Category: Enemies Foreign and Domestic

BLUF:
Either we are witnessing a cascade of unlikely events within a 60-day timeframe, or the institutions upon which Putin depends to stay in power–the security services, the military, and the oligarchs–are shaken by Putin’s War in Ukraine. The actions he is taking will either stiffen the resolve of those institutions…or it won’t.

6 Russian Oligarchs Commit Suicide in Mysterious Outbreak of Epstein Syndrome

Very few parts of Russian society have drawn more interest than the so-called “oligarchs.” These are incredibly wealthy men with political connections to Putin’s inner circle because, in the totalitarian kleptocracy that is Russia under Vladimir Putin, if you don’t have political ties to Putin’s inner circle, wealth doesn’t bring you power; it brings you a one-way trip to a Siberian labor camp.

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Observation O’ The Day

“It’s troubling that a Biden administration official would break down in tears because of a law that protects parental rights,” Pushaw said. “Why is it so important to her for teachers to instruct children in grades k-3 about transgenderism and sexuality?”

Why?
It’s not ‘education’, but indoctrination and these people are simply grooming children for use in their pagan rites. As I see it, the worship of Baal, and all that goes with it, was never eradicated, but went underground. And today, it’s never been easier to determine who the worshippers are.

DeSantis Press Sec Finishes Psaki off After She Cries About How Mean Parental Rights Laws Are

Democrats still haven’t figured out why they took such a shellacking in Virginia and why the culture war is not going their way.

First, it was critical race theory. Now, liberal Democratic politicians seem to think that American parents want their very young children to be force-fed classroom instruction about sex and all kinds of radical leftist thought. But if they want another wedge issue that is going to alienate them from the American public, they’ve certainly found it here. Because if there’s anything that will rile up parents more, it’s trying to do things to indoctrinate their kids.

So when White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki embraces the wrong side of the issue, it’s another big red flag for those parents as to where Joe Biden and the Democrats are lining up. Not to mention that Psaki seems to be going over the slide as we count down her final days in the White House — she’s lying and losing it more. She loses it big time over this issue — or at least she pretends to, breaking down crying during Jessica Yellin’s “News Not Noise” podcast over parental rights laws, like the one passed in Florida.

Psaki railed against the law, saying that it was not a reflection of the direction in which the country is going, calling the laws “political games” and “harsh and cruel.”

“This is a political wedge issue and an attempt to win a culture war,” Psaki claimed. “And they’re doing that in a way that is harsh and cruel to a community of kids…I’m going to get emotional about this issue because it’s horrible,” she said, crying (or fake crying). “This is an issue that makes me completely crazy…It’s like kids who are bullied and then all these leaders are taking steps to hurt them and hurt their lives and hurt their families,” Psaki said, claiming that the laws were going after parents and it was “outrageous.”

She’s crazy, alright, and needs some help, quickly, because this has nothing to do with any kind of reality. But, of course, I suspect she knows that and this is all performance art. She’s a horrible actress.

Just a reminder of what the Florida law that she’s crying over and claims is so horrible says:

The legislative text of the House version of the bill reads, ‘Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.’

That’s what Psaki is purportedly crying over. That’s what she claims is somehow attacking kids. Sorry, I have no patience with this when it’s both ignorant of what the law says and, I suspect, insincere.

DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw pointed out how “troubling” Psaki’s reaction was. “It’s troubling that a Biden administration official would break down in tears because of a law that protects parental rights,” Pushaw said. “Why is it so important to her for teachers to instruct children in grades k-3 about transgenderism and sexuality?” Democrats have also lied about the law, falsely naming it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill when it says no such thing.

She claims: “It isn’t a reflection of where the country is.” On that, she is very wrong. 52 percent of likely voters in the Democratic primary say that they are also against the kind of teaching that the bill prohibits. It is most certainly a reflection of where the country is — tired of woke liberal and radical thought. Tired of people taking the power out of the hands of the parents to direct the upbringing of their children. Tired of Democrats who think they have more say in the lives of kids than do their parents.

BLUF:
Elon Musk will not save free speech online. Even if his intentions really are good ones, the scale of the problem goes beyond one platform. And free speech online is too important to rely on the benevolence of billionaires. But his attempted takeover of Twitter has already done us a great service, in revealing how important censorship now is to America’s permanently hysterical elites. (Just call them what they are: wanna-be tyrants)

WHY ELON MUSK HAS RATTLED THEM

We stand here on the edge of tyranny… Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter. That, roughly speaking, has been the commentariat reaction in recent days as the world’s richest man has launched a takeover attempt of the social-media giant, citing his concerns about its censorious policies as his main motivation.

