Category: Enemies Foreign and Domestic

The Slanted Findings of a Gun-Control “Study”

Everytown for Gun Safety is a Michael Bloomberg-funded gun-ban group that has never heard of an anti-gun proposal that it hasn’t supported. So, when Everytown recently joined with The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Polarization & Extremism Research & Innovation Lab to study “youth” and guns, it should come as no surprise that they “found” exactly what they were looking for.

The combined groups’ new “study,” titled “U.S. Youth Attitudes On Guns Report,” concluded that pro-gun youth are more likely to hold supremacist or racist views. “Evidence from this study suggests that pro-gun attitudes were associated with more extreme worldviews like male supremacist ideation and racial resentment,” the report stated.

Before we get into the nuts and bolts, let’s first take a look at an interesting aspect of the research. While it explicitly states “Youth” in the headline, the study participants ranged from 14 to 30 years old. Even the most-liberal definitions of “youth” tend to use the parameters of 14 to 24. While there is no consensus on what defines “youth” under law in the U.S., nearly every state, along with the federal government, considers the age at which one becomes an “adult” to be 18 years old. Some may debate including 18- to 24-year-olds among “youth,” but adding 25- through 30-year-olds to the study ensures it doesn’t have any validity concerning American “youth.”

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They want us disarmed?

There Can Be No Negotiating on the Right to Arms — with Hate Groups or with Anyone

“Senate Majority Leader @SenSchumer  is negotiating with the NRA to pass his priority bill – the SAFE Act, a cannabis banking legislation – with Section 10 added as a sweetener for the NRA-backed Senate Republicans,” Newtown Action Alliance tweeted (x’ed?) Monday. “We appreciate @SenJackReed  working to modify the bill to ensure that regulators can warn banks about risky customers – like gun retailers. Congress should not be negotiating with the NRA, a terrorist group that is pushing its any guns to anyone everywhere agenda. Guns are the #1 killer of our children & gun deaths have increased 50% since the Sandy Hook shooting tragedy.”

That’s a lot of vitriol-drenched lies to unpack. Let’s start with NRA’s interest, which is passage of the  Fair Access to Banking Act to protect against “banks, credit card companies, and other financial service providers [setting] terms of service that openly discriminate against lawful firearm-related commerce.” Gun owners who recall the days of Operation Chokepoint recall the offensive excesses – from financial ostracism of FFLs and the pejorative conflation equating them with purveyors of “Ponzi schemes” and “racist materials” to the ridiculous revelation that ATF’s banker was stiffing porn stars – pun intended. (Note: Those last two links go to the Internet Archive and may take a bit to load).

Democrat gun-grabber Jack Reed’s interest is in imposing Operation Chokepoint on steroids, this time by mandating Department of Precrime “snitchware” via “Merchant Category Codes” developed by a “progressive” bank affiliated with a leftist union that “rakes in millions from Dem campaigns, liberal orgs,” and has organized rallies and marched in solidarity with communists.

Suddenly motives are seeming less and less about “gun safety” and more and more about totalitarian citizen disarmament. So, let’s look at the last part of Newtown Action Alliance’s missive.

Congress should just impose such edicts and not include the largest lobby group representing millions of gun-owning citizens in its deliberations…? Leave them with no voice in what’s going to happen to their property — and to them if they don’t comply…?

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Joe Biden Boasts He Has Bypassed Congress for Gun Control More than Any Other President

On August 17, 2023, President Joe Biden boasted about the number of times he has used executive action to institute gun control that Congress did not pass.

He tweeted:

On April 8, 2021, Breitbart News reported Biden used executive gun controls that included restrictions on “ghost guns,” a push for red flag laws, recategorization of AR-15 pistols, and DOJ-led research into gun trafficking.

These controls led to an ATF-issued rule classifying “partially complete pistol frames” as firearms. That rule means a background check is now required in order to purchase certain gun parts kits.

