Category: Enemies Foreign and Domestic

Oh, some care. Just not anyone in SloJoe’s administration.

Nancy Pelosi’s Capitol pawns

Have we really reached the point where National Guard soldiers in their third month of protecting the Capitol are poisoned with rotten food, worms and metal shavings and no one cares?

The contempt shown to these soldiers by their Washington, DC, masters is as sickening as the rancid slop they’ve been served.

Barstool Sports last week was the first to publish stomach-churning photos of raw chicken and beef, moldy bread rolls and rotten fruit, along with firsthand complaints from anonymous soldiers.

At least 50 soldiers were struck ill with “gastrointestinal complaints” after eating the meals and several required hospital treatment.

It’s not as if the troops are in a hardship posting like Afghanistan. Where is the respect?

It was bad enough when they were thrown out of the Capitol into a freezing garage in January.

These soldiers have left jobs and families to protect lawmakers in their nation’s capital, however ­politicized that duty is.

Do any lawmakers care about them? Sure a few members of Congress have huffed and puffed.

But no one will explain why they still are there, guarding a Capitol walled off by razor wire, other than as human props in a narrative concocted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Dems to traduce their political opponents.

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Feinstein’s biannual regurgitation:

To regulate assault weapons, to ensure that the right to keep and bear arms is not unlimited, and for other purposes.

 

When the name of your bill directly contradicts the wording of the constitution you’ve probably made a mistake somewhere.

Let’s use this same description for any other bill dealing with any right, especially an enumerated right.

“To regulate raids, to ensure that the right against unreasonable search and seizure is not unlimited, and for other purposes.”

“To regulate detentions, to ensure the right against cruel and unusual punishment is not unlimited, and for other purposes.”

Plug in any other right and it sounds insane but there are people that view the description of this bill as a positive. That should be hair raising to anyone that knows history and appreciates their rights.

What’s Scarier? Biden’s Totalitarian Promises, or the Number of Americans Who Willingly Acquiesce?

Joe Biden’s Wuhan Flu anniversary speech was insulting and disturbing in many ways. He started out by lying about President Trump’s actions at the beginning of the pandemic, then went through a list of everything we lost during these draconian lockdowns – attempting to convince us that he sympathizes with what we’ve lost and that We’re All In This Together™.

Watching Biden lie to us and hearing him insult us is annoying and, frankly, boring at this point – because we expect it. But in this speech Biden went far beyond annoying and straight onto a terrifying new path, the path of complete government control.

He led into his plans with a bit of communistic propaganda by speaking to a “common purpose” our hands must turn to before informing us that he’s “using every power [he] has as POTUS to put us on a war footing.” Symbolism?

Knowing that people expect that, since the number of positive China virus cases have plummeted and that many states are well on their way to fully vaccinating their high-risk populations, the country will fully open soon and that masks and social distancing rules will be a thing of the past, Biden sought to manage expectations. As long as there’s still a silent, deadly enemy circulating (spoiler alert: there always will be), and as long as Biden can reassure people that he’s keeping them safe by Following The Science ©, he can keep complete control of our lives. Biden has no interest in “beating” the virus any time soon, it seems:

In the coming weeks we will issue further guidance on what you can and cannot do once fully vaccinated, to lessen the confusion, to keep people safe, and to encourage more people to get vaccinated.

To “encourage” people to get the vaccination? Think about that for a second. What will vaccinated people be able to do that the unvaccinated will not? Will people need to show papers or have a badge showing their vaccination status in order to have full freedom? Oh, hell no. Katie Pavlich, editor of our sister site Townhall, nailed it:

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To defeat woke tyrants, the rest of us must treat them like the monsters they are

Most Americans hate woke politics — and most minorities don’t share “woke” priorities. Indeed, according to pollster David Shor, woke excesses are causing black voters to flee the Democratic Party. Despite endless charges of “racism,” former President Donald Trump took the biggest share of minority voters of any Republican in my lifetime.

