Category: Goobermint

It also shows that New Jersey police have undercover agents surveilling gun shows in bordering states, for how did they know to stop him unless they were doing just that?

NJ Arrest Shows How Easy “Ghost Gun” Kits Are To Transport

A lot of states are kind of losing their minds over “ghost guns.” The idea that American citizens can build their own firearms using kits to make it easier seems to be a bridge too far for some of our most vehemently anti-Second Amendment lawmakers.

As a result, some states have banned such kits. They’re convinced banning them will have some kind of appreciable impact on violent crime in these states.

Of course, a recent arrest in New Jersey shows just how easy it is to get around the law.

Police have seized more a dozen handgun kits they said were illegally driven from Pennsylvania into New Jersey, highlighting the spread of “ghost guns” across state lines amid a spike in shootings.…

Officials accused William R. Pillus of buying the 13 kits at a gun show in Allentown on Sept. 11.

The 23-year-old from Lincoln Park then allegedly drove across the river to a Home Depot in Totowa. He was stopped soon after, police said.

A search of both his vehicle and his home yielded the kits, a sizable amount of ammunition and an “AR-15 style semiautomatic rifle” without a serial number, officials said.

Pillus was indicted Monday and faces five gun charges, including second-degree unlawful possession of an assault firearm and third-degree purchasing firearm parts to manufacture untraceable firearms, according to authorities.

His 21-year-old girlfriend, Makenna Sweeney, of Boonton, was with him on the trip and faces a fourth-degree charge for possession of a large capacity ammunition magazine, officials said.

Wow. Without those 13 kits, violent crime in New Jersey will cease in no time flat.

Or, you know, not.

After all, those kits may well have been used to build guns for people who simply had no interest in using them for criminal activity. Sure, it’s illegal in the state to buy those kits, but at some point, you can push an otherwise law-abiding citizen too far. For some, they’ll assemble these guns and then do absolutely nothing with them, saving these “ghost guns” for a rainy day.

Or they could have all gone to criminals. We simply don’t know.

What we do know, though, is that thousands of those kits were sold legally in New Jersey and only a small number of them have turned up at crime scenes comparatively. In other words, no one bothers to look at percentages before opting to just completely and totally freak out.

Now, with them illegal, only those who opt to ignore the law are building them. That means the odds of these being used in crimes becomes higher simply because the kind of people to ignore the laws about the kits are also usually the type of people who will ignore other laws.

Yet Pillus is accused of just driving the “ghost gun” kits across state lines.

That’s really all it takes to violate these laws. It’s not particularly difficult to do. An individual can establish a P.O. Box in one state while living in another, then buy “ghost gun” kits and just come over the state line to pick them up when they’re delivered. Others can make contact with friends living in other states, get them to buy the kits, then mail them to them.

There are so many ways to circumvent the laws in places like New Jersey that it’s not even funny.

In fact, it’s so easy that such laws are less than useless. States like New Jersey would be better served by trying to circumvent people becoming criminals rather than passing new and more pathetic forms of gun control. That might actually reduce their violent crime rates in the long run.

A Sea Change on Public Approval of Vaccine Mandates Is Occurring

Earlier today, RedState reported on the firing of a nurse for refusing to bend to COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Despite data that shows the vaccinated spread the virus at the same rate, first responders are being fired or laid off around the country in an ill-informed attempt to “protect” the vaccinated from the unvaccinated. That’s been the line from the federal government as well.

For most of this battle, those who support vaccine mandates have been able to claim that the public is behind them. But that appears to not be true anymore. A new poll from NBC News shows that a majority are now opposed to vaccine mandates.

You can bet that the reports of nurses, firefighters, and police officers being sent home are fueling this. These are workers that have been exposed to COVID-19 from the beginning, with many of them having highly effective natural immunity. Now, for no scientific reason whatsoever, they are being cast aside by the very people who lauded them as heroes early on in the pandemic. There’s something really gross about that, especially given the fact that they aren’t putting others at any more risk than a vaccinated person. You can bet that this shift in public opinion is directly connected to those stories being told.

There is simply no reason to punish the largely underpaid Americans who work long hours to help others with a mandate that makes no sense in the first place. How many people are going to die now due to staffing shortages in hospitals and on the streets of high-crime areas? There are reports of dozens of firehouses closing in New York City due to the mandates. And for what? To make some virtue-signaling politicians feel powerful? This entire thing is a disgrace.

