Category: Bureaucraps

Fifth Circuit Upholds District Court Decision Against ATF Partial Frame Rule

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a district court decision against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ (ATF) “partially complete” pistol frame rule.

Breitbart News reported that the ATF used its pistol frame rule to redefine “partially complete pistol frames” as “firearms.” This allowed the ATF to require background checks for certain gun parts kits by claiming said parts could be used to build guns.

On July 2, 2023, Breitbart News reported that Judge Reed O’Connor in the United States District Court Northern District of Texas Fort Worth Division decided against the ATF’s rule in a suit brought by Jennifer VanDerStok, the Firearms Policy Coalition, the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), and others.

O’Connor stressed that the redefinition of gun parts is actually up to Congress rather than a federal agency. Moreover, O’Connor noted, “Because Congress did not define ‘frame or receiver,’ the words receive their ordinary meaning.”

He also pointed out that “weapons parts are not weapons.” He then vacated the ATF final rule.

The federal government appealed the ruling, and on July 24, 2023, the Fifth Circuit upheld the decision to vacate. The appeal was heard by Ronald Reagan-appointee Jerry Edwin Smith, George W. Bush-appointee Leslie H. Southwick, and Donald Trump-appointee Cory T. Wilson.

According to the Fifth Circuit:

Because the ATF has not demonstrated a strong likelihood of success on the merits, nor irreparable harm in the absence of a stay, we DENY the government’s request to stay the vacatur of the two challenged portions of the Rule. ‘[V]acatur …reestablish[es] the status quo ante’…which is the world before the Rule became effective. This effectively maintains, pending appeal, the status quo that existed for 54 years from 1968 to 2022.

The lawsuit is VanDerStok v. Garland, No. 23-10718, in the United State Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Biden investigation: Grassley releases FBI document accusing Joe and Hunter Biden of bribery scheme.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) on Thursday released the now-infamous FBI form that contains a witness’s account of President Joe Biden allegedly partaking in a bribery scheme when he was vice president.

Grassley published in full the lightly redacted FD-1023 form, which several congressional Republicans have already seen but that the public did not have access to until Thursday.

The Iowa Republican accused the FBI in an accompanying statement of seeking to “obfuscate and redact” the form before the bureau ultimately cooperated with congressional Republicans to show it to them.

“The American people can now read this document for themselves, without the filter of politicians or bureaucrats, thanks to brave and heroic whistleblowers,” Grassley, who acquired the document via legally protected disclosures by Justice Department whistleblowers, said.

Read a copy of the form below.

The FBI uses FD-1023 forms to record “raw, unverified” information from confidential human sources.

Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) announced the existence of the form in question in May and subpoenaed the FBI for a copy of it. The FBI at first resisted cooperating with the committee, expressing concern about the “sensitive” nature of the document.

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Not the only judge to get Bruen wrong. They hate it.

Wyoming Judge Dismisses Wapiti Man’s Lawsuit To Make His Own Machine Gun

Wyoming’s chief federal judge has dismissed a Wapiti man’s lawsuit against the U.S. Attorney General challenging whether people have a Second Amendment right to make machine guns.

Jake DeWilde sued both U.S. Attorney Merrick Garland and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in January.

DeWilde alleged that the ATF’s decision to deny his permit request to make his own M16 machine gun is unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.

The M16, DeWilde argued, is in common military use and therefore may be manufactured by citizens to possess to uphold their militia right.

‘Tanks, Bombs, Nuclear Weapons?’ 

Wyoming Chief U.S. District Court Judge Scott Skavdahl said he couldn’t permit DeWilde’s argument because it’s contrary to U.S. Supreme Court rulings.

“Plaintiff’s argument logically would demand that the entire law-abiding citizenry is permitted to possess the same weapons our armed forces utilize,” wrote Skavdahl in a Monday order dismissing DeWilde’s lawsuit from the federal court. “Where is the limit? Tanks, bombs, nuclear weapons?

“This is beyond outlandish, yet it is the logical result of Plaintiff’s argument that provides no limit. The Court declines to permit such an astonishing result.”

Courts throughout U.S. history have held that weapons normally in use by law-abiding citizens are allowed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but “dangerous and unusual” weapons are not allowed without limit.

