Category: Bureaucraps

I’m not Catholic, but if the bureaucraps can get away with this, what other denominations will they try this on?

Weaponization Committee: FBI Targeted ‘Mainline’ Catholic Churches to Develop ‘Sources’ Against Parishioners

We’ve seen a lot of concerning things about the effort to weaponize the government to control the political agenda.

But perhaps one of the most concerning pieces of information dropped on Monday with word that the FBI was trying to develop “sources” within Christian and Catholic churches to “combat domestic terrorism,” in what looks like an effort to have people spying and reporting on their fellow parishioners.

The House Weaponization Committee just released a letter about internal documents showing this FBI effort. According to the letter, the FBI was targeting “mainline Catholic parishes,” looking into them for “source development,” according to Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH).

In addition, according to Jordan, the FBI expressed interest in “leverag[ing] existing sources and/or initiating [ing] Type 5 Assessments to develop new sources with the placement and access.” And, in another example, the agency cited a desire to sensitize religious congregations “to the warning signs of radicalization and enlist their assistance to serve as suspicious activity tripwires.”

“Based on the limited information produced by the FBI to the Committee, we now know that the FBI relied on at least one undercover agent to produce its analysis, and that the FBI proposed that its agents engage in outreach to Catholic parishes to develop sources among the clergy and church leadership to inform on Americans practicing their faith,” Jordan wrote in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday.

 

Jordan also dropped a subpoena on the FBI for related documents that they have failed to turn over, despite requests.

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Biden Bans 53% of Americans From Buying Cars
The new poor will be anyone who can’t afford an electric car.

The New York Times reported that the Biden administration will abuse EPA regulations to eliminate most real car sales by 2030. The plan is to force 67% of car sales to be electric by 2032. Most Americans won’t be able to afford them, but they’ll have no other options.

Even the cheapest electric cars, which are still far more expensive than their real car counterparts and are just one battery problem away from turning into mostly unusable junk, are out of the price range of the majority of Americans who need an income of $80,000 to make an EV auto loan work. That’s fine in Washington D.C. where the median income of $83,567 is the highest in the nation, but will entirely price much of the country out of the new car market.

53% of Americans earn less than $75,000. Some of the 16% who earn from $50,000 to $75,000 may be able to make an electric vehicle purchase work if they squeeze, cut back on food and clothes for the kids, but the remaining 37% will be completely locked out. And, unable to own a car, they’ll have even bigger monthly payments or, with no transportation, be unable to work.

The new poor will be anyone who can’t afford an electric car. And that’s 53% of Americans.

This isn’t class warfare: it’s class genocide. The Biden administration is moving to reserve car ownership privileges for the Tesla class while eliminating working class ownership and the social mobility and the economic possibilities that come with it under the guise of environmentalism.

Steadily raising emissions standards has pushed the price of a new car toward $50,000. Obama’s emissions standards raised the cost by thousands of dollars, and California, as one of the largest markets in the country, further distorted costs for car buyers nationwide. Prices rose steadily and, when combined with runaway inflationary government spending, shot up wildly.

The average cost of a non-luxury car last year nearly hit $45,000. Since people only have so much money to spend, sales also dropped by 9% and millions fewer cars were sold. Even as America’s population has continued growing, its car sales have been falling.

Who is going to be shut out of Biden’s new banned car market?

The median income of 47 of the 52 states fall below the amount needed to buy an electric car.

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Applause.

Missouri officials refuse to work with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, saying all federal ‘so-called’ gun laws are unconstitutional

Missouri officials in one county have refused to work with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, claiming that the government agency is unconstitutional.

Six top elected officials in Camden County signed a letter to the ATF saying as much, according to the NPR affiliate KCUR 89.3.

“Under the Anti-Commandeering Doctrine, Camden County was the first county in Missouri, and possibly in the country, to pass an ordinance prohibiting any county employee from assisting your unconstitutional agency in violating the rights of our citizens,” Ike Skelton, the county’s presiding commissioner, said in the letter.

The population of the county is roughly 43,700, according to the latest Census figures.