Look, if someone wants to get the vaccine, I’m all for that. I’m not anti-vaccine. But it should be a personal choice. That’s even more true now given we have data showing that vaccine mandates do not protect others from contracting the virus. Not to mention those first responders have almost universal access to N95 masks. Do masks not work now? If they don’t, then what’s the point of mandates on that side of things?

Nothing makes sense because it’s not meant to make sense. This entire thing is about exerting tyrannical authority over people. That so many are standing up to say enough is heartening, and the fact that the public are now shifting in their favor is as well.

Portland’s ‘Gun Violence Task Force‘, previously the ‘Gang Enforcement Team’ is shut down….. gang crime “skyrockets”

‘Duh’

‘Where are we headed?’ Portland’s record-setting year for murder fuels search for answers

PORTLAND, Ore. – Pastor J.W. Matt Hennessee, a longtime local anti-gun violence advocate, never expected to lose his own child to the bullets he has tried to stop for almost four decades.

So when he got a call on May 13, letting him know that his stepson Jalon Yoakum, 33, was the latest victim in an onslaught of violent crime, Hennessee felt numb.

“This isn’t something where I’m new to the table,” said Hennessee, 62, who has battled gun violence in Portland for 40 years. “But I hadn’t worried about it, hadn’t thought about it, and when that call came …”

His voice trailed off.

“It’s not going away,” Hennessee said. “Jalon was victim No. 31 and there’s been (36) more from May to October. Where are we headed?”

Crime is up all over the country, and has been since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. But there is a a certain sad irony in Portland, long considered a safe, desirable place to live. Already, the city has tallied 67 homicides for 2021, breaking a 34-year-old record of 66. Last year, 55 homicides was a 26-year high in the city.

The numbers alone are troubling, but even more worrisome when compared with other similarly sized cities, where violent crime numbers are considerably less, including Seattle and Boston. In Portland, long considered a liberal stronghold in America, some community leaders and officers feel that police defunding efforts in summer 2020 may have backfired, at least somewhat. With fewer officers on the street, violence has escalated significantly.

City defunds shooting prevention team

Portland’s gun violence problems can be traced back, at least partially, to the killing of George Floyd in May 2020. Floyd’s murder, at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, sparked a nationwide racial reckoning as hundreds of thousands took to the streets.

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NEW NY ‘GHOST GUN’ LAW MAKES DIY FIREARMS A FELONY

What were described as the “nation’s toughest restrictions” on self-manufactured firearms were signed into law on Thursday by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Hochul, who inherited her post earlier this year after former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo resigned under a cloud of accusations, signed the “Jose Webster Untraceable Firearms Act” and the “Scott J. Beigel Unfinished Receiver Act” before an invited crowd of masked anti-gun advocates and Democrat lawmakers.

“Gun violence is a public health and public safety crisis that must be dealt with aggressively,” said Hochul, who previously served as Cuomo’s lieutenant governor since 2015 as his administration worked to implement the NY SAFE Act gun control provisions which were supposed to curb gun crime in the Empire State. “Working with partners at all levels, my administration will continue to crack down on the distribution and possession of dangerous weapons and put an end to the gun violence epidemic.”

The two bills addressing self-completed firearms, S.13A/A.2666A and S.7152/A.6522, in tandem outlaw the possession of unfinished frames or receivers by anyone other than a licensed gunsmith or firearms dealer and prohibit the sale of such items. Further, the new laws require gunsmiths and FFLs to register such incomplete guns in their possession. Violations run from Class D to Class E felonies, the latter of which can bring five years in prison and is on the same level as some manslaughter convictions.

 

LEGALLY SUSPECT?

New York’s tough new mandates on homemade guns is likely to be challenged in the courts before it is ever enforced. The Firearms Policy Coalition this week filed a federal constitutional challenge to Delaware’s new ban on self-built firearms, precursor parts, and “3D” files along with two plaintiffs. The suit names Delaware Governor John Carney and Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings as defendants.

“The basic right of individuals to self-manufacture arms for self-defense, along with the possession of the parts and information necessary to exercise that right, is protected by the Constitution, period. Delaware’s new laws make exercising these rights a crime, which is unconstitutional and something we cannot allow to go unchallenged,” said Adam Kraut, FPC’s Senior Director of Legal Operations, in an email to Guns.com. “FPC believes that protecting the right to self-manufacture firearms and share information about how to do that is necessary to the preservation of individual liberty. We will continue to aggressively work to protect these rights in this and other cases throughout the United States.”