Woke tyrants ride high, even so; according to a Cato/YouGov poll, 62 percent of Americans self-censor their political expression. Only a tiny minority of consumers care about Mr. Potato Head’s toxic masculinity, about “Aunt Jemima” as a brand or about the #MeToo aggressions of Pepé Le Pew. Yet corporations, universities and governments rush to placate that minuscule slice of the population, trashing large chunks of our culture in the process.

It’s happening not because anybody voted for it, but because a small but determined and vicious minority is bullying people to go along, relying on cowardice and groupthink to achieve ends that could never happen via majority vote: How do you think Dr. Seuss would have done in a referendum?

How does this happen? To some degree, the woke abuse the good nature of Americans. For the most part, Americans want their fellow citizens to be happy. If they hear something makes others unhappy, they generously look to change things.

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Schumer pledges Senate vote on gun bill passed by House: ‘No more … thoughts and prayers

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Thursday vowed that the Senate would vote on the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, which passed the House Thursday in a 227-203 vote.

A prior version of the H.R. 8 bill, which would require background checks for all U.S. firearm purchases, passed the House in 2019 but did not receive 60 votes in the Senate to clear the filibuster.

“In the past, when they sent it over to us last time, it went into [former Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell’s legislative graveyard,” Schumer said during a press conference Thursday. “The legislative graveyard is over. H.R. 8 will be on the floor of the Senate, and we will see where everybody stands. No more hopes and prayers, thoughts and prayers. A vote is what we need, a vote, not thoughts and prayers.”

The House also passed H.R. 1446, the Enhanced Background Check Act, by a 219-210 vote Thursday. That bill would extend the amount of time to complete a federal background check before a gun purchase is approved.

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Providing confirmation, and self identification (it’s nice when they do intelligence gathering work for you, isn’t it?) that universities are domestic enemy institutions that must eventually be eliminated in self defense.

Top digital journalism professor at Columbia calls for censorship of conservative media.

The top digital journalism professor at Columbia University recently called for some center-right news outlets to be censored in the name of cracking down on misinformation.

Professor Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Media, said it is not an infringement of the First Amendment to audit and vet some news outlets to promote a “truthful news environment.”

She made the comments in response to concerns among U.S. Reps. Jerry McNerney and Anna Eshoo, who sent letters to a multitude of streaming companies, including AT&T, Verizon, Roku, Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Charter, Dish, Cox and Hulu, asking them about censoring “misinformation” in the conservative media.

The Democratic senior members expressed that “right-wing media ecosystem[s]” like “Newsmax, One America News Network (OANN), and Fox News” must be held accountable for supposed fallacies on their networks and suggested they be booted from these venues.

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General Recommends “Quick Reaction Troops” In DC to Protect the Ruling Class From the Slaves

A United States military general, who was appointed by the ruling class, is recommending “quick reaction troop” in Washinton D.C. to protect against the slave uprising.  It sure appears that the powers that believe they own everyone are starting to worry that people no longer need them and are no longer willing to be slaves.

The retired Army general appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to lead a security study after the January 6 Capitol riot has called for setting up a quick-reaction force to permanently stand ready for threats against the government, according to a report from RT. Meaning any uprising from the “governed” or “the controlled” or the slave lass will not be tolerated by the masters.

Now, are we beginning to understand that government is slavery? It literally doesn’t matter if it’s a republic or a democracy or a socialist dictatorship. None of us should ever be owned by anyone else. The government knows it, and enough of the public must be figuring it out if retired US Army Lt. General Russel Honore says those who desire their freedom are the problem to be dealt with.

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yeah, Mostly peaceful protest™
They do understand one point we should also keep in mind:
“An asymmetrical and decentralized insurgency is nearly impossible to defend against”
That’s one of the basic tenets of 4th Generation Asymmetrical Warfare

He just doesn’t want us to know what he thinks about it.
And because of that, we do know.

