FLASHBACK: Joe Biden previously said “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings”
Today it’s reported that Biden met with the chairman of the Chinese energy firm Hunter sought to create a joint venture with at the Four Seasons.pic.twitter.com/mTsD5XItMI
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) February 13, 2024
Mastermind of Mexico Lawsuit Against Gun Makers Admits It’s a Backdoor Route to Gun Control
Gun control activists are thrilled that a federal appeals court has allowed the government of Mexico’s lawsuit against several major U.S. gun makers to proceed, at least for the time being, because they’re hoping that the litigation will lead to the obliteration of the firearms industry.
A new op-ed in Newsweek from Jonathan Lowy, head of Global Action Against Violence, makes that clear. Lowy, who was formerly the general counsel and vice president of Brady’s legal team, is the architect of Mexico’s lawsuit, though you have scroll all the way to the bottom of his op-ed to discover his role in the litigation.
From the outset of his piece, however, Lowy makes his hopes for the lawsuit clear: a way to impose all kinds of new gun control restrictions without a vote in Congress or even unconstitutional executive actions by
Joe Biden.
U.S. gun laws are broken. Even when states muster the political will to enact reasonable restrictions, for example as California did recently, they get blocked in federal court. With federal and state action on guns stymied, the gun violence epidemic can seem hopeless.
But now there’s finally some hope, and it’s coming from outside the United States. A federal appeals court just issued the most significant opinion ever to go against the gun industry, ruling that Mexico has the right to sue manufacturers to hold them accountable for gun trafficking and gun violence.
It’s always amusing to me when anti-gunners like Lowy use the phrase “reasonable restriction”, which implies there’s some gun control law that he would find unreasonable. I’ve been covering Lowy’s anti-2A efforts for two decades now, and I can’t recall him ever concluding that a gun control bill goes too far. Lowy has described the Heller decision as a “radical expansion of prior precedent limiting the Second Amendment to well-regulated militias—that is, today’s National Guard”, and warned ahead of the Bruen decision that striking down “may issue” licensing regimes “would have stark—and deadly—consequences in the real world”; a prediction not borne out by reality.
Lowy’s hope, in other words, isn’t that the courts will decide that gun makers and sellers have to jump through additional hoops before they can lawfully transfer a firearm. He’s aiming for the eradication of the firearms industry, and he’s using Mexico’s unwillingness to confront cartel violence head-on to do it, even as he promises that gun owners wouldn’t feel any impact if the courts ultimately accept his arguments.
Mexico has done what the U.S. failed to do: bring an effective lawsuit that could change the way guns are sold in this country and trafficked to others. It’s part of a promising new movement, led by my organization, Global Action on Gun Violence, to bring international pressure on the U.S. gun industry and policymakers to crack down on the illegal gun market like the rest of the world does. While the U.S. has abundantly demonstrated it can’t or won’t take effective action on guns, international actors, unconstrained by our gun-friendly politics, can and will.
The resulting reforms will not prevent law-abiding people from buying guns, but they will stop the supply of guns to straw buyers, traffickers, and other criminals. The U.S. stands to benefit as much or more than Mexico.
All you have to do is read Mexico’s initial complaint, which Lowy helped to create, to know what a lie that is.
Sen. Chris Murphy: the people we care about most
A gaffe is commonly defined as when a politician inadvertently tells the truth and/or reveals his true intentions. During this election season, we’re seeing a bumper crop of gaffes, and not all by Joe Biden. Sen. Chris Murphy, among the most rabid Democrat/socialist/communist (D/s/c) congress critters, dropped a classic:
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Wednesday that the Democratic Party’s push for a path to citizenship in border legislation has failed the people they “care about most” in this country, “undocumented Americans.”
MSNBC host Chris Hayes asked Murphy about the border security bill and said, rather than pushing for a path to citizenship in border legislation negotiations like the party has in the past, Democrats were using Ukraine funding.
“Well, I mean, Chris, that’s been a failed play for 20 years. So you are right that that has been the Democratic strategy for 30 years, maybe, and it has failed to deliver for the people we care about most, the undocumented Americans that are in this country,” Murphy said.
Oooops. Murphy said the quiet part out loud.
“This is also not 2013 any longer, when we ran that play last. Back then, there were a couple hundred people showing up every day applying for asylum. Today, on some days, there are 8,000. And the reality is that the bulk of this country does not think that’s right or sustainable and wants us to change the reality at the border,” the Democratic senator added.
Ah! That’s why the failed border bill allowed in a minimum of two million a year: Murphy and the other D/s/cs are honoring the will of the electorate! That would be the electorate they’re trying to import, not actual Americans.
Murphy said there was a temptation among Democrats to run the “same play” they always run, but added they had a responsibility to adjust to what the country wants, because the play has not worked.
Which “play?” Ignore the law and illegally allow millions upon millions into the country, or pass a bill that ignores the law and illegally allows millions upon millions into the country, but pretends they’re not doing that and blames Republicans?