Import thousands of unvetted ‘refugees’ and you don’t expect to get some rotten apples in the barrel?

ISIS Threat in Northern Virginia: Afghan Refugees?

Police chief Kevin Davis of Fairfax County, Virginia announced Friday that “we have increased our police presence throughout the county to include major thoroughfares, transit hubs, shopping plazas, and shopping malls.” This was reportedly in response to a terrorism threat; police sources said that their increased presence would last through Halloween weekend and possibly through election day on Tuesday.

The odd aspect of this announcement, coming as it does from deep-blue and electorally vulnerable Virginia authorities, is that the threat doesn’t come from those “white supremacists” we keep hearing so much about but who only ever seem to appear as deep fakes by the Left. Instead, it comes from that so-very-2015 threat that we all know is over and done with since the adults are back in charge: the Islamic State (ISIS).

ISIS, said CBS News, “has been more active since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August. Officials say threats from the international terrorist group and al Qaeda are accelerating.” And according to the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence chief, John Cohen, “Right now we’re seeing a dramatic increase — or an increase — in online activity by media operations associated with different al Qaeda elements and Islamic State.”

Meanwhile, Jack Posobiec of Human Events tweeted late Friday evening: “Two US officials tell @HumanEvents that the ISIS threat alert in Northern VA / DC region is related to Afghan refugees.” He added that some Secret Service agents “are concerned DC-area ISIS threat may be related to a report of 3 Afghan refugees who forced their way off a bus earlier this month.”

There is nothing incredible about this. Defense One reported in late August that “security screeners at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar have detected that at least one of the Afghans who was evacuated from Kabul Airport has potential ties to ISIS, a U.S. official confirmed to Defense One.” How likely is it that he was the only one?

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12,000 Air Force Personnel, Including Elite Pilots, Have Rejected Vax Order as Tuesday Deadline Looms

The deadline is looming for US Air Force personnel to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and many thousands are still refusing, according to the latest reports. For many at this point, it’s also too late to receive both jabs by the next Tuesday, Nov. 2 deadline. Other branches like the Navy have deadlines coming later in November, but the Air Force will be the first test case as it set the earliest deadline.

The Washington Post is now at the end of the week reporting that up to 12,000 Air Force personnel are still declining the vaccine, causing alarm within the top chain of command who are worried it will impact force readiness, particularly as some forces in key positions face discharge over their vax refusal. “The fact that it’s a choice leading to potential loss to readiness is striking,” a military policy analyst with the Center for a New American Security Katherine L. Kuzminski, told the Post.

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Can you say “Boondoggle“?
I knew you could.

5 years of Gun Violence Intervention data shows inconclusive results

BALTIMORE (WBFF) — Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott announced $50 million of the city’s $641 million allocation of American Rescue Plan money will be spent in the next three years for victim services and community based violence intervention programs. Scott and his team often tout the success of these programs in driving down crime, but the data paints a more inconclusive picture.

One community violence prevention program in Baltimore has been operational for more than a decade. Safe Streets, modeled after a similar program in Chicago, was launched in Baltimore in 2007. Since then, ten locations have opened in some of the most violent neighborhoods in the city.

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It’s not the senile moron in the White House. It’s the puppetmasters who are pulling his strings.

Bidenomics’ Build Back Better Blunder

Swedish socialist economist Assar Lindbeck is semi-famous for saying that “in many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city – except for bombing.”

It’s becoming clearer that one of the most efficient ways to destroy the U.S. economy, outside of bombing the country, is to put Joe Biden in the White House.

Economic growth in the third quarter was a meager 2%, the Commerce Department reported Thursday, the most feeble increase of the pandemic recovery. Some economists had forecast a gain closer to 3%, leaving many disappointed. As the Asia Times accurately summed it up, the U.S. “economy ground to a halt.”

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Quote O’ The Day
Pretty generous of Linda to not abort Leo so that he, too, can grow up to someday depend on the government for everything.

You notice that a FATHER FIGURE isn’t included anywhere?