The  same executive controls also led to an ATF-issued rule categorizing AR-pistols with stabilizer braces as short-barrel rifles. This new categorization means owners of said pistols with stabilizer braces are required to the register the firearms under the auspices of the National Firearms Act (1934).

On July 21, 2022, the White House recounted that Biden had issued 21 executive actions related to gun control and gun violence up to that point in his presidency.

On May 14, 2023, Breitbart News noted that Biden issued yet another executive order on gun control, this one directing Attorney General Merrick Garland to act where Congress has not acted and take the United States “as close as possible” to universal background checks.

Another executive gun control is anticipated late this year or early next year, in the form of an ATF-issued rule to redefine the meaning of gun dealer so as to broaden it, and thereby broaden the number of gun sales in which a background check will be required. The goal of the ATF rule will be to get as close as possible to a universal background check scenario in America.

Okay, this tells us that they know SloJoe is such a liability that if he can’t be stopped, he’s going to lose.

Jake Tapper Stuns CNN’s Audience: “Trump Was Right and Joe Biden Was Wrong”

CNN’s Jake Tapper came clean and admitted that Trump was right and Joe Biden was wrong about Hunter Biden’s shady dealings in China.

TAPPER: Let’s turn to the Biden administration because Jeff you have some new reporting that President Biden might have a blind spot, according to people around him when it comes to his son Hunter Biden’s legal troubles and concerns about how this might impact his desire to be reelected. What do you got? What are you hearing?

ZELENY: Well, look, this is something that the President was hoping to put behind him. They were hoping that the plea agreement would go through, et cetera. Now there is very likely to be a trial unfolding at the same time as a presidential campaign. Even worse, a second special counsel’s investigation on top of the one that’s already investigating the President for classified documents.

So the point talking to a bunch of advisors is that this is something that is not discussed around the President in his orbit because they do not think voters care about it.

They think voters care about the economy, other matters. They’re probably right about that. However, we know that this is going to be a central piece of the Republican debate and Republican talking points next week and beyond, the Hunter Biden situation.

So what do swing voters think of Hunter Biden? As of now, they’ve never sort of drawn a correlation or blamed the President for his son’s conduct. They feel sympathy for him, et cetera.

But is there a blind spot directly around him and the campaign by not talking about this? It’s verboten. You can’t talk about Hunter Biden. We’ll see.

This is definitely going to be a topic on the debate stage this week.

TAPPER: Yes. And Kristen, Glenn Kessler from “The Washington Post” had a fact check about Joe Biden from earlier this month noting that Hunter Biden admitted in court in July that he was, in fact, paid substantial sums from Chinese companies.

Kessler wrote, Hunter Biden reported nearly $2.4 million income in 2017 and 2.2 million income in 2018, most of which came from Chinese or Ukrainian interests.

But this — and this directly goes against what Joe Biden said in the debate in 2020 with Donald Trump.

Biden administration best understood as a junta

I have come to realize that the Biden administration is nothing but a junta.

Those who constitute it are the opposite of the Founders.  They don’t believe in limited government — of, by, and for the people.  They do not believe in objectivity — or freedom of speech, religion, and assembly.  They do not believe in “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,” or in their right to be free from “unreasonable searches and seizures.”  (Just ask Roger Stone or Donald Trump.)  Nor do they believe in equality under the law, the people’s right to a “speedy and public trial” by a jury of one’s peers (just ask Donald Trump), natural law, etc., etc.  And they certainly don’t believe that “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.”  In fact, in recent years, they appear increasingly to disdain all these concepts…because they obviously increasingly disdain those who disagree with them and/or who could stand in the way of the ever-increasing power and control they have over others — power and control they revel in and believe they richly deserve.

They do believe in a Supreme Ruler.  But they believe they are that Supreme Ruler.  They believe they have the right — indeed, duty — to rule over the “deplorables” in rural areas and flyover country.  Preposterously, they purport to believe that their ideas and policies must be implemented, whether the rest of us like it or not…if we are to “save our democracy.”  There is nothing less democratic — or more deplorable — than that.