Musk revealed last week that he had become Twitter’s largest shareholder, with a 9.2 per cent stake. Now he’s offered to buy the whole company for a cool $43 billion, a nice premium on its current worth. As it stands, Twitter’s board is resisting and America’s great and good have gone berserk.

The Washington Post’s Max Boot was swift out of the blocks. ‘I am frightened by the impact on society and politics if Elon Musk acquires Twitter’, Boot tweeted. ‘He seems to believe that on social media anything goes. For democracy to survive, we need more content moderation, not less.’

On an even more demented note, Robert Reich, veteran of the Clinton and Obama administrations, essentially argued that Musk buying Twitter would put us on a fast track to fascism; that Musk’s vision for an ‘uncontrolled’ internet was ‘​​the dream of every dictator, strongman, demagogue and modern-day robber baron’.

Reich wasn’t the only one gripped by this interesting idea that dictators love free speech and that more of it online will bring the Third Reich back. New York University journalism professor ​​Jeff Jarvis had this poetic response to Musk’s bid: ‘Today on Twitter feels like the last evening in a Berlin nightclub at the twilight of Weimar Germany.’

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Blinded Me with Violence: How the Left Fosters ‘Hate Crime’ Then Plays the Victim

I haven’t seen anyone else mention this, but subway shooter Frank James’s decision to shoot up a train in Sunset Park, Brooklyn likely wasn’t random. Check out the racial background of the neighborhood:

35.6% – Hispanic
34.8% – Asian
23.7% – white
3.9% – black

Until recently, you could see shooter Frank James spewing his black supremacy and hatred, but YouTube has now removed his channel. For those who didn’t see the videos, they were brimming with racial loathing for Asian, Hispanic, and white people.

You can see here that many of Frank James’s victims are Asian. For a “crazy” guy, he seems to have known what he was doing.

FACT-O-RAMA! In one if his videos, Frank James actually sobs upon hearing the news that Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is married to a white man.

The problem is this: Frank James sees himself — and all black people — as victims. In one of his now-deleted videos, James tells other black folks that white people hate them, and that black people will be exterminated like the Jews were in Europe. This, despite the fact that America is bending over backward to keep black people out of jail. Shoplifting is all but legal now. Lefty cities have decriminalized certain driving laws that black people are more likely to break seem to affect black people more. Let’s not even get started on the surge of Soros-funded DAs who refuse to send black criminals — even violent miscreants — to jail. New York’s commie District Attorney, Alvin Braggs, is now actually allowing people to have their convictions “reviewed.”

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American Occupation.

I lived for very many years in rural Vermont. I’d bought a long-abandoned, post-and-beam farmhouse on a third-class dirt road. The realtor was a German immigrant who’d come to Vermont with his wife and infant children just after the war. He suggested that I call a local builder, Bob, to inspect the house, which was superficially in dreadful shape, but the farm and basement were sound. Bob said he’d be glad to put it right, and he and his brother-in-law restored it to its 1805 perfection.

Bob’s family had lived through the war in Germany, and through the famine afterward, and through relocation in America, ignorant of the language. Bob taught himself carpentry and all the building trades, and became a much-respected member of the small town, where all of his contemporary men had fought against the Axis in World War II. His brother-in-law, Eric, had been in the Hitler Youth, and Bob was a glider commando in the Luftwaffe—the equivalent, today, of Delta Force, or the Navy Seals.

My family became friends with Bob, and his wife, Ilse, became a surrogate grandmother—or better, great-aunt—to my kids. His family was my first encounter with the German national character—hard working, honest, and uncomplaining.

Of course I was seldom unaware that the regime he had fought for was dedicated to the destruction of my people and my race (if Jews are a race … in any case, to my like). I asked Eric about the Hitler Youth, and he said that he’d missed one meeting, and was told by his group leader that, should he miss another, he’d be shot. And, Bob, and every other man of fighting age and ability, was conscripted, and what were they to do?

Just as Eric explained, and perhaps apologized for, his membership in the Hitler Youth, Bob would tell me that his father had risked his life saving a Jew of his acquaintance.

To both cases: perhaps, and perhaps not. I never met a German who had lived through that wartime period who did not share with me the history of his family helping the Jews. Putting aside the question of the stories’ truth, I was struck by their seeming necessity for the teller. The current self-protective rationale of the Nazi era invokes an occupation by the forces of evil, which they were mostly too powerless to fight. Most of the people who lived through it are gone, and their descendants are entitled to imagine a history with which they can live—neither absolutely false nor true, but one in which someone tried to act.