“Now this bill still had in it some very important things for migrant rights, including a right to representation and earlier work permits, and the biggest expansion of visas in 30 years. It’s not a pathway to citizenship, but it is something substantial for people that actually care about migrants,” he continued.
Of course. “The people we care about most, the undocumented Americans that are in this country,” have rights, which trump the rights of American citizens because they’re “migrant rights.” I think that’s the Ninety Third Amendment…or something.
Hayes asked Murphy if he was “proud” of the bill they put forward and wondered if he believed this would improve things at the southern border.
I think you are watching the issue of migration take down left and center-left governments all around the world right now. I think we’re at the point where if we didn’t bring some sense of order to the border, if we didn’t make a big down payment on reform to the asylum system, we were gonna have a really hard time holding on to a consensus in this country that we should keep legal immigration pathways alive,” Murphy responded during his media appearance.
Wait a minute. Didn’t Murphy just say: “the reality is that the bulk of this country does not think that’s right [illegal immigration] or sustainable and wants us to change the reality at the border?” And now we have to maintain “a consensus in this country that we should keep legal immigration pathways alive?!” I’m sure that’s Republican’s fault too.
“And so, I am of the belief that this is a moment where you had to show some big bipartisan momentum and progress on the border, or you would never, ever have the ability to try to rescue the undocumented Americans that desperately need to help,” he added.
“Undocumented Americans.” “Migrant rights.” Americans don’t want illegal immigration, but they’re worried about losing their consensus to keep illegal immigration alive. We must “rescue the undocumented Americans that desperately need to help.”
Well, at least Murphy is consistent about one thing: the people about which he, and the D/s/c Party, most cares are illegal immigrants, including terrorists, people with communicable Third World diseases, members of the Chinese military, few of which intend to assimilate, and many of which wish us deadly harm. And aren’t “undocumented Americans” everybody in the world not an actual American? I wonder if Murphy is purposely saying that?
What’s truly disconcerting is how many Black and Hispanic Americans are going to vote for whoever the D/s/c candidate is in November. Count among them millions of illegals, and the dead, who virtually exclusively vote D/s/c. Maybe that’s why Murphy cares so much for those folks.
Financial Big Brother is Watching You
A brief note on an overlooked nightmare.
A few weeks ago, Ohio congressman and Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan’s office released a letter to Noah Bishoff, the former director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, an arm of the Treasury Department. Jordan’s team was asking Bishoff for answers about why FinCEN had “distributed slides, prepared by a financial institution,” detailing how other private companies might use MCC transaction codes to “detect customers whose transactions may reflect ‘potential active shooters.’” The slide suggested the “financial company” was sorting for terms like “Trump” and “MAGA,” and watching for purchases of small arms and sporting goods, or purchases in places like pawn shops or Cabela’s, to identify financial threats.
Jordan’s letter to Bishoff went on:
According to this analysis, FinCEN warned financial institutions of “extremism” indicators that include “transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel to areas with no apparent purpose,” or “the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views.”
During the Twitter Files, we searched for snapshots of the company’s denylist algorithms, i.e. whatever rules the platform was using to deamplify or remove users. We knew they had them, because they were alluded to often in documents (a report on the denylist is_Russian, which included Jill Stein and Julian Assange, was one example). However, we never found anything like the snapshot Jordan’s team just published:
The highlighted portion shows how algorithmic analysis works in financial surveillance. First compile a list of naughty behaviors, in the form of MCC codes for guns, sporting goods, and pawn shops. Then, create rules: $2,500 worth of transactions in the forbidden codes, or a number showing that more than 50% of the customer’s transactions are the wrong kind, might trigger a response. The Committee wasn’t able to specify what the responses were in this instance, but from previous experience covering anti-money-laundering (AML) techniques at banks like HSBC, a good guess would be generation of something like Suspcious Activity Reports, which can lead to a customer being debanked.
If Facebook, Twitter, and Google have already shown a tendency toward wide-scale monitoring of speech and the use of subtle levers to apply pressure on attitudes, financial companies can use records of transactions to penetrate individual behaviors far more deeply. Especially if enhanced by AI, a financial history can give almost any institution an immediate, unpleasantly accurate outline of anyone’s life, habits, and secrets. Worse, they can couple that picture with a powerful disciplinary lever, in the form of the threat of closed accounts or reduced access to payment services or credit. Jordan’s slide is a picture of the birth of the political credit score.
There’s more coming on this, and other articles forthcoming (readers who’ve noticed it’s been quiet around here will soon find out why). While the world falls to pieces over Tucker, Putin, and Ukraine, don’t overlook this horror movie. If banks and the Treasury are playing the same domestic spy game that Twitter and Facebook have been playing with the FBI, tales like the frozen finances of protesting Canadian truckers won’t be novelties for long. As is the case with speech, where huge populations have learned to internalize censorship rules almost overnight, we may soon have to learn the hard way that even though some behaviors aren’t illegal, they can still be punished with great effectiveness, in a Terminator-like world where computers won’t miss anything that moves.