The alphabet agencies that Obama and Biden have fully politicized and weaponized are now on roughly the same objective and moral plane as the Nazis’ SS or Brownshirts, East Germany’s Stasi, or the Soviet Union’s KGB.  The CIA, FBI, Department of Injustice (DOI?), and the rest are so boldly and brazenly partisan — and aggressive in pursuing their agenda — that it is breathtaking to those of us who knew a younger and more innocent America.

Modern-day Democrats’ signature tactic is to vehemently (and indignantly!) accuse their opponents of doing exactly what they have done — and of being exactly what they are.  As I have stated repeatedly, they are very good at being evil.  Newt Gingrich had it exactly right in a recent interview with Sean Hannity, whom he schooled.

Donald Trump is kryptonite to the Adam Schiffs of the world, the evildoers, and those in the Deep State and the swamp.  That is why they called him a fascist, authoritarian, etc.  And why they are attempting to indict/imprison/destroy him now.  For such “crimes” as tweeting “Georgia hearings now on @OANN.  Amazing!”  Yes, they indicted him for tweeting his opinion of a cable news show.

If we truly want to remove the junta — and save our representative republic — we must help Trump in his fight against the vast left-wing conspiracy that is the Democrat-Media-Complex.

Another pissant wanna-be tyrant, shilling for those BloombergBucks.
But it is so nice when pictures for positive ID are provided.

the need for that assault weapon ban. Not one on the buying of weapons in the future. One on ALL military style assault weapons in American hands now. Buy them back and make the penalties so severe that no one will be tempted to keep one

We aren’t doing enough to address gun violence

C.J. Mikkelsen is a retired Lieutenant/paramedic for Dallas Fire Rescue in Dallas, Texas. He was born and raised in Michigan and is glad to be back in his home state.

CJ Mikkelsen

Mark Barden’s face looks out from my phone imploring me to contribute to Sandy Hook Promise to stop gun violence about every three minutes while
I swipe it away as soon as that five second countdown ends. But it bothers me when I do it.

Yes, I’ve contributed. “I’ve done my part,” I say to myself.
But have I? Have we, as a society?

Do we protect our most vulnerable citizens, our children, like we should?
So many of us go on ridiculous rants about drag queen story hour or share posts about the “Sound of Freedom” movie on our Facebook page. We’re all about “saving the children” as long as all it takes is a painless couple of clicks of a mouse.

Sorry, folks. I can’t let it go and fade into the background.
I know, I’ve written about gun violence and I’m supposed to have moved on to the next big topic. Something keeps bringing me back to guns. It’s either Mark Barden’s face or another tragic mass shooting or something as mind-boggling as an article about a mini-AR15 that a company is marketing to children less than eight years old.

America is, according to Everytown Research & Policy, (The Impact of Gun Violence on Children and Teens | Everytown Research & Policy) killing or maiming our children at a rate of 53 each and every day of the year.

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If Saying An Election Is Stolen Is A Crime, Why Isn’t Stacey Abrams In Prison?

The fourth and latest round of indictments against former President Donald Trump suggests that constitutionally protected actions such as questioning election results, asking for phone numbers, and encouraging voters to watch TV are now indictment-worthy acts of conspiracy. If claiming an election is stolen is truly a crime, as prosecutors and grand jurors in Trump’s Georgia case suggested on Monday, failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams should be behind bars.

Abrams lost the race for governor in Georgia in 2018 to then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp by 1.4 percentage points. Due to the small margin of victory, Abrams refused to formally concede her loss because she believed the election was “tainted” which led to the “disinvestment and disenfranchisement of thousands of voters.”

In her “non-concession speech,” the Democrat admitted that Kemp “will be certified as the victor in the 2018 gubernatorial election” but stopped short of officially agreeing that she lost.