Over the last two years in America, I’ve witnessed our own forces of evil with incredulity, despair, and rage. Corruption, blasphemy, and absurdity have been accepted by one-half of the electorate as the cost of doing business; as has the fear this acceptance generates. Does anyone actually believe that men change into women and women into men who can give birth, that the Earth is burning, the seas are rising, and we’ll all perish unless we cover our faces with strips of cotton?

No one does. These proclamations are an act of faith, in a new, as yet unnamed religion, and the vehemence with which one proclaims allegiance to these untruths is an exercise no different from any other ecstatic religious oath. They become the Apostles’ Creed of the left, their proclamation committing the adherent physically to their strictures, exactly as the oath taken on induction to the armed services. The inductee is told to “take one step forward,” and once they do he or she can no longer claim, “I misunderstood the instruction.”

Those currently in power insist on masking, but don’t wear masks. They claim the seas are rising and build mansions on the shore. They abhor the expenditure of fossil fuels and fly exclusively in private jets. And all the while half of the country will not name the disease. Why?

Because the cost of challenging this oppressive orthodoxy has, for them, become too high. Upon a possible awakening, they—or more likely their children—might say that the country was occupied. And they would be right.

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Jody Lyneé Madeira
Professor of Law and Louis F. Niezer Faculty Fellow, Co-Director, Center for Law, Society & Culture, University of Indiana, Bloomington.

It is – again – so thoughtful of them to provide such definite means of positive identification.

“The ways in which we talk about the Second Amendment are also changing, becoming more uncompromising. Many advocates hang their arguments upon the feeble nail of “shall not be infringed,” and maintain that that phrase literally means what it says – that the right to bear arms is absolute, that it cannot be compromised, that it encompasses all or means nothing.

‘[F]eeble nail‘? ‘means what it says‘? If she thinks so little of one enumerated right, what might she think about other rights?

A New Call to Arms: Rewriting Second Amendment Threats

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), codified at 15 U.S.C. § 7901 et seq., has nearly banished the specter of civil liability for covered gun industry entities. PLCAA was predicated on the claim that gun industry actors, including firearm manufacturers and sellers, were under siege from baseless lawsuits founded on novel legal theories. Prior to its passage, several state courts had held that these entities could be held responsible for knowingly or recklessly distributing their products through sketchy sellers, essentially turning a blind eye to business practices that contributed to gun violence.

In addition to its legal consequences, however, PLCAA had other social and cultural effects. It has helped to establish and reinforce a new narrative supporting contemporary gun rights state legislation. The claim that the firearms industry is under siege has now morphed into the assertion that the Second Amendment itself is under assault, that firearms are disfavored, and that those who own, carry, or use firearms are targets of discrimination.

The breadth and assumptions of PLCAA have also influenced recent state gun rights legislative advocacy, incentivizing measures like permitless carry. To personalize the narrative of gun rights “under siege,” gun rights advocates mobilize citizens to testify in legislatures across the country about how state law schemes infringe on their Second Amendment rights. Many of these laws have been on the books for years but were not questioned until recently. Nearly all are based on traditional doctrinal premises such as home rule and the “longstanding regulations” and “sensitive places” distinctions substantiated in Heller. For example, several state legislatures have assumed the mantle of regulating firearms and ammunition, lifting it from the shoulders of municipalities and cities.

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It’s also called ‘gas lighting’

Obama: Hey, I warned you that Putin “was always ruthless”

One of the advantages that clairvoyants and eminences grises have is the ability to remind us of the accuracy of their forecasts. Barack Obama took advantage of that Wednesday at the University of Chicago, discussing his prescient alarms over the threat that Vladimir Putin posed to world order. It’s a couple of days old but worth watching to recall his brilliance at the time:

Oh, wait — sorry, that wasn’t the correct clip, was it? My bad. I seem to have had a mix-up in my Official Barack Obama Brilliance Media Catalog. That was from 2012, when Obama lectured Mitt Romney on the dangers of al-Qaeda shortly after bailing out of Iraq and allowing the AQ affiliate there to turn into ISIS and necessitating a return of our military in 2014.