What a crazy time we live in! See you from the Nevada caucus, and watch this space for other news soon.
Why Self-Defense Is The Only Type Of Violence The Left Won’t Endorse
After years of anti-cop rhetoric, violence is out of control in America’s cities. Smash and grabs, sidewalk attacks and old ladies being mugged in broad daylight — all just factored into the cost of living a metropolitan lifestyle. But these are not simply passive inevitabilities that somehow come to pass. They are active policy choices of a revolutionary left, firmly in control of every major city, that sees violence as a tool toward its political aims. In fact, there is only one type of violence the left will not condone — and the key to understanding it lies in these political aims.
The radical left may talk often of high-minded goals, but their ultimate goal is to eradicate hierarchy — the central push of the “equity” agenda. All must be made equal in order for all to be equally free. For classical liberals, this meant equal treatment under the law, unaffected by circumstances of birth. Yet for the radical outgrowth, this now means leveling all aspects of genuine human diversity. However, they do not truly seek egalitarian reforms, but merely to rejigger any form of traditional hierarchy (much of which had already been dismantled by their liberal forebears) and instead place themselves at the top. So the attack on hierarchy really becomes a spiteful, resentful attack on any form of tradition. This is the true nature of the radical left.
Traditional morality posits that the criminal is the “oppressor” of the “victim,” whom he victimizes with his crime. This has been the basis of virtually every legal system throughout human history. Yet radical left morality flips this notion on its head. The new “victim” becomes the criminal himself, victimized by the injustices of a hierarchical society that drives him to desperation: the thief stealing to feed his family or violence as the “language of the unheard.” The person on the receiving end becomes merely a casualty in the putsch to upend traditional morality, while the priests of the new morality consolidate their right to rule.
"The spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally-mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities." pic.twitter.com/DdwnHubRmK
— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) February 7, 2024
Why Burn Books When You Can Bury Them? The White House Pressured Amazon to Target Dissenting Books
The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Monday revealed yet another facet of the Biden Administration’s sprawling censorship system that targeted dissenting books. It appears that, as with social media companies, it succeeded in getting the company not to promote disfavored books.
Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan revealed on X that the White House was directly involved in the censorship campaign. That includes a 2021 email from one Biden official asking to discuss “the high levels of propaganda and misinformation and disinformation of [sic] Amazon?”
Amazon in turn appears to ask only how high the Biden White House wants it to jump on censorship: “[i]s the [Biden] Admin asking us to remove books, or are they more concerned about search results/order (or both)?”
After the meeting, Amazon confirmed in an email that it was actively doing what the government demanded in suppressing sales by not promoting disfavored books: “As a reminder, we did enable Do Not Promote for anti-vax books whose primary purpose is to persuade readers vaccines are unsafe or ineffective on 3/9, and will review additional handling options for these books with you.”
This effort notably parallels demands from Democratic leaders who have called for enlightened algorithms to frame what citizens access on the internet. In 2021, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) objected that people were not listening to the informed views of herself and leading experts. Instead, they were reading views of skeptics by searching Amazon and finding books by “prominent spreaders of misinformation.”
50 Lawmakers Demand AG Garland Explain Illegal CCP-Linked Marijuana Farms
A bipartisan group of 50 US lawmakers have requested that Attorney General Merrick Garland provide information on illegal marijuana grow operations in the US that are linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Led by Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), Jared Golden (D-ME), David Valadao (R-CA), Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Sen. Angus King (I-ME), the lawmakers penned a Friday letter to Garland expressing their concerns.
“Chinese nationals—including those with potential ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—are reportedly operating thousands of illicit marijuana farms across the country,” they wrote. “The thousands of illicit Chinese marijuana growing operations pose a direct threat to public safety, human rights, national security, and the addiction crisis gripping our nation.”
According to the lawmakers, Chinese grow operations have been identified in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Washington.
“In some cases, the grow operators were also engaged in human trafficking, forced labor, drug trafficking, and violent crime,” the letter continues. “These farms are most commonly in states with legal marijuana programs where illicit growers try to disguise their operations in communities where law-abiding Americans live and work.”
The letter cites a 2023 DHS memo which said that 270 suspected China-linked illegal grow operations in Maine alone were generating more than $4.3 billion in revenue.
In Oklahoma, over 2,000 marijuana farmers “are linked to China,” according to the letter. “Investigators in Oklahoma discovered illicit marijuana growers engaged in human trafficking, sex trafficking, ketamine trafficking, illegal gambling, and international money laundering.”