The WH’s Life of Linda offers a peek at the sweet life under #BuildBackBetter, where government is the only daddy you’ll ever need

click on the pic for a larger image

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Biden Wants to Give Illegals $450K

WASHINGTON—The Biden administration is in talks to offer immigrant families that were separated during the Trump administration around $450,000 a person in compensation, according to people familiar with the matter, as several agencies work to resolve lawsuits filed on behalf of parents and children who say the government subjected them to lasting psychological trauma.
The U.S. Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services are considering payments that could amount to close to $1 million a family, though the final numbers could shift, the people familiar with the matter said. Most of the families that crossed the border illegally from Mexico to seek asylum in the U.S. included one parent and one child, the people said. Many families would likely get smaller payouts, depending on their circumstances, the people said.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents families in one of the lawsuits, has identified about 5,500 children separated at the border over the course of the Trump administration, citing figures provided to it by the government. The number of families eligible under the potential settlement is expected to be smaller, the people said, as government officials aren’t sure how many will come forward. Around 940 claims have so far been filed by the families, the people said.
The total potential payout could be $1 billion or more.

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Joe Biden to Fly Away on European Tour as Domestic Troubles Build

President Joe Biden flies off Thursday to attend global summits in two European cities. After he climbs the steps of Air Force One he will stop, turn and wave goodbye to a Democratic party scrambling to deliver a roughly $2 trillion spending package and a nation troubled by a host of domestic issues.

First stop is Rome for a G-20 summit and then its on to Glasgow, Scotland, for the COP26 U.N. Climate Change Conference, personal commitments by a president for whom a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border is just one journey too many.

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So, it’s a scam like any other demoncrap ‘program’?

Gun violence program costs millions and has created 20 jobs so far
The Consortium for Worker Education was to receive $18.5 million from the state to oversee the program

ALBANY — In mid-July, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced the Consortium for Worker Education, a nonprofit group of 46 labor unions, would receive $18.5 million from the state to create 2,400 long-term jobs for young adults in communities distressed by gun violence.

“We are going to hire young people, train them, and give them jobs that set them up for long-term success in their careers,” Cuomo said on July 14 in Brooklyn, at an event where he was flanked by New York City Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams. “These young people have entire futures ahead of them and we are going to show them there is no limit to what they can be.”

But the program has so far created about 20 jobs.

According to the state Department of Labor, CWE, which tax filings indicate has a $24 million annual budget, received $12 million to execute the program that runs through September, in addition to $6.5 million for stipend payments.

Labor Department data released to the Times Union indicates CWE has received 225 applications, plus 18 referrals. The applicants are being evaluated for skills, training needs and supportive services, the state said. An additional dozen people have started or completed short-term training.

“If you want to prevent a child from picking up a gun, give them a hammer, a spatula, a stethoscope,” Adams, the Brooklyn Borough president, said in July.

Adams was joined by Brooklyn state lawmakers, who were lambasted by some for standing alongside the reeling Cuomo at a time when he was facing an intensifying state attorney general’s investigation and looking for support. Two of Cuomo’s staunchest allies throughout his time in office were from labor unions and Black communities, where gun violence has disproportionately affected residents.

“I thank the governor for hearing our call on making these critically needed investments, and I look forward to working with (the Department of Labor) and our community stakeholders to make these investments count,” Adams said.

While Gov. Kathy Hochul and Democratic leadership continue to think about the best ways to address increasing gun violence, they are continuing to sort through the prior administration’s gun violence state of emergency — which suspended review of contracts by the state comptroller’s office and circumvented the normal competitive bidding process on contracts.

Hochul extended the state of emergency over the weekend through Nov. 22. There was $159 million earmarked to address the immediate threat of gun violence, with $125 million awarded to government agencies and community groups so far by the state, with about $47 million spent, according to the governor’s office.

“Combating gun violence requires an all-hands-on-deck, collaborative approach, and Gov. Hochul will continue to work with partners at all levels on initiatives to end the gun violence epidemic, including job training, community engagement and more intervention programs,” spokeswoman Hazel Crampton-Hays said in a statement to the Times Union.

Five bills passed by both houses remain available to be delivered to and signed by Hochul, some of which accomplish very similar tasks to Cuomo’s gun violence emergency order. The administration said it plans to review the bills in the coming days.

The sweeping program was heralded by national media pundits and touted by Cuomo as a way to tackle the urgent threat of gun violence, which he had said was “normally not a state role.”

“This is not what we do as a state government,” Cuomo said. “But these are not normal times.”

The lone contract Cuomo’s administration outlined in its proposal to go directly to a nonprofit was to CWE, an organization that on its board features nearly every labor leader in New York City.