Garland Doesn’t Seem To Know Much About Anything During Questioning

When the Senate confirmation hearings for Merrick Garland to be Joe Biden’s pick for Attorney General kicked off, we quickly learned that there were a number of public policy topics that he’s “never given much thought to,” and didn’t have any opinions to share. Those included issues of illegal immigration and whether or not transgender athletes should be able to compete in girls’ and women’s sports. As the hearings continued, there emerged even more topics that Garland professes to not know very much about. This time the questions dealt with the Second Amendment and the limits of the President’s power to infringe on those rights via the pen and the phone. When Ted Cruz pressed him on some specifics, Garland claimed to be “unfamiliar” with the subject and said that he “cannot offer an opinion.” (Free Beacon)

President Joe Biden’s pick for the top law enforcement post in America told the Senate that he is uninformed about important gun issues, as he faces what could be a close confirmation vote.

Merrick Garland told Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) he was unfamiliar with key gun policy areas in written answers made public Wednesday night. He said he did not know enough about the topic to say whether Biden could unilaterally deny gun sales by permanently delaying background checks. He used the same explanation when asked if Biden could ban the sale of popular rifles like the AR-15—something Biden promised to make law during his campaign.

“I am unfamiliar with this issue and cannot offer an opinion on that question,” Garland said of the unilateral AR-15 ban.

These answers conflict with statements Garland made in February, suggesting that there were changes to gun control policy that Biden could make unilaterally without the need for new legislation from Congress. But now he’s saying that he really doesn’t know what, if any limits there are to the President’s powers in that regard. Just as a reminder, this guy has been on the bench on one of the most influential appeals courts in the country for decades and he came very close to making it onto the Supreme Court. And he hasn’t given any thought to the Second Amendment?

Garland similarly dodged a question about the death penalty. He said he had “developed concerns” over the procedure in recent years, but that was about it. We already know where Joe Biden stands on the subject and Garland will go along with whatever Biden says, so it seemed rather pointless to wiggle out of that one.

What Garland is doing here seems obvious. He doesn’t want to wade into any hot-button topics for fear of antagonizing the Senators from either party and giving some of them an excuse to not vote for him. He’s hardly the first cabinet nominee to play these games and he won’t be the last. But the guy is asking to be approved to be the chief law enforcement official in the country. If he’s really “never thought about” any of these questions and “doesn’t have an opinion” on them, how is he claiming to be qualified to do the job he’s asking for? That’s an awful lot of studying to have to do on day one to get up to speed.

Senator Tom Cotton (R – AR) has already begun pumping the brakes on Garland’s confirmation, insisting that more and better answers are needed. But it still doesn’t seem like he’ll be able to derail the confirmation entirely. Mitch McConnell has already said he plans to vote to confirm him and Chuck Grassley voted for him in committee. That’s really all he would need to avoid the optics of sending Kamala Harris down to break a tie to put him in at the Justice Department. But if these non-answers were to somehow convince both of them to vote no, we’d be back to waiting for Joe Manchin to make up his mind. This fight may not be quite over yet.

The California Model: Soft On Violent Firearm Crimes, Hard On Law-Abiding Gun Owners

A frustrating aspect of the modern gun control movement is its seeming abandonment of reason. The same anti-gun politicians that attack the rights of law-abiding gun owners will advocate for more lenient treatment of those who misuse firearms to commit violent crime.

Consider California’s Assembly Bill 1509, which would alter the state’s scheme of sentence enhancements for serious crimes committed with firearms. The legislative counsel’s digest summarized the changes as follows:
Existing law imposes a sentence enhancement in the state prison of 10 years for personally using a firearm in the commission of specified felonies, 20 years for personally and intentionally discharging a firearm in the commission of those felonies, and 25 years to life for personally and intentionally discharging a firearm and causing great bodily injury or death to any other person during the commission of those felonies.

This bill would reduce those enhancements to 1, 2, and 3 years, respectively. 