“Experts believe there is substantial evidence implicating the CCP in directly supporting illicit marijuana grow operations across the United States,” the lawmakers wrote. “Whether located in retrofitted residential homes or on farmland, state regulatory and law enforcement entities appear unable to address these potentially CCP supported grow operations despite their significant threat to local communities across the country.”
As the Epoch Times notes further, in September last year, a group of Chinese immigrants filed a lawsuit alleging that they were lured to northern New Mexico under false pretenses and then forced to work 14 hours a day on an illegal marijuana farm.
“Allowing illicit marijuana farms tied to the CCP is a continued threat to national security, public safety, and human rights,” the lawmakers concluded.
At the end of the letter, the lawmakers wanted Mr. Garland to answer multiple questions before Feb 23, including the number of CCP-affiliated marijuana farms in the United States, and whether state legalization of marijuana has “ affected the proliferation of CCP-affiliated marijuana farms.”
“How many CCP-affiliated marijuana farms have obtained state-issued licenses to grow marijuana, either directly or through a shell company?” the lawmakers asked in the letter.
On Jan. 18, a federal grand jury convicted two Chinese nationals—Jeff Weng of Brooklyn, New York, and Chinese national Tong Lin—of a drug trafficking conspiracy involving about 28 tons of black-market marijuana shipped from Oklahoma City.
According to the Justice Department, Mr. Weng managed a marijuana-growing operation in Wetumka, Oklahoma, from December 2022 to May 2023. The pair drove delivery vans, including one disguised as an Amazon van, to transport marijuana from Wetumka to a stash house in Oklahoma City. From there, they transported a total of over 56,000 pounds of marijuana to the East Coast via semi-truck trailer.
Local law enforcement discovered 19,661 marijuana plants, more than $100,000 of vacuum-sealed cash, and a firearm during a raid of Mr. Weng’s facility in May 2023.
Last month, Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), and Rep. August Pfluger (R-Texas), sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Anne Milgram, requesting a briefing over Chinese-operated marijuana farms across the country.
“Many of these illicit grow operations work in conjunction with transnational criminal organizations,” they wrote. “Illicit marijuana farms provide unregulated access for consumers to Schedule 1 substances and help provide additional revenue sources to transnational criminal organizations.”
White House Wants Schools to Gaslight Parents About Guns
The White House wants to enlist school officials to help hoodwink parents about its gun control plans, according to a statement issued last week.
The reason is simple: They want to take advantage of the officials’ credibility, which the White House lacks, especially when it comes to guns.
Teachers and administrators, the White House said in the statement, “can be trusted, credible messengers when it comes to providing guidance on gun violence prevention and safe firearm storage options.”
“This issue matters to the President. It weighs on his heart every day. And he’s not going to stop fighting until we’ve solved it,” Jill Biden said last week while touting the plan at a “Gun Violence Prevention Event,” which was held in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
From a civil rights perspective, the most worrisome portion of the White House plan is a customizable “communications template,” which school officials “can use to engage with parents and families about the importance of safe firearm storage and encourage more people to take preventive action by safely storing firearms.”
The template is designed so school officials can insert the name of the school and their letterhead to make it appear as though the document came from the school and not the White House. In fact, neither the White House nor the Biden-Harris administration are even mentioned in the document.
and
Sincerely, [INSERT NAME OF SCHOOL OR SCHOOL DISTRICT ADMINISTRATOR]
“We encourage all school leaders to consider taking steps to build awareness in your school community about safe firearm storage, such as:
There is a lot going on here, and none of it is good.
The White House’s template is classic propaganda, in which a target audience is unaware they are being influenced and unaware of the true source of the message.
It is a psychological operation, or psyop, which targets unsuspecting Americans. Before the Bidens moved into the White House, that wasn’t supposed to happen. Nowadays, it’s become commonplace.
That the White House and its gun control office would publicly propose such a plan proves they do not fear exposure from the legacy media. This, too, is telling. They know who their friends are and don’t worry about repercussions.
School officials will have little choice but to participate in this scam. Secretary Cardona’s letter will see to that.
Joe Biden, or more likely his handlers and puppeteers, have rewritten the rules to further their war on our guns. Now, anything goes, including psyops and other forms of gaslighting and deception.
The White House statement also mentions that faith leaders and law enforcement have credibility in their communities.
There’s little doubt the Biden-Harris administration will make a run at the nation’s clergy next.
Democracy in Decline: The Subversion of Rule of Law
A friend recently wrote me to offer a sharp formulation of a distinction I have often written about myself. Regular readers know that I am fond of distinguishing between “democracy”—a political arrangement in which the demos, the people, rule—and “Our Democracy™,” a counterfeit or masquerade of democracy in which not the people but an elite nomenklatura rule. To an increasing extent, I believe, the United States is gradually subsisting into the latter, with all the political, social, and moral deformations that such anxious oligarchical arrangements entail.