“To be clear, this is not a speech of concession. Concession means to acknowledge an action is right, true, or proper. As a woman of conscience and faith, I cannot concede,” Abrams said.

The activist threatened lawsuits but never provided evidence for her claims that black voters’ votes were being suppressed at the polls. Instead of facing punishment for her lies, Abrams was elevated by her party and the corporate media as the face of their attempt to permanently manipulate elections ahead of Trump’s second and third runs. She was so encouraged by this attention that she ran and lost against Kemp again in 2022.

Abrams’ sore loser behavior resonated with the Democrat Party, which still clings to its own stolen-election theories used to undermine Trump’s victory in 2016. She quickly entered the pool of possible options for President Joe Biden’s running mate. Her whining even scored her political points with other failed candidates such as Hillary Clinton, who complained that “if [Abrams] had a fair election, she already would have won.”

Years after her initial loss, Abrams was still pretending that Georgia elections were rigged against her. In 2021, she made a national show of calling for boycotts of Georgia when Republicans in her state passed election integrity laws. To this day, she regularly appears on TV to discuss how to advance Democrats’ undemocratic version of “democracy” during elections.

Disclosure filings from her second failed campaign in the Peach State suggest that, between 2018 and 2022, Abrams’ election fraud book tour, speech circuit, and activism made her into a multimillionaire.

In just four years, Abrams went from arguing that her $400,000 in credit card debt, student loans, back taxes, car loans, and real estate debt shouldn’t disqualify her from running to confessing her $3.17 million worth just months before voters would reject her again in the 2022 election.

For objecting to how the 2018 gubernatorial election in Georgia ended, Abrams was handed fame and fortune. For objecting to how the 2020 presidential election in Georgia was handled, Trump was slapped with 13 felony charges and the possibility of jail time.

A majority of Americans already believe the U.S. has a two-tiered system of justice. The fact that Trump, who raised legitimate questions about a poorly conducted election in Georgia, is facing prison instead of Abrams, who never gave evidence for her outrageous election claims, further proves it.

 

Age of Rage: UChicago Report Finds 30 Million American View Violence as Justified to Keep Trump From Power

The chilling answer is found in a new report out of the University of Chicago showing that almost 12 percent of the population, representing 30 million people, believe that violence is warranted to prevent Trump from assuming the presidency. That is almost double the number who believe that violence is warranted to ensure that Trump does become president.

As discussed in The Guardian, the Chicago Project on Security & Threats survey found many Americans are embracing violence as an option for political change.

We have watched as rage has risen in the country. It is often celebrated by one side or the other. I previously discussed how a scene like the recent confrontation on the floor of the Tennessee House perfectly captured our “age of rage.” Protesters filled the capitol building to protest the failure to pass gun-control legislation. Three Democratic state representatives — Justin Jones from Nashville, Justin Pearson from Memphis, and Gloria Johnson of Knoxville — were unwilling to yield to the majority. They disrupted the floor proceedings with a bullhorn and screaming at their colleagues.

It is a scene familiar to many of us in academia, where events are regularly canceled by those who shout down others.

The three members yelled “No action, no peace” and “Power to the people” as their colleagues objected to their stopping the legislative process. Undeterred, the three refused to allow “business as usual” to continue.

Nobel Laureate Albert Camus once said, “Insurrection is certainly not the sum total of human experience but … it is our historic reality.” Those words came to mind when Tennessee’s House of Representatives expelled two members accused of disrupting legislative proceedings in what some called an “insurrection” or a “mutiny.”

Only a few days before the Tennessee House floor fight, a confrontation occurred off the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington which captured perfectly this new political reality.

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) was shown on videotape screaming about gun control in the Capitol as his colleagues left the floor following a vote. Various Democratic members, including former House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), tried to calm Bowman. However, when Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) asked Bowman to stop yelling, Bowman shouted back: “I was screaming before you interrupted me” — which could go down as the epitaph for our age.