Existing law imposes a sentence enhancement of 5, 6, or 10 years in the state prison for, with intent to inflict great bodily injury or death, discharging a firearm from a motor vehicle in the commission of a felony and inflicting great bodily injury or death in the commission of a felony.

This bill would reduce that enhancement to 1, 2, or 3 years in the state prison.

AB1509 was authored by Assembly member Alex Lee (D-25). The bill was coauthored by Assembly members Wendy Carrillo (D-51), Ash Kalra (D-27), Mark Stone (D-29), and Senator Scott Wiener (D-11).

Assemblywoman Carrillo has been a vocal proponent of further restricting the rights of law-abiding gun owners. On May 17, 2018, Carrillo spoke at a gun control rally in Sacramento, put on, in part, by the Brady Campaign. The lawmaker took to Twitter on February 5, 2019 to boast of meeting Gabrielle Giffords of the eponymous Giffords gun control organization, adding, “California has enacted strict gun laws that can lead the way to a national conversation. We need action. #GunReformNow.”

Similarly, Assemblymember Kalra has pushed for gun control. As a San Jose City councilmember, Kalra proposed an ordinance that would have required gun owners to comply with onerous storage requirements, ammunition sellers to register transactions, and re-victimized gun owners whose firearms were stolen by requiring them to report the theft within 48 hours.

In 2019, Senator Wiener advanced legislation to permanently ban gun shows at Daly City, Calif.’s Cow Palace. On August 31, 2019, the state senator took to Twitter to advocate for gun confiscation and other extreme gun controls, stating,

No more talk on guns

Action only

And they’re right to be scared.

BLUF:
“They worry that someday there will be a backlash against the people in charge, which, of course, is them. That’s their biggest fear, a peasant revolt.”

Tucker Carlson Zeroes in on the Left’s ‘Biggest Fear’

During his opening monologue on Thursday, Fox News’s Tucker Carlson excoriated the ongoing military occupation of Washington, D.C. and explained why it’s still there and what has liberals so fearful.While the left is admittedly scared of pretty much everything, he acknowledged, fear of “the other” has them most wound up now.

“When you’re a liberal, the world is a very scary place, but there is one fear that rises above all other fears in the liberal mind: The fear of “the other.” Like all primitive cultures, modern liberalism is tribal,” he said. “Liberals understand most of the American continent as a mysterious dark space, like a medieval map populated by drooling Trump voters and violent illiterates with extra chromosomes.

“Liberals despise people like this, of course, and on some level, they know they’re hated right back,” he continued. “They worry that someday there will be a backlash against the people in charge, which, of course, is them. That’s their biggest fear, a peasant revolt.”

And so, D.C. looks like Baghdad’s Green Zone, he said.

The left and right were fully prepared for another “insurrection” on March 4, but like a child fearful of the monster in the closet, the threat wasn’t real.

“A lot of liberals were certain that March 4 was the day the right-wing revolution would finally begin. March 4, they believed, with something called ‘QAnon Inauguration Day,'” he said, adding that they have no idea what that means and can guarantee the vast majority of Trump supporters don’t either.

“They’d heard about it from Nancy Pelosi, who told her bodyguards to write up a report on the threat of QAnon Inauguration Day. So that’s what they did. We never really learned any details, but members of Congress were not taking chances,” Carlson continued. “Many of them fled the Capitol Thursday. House leaders rescheduled votes so that the rank-and-file legislators could escape with their lives, if not with their dignity.”

What happened was predictable: nothing. More media showed up than anyone else.

This “credible threat” was just the latest in a series of lies to keep D.C. militarized, he argued, because the National Guard is there for political reasons more than anything else.

“This is very strange behavior for a democracy,” Carlson pointed out. “In a democracy, leaders are supposed to rule with the consent of the governed. You would think that might have occurred to some people on Capitol Hill. If we’re this afraid of American voters, maybe something’s wrong. Maybe we’re not doing a very good job. Maybe we ought to shut up for a second and listen to the complaints of the people whose lives we control. Maybe then we wouldn’t need razor wire around the Capitol.