True enough, the United States was never really a democracy—a form of government, as James Madison observed in Federalist 10, that tended to be “as short in its life as it is violent in its death.” Rather, the United States was, from the beginning, a democratic republic. Ultimately, the people were sovereign—that was the point of the phrase “We the People.” But their sovereignty was mediated through the agency of representation. The point of my distinction, however, still holds. The Founders bequeathed us a democratic republic and a Constitution whose chief purpose was to define and limit the power of government. Their modern successors have inhabited that political dispensation, slyly perverting and emptying it out of its original signification while maintaining the names and rituals of the original.
If you believe that the words “perverting” and “emptying it out of its original signification” are extreme, I invite you to contemplate the tenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” To what extent is the letter or spirit of that instruction followed today?
The answer is: not at all. What was originally a document designed to limit government and protect people from its coercive intervention has mutated into a reliquary containing the desiccated remains of a once-potent, now mostly quaint and antique admonition.
Which brings me back to my friend’s crisply formulated distinction. There are, he noted, two forms of law: rule of law and rule by law. The first, he wrote, the rule of law, “is based upon neutral rules that are in place and applicable to all without regard to political belief or status, economic class, religion, etc. That is or was the aim of classical liberal politics—to erect a limited system of laws applied to all as a foundation for liberty.” That’s precisely what the Framers intended to bequeath us.
The alternative, rule by law, describes the antithesis. Indeed, it is
a system of rules applied at the discretion of ruling elites, who exempt themselves and allies from those rules, and apply them to others on an arbitrary basis. The rule by law comes into play when the state has evolved into a large-scale enterprise and has formulated laws in scale and number that are capture citizens in a web of rules. In that circumstance, it is not difficulty to enforce rule by law, where the laws or rules can be applied politically or arbitrarily.
Democrat Cori Bush Funnels Another $17,500 in Campaign Cash to Husband, Docs Show
Radical Democrat Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) has funneled another big chunk of campaign cash to her husband, bringing the total to $120,000 so far, new filings have revealed.
Bush paid her husband an additional $17,500 from her committee in recent months.
The payments are for private security for the congresswoman, who leads the “defund the police” movement and campaigns for fewer police officers to protect the public.
The Democrat “Squad” member’s new filings, submitted to the Federal Election Commission late Wednesday night, show that her campaign made seven additional payments for $2,500 each to her husband, Cortney Merritts.
The payments were made between October 1 and December 31.
The new payments maintained the steady flow of checks to her husband over the past two years.
After it emerged that Bush and Merritts secretly married in February 2023, her office admitted they had been together since before she entered office in 2021.
Merritts initially gathered money for security services starting in January 2022.
However, Bush’s committee switched their description to “wage expenses” in April 2023 as they continued to bring headaches to the campaign.
The latest payments have emerged as the Justice Department launched a criminal investigation into Bush earlier this week over the use of campaign funds, as Slay News reported.
Merritts has now collected $120,000 from Bush’s campaign coffers.
Politicians can pay family members from their committees as long as they provide “bona fide” services at fair market value.
He pocketed the money as Bush’s campaign simultaneously spent significantly more with St. Louis-based companies such as PEACE Security for private detail.
She’s spent over $770,000 on private security services, despite demanding fewer police officers to protect the American people.
Meanwhile, Merritts, whose online accounts and posts have indicated he worked at a railroad company for years before starting a moving company, did not have a private security license as of late February 2023.
He also did not appear in a Washington, D.C., database of licensed security specialists.
The ordeal triggered at least two complaints from watchdog groups in the following weeks.
The first complaint, filed to the FEC in March 2023 by the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, is still pending.
The ethics committee has since cleared Bush in a second complaint from the Committee to Defeat the President.
In October, Merrits was confronted by a Fox News reporter as the couple left a D.C. fundraiser for California Democrat candidate Derek Marshall.
During the exchange, Merritts appeared to backtrack about his role on the campaign.
“I have a question for you,” the reporter said.
“What’s your role on the campaign right now?”
“I don’t have a role in the campaign, man,” Merritts responded.
“You don’t have a role at all?” the reporter countered.
“They were reporting you had wages on the campaign for security, and then it was a general wage.
“I was just wondering what you’ve been doing on the campaign?”
“Yeah, I mean you can Google what it is,” Merritts replied.
“You can also Google what happened with the FEC report came back 5-0, that it was all completely above board.”
“So you’re not doing any more work with her campaign?” the reporter asked.
“Am I doing work with the campaign?” Merrits said.
“Obviously, I am. I’m still [inaudible], right?”
“You’re still a part of it?” the report pressed.
“Am I still employed with it? Yes, so obviously, I’m going to work with it,” Merritts said.
“What’s this whole ‘gotcha’ s—? I’m not a politician, man, so ask me a question, man-to-man, and I’ll answer.
“So what’s your question?”
“That was it, about the campaign,” the reporter responded.
“I’m still in the campaign; I still do security with the campaign,” Merritts said before getting into the car with Bush.