The problem is that political figures on both sides are attempting to harness this rage.  They are playing a dangerous game. Trump’s inflammatory tweets are an example. Likewise, former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison, now the Minnesota attorney general, once said Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. This was after Antifa had been involved in numerous acts of violence and its website was banned in Germany. His son, Minneapolis City Council member Jeremiah Ellison, declared his allegiance to Antifa as riots raged in his city last summer.

Unleashing such rage is difficult to control and often those leading the mob find themselves later pursued by it. This is why, during the French Revolution, the journalist Jacques Mallet Pan warned, “Like Saturn, the revolution devours its children.”

Our Nightmare is Their Utopia

The United States is just waiting on divorce papers, the separation is already here.

In the part of this nation controlled by communists like Antifa and BLM a defense attorney can openly declare herself to be a member of Antifa and (during a civil suit between Antifa and longtime Antifa nemesis Andy Ngo) tell the jury that she will remember their faces long after the trial and that isn’t considered jury tampering, obstruction of justice or threatening a jury.

How is that any different from a defense attorney looking at the jury and saying: “I work for a powerful crime family and they know where each of you live.” ?

In the same part of this divided nation, by the same political ideology, a former president and front-running candidate for the presidency can be tried on felony charges (during the campaign, not the two years before the campaign) for saying that he believed the election was stolen and for employing the tactic, openly utilized by the Democrats, of challenging the electors.

What is free speech to the right is deemed a felony to the left.

What is legally challenging an election to the right is an insurrection to the left.

This isn’t about fair, or right, or justice. This is the playbook; the time-honored communist procedure. The obvious injustice and amazing lawlessness of their actions are intended to drive the opposition mad. This is why standing behind Trump is important, because he does exactly the same thing to them. Every time he wins, they lose their mind and that doesn’t matter whether it’s in an election or in court.

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FPC Files For Injunction Against Washington “Large Capacity” Magazine Ban

Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced that it has filed a motion for summary judgment in its Sullivan v. Ferguson lawsuit, which challenges Washington’s unconstitutional ban on common firearm magazines. The motion can be viewed at FPCLegal.org.

“There can be no serious dispute that the magazines Washington bans are ‘in common use’—there are hundreds of millions of them [] owned by tens of millions of Americans as private surveys and industry and government data all corroborate,” argues the motion. “Indeed, courts across the country have repeatedly found that these magazines are commonly owned and widely chosen by Americans for self-defense and other lawful purposes. That fact decides this case, and Plaintiffs are entitled to judgment in their favor.”

“There are few things more offensive than politicians arbitrarily preventing people from possessing the tools they deem necessary to protect their lives, loved ones, and communities,” said Cody J. Wisniewski, FPCAF’s General Counsel and Vice President of Legal, and FPC’s counsel in this case. “The magazines that Washington bans are constitutionally protected and it does not have the power to infringe on the rights of Washingtonians by banning them. We’re hopeful that the Court will see the error of Washington’s ways.”

FPC is joined in this lawsuit by the Second Amendment Foundation.

Kabuki Theater

Don Beyer

Rep. Don Beyer (So nice when they provide pictures for PID)

Democrats demand 1,000% excise tax on ‘assault weapons,’ high-capacity magazines
Democrats failed to move the same idea when they controlled the House last year

More than two dozen House Democrats put forward legislation Friday that would slap “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines with a 1,000% excise tax, a change that would raise the price of a $500 weapon to $5,000 in a bid to reduce access to guns across the country.

Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., and 24 other House Democrats introduced the legislation Friday. It’s the second time Democrats have put forward the idea.

Beyer and 37 Democrats proposed the same idea last year when Democrats controlled the House, but it never moved.

The text of Beyer’s new bill was not out as of the weekend, and it was unclear if any changes were made from his 2022 version. His bill from last year imposed the tax on any magazine or related device that can accept more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

The same 1,000% tax would be imposed on any “semiautomatic assault weapon,” which last year’s bill defined as a semiautomatic rifle or pistol with a fixed magazine of 10 rounds or more or that have other various features.