The M16 manufacture isn’t necessarily allowed by the Second Amendment, wrote Skavdahl.

DeWilde had based much of his argument on the 2022 Supreme Court case New York State Rifle and Pistol Association vs. Bruen.

In it, the high court said governments can’t outlaw weapons that are in the “common use.” DeWilde argued that the M16 is in “common use” by the military, so potential militia people or citizens should be allowed to make them.

But Bruen didn’t disturb key Second Amendment cases before it, the judge wrote, which allowed for some restrictions on the kinds of weapons people may possess.

“The Second Amendment is not a second-class right, but it also is not without limits,” wrote Skavdahl.

No Standing 

Skavdahl also dismissed DeWilde’s suit for another reason: It was DeWilde’s trust that applied for and did not win the permit to build an M16, but DeWilde sued the federal government as an individual.

Originally, DeWilde included his trust in the lawsuit, but re-filed without the trust after the federal government noted that DeWilde could not represent the trust since he’s not an attorney — though he can represent himself pro se.

With the ATF’s denial of DeWilde’s trust’s machine gun application no longer a factor in the suit, Skavdahl concluded that the remaining claim – that DeWilde wanted a machine gun and believes he has a right to make one – was not enough to give him standing in a federal case.

With Mfume, you don’t know whether he’s arrogantly stupid, or stupidly arrogant. In either case, he and his ilk are the reason some of the framers of the Constitution demanded a Bill of Rights that specifically included a protection of RKBA.

Democrat Kweisi Mfume Claims the Role of the FBI and IRS Are to ‘Keep Democracy in Check’

Wednesday, Maryland Representative Kweisi Mfume used his time at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability featuring IRS whistleblowers (WATCH LIVE: IRS Whistleblowers Testify Before House Oversight Committee Regarding Biden Criminal Investigation) testifying about the efforts of the Justice Department to stymie the criminal investigation of the Biden Crime family to provide a revealing insight into how the Democrats view our republican system of government; see IRS Whistleblower Joseph Ziegler Details DOJ Protection of the Bidens in CBS News Interview.

In a seamless segue from the subject of the hearing to complaining about Donald Trump, who, unlike Hunter, James, and Joe Biden, is in legal jeopardy for his real and imagined shenanigans, Mfume, who resigned his position as president of the NAACP due to sexual harassment, let loose with this broadside.

Here’s what galls me. I don’t like these attacks on the Department of Justice, the FBI, the IRS, as if they are somehow anti-US agencies. Those agencies keep this democracy in check and keep moving forward [he lapses into gibberish for a moment, so my transcript might be wrong about “forward’}. They provide the checks and they provide the balances.

 

Once you get past the point of being shocked and appalled that a member of the House of Representatives, the part of the federal government closest to the people, could claim that the DOJ, FBI, and IRS are part of our system of checks and balances and their role is to “keep this democracy in check;” you can actually be thankful to the guy.

On Tuesday, I posted on the confusion and disarray at the New York Times because of Trump’s public plan to bring the federal bureaucracy to heel; see Trump’s Plan to Destroy the Deep State Causes Panic at the New York Times. As my friend and RedState OG “Thomas Crown” noted on Twitter, “Our administrative state, at the federal level, is premised on two weirdly unconstitutional but broadly-accepted (and therefore sort of constitutional?) premises: That the Legislature can cede its power to the President’s branch, which he cannot and must not fully control.”

Granting any federal agency, much less those agencies who can take your possessions and kill you if you rile them up (just ask Vicki Weaver…oh, that’s right, you can’t ask her), status as our checks and balances looks, smells, and tastes very much like the Soviet Union referring to the KGB as the “sword and shield of the Communist Party.” Placing any federal agency, particularly those with the power to deprive you of life, liberty, and property, above criticism is something we sort of suspected the Democrats believed but never expected to hear them say out loud.

Almost like it’s a feature, not a bug

DHS admits that 40% of catch-and-release migrants disappeared.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to deliver immigration court summonses to more than 80% of illegal immigrants caught and released under the Biden administration’s “parole” program just before the end of the Title 42 pandemic border policy, according to statistics that the government submitted to a federal judge.

The migrants were released on “parole” and given 60 days to check in with ICE.