The officials cited the state’s Second Amendment Preservation Act as grounds to refuse to cooperate, KCUR reported. Last month, a federal judge struck down the 2021 law, which prohibited local police from enforcing federal gun laws, calling it “invalid, null, void, and of no effect.”

Two of Skelton’s colleagues — Jeff Green, a Camden County attorney, and Tony Helms, the county sheriff — and Kendra Hicks, the county treasurer, also signed the letter, KCUR reported.

Skelton, Helms, and Hicks did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment on Sunday.

Skelton told KCUR he and his fellow officials were in “lockstep with this thought process.”

“Any and all federal firearms laws, so-called laws, in my opinion, and many others’ opinion, are unconstitutional,” Skelton told KCUR.

The ATF was attempting to get zoning information to process applications for four individuals trying to open gun shops in the county, the outlet reported. John Ham, the public-information officer for the ATF’s Kansas City Field Division, told KCUR that the bureau is trying to help civilians open gun stores, not prevent them from doing so.

“We use that information to put people in business, not to take people out of business,” Ham told KCUR, adding that he had never seen a county refuse to provide such information, which is required to open new gun businesses.

Ham did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

In a comment to Insider, Erik Longnecker, the public-affairs deputy chief of the ATF, said: “ATF will continue to follow federal law when issuing licenses, regulating the firearms industry, and protecting our communities from violent gun crime.”

New Court Case Challenges Unconstitutional FFL Requirement to Sell Guns
Basing arguments on the recent Bruen court decision, a new court case in Pennsylvania challenges the entire concept of requiring an FFL to sell firearms.

A court case out of Pennsylvania is calling into question whether the law requiring those in the business of selling firearms to have a federal firearms license (FFL) is constitutional, considering the new criteria set down by the U.S. Supreme Court in last year’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen case.

And despite the fact that being in the business of selling firearms has required an FFL for as long as most of us can remember, any court faithfully applying the two-prong standard as prescribed in Bruen just might not see this one the government’s way.

The case revolves around Amish dairy farmer Reuben King from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who has been charged with dealing in firearms without a license. According to court papers, agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) purchased five firearms from King at his farm between October 2019 and March 2020. After being sent a letter informing him that he couldn’t be selling firearms without a license, King sold four firearms to undercover state troopers in late 2021 and 2022. ATF later arrested King and confiscated 615 firearms.

Rather than arguing that King didn’t sell the firearms, King’s attorney, Joshua Prince, is instead arguing that King doesn’t need an FFL to sell guns because the FFL requirement itself is unconstitutional.

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Where’s The Manifesto?

My home city of Nashville has been in a virtual non-stop uproar since the tragic murders of six people, three of them 9-year-old children, at The Covenant School on March 27.

This has been ineffably sad for the family and friends of the victims, who are victims themselves, their grief often overwhelmed in a city, indeed a country, now so politicized that our common humanity seems some distant memory from a long ago Jimmy Stewart movie one sees only at Christmas.

Lost too in all this is any sense of what really happened that Monday or why it happened.

Distraction reigns. The last few days have been arguably the mother of all distractions when, as reported here at The Epoch Times and virtually everywhere, riots or protests (depending on how you see them) broke out in front and within the Tennessee State Assembly.

The rioters/protestors were largely high school students, bent on gun control, instigated, at least in part, by three members of the assembly, two of whom have now been expelled for their behavior.

Unfortunately for the local GOP and Republicans everywhere, the two expelled, deservedly or not, happened to be black, naturally providing a propaganda opportunity for our resident White House “civil rights activist” and ally of former Sen. Robert Byrd (D-N.C.) who once informed us “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

Meanwhile, the tragic murders are being used inevitably as a battering ram for gun control that has never been shown to work and for red flag laws that can work, but not in the way intended.

Which brings me to the missing “manifesto.”

In the immediate aftermath of the murders the police informed us the obviously emotionally disturbed shooter was transgendered, something that was ratified by the video of the killings at the Christian school showing the female-by-birth Audrey Hale dressed entirely like a macho terrorist.

Further, they told us she had left behind documents and a manifesto, explaining her actions.

Then, as if by magic, we heard no more of the word transgendered in any of its forms, from the media or anywhere, nor, almost simultaneously, anything of the manifesto, except that it had been handed to the FBI for review.