Let me look again. I think this is the one where Obama explains how tough he was on Putin:

Doggone it — I clearly need an intern to go back through my indices and reorganize. I’m pretty sure that this is the one that demonstrates Obama’s firm resolve to deal with Putin and his allies, especially when committing atrocities:

Ahem. Sorry, dear readers, I’m just having one hell of a time finding where Barack Obama ever took Putin seriously as a threat … at least while in office. The New York Post finally helps out with this clip of Obama lecturing Jeffrey Goldberg about his leadership in dealing with the Russian tyrant. Ironically, one of the themes of this event was — wait for it — “disinformation”:

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Psaki again confirms she’s nothing more than a political hack that will say anything if the pay is good enough.
Trying to wrap my head around this level of insanity only brings me to the conclusion that since abortion is becoming increasingly more difficult to get in some states (and maybe soon nationwide), these pagans are still trying their best to sacrifice their children to their gods, and this goobermint is trying its best to aid and assist them.

White House’s Latest Threats Expose Depravity That Can Not Stand

If you were in a coma for the last decade and suddenly woke up, there’s likely nothing that would shock you more than how quickly radical transgender ideology has overtaken society.

Imagine hearing arguments in 2012 that children should not only be able to “choose” their “gender,” but that they have a civil right to physically mutilate themselves in response. Yet, that’s exactly where we are. As RedState has reported recently, calls for “gender-affirming care” have moved out of the fringe and firmly into mainstream Democrat politics.

But things are now shifting into an even more dangerous place, if one can even imagine that’s possible. While Republican-led states are seeking to limit the physical abuse of children through the use of “gender-affirming” surgeries which cut off the genitalia or breasts of minors, the White House is now threatening legal action in response.

“Today, in Alabama, instead of focusing on critical kitchen table issues like the economy, Covid or addressing the country’s mental health crisis, Republican lawmakers are currently debating legislation that, among many things, would target trans youths with tactics that threatens to put pediatricians in prison if they provide medically necessary life-saving health care for the kids they serve”…

…”But Alabama’s lawmakers and other legislators who are contemplating these discriminatory bills have been put on notice by the Department of Justice and the Department of Health and Human Services that laws and policies preventing care that health care professionals recommend for transgender minors may violate the Constitution and the federal law.”

Understand what this means. Yes, it’s couched as the targeting of anti-child abuse laws in states like Texas and Alabama, which is crazy enough on its own. A state absolutely has the right to disallow certain medical procedures it deems demonstratively harmful and abusive (including abortion, by the way). But the implications here go much further.

If it is somehow illegal for a state to say that children can’t be given “gender-affirming care,” specifically in regards to the mutilation of their bodies, because those children have a “civil right” to such care, that means that parents who refuse to take such steps can be held liable as well. Recall that several years ago in Texas, we witnessed a high-profile case involving a father who not only lost custody of his son but was forced to help pay for the “transition.” The legal system is not going to protect parents as these precedents become more and more common.

This kind of thing can not stand. Republicans lost a lot of ground over the last several decades because they felt they could float above the fray and not get into the trenches of the culture war. But we’ve now moved past disagreements about adult behavior. These are children we are talking about, and the Democrat establishment is now wholesale endorsing the destruction of their bodies, not just in the womb, but throughout adolescence.

Remember when some Republicans argued that we must get rid of Donald Trump because he broke “norms and traditions.” Meanwhile, the White House is proclaiming it possibly illegal to not mutilate kids based on childhood confusion. Does that sound normal or traditional to you? Elections do have consequences, and there’s a big one coming up in November. Perhaps more importantly, right-thinking individuals (i.e. those who object to child abuse) have a chance in 2024 to retake this lost ground and solidify the ability of states to protect children.

If there’s one issue that animates voters for the next three years of elections, this should be this. Do not forget. Do not relent. Make them pay at the ballot box.

Like True Commies, the Democrats Create Crime Then Use Crime Stats to Take Our Guns

This Crime Wave Brought to You by Democrats

Democrats love mass shootings. It’s their best chance at taking away our guns. We saw it happen in Australia back in 1996 when some wackjob killed 35 people and Australians HANDED OVER THEIR firearms — 700,000 or so to be exact, because, you know, safety, I guess…?

As you have probably heard, a mass shooting in Sacramento, Calif., left six people dead and 15 more wounded. The story isn’t getting a ton of traction because the shooter is most likely not Muslim or white. The media loves when the shooter is a Muslim because terror attacks keep people focused on the news. Lefty media will drag out a mass shooting when the shooter is white because it backs up the lie that most mass shooters are angry, drooling white guys in NRA hats.