More than 40% of the migrants never checked in at all. Of the rest, ICE failed to issue a notice to appear — the immigration summons — in more than two-thirds of the cases.

That works out to a success rate of just 18% for the test population.

District Judge T. Kent Wetherell said the poor rate confirmed his earlier ruling that parole was an ineffective way to enforce immigration laws.

“These statistics are troubling to say the least,” the judge said in a new order Tuesday. “But even more troubling is the fact that DHS apparently does not have a plan in place to track down the aliens who are in violation of the conditions of their ‘parole’ — and, thus, unlawfully in the country.”

In the court filings, officials said some of the migrants may still check in late. Officials also explained ICE’s failure to issue summonses as the result of “limited agency resources.”

The officials said they aren’t sure whether they will try to punish the rule breakers, though they suggested some interest in the idea.

“DHS maintains its commitment that individuals have an obligation to comply with requirements imposed by DHS, and ICE is prepared to take such actions as may be required to ensure that individuals who were released pending the initiation of their immigration court proceedings comply with the terms of their release,” Sarah B. Fabian, a Justice Department lawyer, told the judge in Florida.

That could include arrests, detention or attempts to deport the migrants, said Daniel A. Bible, deputy executive associate director at ICE.

That, too, was little comfort to Judge Wetherell, who said he was “skeptical that DHS is serious” about tracking them down.

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Whistleblower X reveals identity as IRS special agent Joseph Ziegler

The anonymous IRS whistleblower alleging political misconduct throughout the Hunter Biden investigation has revealed his identity as Joseph Ziegler — a gay Democrat with more than a dozen years serving within the agency’s criminal investigative division.

Ziegler appeared for the first time publicly before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, alongside his IRS supervisor Gary Shapley, who also has blown the whistle on political influence surrounding prosecutorial decisions throughout the years-long federal probe into the president’s son.

He said he is a 13-year special agent within the IRS’ Criminal Investigation Division and described himself as a “gay Democrat married to a man.”

Ziegler is expected to testify that Hunter Biden “should have been charged with a tax felony, and not only the tax misdemeanor charge,” and that communications and text messages reviewed by investigators “may be a contradiction to what President Biden was saying about not being involved in Hunter’s oversea business dealings.”

He is expected to explain the “corrosion of ethical standards and the abuse of power that threaten our nation” that he has witnessed.

Ziegler is also expected to testify on several instances in which prosecutors “did not follow the ordinary process, slow-walked the investigation, and put in place unnecessary approvals and roadblocks from effectively and efficiently investigating the case,” including prosecutors blocking questioning and interviewing of Hunter Biden’s adult children.

Ziegler is also expected to ask Congress and the Biden administration to “consider a special counsel” for the Hunter Biden investigation and “all the related cases and spin-off investigations that have come forward from this investigation.”

He is expected to testify that Congress should consider “establishing an official channel for Federal investigators to pull the emergency cord and raise the issue of the appointment of a special counsel for consideration by your senior officials.”

Shapley, who has participated in multiple media interviews since the House Ways & Means Committee released his transcribed interview last month, is expected to testify that prosecutors “had decided to conceal some evidence from the investigators” that they found on Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Shapley is also expected to say that the Delaware’s U.S. Attorney’s Office “slow-walked steps like conducting interviews, serving document requests, and pursuing physical search warrants in California, Virginia and Delaware” until after the 2020 presidential election.

“The warrants were ready as early as April 2020, but the Delaware USAO pushed them off until after the November 2020 election and then never pursued them,” Shapley will say.

“After an electronic search warrant on Hunter Biden’s Apple iCloud account led us to WhatsApp messages with several CEFC China Energy executives where he claimed to be sitting and discussing business with his father Joe Biden, we sought permission to follow up on the information in the messages,” Shapley will say. “Prosecutors would not allow it.”

Shapley will again testify that a search warrant for the guest house at the Bidens’ Delaware residence was being planned, but, despite agreeing there was “probable cause,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf “cited the ‘optics’ of executing a search warrant at President Biden’s residence as the deciding factor for not allowing it to be completed.”