“Apparently, no one in Washington has thought of this,” he added. “Instead, they’ve convinced themselves that the only Americans who have a problem with the way things are currently going must have been brainwashed by QAnon.”

Meanwhile, as the left prepares itself for battle against imaginary threats, Americans are facing real ones on the streets.

“For all the concern over the safety of our elected leaders, there doesn’t seem to be any concern for the safety of the people who elected them,” he said. “Capitol Hill looks like the Green Zone in Baghdad, but the rest of the city looks like the area outside the Green Zone. Residential neighborhoods in Washington and in cities around the country haven’t been this dangerous in years.  Americans are dying in huge numbers from street crime, but no one in Congress cares. They’re too busy spending tax dollars to shield themselves from the QAnon Shaman and his 70-year-old accomplices.”

Maybe Democratic leaders will start caring if Americans blame QAnon for the crimes, he quipped.

Unrestricted Warfare: China’s Master Plan to Destroy America Paperback

The Overwhelming Evidence of the Origin of the COVID-19 Pandemic Was Covered Up by US Government Officials, US Scientific Authorities and Their Chinese Counterparts

A sobering and fascinating study on war in the modern era, Unrestricted Warfare carefully explores strategies that militarily and politically disadvantaged nations might take in order to successfully attack a geopolitical super-power like the United States. American military doctrine is typically led by technology; a new class of weapon or vehicle is developed, which allows or encourages an adjustment in strategy. Military strategists Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui argue that this dynamic is a crucial weakness in the American military, and that this blind spot with regard to alternative forms warfare could be effectively exploited by enemies. Unrestricted Warfare concerns the many ways in which this might occur, and, in turn, suggests what the United States might do to defend itself.

The Overwhelming Evidence of the Origin of the COVID-19 Pandemic Was Covered Up by US Government Officials, US Scientific Authorities and Their Chinese Counterparts

Already by the end of January 2020, elements within the U.S. government and the U.S. scientific establishment were becoming increasingly concerned that the American people might learn the truth about the origin of the COVID-19.

That is, it was an artificial virus created in a laboratory in the People’s Republic of China with the assistance of U.S. scientists and funding from the U.S. government.
In addition to pressure coming directly from the Chinese Communist Party, there was, no doubt, similar coercion being brought to bear on susceptible and compliant people in Washington D.C. by international financial interests, whose investments in China would be placed in jeopardy if it was widely accepted that China manufactured the COVID-19 virus.

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Biden’s Gun Control Isn’t Intended to Fight Crime, It’s Intended to Criminalize Gun Owners.

The Biden administration is not trying to address an issue or fix a symptom. It is targeting a phantasm. The president has yet to address fully how to combat the larger issue of illegally acquired firearms used to commit offenses.

Based on the 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, the Justice Department reported in 2019 that “among prisoners who possessed a gun during their offense, 90% did not obtain it from a retail source.” Read that again. Among those individuals arrested, convicted, and sentenced, 90% of the firearms used in gun-related crimes did not come from legal sources, which include gun shows.

Astoundingly, only 0.8% of prisoners who had a firearm during their offense legally “obtained it at a gun show.” So, less than 1% of all firearms used in gun-related offenses came from gun shows. This is fascinating, seeing that the current administration and congressional majority would have us believe the “gun show loophole” is one area where the plague of gun violence is spawning from and it is just “common sense” to address it. But yet again, the facts show this is an illusion.

What is not an illusion is this: If the Biden administration successfully shoves firearm regulation through Congress or enables it through executive action, Biden will be solely responsible for criminalizing the estimated 72 million people who legally own firearms, as if our prison and legal system weren’t overburdened enough. So much for common sense.

NSSF: ‘Charleston Loophole’ Gun Control Could Come Next Week

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) warns that gun control targeting the so-called “Charleston Loophole” could be before Congress for a vote as early as next week.

