual move, then took the Senate-amended bill and stripped out the NASA provisions, replacing it with the text of two voting rights bills and now called the “Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act.” They did so because H.R. 5746 had already passed the House and Senate, so the amended version could go directly to the Senate floor without the threat of a filibuster from Senate Republicans, who oppose the voting rights legislation.

The move effectively sacrificed the NASA portions of the bill, something that Beyer said he accepted. “Though I did not expect this outcome when I first introduced the NASA Enhanced Use Leasing Extension Act, if my legislation will help overcome the filibuster, the Senate can finally have the long-overdue debate on voting rights this country deserves,” he said in a Jan. 13 statement. “I would be honored to make this unexpected contribution to the cause of protecting our democracy.”

The House passed the bill Jan. 13 220 to 203 on strict party lines, with Democrats voting in favor of the bill and Republicans against it.

Republican members, including some who co-sponsored the original H.R. 5746, strongly criticized the decision to turn the NASA bill into a vehicle for voting rights legislation. “The majority has taken a practical, bipartisan bill and gutted it, inserting 735 pages of unrelated legislation and forcing the House to vote on it barely 12 hours after the text was released,” Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.), ranking member of the House Science Committee, said in a statement. “What’s more, by stripping this NASA bill and replacing it with an attempt to impose federal control of elections, they have killed our only vehicle to extend NASA’s authority to lease out underutilized property and save taxpayer money.”

NASA’s EUL authority lapsed Dec. 31, meaning that the agency cannot enter into new leases until that authority is renewed. NASA had signed leases for 65 properties as of 2019, which provided the agency with nearly $11 million in revenue that went to support other facility improvements.

It’s unclear what the next step is for restoring NASA’s EUL authority. A Senate bill introduced in December proposed a two-year extension, but that bill remains in the Senate Commerce Committee.

“We hope and expect to pass an EUL extension in future legislation,” Aaron Fritschner, spokesman for Rep. Beyer, told SpaceNews Jan. 13 after the House vote, but details on how to do so were still being worked out.

 

No, next question…….

BLUF:
Everyone has bias.  We all have opinions.  That said, I think it is very clear that Kellerman allowed his opposition to gun ownership to overcome his knowledge of what good research is and is not.  He could have answered some of the preceding questions and come up with a solid number for what the risk of gun ownership (if any) really is.  Instead, he produced a so called study that is “junk science” at best and pure propaganda at worst.

Does Owning A Gun Really Triple Your Chances Of Being Murdered?

Where Did This Idea Come From?  What Is The Evidence?

It is accepted as fact by most gun control advocates that simply having a gun in your home nearly triples your chances of being murdered.  The reality is that this number (from Dr. Kellerman’s work of 3-4 decades ago) is nothing more than deceptive propaganda.  Here’s the evidence that supports this claim:

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The Real Climate And Health Crisis

Anti-fossil-fuel climate policies increase energy prices, blackouts and death tolls

Paul Driessen;

Climate policies promoted and imposed by Team Biden and Democrats are based on junk science, headline-grabbing scare stories, and computer models that create far-fetched “scenarios” asserting that fossil fuel use and emissions will cause Earth to warm by 4 degrees C (7 F)over the next 80 years, and cause Arctic warming that will bring colder winters.

Those dire predictions are used to justify more taxpayer-funded “research,” like a recent Columbia University “mortality cost of carbon” study that claims 83 million people (the population of Germany) “could be killed” this century by those rising planetary temperatures. Therefore we must take “immediate action” to “transform” our energy and economic systems, and replace oil, gas and coal with (millions of) wind turbines and (billions of) solar panels and backup batteries.

These policies are lethal for people and planet They would require mining on scales unprecedented in human history, much of it by slave and child laborers, and nearly all using fossil fuels – bringing massive habitat and wildlife losses, air and water pollution, and horrific human health and safety problems.

But since most of the mining, ore processing and manufacturing will occur in other countries, far from the USA, politicians and climateers can say this “alternative energy” is “clean and green.”

Worse, climate policies cause widespread “energy poverty” – energy prices rising above families’ ability to stay adequately warm (or cool) at reasonable cost, given their incomes. That means people die.

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Deceit. While it is a standard moslem thing,  subterfuge has always been considered a valid tactic of war. Lessons, lessons.

Afghanistan: Taliban had sleeper agents in every major city, dressed like Westerners

Westerners continue to be duped across the board by jihadists and Islamic supremacists who fully recognize the West’s gullibility and play it to the fullest.

The Western dress of the sleeper agents is reminiscent of Islamic State bride Shamima Begum, who has dramatically changed her style, doffing her hijab and putting on jeans and a cap, as she desperately tries to fool everyone into thinking that she has reformed so that she can get back to Britain. Jihadists run rings around gullible Westerners as they employ the tactic of taqiyya, using deceit to advance their war against infidels.

“Taliban Covert Operatives Seized Kabul, Other Afghan Cities From Within,” Wall Street Journal, November 29, 2021:

KABUL—Undercover Taliban agents—often clean-shaven, dressed in jeans and sporting sunglasses—spent years infiltrating Afghan government ministries, universities, businesses and aid organizations.

Then, as U.S. forces were completing their withdrawal in August, these operatives stepped out of the shadows in Kabul and other big cities across Afghanistan, surprising their neighbors and colleagues. Pulling their weapons from hiding, they helped the Taliban rapidly seize control from the inside…….

“WSJ: Taliban Had Sleeper Agents in Every Major City, Who Aided Swift Downfall of US-Backed Gov’t,” Sputnik International, November 29, 2021:

The agents went as far as to ditch traditional Afghan clothing in favour of more westernised apparel and shaved their beards in violation of the Taliban’s* ultra-conservative norms. All this was done to avoid any suspicion of secretly being loyal to the Taliban.

The Taliban had sleeper agents across Afghanistan, including Kabul, who helped the insurgents to rapidly seize control of the country once the US started to withdraw its troops, The Wall Street Journal has reported, citing accounts by several Afghan commanders and former undercover agents.

These agents had different roles – some were designated to become fighters when the time came, some worked as fundraisers, while others worked on recruiting more followers to the Taliban’s cause. In order to avoid detection or even suspicion from the country’s law enforcement, many of these agents wore jeans and other western outfits, as well as shaved their beards – a tell-tale sign of a possible Taliban sympathiser.

Mawlawi Mohammad Salim Saad, a senior Taliban leader, boasted in the interview with the WSJ that the insurgent organisation had its men in many cities, government bodies, and companies across Afghanistan. Saad himself is a member of the Taliban’s elite Badri force, which was responsible for taking control of Kabul after President Ashraf Ghani’s reportedly unexpected and swift escape from the capital on 15 August…..