Regarding the media, it isn’t just CBS, widely known to have decreed the word “transgender” should be omitted in coverage of the crime but almost all of the MSM. NPR, recently labeled “state-affiliated” on Twitter, does not mention the word in its recent update on the crime, nor does it apply a pronoun of any sort—male, female, or “they”—when referring to the shooter. This must be a new form of asexual reporting.

As for the FBI, no word so far on when they will release the manifesto, in original or redacted form.

Sound familiar?

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No, Congress has not banned bump stocks, but they have banned machineguns made after May 1986 for possession by us mere mortals, and one of the federal law’s definitions of a MG is :“any part designed and intended solely and exclusively, or combination of parts designed and intended, for use in converting a weapon into a machinegun.”
What the bureaucraps at ATF did was hang their regulatory hat on that, but to do so, they inventively redefined what ‘by a single function of the trigger‘ means.
That’s part of what this case is all about; How much power do bureaucraps have to regulate and how must the court defer to that power.

With Only Minutes To Spare Biden Administration Appeals Bump Stock Case to SCOTUS

AUSTIN, TX – On Thursday, April 6th, 2023 at 10:30 pm, With only minutes to spare, the DOJ filed Petition for A Writ of Certiorari.

The DOJ is also asking for a stay against the Circuit Court’s ruling until the United States Supreme Court can decide whether to grant certiorari. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals en banc ruled 13-3 in favor of Cargill. The court remanded the case back to the District Court to rule in favor of Cargill and issue appropriate relief on 01-06-2023.

“By ruling 13-3 in our favor, the Fifth Circuit reinforced the principle that the laws are to be written by Congress, not federal administrators. And if the Supreme Court agrees to hear the case, we are confident that it will uphold the Fifth Circuit’s decision,” says Michael Cargill.

Under our constitutional system, Congress makes the laws, not the Department of Justice or the ATF.

Congress has banned “machine guns” but it has not banned bump stocks. Agencies like DOJ and ATF can’t just assume the power to rewrite the law, or our constitutional system and separation of powers with checks and balances will disappear.

For years, the ATF said that bump stocks were not machine guns under the law. Now it is saying the opposite, which means that hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Americans who relied on the ATF’s approval of bump stocks are suddenly felons. That’s not how the law in America should work.

Whether to ban bump stocks is a question—and a responsibility—that lies with Congress, not agencies like DOJ and the ATF. If agencies take over that decision, our government is no longer accountable to the people.

Neither the President nor the Department of Justice can act by executive fiat to change the law. Congress—and only Congress—can convert lawful activity into unlawful activity. But Congress has not banned bump stocks, so the ATF’s rule violates the Constitution.

Garland, et al. v. Cargill Writ of Certiorari – Biden Administration Appeals Bump Stock Case to SCOTUS

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History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. ― George Orwell, 1984

DOJ Finally Finds a Church Attack It Doesn’t Like

After years of virtually ignoring attacks on churches, synagogues, and pro-life pregnancy centers, the DOJ has finally found a case worth prosecuting—a Molotov cocktail attack on a so-called “church” preparing to host a drag queen story hour.

From the criminal complaint:

On Saturday, March 25, 2023, the Community Church of Chesterland (“CCC”), located at 11984 Caves Road, Chesterland, Ohio, reported to Chester Township Police that the church had been damaged by what appeared to be Molotov cocktails during the night.

During the same time, a sign on CCC’s property was damaged. CCC believes the acts were perpetrated in response to the church’s planned hosting of two drag show events on April 1, 2023.

Open source searches revealed that individuals plan to be present and armed en masse at the events to protest. Representatives of CCC reported that they received hate mail and messages containing non-specific threats of protest and violence against the drag events.

Before we continue, let me make a couple of things abundantly clear. First, I don’t condone violence from the left or right. At all. The attack on CCC was terrorism and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Protest peacefully all you want, but once you cross the line into violence, you deserve what you get and I have no sympathy for you.

Second, the CCC, affiliated with the United Church of Christ, is not a Christian church in any meaningful sense of the word. From a Q&A section of their website:

Are your services a Christian service?