The NSSF told Breitbart News the bill, the Enhanced Background Check Act of 2021, is sponsored by House Whip Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) and “could be on the floor as early as next week, bypassing House Judiciary altogether.”

Bill Would Allow The Government To Shut Down Gun Sales Nationwide At Any Time

This Bill Would Permit The FBI To Shutdown Gun Sales Anytime They Wish

To understand how this would be possible you first have to understand the current system.  When you go to buy a firearm, the law requires a background check.  The check normally takes about 30 minutes, often less.  In a tiny number of cases, more time is required.  The law currently gives the FBI three days to get it done.  If they cannot clear the buyer in three days, they can deny the sale.  The buyer then can appeal.  Most appeals are indeed successful.  However, if the FBI doesn’t give any answer in three days, the gun dealer MAY release the firearm to the buyer.  Sadly, there have been cases where the FBI has screwed up, not given an answer, the dealer released the firearm, and the person was indeed prohibited.  In one horrible case, the FBI screwed up and there was a mass shooting in a church.  This has been called the “Charleston Loophole” by gun control groups.

Why Is There A Three Day Limit?

When the current background check bill was drafted, the NRA insisted on a time limit because without one, the president could simply order the FBI to stop processing background checks.  Without a yes or no decision, the buyers could not appeal.  Gun rights groups surely would appeal to the courts, but meanwhile gun sales would stop nationwide.  To eliminate this abuse of the background check system, both sides agreed on a three day limit.

What This Bill Would Do

This bill extends the time the FBI has to complete the background check and issue a decision to “at least 10 business days”.  This sounds reasonable – and if it was indeed a simple expansion of the time allowed to 10 days this would be something we could have a reasonable discussion about.  The problem is that the bill says “at least 10 days” not “no more than 10 days”.  In fact, the FBI could simply take the position that they have an unlimited amount of time to complete the background checks.  This would likely result in both long delays for the average person and the ability to simply stop processing checks – stopping all gun sales nationwide.

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demoncrap for brains and stupid besides

Majority of House Democrats vote in favor of lowering voting age to 16

Progressive Democrats in the House of Representatives unsuccessfully pushed an amendment lowering the federal voting age to 16 as part of the H.R. 1 voting rights package on Wednesday.

The vote was 125-302 in the House with the majority of Democrats voting in favor, 125-93, according to C-SPAN.

“A sixteen-year-old in 2021 possesses a wisdom and a maturity that comes from 2021 challenges, 2021 hardships, and 2021 threats,” Rep. Ayanna Pressley, one of the members of Congress behind the amendment, said in a statement on Monday. “Now is the time for us to demonstrate the courage that matches the challenges of the modern-day sixteen- and seventeen-year-old.”

Pressley, Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., and Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., reintroduced the amendment on Monday.

Pressley said in February she was “shocked” that lowering the legal voting age to 16 is a “polarizing” subject of debate.

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“Show me the man (business) and I’ll find you the crime” is a quote from a Russian communist, and is not how the justice system is supposed to operate in the U.S.

Anti-Gun Activists Salivating Over NJ’s Investigation Of Smith & Wesson

We’ve previously discussed the fishing expedition currently underway by New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal against American gunmaker Smith & Wesson, in which the AG is trying to get his hands on decades’ worth of internal marketing documents. Grewal hasn’t officially accused the company of any wrongdoing; rather, he wants to peruse those documents in the hopes of finding something that he can portray as a violation of the state’s laws against fraudulent advertising.

It’s a gross abuse of power, so of course gun control advocates love the idea. The New York Times’ Aaron Ross Sorkin has even penned a love letter of sorts to Grewal, expressing his full support for the witch hunt.

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BLUF:
Blumenthal commented on the legislation, saying, “The American people are responding to a political movement that has resulted from Parkland, Sandy Hook, Las Vegas — the shorthand of tragedies that have caused this political movement to be a force that has met this moment of reckoning.”