That’s right, a lie. As I’ve reported, 67% of mass shooters are black. Most people don’t realize that fact because the Pravda press perpetuates the myth that mass shooters are white dudes who got fired from Denny’s. When people hear “mass shooting,” they assume a white guy flipped out and blazed up a McDonald’s. Democrats want you to believe that. Sure, you heard about the Sacramento shooting, but did you hear about the 11 people who were shot the day before at rapper Big Boogie’s concert in Texas? I didn’t until just now. I’ve never even heard of Big Boogie. I wonder why the media ignored that story? Awww, we know! Let’s put it this way, no MAGA hats were recovered at the crime scene.

FACT-O-RAMA! Stalin, Castro, Mao, and Pol Pot took guns away from their people before slaughtering them. Biden wants to take your guns too. Why? Because he’s a communist and that’s what commies do.

This is how it works: the Democrats let criminals out of jail and then got rid of bail laws to keep them out. They defunded police departments nationwide. Criminals do what criminals do: they shoot people. When there is a mass shooting, Democrats say, “Look! Another mass shooting! Let’s take guns from law-abiding people!”

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Just like our current education indoctrination system, if a foreign nation forced this on us, it would be considered an act of war.

Biden administration declares support for sex-change surgeries and hormone substitutions for minors

WH encourages gender reassignment surgery, puberty blockers, hormone therapy for transgender minors

President Biden’s administration has released a series of documents encouraging gender-reassignment surgery and hormone treatments for minors.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Population Affairs released a document Thursday titled “Gender Affirming Care and Young People.” The same day, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Child Traumatic Stress Network – another subset of the HHS – released a parallel document titled, “Gender-Affirming Care Is Trauma-Informed Care.”

The HHS documents describe what it calls appropriate treatments for transgender adolescents, including: “‘Top’ surgery – to create male-typical chest shape or enhance breasts;” and “‘Bottom’ surgery – surgery on genitals or reproductive organs, facial feminization or other procedures.”

“Medical and psychosocial gender affirming healthcare practices have been demonstrated to yield lower rates of adverse mental health outcomes, build self-esteem, and improve overall quality of life for transgender and gender diverse youth,” the OPA release states.

The NCTSN document is far longer than the brief outline provided by the OPA, but reiterates the same thought process and explanation for minors receiving alterations to their genitalia.

“For transgender and nonbinary children and adolescents, early gender-affirming care is crucial to overall health and well-being as it allows the child or adolescent to focus on social transitions and can increase their confidence while navigating the healthcare system,” the NCTSN wrote in their release. “It may include evidence-based interventions such as puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones.”

The NCTSN document goes out of its way to assure the public that the use of gender-affirming methods such as surgery and hormone replacement are not child abuse – most likely in response to recent policy decision in Texas that made such treatments illegal.

“Providing gender-affirming care is neither child maltreatment nor malpractice. The child welfare system in the US, charged with “improv(ing) the overall health and well-being of our nation’s children and families,” should not be used to deny care or separate families working to make the best decisions for their children’s well-being. There is no scientifically sound research showing negative impacts from providing gender-affirming care,” the NCTSN added.

The White House released a video to coincide with the new policies featuring President Biden speaking on the issue of transgender children.

Biden told the parents of transgender children that “affirming your child’s identity is one of the most powerful things you can do to keep them safe.”

Biden also indicated that his administration would fight state laws that limit how transgender athletes may compete, after transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas drew national attention at the NCAA championships.

Such state laws are “simply wrong” and “hateful,” Biden said, adding that his administration is “standing up for transgender equality in the classroom, on the playing field, at work, in our military, in our housing and health care systems – everywhere.”

A Texas judge earlier this month blocked the state from investigating parents who provide medical treatments to help their transgender children transition, according to reports.

Gov. Greg Abbott has called gender-affirming treatments “child abuse” and ordered Texas Child Protective Services to investigate any reported cases. Attorney General Ken Paxton also issued a legal opinion coming to the same conclusion, according to Houston Public Media.

In ordering the temporary injunction, District Court Judge Amy Clark Meachum said the investigations exceeded Abbott’s constitutional authority, noting that such instances had never been investigated before his order.

 

 

No Country for Old Men

The President of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., who is 79 years old and suffering from senile dementia at the end of a long life of bullying, lying, boasting, conniving, grifting, grafting, and living off the public tit to an extent indecent even by Washington standards, declared war on Russia on Friday. In the course of a typically blustering, hectoring speech, the senescent Biden went off script and interpolated the following peroration: “My God, this man cannot remain in power.”

To which the only proper response is: “My God, this man cannot remain in the Oval Office.” Joe Biden needs to be removed from the White House as soon as possible, before his failing mind, his erratic behavior, and his proven lack of character get us all killed. The question is, is there enough political will in the capital to do what needs to be done?