“Have a good night, man. Be safe.”
Earlier this week, Bush confirmed the Justice Department is investigating her campaign spending on security services and said her office is “fully cooperating.”
“Since before I was sworn into office, I have endured relentless threats to my physical safety and life,” Bush said in a Tuesday statement.
“As a rank-and-file member of Congress, I am not entitled to personal protection by the House, and instead have used campaign funds as permissible to retain security services.”
“These frivolous complaints have resulted in a number of investigations, some of which are still ongoing,” Bush said.
“The Federal Election Commission and the House Committee on Ethics are currently reviewing the matter, as is the Department of Justice.
“We are fully cooperating in all of these pending investigations.”
Sounds a lot like ‘Giving Aid and Comfort’………
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such an incompetent group in my lifetime as the Biden administration.
We were given fair warning about Joe Biden from Obama’s Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. In his 2014 memoir, Gates said the then-vice president had “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Now make that five decades, and add he’s been wrong about virtually every major foreign policy issue so far that he’s faced during his presidency. Gates doubled down on those claims during a 2021 interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” saying, “I think he’s gotten a lot wrong,” specifically mentioning the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Now we’re faced with yet another situation due to Biden’s bad foreign policy, this time with Iran and the militants they use to fight us. There have been more than 160 attacks on U.S. forces or assets, with three people killed now and dozens injured over those assaults, some with possible traumatic brain injuries. Yet, the Biden response has been largely impotent and has not cowed Iran or the militants.
Not only hasn’t Biden responded yet to the attack on the troops in Jordan by Kataib Hezbollah in which 3 American troops were killed and more than 30 were injured, but Biden’s team has listed possible targets in such detail as to raise questions about telegraphing to the enemy.
Report: Biden May Take Action As Early As Tonight Re: Iran – Officials Even List Possible Options
Since we wrote those stories, they’ve given out even more information, saying they were going to launch a series of attacks for days against targets — including Iranian personnel and facilities — inside Iraq and Syria.
As Fox News’ chief national security correspondent at the Pentagon Jennifer Griffin noted, now the IRGC commanders in those areas have left and gone into hiding.
And all of those IRGC commanders have already left Syria and gone into hiding leaving those bases. The Pentagon usually does not telegraph so much if it wants the element of surprise. https://t.co/mdrUPz8otp
— Jennifer Griffin (@JenGriffinFNC) February 1, 2024
“The Pentagon usually does not telegraph so much if it wants the element of surprise,” she said. Yes, if. So why are they telegraphing so much now? Do they want the IRGC to flee so it looks like they’re hitting something consequential even though the IRGC leaders will be gone?
Whistleblowers Allege ATF Is Drafting Rule That Could Effectively Ban Private Firearm Sales
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is working on a rule that could effectively ban the sale of firearms between private individuals, agency whistleblowers told a watchdog group.
Empower Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog representing one of the Hunter Biden Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers, says that ATF whistleblowers informed it of a 1,300-page document being drafted by the agency that would require background checks for all firearm sales, including those between two private individuals. The new rule would “effectively ban private sales of firearms from one citizen to another,” according to a press release from Empower Oversight.
Empower Oversight submitted a records request to the Department of Justice seeking more information about the rule.
The rule would “violate the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution,” according to Empower Oversight President Tristan Leavitt. Leavitt also said the rule would “circumvent the separation of powers in the Constitution.”
Empower Oversight points out that the ATF’s rule could redefine individuals who occasionally sell guns as being “engaged in the business of dealing in firearms,” thus requiring them to acquire a Federal Firearms Licensee and run background checks on whoever they’re selling to.
In the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986, Congress established that the term “engaged in the business” of selling guns “shall not include a person who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby.”
Leavitt pointed out that the courts would likely strike down the rule and argued that it is likely a ploy to fire up the Democratic base during an election year.
Private background checks are popular with voters, according to polling data.
A poll conducted by Morning Consult and Politico in 2022 found that 81% of registered voters supported background checks at gun shows and for private transfers.
Support for background checks is lower among Republicans than among Democrats. A 2021 Morning Consult and Politico poll found that 77% of Democrats supported background checks for all gun purchases, compared to just 53% of Republicans.
While Americans are open to background checks, banning certain kinds of firearms is unpopular among Americans.
Only 27% of Americans supported banning handgun ownership as of October 2023, according to Gallup. An April 2023 poll conducted by Monmouth University found that more Americans opposed an “assault weapons” ban than supported it.
The Biden administration has consistently pushed for stricter gun laws.
President Joe Biden pushed a rule that forced people who owned pistols with arm braces to register them as short-barreled rifles, Politico reported. Pistol braces remain legal as states and gun rights groups sue the ATF over the rule.
Registering a short-barreled rifle with the ATF carries a cost of $200. The National Firearms Act, the law requiring the registration of short-barreled rifles, was last updated in 1986.
Short-barreled rifles are illegal in some states.