“This was the decision even though she admitted there would be evidence at that location that would further the investigation,” Shapley will say. “AUSA Wolf also told investigators they should not ask about President Biden during witness interviews even when the business communications of his son clearly referenced him.”

A federal court just handed Biden’s Ministry of Truth a big defeat
Government bureaucracies and the Biden administration cannot be trusted

In a landmark decision that should have all Americans cheering, a Louisiana federal court recently upheld their First Amendment right to speak without being censored by the government. Judge Terry Doughty said the case, Missouri v. Biden, “arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.”

Judge Doughty issued a preliminary injunction forbidding numerous federal agencies, including the FBI, the Justice Department, and the Department of Homeland Security, as well as many individuals within the executive branch like White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, from communicating or meeting with: “[S]ocial-media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social-media platforms.”

The injunction bans the feds from working with outside groups such as the Stanford Internet Observatory that induce social-media companies to suppress and delete “protected free speech.” And it even prevents the government from “notifying social-media companies to Be on The Lookout (‘BOLO’) for postings containing protected free speech.”

A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a temporary stay of Judge Doughty’s injunction while the case is on appeal before the 5th Circuit, and said the appeal will be heard on an expedited basis.

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FBI Agent Who Investigated Hunter Biden Confirms IRS Whistleblower’s Allegations in ‘Sickening Testimony’ Revealing ‘The Lengths to Which the DOJ is Willing to Go to Cover Up for the Bidens’, GOP Claims

Republicans running the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into Hunter Biden claim an FBI agent has confirmed allegations that the president’s son had been given favorable treatment by investigators. 

Two IRS whistleblowers – one anonymous, the other named Gary Shapley – have claimed that Hunter was treated more leniently than ordinary Americans by officials delving into his tax affairs and his lying about drug use on a gun permit.

On Monday, the Committee said in a lengthy tweet that an FBI agent who worked on the case agreed with Shapley that the 53-year-old was given preferential treatment.

‘The agent’s testimony is sickening and reveals the lengths to which the DOJ is willing to go to cover up for the Bidens,’ the Committee tweeted. 

Democrats were quick to dismiss the agent’s claim, saying it was common for the FBI and DOJ to disagree about how to proceed with an investigation. 

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House committee imposes major cuts to Justice, FBI, Commerce.

As had been suggested by its decision to not impose any cuts (or increases) to the NASA budget, the House appropriation subcommittee in charge of Commerce, Justice, Science-related agencies imposed all of the 28.8% cuts required by the House leadership on the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the Commerce department.

Overall, the bill appropriates $58.4 billion for programs under the jurisdiction of the committee, a $23.8 billion cut compared to the current fiscal year. It eliminates 14 “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs in the covered agencies, cuts spending on “wasteful” climate change programs, and saves more than $50 million by ending the Biden administration’s plan to replace auto fleets at the Department of Commerce and Department of Justice with electric vehicles.

According to the GOP summary, the Commerce Department would see a $1.4 billion cut in discretionary funding, and the Department of Justice would see a $2 billion cut. Federal science agencies together would face a $1.1 billion cut under the bill.

The FBI’s budget is to be cut $1 billion, or 9% (an actual cut, not a reduction in the increase in spending), with $400 million of that coming from salaries and expenses. It also forbids the agency from spending a dime on its planned dream of a new posh and palatial headquarters in the DC suburbs, twice the size of the Pentagon and costing more than $3 billion.

This is exactly what Republicans should have been doing for decades, and were too cowardly to attempt. If an agency of unelected employees in the executive branch abuses its power and causes harm to innocent citizens, something the FBI and the Justice Department have been eagerly doing since Trump became president, then it is the responsibility and obligation of Congress to use its power of the purse to cut those agencies’ funding.

Even now, however, no one should be confident these cuts will end up in the final bill. This is only the recommendations of one subcommittee. There are still many Republican cowards in the full House, and even more in the full Senate, who will gladly team up with the Democrats (who are all in favor of the abuse of power and the harm to innocent citizens) to reinstate the cuts.

Nonetheless, this is a start. It indicates that we might finally have turned a real political corner towards reform.