Biden’s blunder was immediately walked back by the few adults left in the room, called a “gaffe,” or—worse—actually defended by the neocons and other leftists as truth-telling on a heroic scale, evocative of Ronald Reagan’s 1987 “tear down this wall” speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, which two years later actually did result in the Wall coming down. But his rash words continue to ring, now matter how swiftly his handlers and apologists and even Biden himself try to make us disbelieve our own lying ears:

Mush-mouthed as usual, and delivered with all the Scrantonian sincerity of one of his typical campaign speeches, Biden’s address was not only the low-water mark of his presidency so far, but a nadir in the history of the United States and its practice of diplomacy.

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No, only the proggies in Oklahoma are ‘tired’.
I think they’re tired of their losing streak.

Propaganda O’ The Day

Advocate: Oklahomans tired of lawmakers catering to gun lobby

Public Radio Tulsa | By Elizabeth Caldwell elizabeth_caldwell.jpg

(Again, nice for the author to provide positive ID for future use )

A bill allowing people to carry guns at state fairs and into government buildings is paused in the state legislature.

Don Spencer of the Oklahoma Second Amendment Association said he “worked” on HB 4138 and he’s very excited about it. He published a video on Saturday boasting to his club that one intent of the proposed law was to let people carry rifles into traditionally quiet places.

“The concern was that when we have this bill passed, the question was, would a person be able to carry an AR-15 rifle into a library? My answer was yes,” said Spencer.

Spencer said as a concession the bill was altered to allow concealed handguns in libraries. But he reassured his club it was just a first step.

“Remember folks, 2012, we couldn’t even see guns in Oklahoma. In ten years we’re going from not just seeing them to no license required.”

Beth Furnish of Moms Demand Action said legislators betray Oklahomans when they pass laws for lobbies instead of citizens.

“Oklahomans started paying attention to what our lawmakers were doing after they passed permitless carry, which was opposed by a strong majority of Oklahomans, even gun owners and Republicans. Oklahomans are getting tired of our lawmakers passing the wish list of the gun lobby,” said Furnish.

HB 4138 was written by Sen. Warren Hamilton of McCurtain and Rep. Sean Roberts of Hominy. A long list of coauthors has also been added.

It was not heard in the House before deadline Thursday. Neither Roberts nor Hamilton responded to requests for comment on their plans for their bill.

Der Grëtchënführër™ strikes again (as if this wasn’t expected)

Governor vetoes Theis bill protecting Second Amendment rights
Would have guaranteed issue of concealed pistol licenses during emergencies
LANSING, Mich. — Sen. Lana Theis’ legislation that would have ensured the issuance and renewal of concealed pistol licenses during declared emergencies was vetoed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Friday.

“This is a disappointing day for gun owners,” said Theis, R-Brighton. “The Second Amendment is clear that the rights of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but that is exactly what Gov. Gretchen Whitmer did today.

“People must be able to defend their life and property even, and especially, in times of emergency. State law is clear that county clerks shall issue concealed pistol licenses to those who are qualified, and my bill would have ensured that this essential service would continue regardless of any declared emergency.

“While I am disappointed with Whitmer’s veto, I cannot say that I am shocked. She has never supported gun owners and she likely never will. I hope responsible gun owners will continue their efforts to protect this right. I certainly will.”

Theis fielded numerous complaints throughout the COVID-19 pandemic that county clerks across the state refused or delayed issuing or renewing concealed pistol licenses, infringing on law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights.

Senate Bill 11 would have required county clerks to continue to issue and renew concealed pistol licenses regardless of any shutdown issued by executive order or public health order. County clerks and law enforcement would have also been required to continue providing the fingerprinting services necessary to obtain a new concealed pistol license.

Additionally, the bill would have enabled the Michigan State Police to provide personal identification numbers to concealed pistol license holders, so they may renew their licenses online during any declared emergency.

Law profs claim lack of gun control fueling “small arms race”

Generally speaking, I really love my job. I get to talk to interesting people, cover an issue that I’m passionate about, and can maybe even make a difference every once in awhile in terms of keeping bad laws off the books and putting good laws in place.

One of the few downsides, however, is having to subject myself to a lot of the dumb arguments made by the gun control lobby and their allies in the media and academia. The latest? A new paper by two law professors at the University of Oklahoma and the University of Houston who claim that a lack of gun control laws is fueling what they call a “small arms race” across the country.

On November 19, 2021, Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of homicide charges stemming from his killing of two people—Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum—at a protest of police violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Rittenhouse had armed himself and traveled to the protest, purportedly to defend Kenoshans’ property against looting.