Under that rule, a weapon that normally costs $2,000 would force customers to pay more than $20,000, a change Beyer argued last year could help “curb the epidemic of gun violence.”

“Congress must take action to stem the flood of weapons of war into American communities, which have taken a terrible toll in Uvalde, Buffalo, Tulsa and too many other places,” Beyer said then. “Again and again assault weapons designed for use on the battlefield have been used in mass shootings at schools, grocery stores, hospitals, churches, synagogues, malls, theaters, bars and so on.”

The National Rifle Association has argued gun control advocates invented the term “assault weapon” to “deliberately confuse the public and advance the political cause of gun control.” The NRA says the term “assault rifle” applies only to automatic weapons, while gun control advocates are looking to put controls on semi-automatic weapons.

Fully automatic weapons discharge rounds continuously while the trigger is pulled, and the NRA has said these weapons are used by the U.S. armed services but are not easily obtained by the public, unlike semi-automatic weapons that fire just a single round.

Beyer’s new bill was introduced a day after more than 100 Democrats told House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., they are “disappointed” that House GOP leaders haven’t moved any legislation this year to curb gun ownership in America.

“As Members of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force, we call on you to schedule votes on gun violence prevention legislation as soon as possible this year,” they wrote in a public letter to McCarthy.

“Gun violence is the leading cause of death of children in America since 2020. Last year, 1,686 children were killed and another 4,485 were injured by gun violence,” the letter added. “Despite this preventable carnage, the House has yet to vote on even one gun violence prevention bill.”

Alan Dershowitz Issues Warning: “Looks Like Banana Republic Land”

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz said Friday the prosecution of former President Donald Trump “looks like banana republic land” following a NYT report that claimed President Joe Biden pressed for Trump’s indictment.

Alan said: “President Biden urged his attorney general to indict the man who he knew was going to be the leading opponent if against him.

“That begins to look like banana republic land. That’s what happens when people in power are afraid of the democratic process.

“What they do is they seek the indictment and prosecution of the people who are running against them.

“I have a constitutional right to vote against Donald Trump for the third time.

“I voted against him twice, I intend to vote against him again, but I want to have that right to vote against him and not have that right taken away from me by prosecutors and by the president, who wants to see him imprisoned.

“That’s just not the American way.

“This is a step in that direction(banana republic), and also placing the case in the District of Columbia, which is 95% anti-Trump, putting it in front of a judge with a history of anti-Trump.

“If the government thinks they have a strong case, they ought to join the defense and agree to move it to West Virginia or Virginia and put it in front of another judge who doesn’t have a long history of anti-Trump attitudes.

“So, I don’t believe he can get a fair trial in the District of Columbia.”

Everybody Keeps Indicting Trump, Without Regard for Consequences.

Having already said what I had to say about the most recent indictment of the former president (“Banana Republic, U.S.A.”), I thought perhaps readers might want to know what liberals are saying about it.

Trump’s surreal arraignment day in Washington augurs ominous days ahead

That’s the headline on an “analysis” by CNN reporter Stephen Collinson, and this might be the first time I’ve ever the verb “augur” used in a headline. “Portend,” maybe, but “augur”? No, can’t recall ever seeing that one, and it might help to know that Collinson is not American. He’s from England, where I suppose schoolboys at posh academies are taught to use references to the ancient Roman practice of augury, but I digress . . .

As former President Donald Trump left Washington after answering charges of trying to subvert democracy, it felt like all the previous trauma and divisions of his eight-year journey into the nation’s psyche were just the start.

America now faces the prospect of an ex-president repeatedly going on trial in an election year in which he’s the Republican front-runner and is promising a new White House term of retribution. He is responding with the same kind of extreme rhetoric that injected fury into his political base and erupted into violence after the last election. Ominous and tense days may be ahead.