Ironically, universal background checks would not have stopped any of the three mass shootings mentioned by Blumenthal. That is because in two of them–Parkland and Las Vegas–the attackers passed background checks for guns. In the third, Sandy Hook, the attacker stole his gun, so no amount of point-of-sale background checks would have mattered.

OK, so Blumenthal merely reconfirms he’s a stupid liar.
Nothing unusual for a demoncrap.

Democrat Chris Murphy Introduces Universal Background Check Bill

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) introduced universal background check legislation to expand retail point-of-sale background checks to private sales as well.

On February 14, 2021, Biden urged legislators to put forward universal background check legislation and on February 18, 2021, Breitbart News noted Murphy was expected to do it.

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AKA the “Beat-O Robert O’Rourke Needs A Job” Act.

House Demoncraps Push Biden to Create ‘National Gun Violence’ Director

Several House Democrats on Friday called on President Joe Biden to appoint a “national gun violence” director, coming after the White House pushed Congress to try and pass more gun-control measures including one that would limit liability shields for gun manufacturers.

“Currently, federal efforts to combat gun violence, including research on the impacts and causes of gun violence and law enforcement efforts to combat it, are siloed across agencies,” a letter from Reps. Joe Neguse (D-Calo.) and Lucy McBath (D-Texas) read (pdf). “Appointing a National Director of Gun Violence to promote coordination of federal agencies will ensure these agencies are working collaboratively, including via the dissemination of critical data and coordination of shared goals, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, and Tobacco, Department of Justice, Health and Human Services, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

The director role, they said, should reduce firearms deaths and injuries by at least 50 percent for the next ten years.

However, the appetite for gun control among the American public might be diminishing. In the past year, gun sales exploded as about 8.5 million people purchased firearms for the first time, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation. The FBI also said it processed nearly 40 million gun background checks.

Jurgen Braue, the chief economist at Small Arms Analytics and Forecasting, told Business Insider that “wave upon wave of uncertainty and concern [are] driving firearm demand” in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and riots last year.

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Joe Biden Is Our Worst Nightmare

DINESH D’SOUZA—
Joe Biden just gave a talk, perhaps his most detailed and, one might have to say coherent, presentation of how his foreign policy is likely to go over the next four years. This was at the Munich virtual security conference, and I read the talk carefully because Biden focuses on the issue of democracy. Biden basically says that the United States is going to stand for democratic values around the world and stand against the autocracies that are anti-democratic.

Now, right away, the question becomes, are you really going to stand against the largest autocracy in the world, the one that governs over a billion people? That is far more tyrannical than any other we can think of in the world today, namely China? And to this, Biden gives a few “eh hems”… “Well, I’ve gotten a lot of money from those guys over the last several years, guys. Don’t expect me to be too hard on them.” So right away, the sincerity of this project is somewhat called into question. Biden has made very favorable noises toward China, which raised the question of whether even this rhetoric of democracy is going to be honestly applied.

Now, I think Biden intends to apply it in all kinds of places, but the places he wants to apply it to, he’s not likely to be successful, for the simple reason that the United States has very little of any leverage in those places. For example, there was recently a coup in Myanmar, an attempt to overthrow the government, anti-democratic actions and movements in that country. But let’s think about it, what is the United States’ security interest in Myanmar? Zero.

What is our trade leverage over Myanmar? Pretty much zero.

So, what is the point of Biden jumping up and down on his podium and going, “There needs to be democracy in Myanmar! There must be democracy in Myanmar!” Well, the people in Myanmar don’t care. Why? Because what is Biden have to do with them? Biden’s not going to invade Myanmar, even if some neoconservatives’ eyes are lighting up, “Oh, another war! What a great idea!”