The acquittal sparked substantial public outrage about the state of gun laws and about the legitimacy of the criminal justice system more generally.

In a similar case, Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael, and William Bryan were charged with murdering Ahmaud Arbery in Brunswick, Georgia. There, the defendants believed that Arbery was engaged in criminal activity and pursued him with a gun.

When Arbery took action to protect himself, Travis McMichael shot and killed him. Here too, many were concerned that an acquittal would lead to greater vigilantism. And while the jury ultimately convicted, Georgia law would have also allowed acquittal in a similar or even identical  case.

Such cases have raised public concern that certain states’ gun-use and self-defense laws effectively invite malicious individuals—including vigilantes and white supremacists—to kill with impunity.

Funny how both the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse and the conviction of the McMichaels and William Bryan are both evidence of the need for more gun control laws, according to the professors. I’m particularly amused by the statement that Georgia law could have led to an acquittal, because that’s how the law works in virtually every criminal case that goes to trial. Juries have the option of finding defendants guilty or not guilty, and the fact that they choose between those verdicts based on the evidence presented isn’t in and of itself a sign that we need more or less laws.

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1 I think Putin believed his own propaganda.
2 From this performance, it begs the question if the Russian military ever really was the threat we always believed it was, and spent so much time, effort and money on defending against it. Well, the military/industrial complex sure made a fortune.

BLUF:
Russia—whose economy before the invasion was about the size of Italy’s—may have spread its efforts too thinly and the modernization effort also appears to have been undermined by fraud and corruption, said analysts including Michael Clarke, a former director of the Royal United Services Institute, a London think tank, and now associate director of the University of Exeter’s Strategy and Security Institute, citing estimates that some 25% of the invading force are conscripts.

Weapons systems haven’t performed well and commanders pretended they had capabilities that weren’t there, Mr. Clarke said. Of Russia’s effort to create a “large, modern army,” he said: “The part which is modern is not large, and the part which is large is not modern.”

How Russia’s Revamped Military Fumbled the Invasion of Ukraine
Moscow spent years upgrading its capabilities, only to see the armed forces fail their first major test, confounding earlier Western assessments and giving Ukraine a boost

For over a decade, Russia spent hundreds of billions of dollars restructuring its military into a smaller, better equipped and more-professional force that could face off against the West.
Three weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, its first big test, the armed forces have floundered. Western intelligence estimated last week that 5,000 to 6,000 Russian troops had been killed, some of them poorly trained conscripts.
The dead included four Russian generals—one-fifth of the number estimated to be in Ukraine—along with other senior commanders, according to a Western official and Ukrainian military reports. The generals were close to the front lines, some Western officials said, a sign that lower ranks in forward units were likely unable to make decisions or fearful of advancing.
Russian troops turned to using open telephone and analog radios following the failure of encrypted communications systems, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry has said, making them vulnerable to intercept or jamming. Russian officers were likely targeted after their positions were exposed by their use of open communications, Western military analysts said.
In the strategically located town of Voznesensk, Ukrainian forces comprising local volunteers and the professional military drove off an attack early this month, in one of the most comprehensive routs Russian forces have suffered since invading Ukraine.
Russia’s failings appear to trace to factors ranging from the Kremlin’s wrong assumptions about Ukrainian resistance to the use of poorly motivated conscript soldiers. They suggest that Russia and the West overestimated Moscow’s overhauls of its armed forces, which some military analysts say appear to have been undermined by graft and misreporting.
The military’s previous outings in staged maneuvers and smaller operations in Syria didn’t prepare it for a multipronged attack into a country with a military fiercely defending its homeland, said Michael Kofman, director of Russia studies at CNA, a nonprofit research organization based in Arlington, Va.
“The failures that we’re seeing now is them having to work with a larger force than they’ve ever employed in real combat conditions as opposed to an exercise,” he said. “These exercises that we’ve been shown over the years are very scripted events and closer to theater than anything else.”

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Below The Radar: Stopping the Fraudulent Sales of Firearms Act

Second Amendment supporters often have to make difficult decisions. Not in the sense of Glock vs. Colt vs. Springfield Armory, but more along the lines of how to address a given piece of anti-Second Amendment legislation.

Take for instance the Stopping the Fraudulent Sales of Firearms Act, known as S 3776 and HR 6997. The legislation purports to prohibit the importation, sale, or manufacture of firearms “by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises.”

On the face of it, this seems unobjectionable. Nobody wants to be sold a firearm on the basis of misrepresentation or a false promise, right? But there are red flags when Second Amendment supporters think things through some more.