I’ll just call it pro-criminal goobermint corruption

Delaware DOJ targets victim of ammo theft, while cutting the perp a break

A 39-year-old felon in Delaware who admitted to stealing more than a half-million rounds of ammunition over the course of a year and selling the pilfered rounds to gang members in Philadelphia and Dover will likely avoid prison time thanks to a sweetheart deal offered by the state, but the retailer who was the victim of the shoplifter is now in the legal crosshairs of the Delaware Department of Justice.

Danielle M. Brookens entered a guilty plea in state court back in April to one count of possession of ammunition by a person prohibited, and in exchange was handed down an awfully light sentence: report to a drug diversion program. Under Delaware law, Brookens could have received as much as eight years in prison, and if her case had been referred to the U.S. Department of Justice for federal prosecution she could have been looking at a decade behind bars.

Instead, Brookens will get to avoid prison altogether once a judge signs off on the plea deal, and the Delaware Department of Justice has turned its attention on Cabela’s, the store where Brookens received her five-fingered discount.

The state Department of Justice is demanding to see Cabela’s records, specifically its loss prevention policies. The DOJ also wants to see the records of other Cabela’s and its sister store, Bass Pro Shop, within 100 miles of the Christiana Mall location — this would include at least two in Pennsylvania, one in New Jersey and another in Maryland.

The DOJ came out publicly last month saying it is investigating if Cabela’s violated state laws, including Delaware’s firearms industry public nuisance law, through its hands-off approach to the shoplifting of ammunition from its Christiana location.

“Businesses need to be responsible members of our community; that includes gun dealers taking reasonable steps to prevent gun violence,” Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings said after announcing her department’s investigation. “Unfortunately, Cabela’s casual storage, and their stonewalling of this investigation, tell us that they still aren’t taking that responsibility seriously.”

Cabela’s has not responded to a request for comment, but in court filings its parent company, the Great American Outdoors Group, objected to the subpoena, calling it “overbroad” and saying the summons seeks documents containing trade secrets, confidential business or other proprietary information.

The group also objected to the DOJ’s refusal to postpone the subpoena’s already-passed March 17 return date pending a decision on the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s federal lawsuit against Jennings that challenges the constitutionality of a public nuisance law.

The Foundation’s lawsuit claims the public nuisance law “is breathtaking in its scope” as it imposes sweeping liability for any firearms marketing that could later be thought to “contribute to a public nuisance” in Delaware.

Basically, the Delaware DOJ is alleging that Cabela’s should have kept its ammunition under lock and key and inaccessible to customers, and created a public nuisance by failing to do so. Now the agency is going on a fishing expedition to comb through all kinds of documents in the hopes of shutting down the store, or at the very least subjecting them to punitive fines. As you can imagine, that’s not sitting well with some 2A advocates in the state.

We’ve been pretty vocal advocates for the enforcement of the laws on the books,” said Erin Chronister, cofounder and president of Women’s Defense Coalition of Delaware. “The criminals who just keep offending are getting plea deal after plea deal.”

This in turn leaves lawful citizens having to accept when lawmakers pass more gun control laws that make it harder for say, a woman fleeing violence, to purchase a weapon, Chronister said.

“I don’t understand why those who are committing the crimes are continuously getting deals and the lawful citizens who just want them for protection or hunting or sporting are just basically being told suck it up,” she said. “We’re being equated with vigilantes of the wild, wild west because we want tools for self-defense.”

In response to questions about Brookens receiving a light deal, a DOJ spokesperson said the defendant pleaded guilty to the highest-level offense she faced.

“She was cooperative and the state recognized her readiness to take responsibility, as well as other mitigating factors, in our sentencing recommendation,” said Mat Marshall, a DOJ spokesperson.

Cooperative or not, Brookens herself claims to have stolen a half-million rounds of ammunition over the course of a year and then selling the rounds to criminals in at least two different cities. This isn’t Brookens first run-in with the law either. Back in 2012 she was convicted of two felonies for stealing and selling prescription pills in Elkton, Maryland, and she’s also currently facing charges related to theft of ammunition from a Bass Pro Shops near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in March of last year, though according to the Delaware Journal she’s scheduled for another plea hearing in that case in August. Will Pennsylvania prosecutors go just as easy on Brookens as their Delaware counterparts? It wouldn’t surprise me a bit, but I guess we’ll have to wait a couple of weeks to see what kind of deal is on the table.