While our church is aligned with the United Church of Christ denomination, we welcome people of all beliefs and traditions. Our worship services include traditions and practices you might not find in other churches, including dance, poetry, Broadway songs, and more. Christian hymns and spirituals are sung alongside blues, country, global, and pop music.

The website is littered with rainbow flags, language about inclusive worship and its commitment to social justice, and vague references to spirituality. It eschews the tenets of biblical Christianity in favor of “personal expression” and feelings.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, here’s some background on the story:

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CDC team got sick while investigating health risks from Ohio toxic train derailment.

A team of seven US government investigators fell ill while studying the health impacts of the February derailment of a train carrying toxic chemicals through East Palestine, Ohio, according to the CDC.

The group, including members of the Epidemic Intelligence Service, were going house-to-house surveying town residents near contaminated areas when they began feeling symptoms including sore throats, headaches, coughing and nausea. The group spent a day working from their hotel, before their symptoms quickly resolved, the agency told CNN.

“Symptoms resolved for most team members later the same afternoon, and everyone resumed work on survey data collection within 24 hours. Impacted team members have not reported ongoing health effects,” a CDC spokesperson told the network.

The public health agency did not initially disclose the team getting sick to the public.

Two contractors working on the derailment for the EPA also reported health symptoms after working in an area with strong odors, CNN reported. The agency said that none of the other more than 100 EPA employees on the scene reported any issues.

More than half of the people in a state survey reported headaches, anxiety, couching, fatigue, and irritated skin after the derailment, according to research released Friday from the Ohio Department of Health.

Officials have said the water and air in East Palestine is safe to consume, despite rampant conspiracies online that following the crash and subsequent decision to conduct a controlled burn of some of the chemicals that were spilled.

On Friday, governor Mike DeWine’s office confirmed 1,900 feet of railroad track at the crash site will be removed to allow for the excavation and removal of contaminated soil, and said testing at 157 private wells showed no contaminated water.

As The Independent reported, public health experts say long-term testing is needed in East Palestine to monitor the potential health effects of exposure to the toxic materials transported by the train that derailed.

“Byproducts from the burn could be very toxic and we don’t know yet know what they are,” Dr Erin Haynes, professor of preventive medicine and environmental health at the University of Kentucky told The Independent. “They have probably settled onto the soil. They’re in the homes on surfaces and they could be in the waterways in the sediments…We do not know the long-term consequences of that exposure.”

Biden, ATF gaslighting the public about ‘rogue’ gun dealers
Biden trying to change public perception of gun dealers he’s forcing out of business.

by Lee Williams

Joe Biden, his weaponized ATF and their sycophants in the legacy media launched an elaborate campaign this week to change the public’s perception of the thousands of federally licensed gun dealers in the country, whom Biden desperately wants to put out of business.

It is classic gaslighting, but it should not come as any surprise. Biden declared war on guns and gun dealers just months after taking office, and he foreshadowed his latest move earlier this month.

In an Executive Order issued March 14, Joe Biden promised to “provide the public and policymakers with more information regarding federally licensed firearms dealers who are violating the law.”

The problem for Biden is that gun dealers aren’t violating the law. They’re making minor clerical errors, but that isn’t stopping the most anti-gun president in modern history from trying to create a new narrative.

“Gun dealers violating federal law put us all at risk by increasing the likelihood that firearms will fall into dangerous hands,” Biden’s executive order states. “The President is directing the Attorney General to publicly release, to the fullest extent permissible by law, ATF records from the inspection of firearms dealers cited for violation of federal firearm laws.”

As if on cue, the ATF just released the names of nearly 100 gun shops it has put out of business by revoking their Federal Firearms Licenses, or FFLs, on a website page titled: Enhanced Regulatory Enforcement Policy.

ATF strongly implies that the revocations resulted from five serious violations of the Gun Control Act (GCA), specifically:

  • Refusal to allow an IOI to conduct an inspection
  • Transferring a firearm to a prohibited person
  • Failing to conduct a required background check
  • Falsifying records
  • Failing to respond to a trace request

However, the ATF points out that the actual reason for the revocations may include but are “not limited to, the above list.” That is a massive understatement, since the real reasons for the majority of recent FFL revocations are far less serious. They are, in fact, minor clerical errors, which the ATF now considers willful violations of its self-written rules rather than simple mistakes, because of its zero-tolerance policy that Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland announced in June 2021.