For starters, the Senate bill is sponsored by Dianne Feinstein, a long-standing enemy of our Second Amendment rights. So that is a red flag right there. Her co-sponsors include Cory Booker and Richard Blumenthal, also committed opponents of the Second Amendment.

Aside from who sponsors it, there is one other question: Who decides what constitutes “false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises?”

This is a big deal on multiple fronts. Remember how the CDC is getting back into the gun-control business? They worry that it will be used to justify censorship by Silicon Valley is big, but this legislation could add another threat.

Suppose some anti-Second Amendment extremist decides that those who advertise firearms for self-defense are making ““false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises?” That now becomes a new way to hit someone with a five-year jail term and a felony conviction.

This also is a way to “legalize” suits like the one brought against Remington over Sandy Hook. Never mind that the rifle used was stolen (after the shooter killed the rightful owner), the claim from the suit was centered around the advertising. In other words, prove there was “false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises” in the advertising, and all of the sudden, it becomes easier to sue gun manufacturers.

This is a dangerous end run around the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Again, we need to remember what Feinstein said so long ago on 60 Minutes. She wants an Australia-style ban, but if she can’t have it, she’ll figure out what she can get legislatively (see the Age 21 Act). Or she’ll enable other attacks outside the legislative process.

What makes it doubly hard is that this bill seems very reasonable, so Second Amendment supporters have to be very careful about the optics while opposing it. After all, nobody wants to support those who sell anything (including firearms) with “false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises.”

Second Amendment supporters need to contact their Representative and Senators and politely urge them to oppose the Stopping the Fraudulent Sales of Firearms Act. Then. They need to work to defeat anti-Second Amendment extremists via the ballot box this November.

Rocket attack confirmed in Northern Iraq:

Multiple rockets have targeted Erbil in northern Iraq early on Sunday, the state news agency has reported quoting Erbil’s governor.

More than three explosions were heard but the city airport was not believed to be the target, Deputy Minister Hiwa Afandi said.

Lawk Ghafuri, head of Kurdistan’s Foreign Media Relations, also said more than three explosions were heard, He added that security forces are investigating the incident and updates will be available shortly.

As is consistent with previous attacks instigated by Iranian-backed militia, media channel Sabreen posted videos of the attack moments after its occurrence.

The law requires school districts to adopt procedures that “reinforce the fundamental right of parents to make decisions regarding the upbringing and control of their children.” It prohibits classroom instruction – not casual discussion – on “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” with children in third grade or younger, “or in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”

It prohibits classroom instruction – not casual discussion – on “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” with children in third grade or younger (that’s 5 to 8 year old kids) 

You know what that means, right? Florida parents found out that schools proggie indoctrination centers had teachers pedophile groomers teaching kindergarten through third grade students about ‘transgenderism’, homosexuality, pornography, and sexual degeneracy in the classroom, and telling the kids not to tell their parents.

and what does Peppermint Psaki have to say about it?

Florida’s parental rights bill is not a ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill. It is a full-throated defense of moms and dads against the state-sponsored progressive brainwashing of their kids.

On March 8, Florida’s Republican-controlled state legislature passed the Parental Rights in Education bill.

But you may know it better by the media’s smear name, ‘The Don’t Say Gay Bill.’

It’s a measure that gives parents more control over what their children are taught in public schools.

But that’s not how the White House, Democrats, Hollywood and the media portrayed it.

In fact, they completely mischaracterized it.

President Joe Biden called an early version of the bill ‘hateful.’

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg claimed it will increase suicides among LGBTQ+ youth.

On Tuesday’s episode of ‘Watch What Happens Live’ Bravo host Andy Cohen called the bill’s passage ‘personally disturbing,’ and told Florida Republicans that they’re pretending to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.

‘This is one big dog whistle. You’re scaring people into spewing hate and discrimination at the LGBTQ community,’ he said.

On Wednesday, the White House doubled down again.  Press Secretary Jen Psaki called the bill ‘discriminatory,’ ‘horrific,’ and ‘a form of bullying’ against LGBTQ children and families.

On the eve of the bill’s passage, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (who is now expected to sign the bill into law) confronted a local reporter, who framed the legislation as anti-gay.

‘I want to ask about the Parental Rights in Education, what critics call the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill,’ said Evan Donovan.

DeSantis was having none of it, and snapped, ‘Does it say that in the bill? You are pushing false narratives…’

So does the bill prohibit teachers’ from saying the word ‘gay’?

In a word – no!

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