Trump spent the afternoon at a federal courthouse within sight of the US Capitol that was ransacked by his supporters on January 6, 2021. He pleaded not guilty in the gravest of the three cases in which he has so far been indicted – on four charges arising from an alleged attempt to halt the “collecting, counting and certifying” of votes after the 2020 election.
Live video of Trump motorcading to an airport and sweeping into yet another city for yet another indictment on his branded jetliner has become part of a sudden new normal. But if the arraignment of a former president seems routine, it’s a measure of the historic chaos Trump has wrought since he bulldozed into politics in 2015.

Wearing his classic dark suit and long red tie, Trump on Thursday rose to his full height in court and slowly and clearly elucidated the words “not guilty” in a hearing in which his fall from president to defendant was underscored when he had to wait silently for the judge to arrive. He was irked, sources familiar with his mindset told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, that the judge referred to him simply as “Mr. Trump,” rather than with the presidential title he still used at his clubs.

The 45th president and special counsel Jack Smith – who has also indicted him for the alleged mishandling of classified documents – shared several glances, before a proceeding that, unlike when he was president, means Trump’s fate is now out of his control.
The entire day was surreal, but given its historic implications – after Trump became the first ex-president formally charged in relation to alleged crimes committed in office – also sad.

Thursday was a day when the country crossed a point of no return. For the first time, the United States formally charged one of its past leaders with trying to subvert its core political system and values.

It was Trump who forced the country over this dangerous threshold. A man whose life’s creed is to never be seen as a loser refused to accept defeat in a democratic election in 2020, then set off on a disastrous course because, as Smith’s indictment put it, “he was determined to stay in power.”

Trump is steering a stormy course to an unknown destination. If he wins back the White House, the already twice-impeached new president could trigger a new constitutional crisis by sweeping away the federal cases against him or even by pardoning himself. Any alternative Republican president could find themselves besieged by demands from Trump supporters for a pardon that, if granted, could overshadow their entire presidency. And if Trump is convicted, and loses a 2024 general election, he risks a long jail term, which would likely become fuel for him to incite his supporters to fresh protest. . . .

Well, enough of that. Notice how Collinson pretends that all of this was Trump’s fault, as if nobody else involved — Attorney General Merrick Garland or Special Counsel Jack Smith — had any choice or discretion in the matter. No, they had to indict Trump. Because Trump “forced the country over this dangerous threshold,” which I suppose is pretty much how the Roundheads explained themselves after they beheaded King Charles I: “We had no choice! He made us do it!” The Roundheads then set up a “Republic” far more tyrannical than anything Charles ever did, much the same as those later regicides in France imposed a tyranny more brutal and repressive than the monarchy of Louis XVI, and likewise the Bolsheviks were infinitely worse than Czar Nicholas.

One might notice a historical pattern here, and then — since we’re speaking of ominous auguries — contemplate America’s future once Our Leaders save us from Trump’s alleged threat to “subvert democracy.”

But these people seem to have no proper sense of history, no more than they have any sense of irony or self-awareness, which explains the latest entry in John Hoge’s “I’m Not Making This Up, You Know” files:

Energy Sec Granholm secretly consulted top CCP energy official before SPR releases

EXCLUSIVE: Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm engaged in multiple conversations with the Chinese government’s top energy official days before the Biden administration announced it would tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to combat high gas prices in 2021.

Granholm’s previously-undisclosed talks with China National Energy Administration Chairman Zhang Jianhua — revealed in internal Energy Department calendars obtained by Americans for Public Trust (APT) and shared with Fox News Digital — reveal that the Biden administration likely discussed its plans to release oil from the SPR with China before its public announcement.

According to the calendars, Granholm spoke in one-on-one conversations with Jianhua, who is a longstanding senior member of the Chinese Communist Party, on Nov. 19, 2021, and two days later on Nov. 21, 2021. Then, on Nov. 23, 2021, the White House announced a release of 50 million barrels of oil from the SPR, the largest release of its kind in U.S. history at the time.