In other words, Biden and the ATF strongly imply that the scores of gun dealers whose shops they’ve shuttered transferred firearms to prohibited persons or failed to run background checks or barred an ATF inspector from entering their shop. But that is certainly not the case.

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Rick Scott Wants to Take $80B From IRS to Fund Armed Officers in Schools After Nashville Shooting

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., is urging Congress to reroute the billions of dollars earmarked for the Internal Revenue Service in Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act into money to hire armed officers for academic campuses across the country, in the wake of a mass shooting at a Nashville elementary school earlier this week.

“The tragedy in Nashville made clear that more must be done to keep our schools safe,” Scott said Thursday. “Washington spends money on all sorts of wasteful ideas and the massive expansion of the IRS is a prime example of that.”

He was referencing the $80 billion allocated toward the IRS that will be used to hire tens of thousands of employees over a 10-year period.

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Thank God this hack never made it to a set on the Supreme Court. After he’s done being a bureaucrap, it’s likely he’ll slide off into some partnership deal at a D.C. or NYC law firm and disappear off the scene.

Attorney General Garland: Too early to call Nashville shooting a hate crime

Attorney General Merrick Garland said Tuesday that it’s too early for the Justice Department to say whether the shooting at a Christian school in Nashville should be considered a hate crime.

Mr. Garland said the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are looking at the incident in cooperation with local authorities.

“We are certainly working full-time with them to try to determine what the motive is, and motive determines whether it’s a hate crime,” the attorney general said in testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee.

His answers came in response to Sen. John Kennedy, Louisiana Republican, who wanted to know if the Justice Department would open a hate crimes investigation even though the shooting suspect is dead.

Local authorities say Audrey Hale killed three adults and three children at The Covenant School, which is associated with the Presbyterian Church.

Authorities said the 28-year-old Hale was a former student and seemed to have targeted the school, though the children and adults killed were chosen randomly. Nashville’s police chief said the shooter was transgender.

Police shot and killed Hale roughly 14 minutes after the first 911 call about the incident.

The IRS Makes a Strange House Call on Matt Taibbi

An agent shows up at the home of the Twitter files journalist who testified before Congress.

Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, talks to witness Matt Taibbi, left, at the conclusion of a House Judiciary on March 9.
PHOTO: MANUEL BALCE CENETA/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Democrats are denouncing the House GOP investigation into the weaponization of government, but maybe that’s because Republicans are getting somewhere. That includes new evidence that the Internal Revenue Service may be targeting a journalist who testified before the weaponization committee.House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan sent a letter Monday to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen seeking an explanation for why journalist Matt Taibbi received an unannounced home visit from an IRS agent. We’ve seen the letter, and both the circumstances and timing of the IRS focus on this journalist raise serious questions.

Mr. Taibbi has provoked the ire of Democrats and other journalists for his role in researching Twitter records and then releasing internal communications from the social-media giant that expose its censorship and its contacts with government officials. This effort has already inspired government bullying, with Chair Lina Khan’s Federal Trade Commission targeting new Twitter owner Elon Musk and demanding the company “identify all journalists” granted access to the Twitter files.
Now Mr. Taibbi has told Mr. Jordan’s committee that an IRS agent showed up at his personal residence in New Jersey on March 9. That happens to be the same day Mr. Taibbi testified before the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about what he learned about Twitter. The taxman left a note instructing Mr. Taibbi to call the IRS four days later. Mr. Taibbi was told in a call with the agent that both his 2018 and 2021 tax returns had been rejected owing to concerns over identity theft.
Mr. Taibbi has provided the committee with documentation showing his 2018 return had been electronically accepted, and he says the IRS never notified him or his accountants of a problem after he filed that 2018 return more than four-and-a-half years ago.
He says the IRS initially rejected his 2021 return, which he later refiled, and it was rejected again—even though Mr. Taibbi says his accountants refiled it with an IRS-provided pin number. Mr. Taibbi notes that in neither case was the issue “monetary,” and that the IRS owes him a “considerable” sum.
The bigger question is when did the IRS start to dispatch agents for surprise house calls? Typically when the IRS challenges some part of a tax return, it sends a dunning letter. Or it might seek more information from the taxpayer or tax preparer. If the IRS wants to audit a return, it schedules a meeting at the agent’s office. It doesn’t drop by unannounced.
The curious timing of this visit, on the heels of the FTC demand that Twitter turn over names of journalists, raises questions about potential intimidation, and Mr. Jordan is right to want to see documents and communications relating to the Taibbi visit.
The fear of many Americans is that, flush with its new $80 billion in funding from Congress, the IRS will unleash its fearsome power against political opponents. Mr. Taibbi deserves to know why the agency decided to pursue him with a very strange house call.