When you don’t have leverage over a country, your rhetoric doesn’t really matter. Now, the Biden administration is playing footsie with a very autocratic regime right now, and that’s Iran. And very interestingly, there have been some news reports in the last couple of weeks that key people who are now in the Biden administration, including John Kerry, have maintained an ongoing relationship with Iran. Kerry, for example, has had repeated contacts and meetings with the Iranian foreign minister, this guy named Javad Zarif.

Now, why? Very interestingly, this is motivated not even directly with anything to do with Iran. It’s motivated by the idea of let’s work with our enemies, Iran, to undermine Trump. And what that means is that from John Kerry’s point of view, and the point of view of some of these Biden people, there is a near enemy, Trump, and there’s a far enemy, Iran. But the far enemy is far away and a distant threat, so let’s not worry about it right now. In fact, let’s work with the far enemy to politically undermine the near enemy at home. This is a real departure in American foreign policy.

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Kamalamania: prepare for President Harris
Ask where Harris stands and the footwork begins

kamalamania

Kamala Harris was always going to be a most prominent Vice President. When Joe Biden’s campaign called a midmorning ‘lid’ — ending his working day before it really began — Harris would stay out on the trail, addressing car rallies in Pontiac, Michigan; going viral on social media by dancing in the Florida rain. She is significantly younger and more energetic — traits the Biden campaign capitalized on in the campaign. Her fanbase considers her to be a political celebrity: when she’s getting bad press, they rally the #KHive on social media — an online community ready and willing to defend the VP — a spin-off of the #BeyHive hashtag used by Beyoncé’s loyal fans worldwide.

The media is overwhelmed by Kamalamania. To them, she is a sensation: so much so the Los Angeles Times has created a new section, ‘Covering Kamala Harris’ — not a report on her moves in the White House, but a retrospective beat ‘dedicated to her historic rise.’ Three days before the inauguration, CBS News used their interview with Harris and Second Husband Doug Emhoff to ask tough questions about her ‘several closets full’ of ‘Chucks’, her Converse basketball shoes.

Meanwhile, the New York Times dedicates its resources to a hard-hitting interview with her stepchildren. We learn that Harris and Emhoff are ‘vomit-inducingly cute and coupley’. Harris has also snagged a coveted Vogue cover, though the photograph became the subject of controversy: some people thought the lighting of the image amounted to ‘whitewashing’. Harris’s team was reportedly distressed by the editor’s pick of a casual photo, so Vogue will be releasing another, more formal one.

It’s important that the press is doing its job. Not only is Harris the first woman (and woman of color) to fill the VP’s office: she also wields immense power. After the Democrats’ double win in Georgia’s January runoff elections, Republican and Democratic representation in the Senate is split right down the middle. If the Senate votes along partisan lines, Harris’s vote will make or break legislation for at least the next two years.

Harris is more than a spare spokesperson for the administration. She’s active in policy formation and delivery. The party’s keyholders only whisper it, but no one is banking on a second Joe Biden term — not even Biden himself. It’s hardly a secret that Harris has presidential ambitions. The question is, what is her vision for the country — and will Americans endorse it?

Ask where Harris stands on an issue and the footwork begins. You’ll have an array of answers to choose from. She opposes and supports fracking. She promotes single-payer healthcare but also advocates for private insurance. She goes tough and light on crime. She implied her new boss’s track record was soft on racism, though since selecting her as Vice President, these accusations have not resurfaced. Harris’s inconsistency cost her in the Democratic primaries: her short-lived candidacy polled in the single digits, despite her being the establishment’s preferred candidate.

Her campaign was as disappointing as it was bitter. As party operators sought to understand why their rising star had burned out so quickly, feuds between Harris’s sister and her campaign manager were aired in New York Times longreads. In truth, the Bernie Sanders lite option didn’t prove so popular with the Democratic base, especially when they had Bernie himself to vote for. But dropping out of the race before she was rejected was smart: Harris’s early departure turned the spotlight on Elizabeth Warren — who then got publicly rejected in the voting booths while Harris waited in the wings.

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