CWE pays its top-level staff a total of $1.2 million. Additional salaries and wages, according to its most recent filings with the federal government, come to $7.7 million. More than a third of its budget is spent on salaries and wages. The contract CWE received from the state is about roughly 75 percent of its typical annual operating revenue.

John McDermott, who is the organization’s director of special projects, said CWE remains “comfortable and confident” as the program, which is to run for 11 more months, develops.

“One of the challenges that we face is there usually is a significant ramp up time for an initiative this significant and this large,” McDermott said Monday. “So we’re really fortunate to have such fantastic partners all over the city, who not only have existing programs, but can hit the ground running.”

The program, he said, is to run like CWE’s “Jobs to Build On” initiative, which is funded through the New York City Council.

McDermott directed further comment to Beverly O’Donnell, the assistance executive director, who he said is running the program. Joseph McDermott, who is the executive director, was not available for comment.

A board member who spoke on condition of note being identified, said, “If Cuomo was trying to buy support, it was a bad purchase.”

By the governor’s final days in office in August, labor leaders had broken ties with him or called for his resignation.

Cuomo’s spokesman, Richard Azzopardi, deferred comment on the program to the Hochul administration.

“We’re Never Going to Learn About How Safe This Vaccine Is Unless We Start Giving It, That’s Just The Way It Goes”…

Observation O’ The Day

You’ll find out later, if it kills your kid. Do you guys ever get the impression these people are the villains of every fairy tale ever?

 

FACEPALM: Los Angeles Will Fine Cargo Ships That Can’t Unload

Los Angeles ports will fine cargo ships waiting to unload their goods in an attempt to relieve congestion that is as desperate as it is gobsmackingly stupid.

It’s a fine so pointless and wrong that of course, Presidentish Joe Biden has chimed in with his support for it.

According to CNBC, the White House is “hopeful” that fines will “ease the intensifying logjam of cargo ships” waiting to unload at Long Beach and the Port of Los Angeles. Together, the two account for 40% of the country’s seaborne imports.

Carriers will have to pay “$100 per day for each container lingering past a given timeline” starting on the first of the month. Containers moved by truck will have nine days before they’ll start paying, and containers moved by rail will have just three days.

To show you just how wrong that is, allow me to use a down-home example.

My sons, ages 15 and 11, like to play a familiar game. The older, bigger one will hold the younger, shorter one at arm’s length by his forehead. The shorter one will then try to hit the taller one — to no avail because his shorter arms just can’t get there.

Now imagine that the older boy fined the younger one $100 for each missed punch, because that’s pretty much what Los Angeles ports are doing to carriers.

Carriers can’t unload their containers for a whole host of reasons.

One reason is that the LA ports still haven’t managed to get their operations up to 24/7, even though everybody saw the problem coming from a mile away. Another is that California’s emissions standards prevent older (but still cleaner-running) semis from operating in the state just when they need every truck they can get on the road. California’s AB-5 anti “gig” worker law makes it difficult for independent truckers to drive in California, even when their rigs meet the new emissions standards. Customs facilities are overwhelmed as are the local railheads.

Please, someone in Los Angeles, point out to me which one of these problems is the fault of the carriers? While it’s nice that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is opening his state’s ports for extra business, the Panama Canal can only accommodate so much west-to-east traffic. Anyway, the extra travel time — particularly if Panama isn’t an option — would only add to the country’s growing consumer goods delays and shortages.

I’m not a Big Government guy, but there are critical times when Big Government can pitch in. Incentives for extra longshoremen, expanded temporary customs facilities, lifting self-defeating laws and regulations (like AB-5 and truck emissions standards) at least temporarily.

Instead, Los Angeles ports are slapping fines on the carriers who neither caused this nor have much choice other than to sit there until Big Government unsnarls this Gordian knot they’ve tied.

Let’s call this what it is: A cash-grab by Los Angeles enabled by Big Government’s inability to assuage a problem caused by Big Government.

BLUF:
The bottom line (not that anyone should expect to see it happen unless those in power have no choice and those promoting it have a credible “or else” attached to their demands) is that the Founders’ prescription for “the security of a free State” will never be actualized until the Constitutional provisions they devised have been implemented – and that all hinges on no infringements on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Take that out and the whole house of cards collapses.