Having ammo available for customers to pick up and purchase shouldn’t be a criminal or even a civil offense, while stealing ammunition is definitely a crime, but the Delaware Department of Justice has made it clear where its priorities are: cracking down on the retailer that was the victim of Brookens’ criminal actions, while excusing those actions away and offering her a slap on the wrist for what, by her own admission, are serious crimes that helped to fuel the violence in both Philadelphia and Dover.

Translation of Bureaucrapish: He’s sure

Christopher Wray ‘Not Sure’ There Were FBI Assets at Capitol on Jan. 6.

During a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI Director Christopher Wray claimed that he doesn’t know how many assets his agency had on the ground on January 6—or whether there were any at all.

[Watch the full hearing here]

Rep Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) asked Wray, “Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund reportedly has asserted that the protest crowd was filled with federal agents. Are you aware of his assertion?”

“I am not,” Wray said.

“Would you agree with him that it was ‘filled with federal agents’ on January 6?” Biggs asked.

“I would really have to see more closely exactly what he said and get the full context to be able to evaluate how many agents, or actually agents or human resources, were present at the Capitol complex and the vicinity on January 6,” Wray said. “It’s gonna get confusing because it depends on when we were deployed and responded to the breach that occurred anywhere under federal agents.”

Biggs called him out for obfuscating: “You and I both know that we’re talking different things here, and please don’t distract here because we’re focusing on those who were there in an undercover capacity on January 6. How many were there?”

Wray played dumb: “Again, I’m not sure that I can give you the number as I sit here. I’m not sure there were undercover agents on the scene.”

“I find that kind of a remarkable statement, Director,” Biggs claimed. “At this point, you don’t know whether there were undercover federal agents, FBI agents, in the crowd or in the Capitol on January 6?”

Wray then changed his tune and claimed he couldn’t say how many there were because of ongoing legal cases.

“I say that because I want to be very careful. There have been a number of court filings related to some of these topics, and I want to make sure that I stick with what’s in them,” he claimed.

“I understand that, but I thought I heard you say you didn’t know whether there were FBI agents or informants or human sources in the Capitol or in the vicinity on January 6. Did I misunderstand you?”

“I referred very specifically to FBI agents,” said Wray.

“And so are you acknowledging then there were undercover agents?” Biggs demanded.

“As I sit here right now, I do not believe there were undercover agents on the scene,” said Wray.

“Did you have any assets present that day?” Biggs shot back.

“In the crowd, when it comes to what you’re calling assets or what we would call confidential human sources, that’s a place where, again, I want to be careful, as I said in response to an earlier question. There are court filings that I think speak to this that I’m happy to make sure we get to you, assuming they’re not under seal, and that can better answer the question,” said Wray.

Wray is talking out of both sides of his mouth. He claims at once that he doesn’t know the number of agents involved in the Jan. 6 protest, doesn’t believe there were any agents, and that he can’t talk about how many agents were there because of ongoing court cases. Which is it?

It’s absurd to believe that Wray doesn’t know how many agents and confidential human sources were on the ground on January 6. He knows exactly how many there were and how they were deployed, but he doesn’t want the American people to know. Why?

The detention of J6 protesters. The Russia collusion hoax. The arrest at gunpoint of a Catholic father. The monitoring of parents speaking at school board meetings. The failure to investigate attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers. The corruption runs deep at the FBI.

Second Amendment group files lawsuit against ATF over ‘zero tolerance’ policy for closing gun stores

FIRST ON FOX: A Second Amendment advocacy group filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) over the agency’s “zero tolerance” policy to shut down gun stores.

Gun Owners of America (GOA) filed a suit against the ATF on Tuesday over the agency’s rigid inspection guidelines for federal firearms licensees (FFLs) from January 2022 that makes it easier to revoke a gun store’s federal license.

“This zero tolerance policy towards lawful commerce guaranteed by the Second Amendment is just the latest example of this Administration weaponizing federal agencies against their political enemies,” GOA senior vice president Erich Pratt told Fox News Digital.

Gun Owners Foundation (GOF) board member Sam Paredes told Fox News Digital it’s “ridiculous that good people trying to make an honest living are facing this assault on their livelihoods simply over inconsequential paperwork errors.”