Biden also banned the sale of firearm parts lacking serial numbers, which can be used to construct “ghost guns,” and has continuously pushed for a so-called assault weapons ban, according to Fox News Digital.
Some gun rights groups are ready to fight the ATF’s rule should it come to fruition.
“The records of these sales will eventually end up in the ATF’s firearm registry database,” director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America (GOA) Aidan Johnston told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The ATF maintains a registry of firearms sales, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Johnston said GOA is “actively preparing to take legal action if and when Joe Biden’s administration releases their rule change.”
Empower Oversight and the ATF did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
The gun control bills are flying in Santa Fe as anti-2A lawmakers are racing to enact a flurry of new restrictions on residents; a sweeping semi-auto ban, prohibiting gun sales to adults younger than 21, and enacting a new 14 business-day waiting period on all firearms transfers that would be the longest in the nation. Unlike last session, where similar bills were bottled up in committee or voted down altogether, Democrats this year seem willing to go along with virtually every restriction demanded by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, even as they tacitly admit that their bills are going to run into trouble in the courts if they’re enacted into law.
When State Sen. Joe Cervantes was questioned about that potential 14 business-day waiting period during a meeting of the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee over the weekend, the anti-gun lawmaker studiously avoided answering a query from a colleague about whether that waiting period comports with the national tradition of gun ownership in the United States. Instead, he proclaimed that the Supreme Court is going to overrule its own decision in Bruen in just a few months, making any potential conflict with the “text, history, and tradition” test laid out in that case utterly moot.
“It’s an absurd ruling. And it’s an absurd ruling that will not stand, I believe, for the next six months because the Supreme Court will reverse itself and recognize the absurdity of Clarence Thomas’s opinion.
Now, that sounds pretty arrogant of me, a Las Cruces street lawyer, to say that the Supreme Court wrote an absurd opinion, but I’m going to stand by that. And I’ll give you an example: Clarence Thomas, with the majority, held that any restrictions on guns had to be based on historic traditions, yet we as a country do not allow guns in this capitol.
Some of you may disagree with that, but there’s no historical tradition about not allowing guns in government buildings.
Cervantes went on to say that there’s no historic tradition banning fully automatic firearms or rocket-propelled grenades or prohibiting the mentally ill or convicted felons from possessing firearms, arguing that the Court will have no choice but to reverse itself when it issues its decision in Rahimi, which deals with the federal prohibition on gun ownership for those subject to a domestic violence restraining order.
Shocking video of @IlhanMN saying she’s making US Government take orders from Somalia:
“The US government will only do what Somalians in the US tell them to do. They will do what we want and nothing else. They must follow our orders and that is how we will safeguard the interest… pic.twitter.com/qIgIbufHTK
— Paul A. Szypula 🇺🇸 (@Bubblebathgirl) January 28, 2024
The National Security Agency (NSA) has admitted to buying records from data brokers detailing which websites and apps Americans use, US Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) revealed Thursday.
This news follows Wyden’s push last year that forced the FBI to admit that it was also buying Americans’ sensitive data. Now, the senator is calling on all intelligence agencies to “stop buying personal data from Americans that has been obtained illegally by data brokers.”
“The US government should not be funding and legitimizing a shady industry whose flagrant violations of Americans’ privacy are not just unethical but illegal,” Wyden said in a letter to Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines. “To that end, I request that you adopt a policy that, going forward,” intelligence agencies “may only purchase data about Americans that meets the standard for legal data sales established by the FTC.”
Wyden suggested that the intelligence community might be helping data brokers violate an FTC order requiring that Americans are provided “clear and conspicuous” disclosures and give informed consent before their data can be sold to third parties. In the seven years that Wyden has been investigating data brokers, he said that he has not been made “aware of any company that provides such a warning to users before collecting their data.”
The FTC’s order came after reaching a settlement with a data broker called X-Mode, which admitted to selling sensitive location data without user consent and even to selling data after users revoked consent.
In his letter, Wyden referred to this order as the FTC outlining “new rules,” but that’s not exactly what happened. Instead of issuing rules, FTC settlements often serve as “common law,” signaling to marketplaces which practices violate laws like the FTC Act.
According to the FTC’s analysis of the order on its site, X-Mode violated the FTC Act by “unfairly selling sensitive data, unfairly failing to honor consumers’ privacy choices, unfairly collecting and using consumer location data, unfairly collecting and using consumer location data without consent verification, unfairly categorizing consumers based on sensitive characteristics for marketing purposes, deceptively failing to disclose use of location data, and providing the means and instrumentalities to engage in deceptive acts or practices.”
The FTC declined to comment on whether the order also applies to data purchases by intelligence agencies. In defining “location data,” the FTC order seems to carve out exceptions for any data collected outside the US and used for either “security purposes” or “national security purposes conducted by federal agencies or other federal entities.”