U.S. Training ‘Well Regulated Militias’ – for Foreigners

“As the Global War on Terror draws down in scope and scale, and as senior Pentagon leaders and White House officials turn their attention towards the next potential conflict — ARSOF [Army Special Operations Forces] is shifting its priorities,” Army Times reports. “Their new mission: Create resistance networks that make invasions by Russia or China too costly for those powers to even attempt.”

“Nations supported under the ROC [Resistance Operating Concept] are encouraged to establish the legal and organizational framework for a resistance and bring it under the official control of their armed forces,” the article explains. “One such example is the Estonian Defence League, a volunteer paramilitary organization whose 16,000 members are organized under Tallinn’s defense ministry and receive training from U.S. special operations.”

So, “a well regulated militia [is] necessary to the security of a free State?” Who knew?

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Old and busted: Let’s Go, Brandon!

New Hot: Let’s Go, Brezhnev!

‘Sympathetic‘? My foot she’s merely sympathetic. She’s got a degree from Moscow State University. She’s a full blown commie and IMO needs exactly what every other commie needs…….

Meet the Biden Nominee Who’s Sympathetic to Soviet-Era Socialism—and Wants the Fed to Pretty Much Take Over Private Banking.

Saule Omarova openly admits that her proposed reforms ‘will effectively end banking as we know it.’
Many of President Biden’s nominees have been quietly confirmed without much of a fight. But the president’s nominee for Comptroller of the Currency, Saule Omarova, is drawing backlash for her extreme economic views. Republican Senator Pat Toomey, a staunch fiscal conservative, said he has “[n]ever seen a more radical choice for any regulatory spot in our federal government.”

What’s prompting the unusual level of pushback on this nomination for a top regulatory position?

Well, Omarova has an unusual educational and ideological background that, in conjunction with her many public statements, suggests she is sympathetic to—if not outright supportive of—the state-run economic model that dominated the former Soviet Union where she grew up. Omarova attended Moscow State University on the “VI Lenin Personal Academic Scholarship,” authoring a thesis on Marxist thought that she has so far declined to provide to the Senate Banking Committee.
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WH Official Comment on ‘F Joe Biden’ and ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Chants Is as Bad as You Would Think

How do we know that the “F Joe Biden” and “Let’s go, Brandon” movement has had an impact?

When media like The Washington Post tries to argue it away and shoot holes in it, you know it’s having an effect. As we reported, WaPo argued that the chants were somehow especially more vulgar than prior political chants against opponents.

What absolute bunk, especially given all the incredibly nasty things that folks on the left and their willing acolytes in media called President Donald Trump during his years in office and how the reaction of most liberal media was to think that was just wonderful. As we noted, they even included an absolute lie about Donald Trump, Jr. in their article supposedly inciting the “Let’s go, Brandon” chant at a rally on September 22, when it didn’t actually come into effect until after Oct. 2 and the NASCAR event.

But you know they’re in next level panic when you even have the White House spinning and claiming they haven’t heard about the “F**k Joe Biden” or “Let’s go, Brandon” chants.

From Daily Wire:

“Administration officials sought to downplay the phenomenon, and at least one claimed to be unfamiliar with the ‘Let’s go Brandon’ chant or its cruder cousin, though they are now chanted everywhere from football stadiums to concert arenas to local bars,” The Washington Post reported Saturday.

White House spokesman Andrew Bates claimed, “I had never heard of that chant until you explained it to me.”

Mocking the anti-Biden sentiment as fringe, Bates added, “I guess I’m not spending enough time on 8chan or whatever.”

Isn’t that sweet? Trying to downplay it as from 8Chan. Once again, there’s that dismissing of Americans, from the folks working for such a “unifier.” Who has Biden actually unified? Except people in unity against him?

Bottom line is they don’t want to acknowledge how viral the movement is because then they’d have to acknowledge how unpopular Mr. Unifier truly is.

Even as the White House denies knowing about it, Biden himself acknowledged seeing the “F**k Joe Biden” signs twice already. Both sayings have been chanted at every Biden stop by protesters over the past month, “F**k Joe Biden” in September, as well. The first time Biden acknowledged it was on 9/11 at the Shanksville, PA memorial to Flight 93. Biden inappropriately invoked the dead heroes, saying what would they think about people holding signs that he saw saying “F someone.” Biden also acknowledged it during a stop in Michigan where he tried to argue the signs didn’t mean anything because he got “81 million votes.” Not only does that show he is aware of it, it shows he’s insecure about it enough to feel he has to argue it away and justify himself. Biden also appeared to some to be trying to flip the meme when he did a clip with a man named Brandon pushing for the passage of his Build Back Better bill.