An ignoramus of a diversity hire decides to opt out. I’d like to think the other ones would too, but as they’d be getting a lifetime appointment to the federal bench – as reliable political rubber stamps – you know they’ll be told not to.

FAA Nominee Phil Washington Withdraws His Nomination

Phil Washington, Joe Biden’s embattled nominee to head the Federal Aviation Administration, has withdrawn his nomination, sources told Reuters Saturday evening.

One of the sources, a White House official, told Reuters that “an onslaught of unfounded Republican attacks on Mr Washington’s service and experience irresponsibly delayed this process, threatened unnecessary procedural hurdles on the Senate floor, and ultimately have led him to withdraw his nomination today.”

Reuters’ piece went on to describe issues with Washington, a veteran, not having a waiver “from rules requiring civilian leadership to head the FAA” and questions about Washington’s competency and experience as obstacles, as well as a threat by Republicans to “use parliamentary tactics to object to Washington’s lack of a waiver.”

They didn’t refer to Washington’s miserable performance when questioned by Sen. Ted Budd (R-NC) in which he went 0-for-7 on aviation policy, though.

 

Janet Yellen, WH During Grilling on US Economy

Things are not good on the Biden team. As we reported, one reason is that Joe Biden is allegedly disappointed in Kamala Harris.

The word is that the powers that be at the White House are unhappy with her ability to do her job. Astonishing—did they finally just discover that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about? How long was she talking about “transitory” inflation before she had to admit it was real?

Charlie Gasparino had some scoop on that.

As we have reported, the political types in the White House — the people that craft messaging and give input on cabinet choices — have been increasingly wary of Yellen’s ability to do the job despite her expansive resume and years running the Fed, people with direct knowledge tell the Post.

They grew sour over her bungled response to inflation (recall how she said it was transitory as it was exploding). It’s why they floated possible replacements last year, including Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, and Brian Moynihan, the CEO of Bank of America. Both are seen as policy heavyweights. Unlike Yellen, they have real-world business experience (Yellen’s been in academia and government throughout her career).

Yet she survived that attempt to get her removed because her ultimate boss, the president, didn’t want to fire a woman in such a high-profile post, these people say.

White House advisors are upset over her flip-flops when it comes to whether the government will guarantee deposits of banks if they fail. That sounds like bailouts.

But the problem? They’re not sure they have anyone with any better answers to replace her with.

“On one hand they’re kind of stuck with her; it would be bad to get rid of a Treasury Secretary during a banking crisis,” said one of my sources, who works at a large DC-based think-tank and has heard the griping firsthand. “On the other hand, they know they don’t have anyone good to be their face in terms of a response.”

The problem is that the fish stinks from the head down. That’s Biden (and the folks pulling his levers behind the scenes). So, even if they get rid of her, the policies are all still horrific.

The embarrassing grilling that she had this week in Congress shows how much at sea Yellen is. But, it also revealed just how much they intend to tax us. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) asked Yellen whether it was true that Joe Biden’s budget proposes $4.7 trillion in new taxes.

Yellen looked embarrassed — as she should be — and Kennedy had to push her a little to answer, but she acknowledges yes, it was something like that number. Anyone who thinks they intend to get this amount in taxes just by going after the folks over $400,000 hasn’t been paying attention.