New Mexico House Committee Moves 3 Gun Bills Forward
Nice PID
Gun control legislation continued to make headway in the Legislature Thursday, with three key bills getting through a House committee as Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham proclaimed she remains confident the controversial measures will eventually land on her desk.
One bill would limit magazine sizes and ban some types of semiautomatic rifles; one would raise the age to legally buy or possess an automatic or semiautomatic firearm from 18 to 21; and one would impose a 14-day waiting period on gun purchases. All three advanced out of the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee on 4-2 party-line votes and now head to House Judiciary.
Thursday’s lengthy hearing — almost six hours in all — got emotional at times, with some teen students expressing fear about being the victims of gun violence and some gun rights advocates striking a defiant tone. Supporters of the bills said the measures will save lives in a culture enveloped in gun violence, while opponents said they violate the constitutional right to keep and bear arms and will not stop criminals who illegally access guns from committing gun violence.
Analysis of New Mexico Gun Ban Bill Predicts Widespread Defiance
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s proposed ban on gas-operated semi-automatic firearms gets its first committee hearing today with the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee set to consider HB 137, and the bill is already drawing some red flags from the New Mexico Attorney General’s office as well as the Law Offices of the Public Defender.
A fiscal impact report prepared by the Legislative Finance Committee released on Wednesday details some of the concerns over the bill, including the prediction from both the AG’s office and the Administrative Office of the Courts that the bill would be subject to a costly legal challenge if it’s signed into law. According to the Legislative Finance Committee, taxpayers can be expected to fork over almost half a million dollars for Attorney General Raul Torrez to defend the law in court, though it’s unclear if the LFC is accounting for the cost of lawsuits filed in both federal and state court. In addition to the legal bills, the fiscal analysis estimates it will take at least $200,000 each year for the Attorney General to enforce the measure if it takes effect.
NMAG advises, to perform the tasks HB137 assigns to it, it will need highly specialized technical staff to ensure its listing of applicable weapons is up to date, given constant updates to firearms and accessories. It will require a ballistics and firearms expert on staff to handle its responsibilities under the act and to coordinate with DPS and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms and Explosives, at approximately $115 thousand per year, plus benefits, plus an investigator at approximately $85 thousand per year, plus benefits.
The Law Offices of the Public Defender (LOPD) expresses concern over potential widespread noncompliance should HB137 be enacted, leading to an unquantifiable increase in workload and expenses. LFC staff estimates this potential cost as indeterminate but minimal, which likely can be absorbed within its current budget.
While the public defender’s office may be able to absorb the cost of defending individuals charged with violating Grisham’s gun ban, the LFC predicts that the measure will also lead to a little more spending on incarceration if it’s enacted.
OPINION: The true intent of the Democrats’ anti-militia bill is to infringe on firearm training
This bill paints a target on the back of every law-abiding gun owner.
As a law-abiding citizen of this great country, I can form my own militia if I so choose, appoint myself colonel, enlist my friends as privates or PFCs, and we can run around the woods until we all keel over from heatstroke or heart attacks — whatever comes first. It’s all perfectly legal, at least for now.
We have the right to criticize our government. We can sit around the campfire at our secret militia base nursing our sore muscles and fire ant bites and talk about how Joe walks like a penguin, or how it would take Kamala a good 20 minutes just to tell you you’re on fire. It’s all perfectly legal and protected speech, at least for now.
We have the right to train with our firearms. We can draw from a holster, shoot while moving, practice CQB and send as much lead downrange as our bank accounts will allow. It’s all perfectly legal conduct, at least for now.
However, a new bill making its way through Congress known as the “Preventing Private Paramilitary Activity Act of 2024,” would make all of this illegal or at least suspicious enough to draw scrutiny from the feds. More importantly, it would paint a target on the back of every single American gun owner, which is the actual intent of this ill-conceived and extremely unconstitutional legislation.
To be clear, if Joe Biden ever signs this bill, the second he puts down his crayon the feds will flock to local gun ranges in numbers that will make it nearly impossible for actual members to find a place just to park. This bill would give them license to investigate anyone who trains with a gun in order to determine whether they’re a militia member — and don’t think for a second that they won’t.
The FBI recently investigated law-abiding Americans whose sole transgression was shopping at a Cabela’s or a DICK’s Sporting Goods. Evidently, the FBI, the country’s so-called premier law enforcement agency, wasn’t aware DICK’s stopped selling guns and ammunition eons ago. Nowadays, the most dangerous thing on their shelves is a pickleball paddle.
When the Framers wrote the Second Amendment, militia membership was not only encouraged, it was required. All able-bodied men were instructed to own a firearm, powder and shot and to keep them clean and serviceable in the event they were ever needed. Now, under the guise that it might be militia-related, a handful of lawmakers are trying to criminalize firearm training — especially anything tactical. In my humble opinion, it is just another step toward their ultimate goal of total civilian disarmament.