So it’s just a straight-up lie that they don’t know about it. But let’s go with that a second. If they’re saying they don’t know about it, they’re acknowledging they don’t pay attention to what Americans have been chanting at them for more than a month. Perhaps that’s why they are so off the mark in understanding what Americans think. Because they really don’t care.

However, Donald Trump, Jr. had a solution to their stunning claim of ignorance. “If they’re not familiar, let’s keep it going until they are,” he shot back on Instagram.

That the lab-leak theory was true only made it more important to censor the story.

The Mad Scientist in History.

One of my favorite characters from science fiction is Dr. Arthur Carrington from the 1951 movie The Thing from Another World. Carrington was the archetype of a scientist so narrowly intelligent that he was, in the broader sense, an idiot. The character was probably modeled after the nuclear scientists of the early Atomic Age who in their compulsive inquiries brought the post-WW2 world to the brink of Armageddon…………

If all of this sounds familiar it’s because it resembles the script that ought to be written for what should be a forthcoming movie: The Thing from the NIH. Vanity Fair reports that the NIH now admits it was funding gain-of-function research at Wuhan. While no one is claiming the research led to the Covid-19 monster virus, they were in fact trying to create a monster virus.

Experts demand our silence while they experiment on us.

It’s important to remember that when EcoHealth Alliance bullied its experts (nearly all of whom had major conflicts of interest) into writing a letter to the most esteemed medical journal about how the ‘conspiracy theory’ of the lab leak was a scientific impossibility, it functioned as more than just a message to the scientific community. The fake consensus that the letter presented was the basis on which Facebook, the most important communications and media platform in the world, decided to remove posts discussing the lab-leak theory and ban users who flouted that rule repeatedly.

As an aside, do you think Facebook would ever ban or censor people telling your daughter that she might really be a boy or have a boy’s brain? Sounds like scientific disinformation to me.

No, of course not. If anything, they’ll start banning the “deniers,” the people saying that Dave Chappelle is right. Maybe someday Facebook will apply for an NIH grant to de-bark the rest of us.

Observation O’ The Day

Our “elites” decided that a senescent near-octogenarian — who was constantly wrong and/or lying even when he was in full possession of his faculties — was just what the country needed, so here we are.

Joe Biden’s Taiwan Policy Is Now A Total Disaster.

“He is just too old and likes to bluff, doesn’t know what he is talking about,” tweeted China Daily’s Chen Weihua on Friday, referring to President Joe Biden.

On Thursday, Biden told CNN’s Anderson Cooper he would defend Taiwan. “Yes, we have a commitment to do that,” the President said, responding to a question about what the U.S. would do if China attacked the island republic.

Chen’s dismissive comment confirms that America’s deterrence of China is eroding fast.

“Biden has been anything but clear,” ABC News wrote about the President’s intentions toward Taiwan. On the contrary, he has been crystal clear, on a number of occasions.

Biden’s comment to Cooper was not a one-off. In August, he told ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos that the U.S. would defend NATO partners, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

If there is anything unclear, it is the situation after the clarifications from Biden administration officials: Press Secretary Jen Psaki, State Department spokesperson Ned Price, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. All of them walked back Biden’s statement to CNN.

“Well, there has been no shift,” Psaki told reporters on Friday. “The President was not announcing any change in our policy nor has he made a decision to change our policy. There is no change in our policy.”

In fact, there was a change. Biden’s definitive statement was a stark departure from America’s decades-old policy of “strategic ambiguity,” the policy of telling neither Beijing nor Taipei what the U.S. would do in the case of imminent conflict.

There are now two causes for concern.

First, Biden, as Commander-in-Chief, makes foreign policy. The Constitution does not give that power to Psaki, Price, or Austin. Beijing may wonder—as should Americans and others—if Biden is still in charge.

Second, the instant clarifications undermine deterrence. Biden’s statement was clear and unambiguous, a warning to Beijing. The clarifications, on the other hand, tell China the United States is not committing itself to defend Taiwan.

The walk-back statements could lead Beijing to believe there are disagreements inside the Biden administration and in a crisis, some officials would try to override the President to block an American defense of Taiwan.

In short, Chen Weihua’s insulting comments look close to the mark.

Deterrence has just had a bad day. And so has the U.S. Constitution.