That answer was bad enough, but the clueless stare when Kennedy asks about the debt, and just how much is sustainable, is something else. This is just next-level bad.

She thinks 109 percent is sustainable. This is going to do us in, and maybe that’s what they’re trying to do here. It certainly seems so, with these kinds of actions.

Then in response to Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV), Yellen said that people don’t like the IRS because they haven’t been given enough resources. Yes, she said that.

This was after admitting previously, as I reported, that 90 percent of the new IRS audits would be on people making under $400,000.

These wild remarks this week were after her astonishing testimony in the prior week, talking about the bank collapses and admitting they’re essentially picking winners and losers to save. The result of this action, as Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said, would have people leaving community banks for the bigger banks or the “winners” that are being chosen. This type of response could crater the community banks.

This is where this administration has brought us, to absolutely insane approaches.

But don’t worry, because Janet Yellen says our economy is “performing very well.”

ATF ‘Acts as a Fifth Column for Gun Control Advocacy Groups,’ Witness Testifies at Congressional Hearing
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives accused of overreach during joint subcommittee hearings

A congressional hearing on the actions of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives was stopped briefly by the parents of a victim of the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas), who presided over the hearing, said the parents, Manuel and Patricia Oliver, were removed because they violated the hearing’s rules of decorum. He said purposes of discussion and debate are not served when meetings are disrupted.

“Dissent is not kryptonite,” Fallon said.

The Olivers’ 17-year-old son, Joaquin, was killed on Feb. 14, 2018, by a gunman who entered the school.

Fallon called a 5-minute recess about two hours into the hearing after the victim’s mother appeared to blame Republicans for “taking my son away from me.” Fallon asked officers to remove the couple, which drew loud protests.

Fallon said the hearing would be run civilly and with decorum as the demonstrators could be heard in the background. At one point Fallon looked at another congressman and asked, “Can’t the Capitol Police do their job?”

Later in the hearing, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) identified the couple and said that Manuel had been arrested. He asked Fallon if the committee could do something about that. Khanna said the committee should acknowledge the couple’s grief and pain.

“We need to, in this country, have some empathy,” Khanna said.

Fallon replied that he had no way of knowing who the couple was or why they were there. He also pointed out that no one on the committee had asked for them to be arrested.

“We requested they be removed, we did not request their arrest,” Fallon said. “What happened in the hallway, I can’t speak to.”

Prior to the disturbance, Amy Swearer, a senior legal fellow with The Heritage foundation, was one of four witnesses testifying on March 23 before a joint hearing of subcommittees of the House Committee on the Judiciary and the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability titled “ATF’s Assault on the Second Amendment: When is Enough Enough?”.

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Whistleblowers sound alarm on FBI’s anti-gun effort

We’ve previously written about the FBI’s anti-gun shenanigans. In particular, how the FBI was pressuring Americans to essentially sign away their Second Amendment rights in an effort to apparently avoid prosecution.

It was particularly troubling, to say the least. Now, whistleblowers are offering warnings on the program in question.

FBI whistleblowers are raising concerns over the bureau’s involvement in a secret plea agreement conditioned by the U.S. government that stripped a defendant of their rights to own, buy, or even use firearms.

The FBI and Secret Service worked behind closed doors with an apparent prosecutor in 2019 to condition the signing of the form, which also stripped at least 60 people of their gun rights between 2011 and 2019, according to multiple Washington Examiner reports. Two FBI whistleblowers say the bureau’s actions in connection to the forms are yet the latest revelation of the politicization of agencies, an allegation at the heart of the newly launched GOP-led weaponization of the federal government subcommittee…

Kyle Seraphin, an FBI whistleblower and agent until April 2022 who notably leaked information related to the Justice Department taking aim at parents on school boards, said the bureau’s internal form usage is an example of it going “rogue.”

“I think it 100% relates to that,” he told the Washington Examiner. “There’s no meaningful oversight by Congress. The FBI resists oversight whenever it wants to hide behind the guise of an ongoing investigation or national security — take your pick. And it refuses to reveal information that is necessary for oversight.”

“This happens all the time,” Seraphin added.