“GOF is proud to be lending our support in defense of Bridge City Ordnance and all of those small businesses facing devastating consequences if this Administration’s hostility towards firearms is permitted to go unchecked,” Paredes said.

On Tuesday, the GOA filed the lawsuit Morehouse Enterprises v. ATF (II), following the first lawsuit filed by North Dakota gun store Morehouse Enterprises and backed by the Second Amendment advocacy group over the Biden administration’s frame and receiver rule, also known as the ghost gun rule.

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Is the FBI Helping Ukraine’s Secret Service Censor Americans?
The Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government releases a damning new report, revealing even more speech-smashing misbehavior by the federal government.

I spent much of the weekend combing through the Twitter Files for examples of the “Censorship Enterprise” described by the Attorneys General in the landmark Missouri v. Biden lawsuit. As I was about to publish, a new report was issued by the House Weaponization of Government Committee that takes the Twitter Files theme in several crazy new directions.

A month ago, Aaron Maté of The Grayzone published a new piece about a bizarre finding in the Twitter Files. An FBI agent named Alexander Kozbanets had forwarded to Twitter a list sent to the FBI by Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU. These accounts, Kozbanets said, were “suspected by the SBU of spreading fear and disinformation.” Of the 170-odd account names on the list, most were Russian, but one stood out: Aaron’s! Here he is, along with the popular Russian newspaper “Rush Hour” (Chas-Pik) and a host of Cyrillic names:

The shame of this story wasn’t that the SBU sent this list over, but rather that the FBI collaborated in the effort, even having the gall to forward the name of a respected, award-winning Canadian journalist to Twitter. To its credit, Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth pushed back, noting Aaron’s name and saying, “authentic news outlets and reporters who cover the conflict with a pro-Russian stance are unlikely to be found in violation of our rules.” Nonetheless, the fact that the FBI even tried this lunatic stunt was damning.

Now, thanks to the Weaponization Committee, we find out this situation with Aaron appears not to have been a one-off incident.

DOJ Announces Slew Of Charges Against Gal Luft, ‘Missing Witness’ Of Alleged Biden Corruption.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday announced a slew of charges against the “missing” Israeli professor Dr. Gal Luft, days after he laid out serious allegations against the Biden family.

Luft was charged with several offenses related to “willfully failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (‘FARA’), arms trafficking, Iranian sanctions violations, and making false statements to federal agents,” according to a press release from the agency.

Earlier in July, the New York Post obtained an exclusive 14-minute recording from Luft in which he claimed he was arrested in Cyprus in February to prevent him from testifying in front of the House Oversight Committee on the Biden family’s alleged ties to Chinese military intelligence. Luft also alleged the Biden family had an FBI mole who gave them the inside scoop on classified information that was then allegedly shared with their Chinese counterparts.

Luft claimed he brought the information to officials in the FBI in 2019 but alleged it was covered up, according to the video.

“I, who volunteered to inform the US government about a potential security breach and about compromising information about a man vying to be the next president, am now being hunted by the very same people who I informed — and may have to live on the run for the rest of my life,” Luft said in the video.

Luft fled Cyprus after being released on bail, according to the DOJ.

The Lancet was not the only one to censor deaths caused by the Vaxx

CDC admits not including diagnostic codes showing COVID vax as ’cause’ on some death certificates
Georgia-based agency’s response to Just the News will be incorporated into grand jury petition to investigate its COVID statistical practices, death-certificate analyst says.

The CDC’s explanation for leaving certain diagnosis codes off Minnesota death certificates that cite COVID-19 vaccines as a cause of death, allegedly hiding vaccine injuries in federal records, shows “intent to deceive,” according to a person who helped analyze the death certificates for the Brownstone Institute, a think tank that challenges the scientific basis for COVID conventional wisdom and policy.

Beaudoin’s law school expelled him for refusing its vaccine mandate, which he says was based on federal COVID guidance devised in part from Massachusetts death certificate data.

The suit includes a 123-page exhibit analyzing death certificates Beaudoin claims either wrongly omit vaccine-induced deaths or falsely attribute them to COVID. And in May he requested a hearing in response to the state’s motion to dismiss his January amended complaint. His website includes legal filings.