“Secretary Granholm’s multiple closed-door meetings with a CCP-connected energy official raise serious questions about the level of Chinese influence on the Biden administration’s energy agenda,” APT Executive Director Caitlin Sutherland told Fox News Digital.

“Instead of focusing on creating real energy independence for America, Granholm has been too busy parroting Chinese energy propaganda and insisting ‘we can all learn from what China is doing,’” Sutherland continued. “The public deserves to know the extent to which Chinese officials are attempting to infiltrate U.S. energy policy and security.”

In a statement, the DOE said the meeting was broadly part of the agency’s effort to combat climate change, but didn’t share what was discussed at the meeting.

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Biden and Obama: The two Democratic presidents of the country’s only credit downgrades

Former President Barack Obama once explained how he would have arranged for a third term as president. He jokingly explained how it essentially involved having a puppet as president in which there would be a “frontman or frontwoman” with Obama directing them what to do while in “his basement in his sweats.” Three years into the Biden administration and these comments make Obama look like a soothsayer.

“If I could make an arrangement where I had a stand-in, a frontman or frontwoman, and they had an earpiece in, and I was just in my basement in my sweats, looking through the stuff, then deliver the lines, but somebody else was doing all the talking — I’d be fine with that,” Obama said to Stephen Colbert in 2020.

After the news of the Fitch downgrade, Obama’s joke now seems like an accurate description of the Biden presidency, mainly since only two presidents have overseen the country suffer credit downgrades: Joe Biden and Barack Obama. Biden’s was this past week with Fitch; Obama’s was with Standard & Poor in April 2011. Both downgrades occurred during each president’s third year in office. And, naturally, both presidents sought to blame Republicans each time. Blaming the GOP was a hallmark of the Obama legacy.

Obama’s downgrade in 2011 was the first time the United States was given a credit rating below AAA. S&P decided to lower the country’s rating to AA+ because the federal government failed to provide a credible plan to confront the soaring national debt at the time, CNN Money reported. S&P also blamed political gridlock, squabbling, and “dysfunctional policymaking” for the decrease.

“The downgrade reflects our opinion that the … plan that Congress and the administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics,” S&P declared at the time. “The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed.”

Fast forward 12 years later, and Obama’s vice president in 2011, Joe Biden, is now in charge. Once again, a credit agency downgraded the nation’s rating to AA+ from AAA. Coincidence? I don’t think so. The Fitch decision was based on “a steady deterioration of governance over the last 20 years” — the majority of that time occurring during the Obama and Biden presidencies.

Additionally, Fitch explained other factors behind its decision, including “repeated debt limit standoffs and last minute resolutions” and a “high and growing general government debt burden.” Other reasons included the government lacking a “medium-term fiscal framework” and having a “complex budgeting process.”

One of the most essential factors in the Fitch decision was a scathing indictment of “Bidenomics.” For all the rampant celebratory propaganda Democrats have spread regarding the economy under the Biden administration, projections call for “weak 2024 GDP growth” and a mild recession at the end of this year and into the first quarter of 2024.

Fitch also predicted “GDP growth slowing to 1.2% this year” and an anticipated “growth of just 0.5% in 2024.” It’s “Bidenomics” at work. And it should be noted that Biden’s weak GDP growth prediction is similar to the underwhelming Obama economy in 2011, the time of the last credit downgrade, which resulted in a measly 1.5% GDP growth. This is why Democrats are trying to deflect from this reality and pin the blame on Donald Trump or things like January 6th. They want to hide the truth of the adverse outcomes they helped create.

It’s no coincidence that both credit downgrades happened under Democrats — especially Democrats who were part of the same presidential administration. Democratic policies have been hampering the country for quite some time. It’s as if their entire party is immune to accepting responsibility for their political actions, no matter how often they misled the public into believing the opposite. Democrats should look at themselves instead of blaming Republicans for their failures.