The FBI has continued to come under fire for obtaining signatures on the NICS forms, which were also fed to at least five hospitals and medical centers so they could use them on patients, the Washington Examiner reported on March 7. The facilities were located in New Hampshire, Delaware, Massachusetts, and Oklahoma, documents show.

However, as the Examiner notes, there’s nothing in the Gun Control Act of 1968 that permits these forms in the first place. While people who are a danger to themselves or others may be adjudicated by the courts as such, there’s no provision for being listed as such on a “voluntary” basis.

Further, there doesn’t appear to be any legitimate reason for the FBI to do anything like this, much less make such documents available to other law enforcement agencies or healthcare centers.

Let’s also not pretend that anything about this was really voluntary.

If the FBI shows up on your doorstep saying you’ve been a naughty boy or girl and then sits a form down in front of you saying that if you sign this, everything goes away, is that really voluntary? I mean, they don’t have a literal gun to your head, but there is a proverbial one.

No, they were coerced, plain and simple.

It’s well past time for them to have been called out for it, too.

At least 60 people have been stripped of their Second Amendment rights due to the FBI’s intimidation. That’s not how things are supposed to work in this country. It’s well past time we made sure things happened as they’re supposed to and not how some unelected bureaucrat thinks they should work.

Frankly, I can’t help but wonder if charges for those responsible are appropriate or not, but if so, I want the book thrown at them.

Biden admin cracks down on air conditioners as war on appliances continues
Government mandates ‘enforce a level of efficiency that doesn’t make sense,’ energy expert says

The Biden administration announced its latest home appliance regulations this week, targeting air conditioners in an action it said would reduce the nation’s carbon emissions.

The regulations, unveiled Thursday by the Department of Energy (DOE), finalize energy efficiency standards for home air conditioning units, or window air conditioners, and portable air cleaners. The DOE said the move would cut air pollution and push consumer costs down by billions of dollars via energy savings.

“Today’s announcement builds on the historic actions President Biden took last year to strengthen outdated energy efficiency standards, which will help save on people’s energy bills and reduce our nation’s carbon footprint,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement.

“DOE will continue to engage with our public and private sector partners to finalize additional proposals like today’s that lower household energy costs and deliver the safer, healthier communities that every American deserves,” she continued.

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Flip-Flopping Bureaucraps, of all the departments, will be the death of the U.S.

Republicans blast gun brace rule, claim Second Amendment violation

WASHINGTON (Nexstar) – Republicans on Capitol Hill say the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms is violating the Second Amendment with a new rule that took effect in 2023.

“Ever since Mr. Biden took office, his administration has actively sought to infringe on this right,” Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) said.

Republicans specifically object to a new rule applying regulations on pistol stabilizing braces.

The inventor of the brace said he designed it to help disabled veterans use firearms, but Democrats say regardless of the intent, the device is used to exploit and create loopholes to gun laws.

Rep. Jaime Raskin (D-MD) said this would “allow owners to turn their weapons into short barrel rifles, efficient weapons of war without triggering traditional ATF oversight.”

Rep. Raskin says gun owners and sellers know and advertise the use of stabilizing braces to make pistols more accurate, and more dangerous while remaining easy to conceal.

Republicans say the rule could turn Americans who already own the device into criminals overnight — but that would only happen if the owner fails to register it before May 31.

Fallon: Biden Administration Weaponizing ATF Against Law-Abiding Firearm Owners

WASHINGTON — Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy, and Regulatory Affairs Chairman Pat Fallon (R-Texas) opened today’s joint subcommittee hearing by slamming the Biden Administration’s recent actions infringing upon Americans’ Second Amendment rights. Subcommittee Chairman Fallon highlighted how under the Biden Administration, the ATF has been weaponized against law-abiding gun owners and Americans who wish to acquire firearms.

He emphasized how the ATF’s recent final rule related to stabilizing braces upends over a decade of precedent and could turn law-abiding gun owners into criminals unless they comply. Subcommittee Chairman Fallon closed by urging the Biden Administration to go after actual criminals rather than Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights.

Below are Subcommittee Chairman Fallon’s remarks as prepared:

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