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Well This is Ominous: Waiting to Declare the Climate Emergency

From the “Oh, they’d never do that” department we see a couple of emails produced the other night in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation by Energy Policy Advocates.

There’s nothing quite like preparing well in advance to declare a (checks notes) “climate emergency”. Hey, one can never be too prepared!  Even more amusing — in a rather dark, very 2020s way — is the idea of a proposal for a “Climate Emergency Initiative.” And apparently a really good one at that. Odd this didn’t come up in Mr. Goffman’s prolonged, still-inchoate confirmation process…

GAO can only wonder what it’s being held for. What new paper, claim, film release, loss in court, UN Conference of the Parties/political need will necessitate the discovery of a “climate emergency” for which, fear not, we just happened to have an Initiative prepared…

BLUF
Zero tolerance doesn’t apply to stopping criminals. The Biden administration reserves that focus for the firearm industry.

ATF’S ‘ZERO-TOLERANCE’ UNRELENTING AND REVEALING

Don’t believe for a minute that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ (ATF) ‘zero-tolerance’ policy isn’t real or some “right-wing conspiracy.” The first nine-months of statistics are in and the Biden administration is doing exactly what it said it would. President Joe Biden and his White House advisors are using the ATF as a blunt instrument to hobble the firearm industry.

So far in 2023, ATF has conducted 6,609 inspections of Federal Firearms Licensees – starting on Oct. 1, which is when the federal government’s fiscal calendar begins. That’s closing in on 2022’s annual total of 7,502 for the entire year. ATF inspectors are conducting an average of 647.33 inspections across the nation per month, topping 2022’s monthly average of 587.66.

At this pace, ATF is expected to complete 8,902 inspections before the end of its fiscal year. That’s a blistering pace. There are more sobering figures though.

Warning Conferences, or results of an inspection that warrant a meeting with ATF’s Industry Operations Inspectors, are at 111 for the first nine months. There were 136 for the entirety of FY 2022. Revocations of federal firearms licenses are already at 122. They were just 92 for all of FY 2022.

In fiscal year 2020 (ending on Sept. 30), the year President Biden was elected, there were 5,823 ATF inspections of FFL holders. That year, there were just 40 license revocations alone, with 96 FFL holders that went out of business or surrendered their licenses. The ATF inspections in FY 2020 resulted in 306 warning conferences and another 804 warning letters. Warning letters were routinely issued for minor clerical errors in record keeping, like misspelled names, dates recorded incorrectly or other administrative errors.

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United Nations’ Power Grab: Threatening National Sovereignty and Individual Freedom

Holy threat to national sovereignty, Batman! The United Nations appears to believe that it should be in charge of global responses to various emergencies that impact multiple countries – and, if the reports are correct, our very own President Joe Biden agrees.

The U.N. is gearing up to position itself as the decider of how the international community responds to various calamities that might occur. This means it could even have the power to override America’s national sovereignty and dictate how our government functions in these moments.

This has been a long time coming. It appears that our own government might be willing to sign on to such an agreement. The United Nations is planning to adopt a Pact for the Future during its “Summit of the Future” in September 2024, which includes a proposal for a new “emergency platform.”

This platform would grant the UN significant powers to respond to global shocks like pandemics, and the UN would have authority over public and private sectors worldwide. The Biden administration has expressed support for this proposal, potentially giving the UN unprecedented control and endangering American sovereignty:

In September 2024, less than two months before the next U.S. presidential election, the United Nations will host a landmark “Summit of the Future,” where member nations will adopt a Pact for the Future. The agreement will solidify numerous policy reforms offered by the U.N. over the past two years as part of its sweeping Our Common Agenda platform.

Although there are numerous radical proposals included in the agenda, perhaps none are more important than the U.N. plan for a new “emergency platform,” a stunning proposal to give the U.N. significant powers in the event of future “global shocks,” such as another worldwide pandemic.

According to a message from United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, these “global shocks” would require the Emergency Platform to “actively promote and drive an international response that places the principles of equity and solidarity at the centre of its work.” The U.N. would also “ensure that those most vulnerable to a complex, global shock, and those with least capacity to cope with its impacts, receive the necessary support from those with the means to do so.”

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