Category: Bureaucraps

Gun Boom Continues: FBI Ran 192,749 Background Checks on Black Friday
Numbers released Monday show that the FBI ran 192,749 National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) background checks on Black Friday 2022.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) noted that the 192,749 NICS checks on Black Friday 2022 “[rank] it third in the Top 10 Highest Days for NICS checks and…[represent] a 2.8 percent increase from Black Friday 2021.” The FBI conducted 187,585 NICS checks on Black Friday 2021 and 186,645 checks on Black Friday 2020, Breitbart News reported.

The NSSF observed that there were 711,372 NICS checks “during the week leading up to and including Black Friday.”
The strong Black Friday NICS check numbers come after surges in gun sales during recent years.
For example, on October 6, 2022, Breitbart News reported retailers had sold over one million guns a month for 38 consecutive months.

Mark Oliva, NSSF managing director for public affairs, spoke to Breitbart News about the gun sales, noting the “38 continuous months of when background checks for firearm sales have exceeded 1 million” and added, “That’s a remarkable sustained trend and demonstrates that the firearm industry is meeting this continued increased demand for firearm ownership.”

Why gun owners should take Biden’s gun ban comments seriously

On Thanksgiving, Joe Biden once again called on Congress to enact a gun ban, proclaiming that “the idea we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick.” Biden further declared that semi-automatic firearms have “no socially redeeming value, and the claimed that the only reason why they’re sold is the “profit for the gun manufacturers.”

As my colleague Tom Knighton pointed out in his coverage of Biden’s remarks, the president seemingly conflated “semi-automatic firearm” with “assault weapon”; an invented term that generally refers to semi-automatic rifles but not all semi-automatic firearms. I’m not convinced, however, that this was an actual mistake on the part of Biden, despite his long history of mangling his public comments to the point they’re incomprehensible. No, in this case I suspect that Biden intentionally spoke about wanting to ban semi-automatic firearms because that is, in fact, what he wants to do.

Now, there’s no way that Congress is going to pass Biden’s gun ban, even in the lame duck session. There aren’t 60 votes to ban so-called assault weapons, much less the much broader universe of the hundreds of millions of semi-automatic handguns, rifles, and shotguns in the hands of peaceable gun owners. But what if Joe Biden isn’t planning on signing a gun ban bill, but instead abusing his executive authority to impose a sweeping gun ban through regulation instead?

It sounds crazy, but for months now the gun control lobby has been advocating for the administration to take that step, maintaining in court filings and advocacy pieces that semi-automatic firearms are “readily converted” to fully-automatic fire and should therefore be treated like machine guns under the provisions of the National Firearms Act.

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Texas gun shop owner sues ATF, accuses agency of abusing federal law

Central Texas Gunworks owner Michael Cargill has filed a federal lawsuit agains the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives alleging that the government agency is abusing its powers under the Gun Control Act of 1968 to shut down federally licensed firearm retailers for minor clerical and paperwork errors; a practice that Cargill’s attorneys say ignores the actual law.

According to the text of the GCA, the ATF has to find evidence of “willful” misconduct on the part of these FFLs; something that Cargill and his attorneys say is missing from many of the recent revocation notices the ATF has been handing out.

According to the lawsuit, the new policy under President Biden’s team at ATF has turned longtime record-keeping requirements that are supposed to prevent criminals and other dangerous people from buying guns into a weapon against the firearm industry.

“The act allows the federal government to revoke gun dealers’ license to sell firearms — commonly called federal firearms licenses or FFLs — when dealers willfully violate federal or state gun laws,” Mr. Curtis said.

In a statement to The Washington Times, the ATF said it would not comment on specific litigation but defended the agency’s use of the Gun Control Act.

An ATF spokesman maintained that the agency can only revoke a license for “willful violations” of the Gun Control Act.

“The GCA does not define ‘willful,’” the spokesman said, citing a statement from its website. “Federal courts have held that a willful violation of the GCA’s regulations occurs when the FFL commits the violation with an intentional disregard of a known legal duty or with plain indifference to their legal obligations.”

For decades, Cargill says, license revocations were an “exceedingly rare” step reserved only for the “worst actors,” noting, for instance, that in 2013 the ATF recommended license revocations for just 81 of the more than 10,000 shops that were inspected. Starting in the summer of 2021, however, things changed, and Cargill points to Joe Biden’s White House announcement that the GCA would be enforced against “rogue” gun dealers, even those who never willfully intended to make minor paperwork mistakes.

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Fauci Deposition report: “he can’t recall practically anything dealing with his Covid response!”
Louisiana AG Jeff Landry: “Wow! It was amazing to spend 7 hours with Dr. Fauci. The man who single-handedly wrecked the U.S. economy based upon ‘the science.’ Only to discover that he can’t recall practically anything dealing with his Covid response!”

The deposition of Anthony Fauci took place today in the lawsuit commenced by Louisiana and Missouri, alleging that numerous Biden administration officials colluded with and directed big tech and social media giants to censor dissenting scientific and medical voices with regard to Covid.

We covered the case and the court order for Fauci (and others) to testify under oath in these posts:

We don’t know much about what happened. The deposition, while it was recorded, was not streamed. And there apparently is a protective order prohibiting the parties or those in attendance from separately recording.

In advance of the deposition, Missouri Attorney General (and Senator-elect) Eric Schmitt promised they would attempt to get answers from Fauci:

“Tomorrow, along with my colleague from Louisiana, my Office and I will depose Dr. Anthony Fauci in our lawsuit against the Biden Administration for allegedly colluding with social media companies to censor freedom of speech,” said Attorney General Schmitt. “Since we filed our landmark lawsuit, we have uncovered documents and discovery that show clear coordination between the Biden Administration and social media companies on censoring speech, but we’re not done yet. We plan to get answers on behalf of the American people. Stay tuned.”

Well, it’s not clear how many answers were given. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, who attended the deposition, tweeted that Fauci had a lack of memory

Wow! It was amazing to spend 7 hours with Dr. Fauci. The man who single-handedly wrecked the U.S. economy based upon “the science.” Only to discover that he can’t recall practically anything dealing with his Covid response!

 

Jenin Younes, an attorney from the New Civil Liberties Alliance, representing the physicians and scientist who were attacked after signing The Great Barrington Declaration, was present, and observed:

One of my favorite quotes from Fauci’s deposition today: “I have a very busy day job running a six billion dollar institute. I don’t have time to worry about things like the Great Barrington Declaration.”

The other one, which I didn’t write down carefully enough to claim is verbatim, is: I was too busy developing a vaccine that saved millions of lives to care about what happens on social media.

 

At some point we’ll find out more about the deposition, and what Fauci forgot.

Fauci is leaving his post in December, before Republicans take control of the House. He will be the subject of House committee investigations and will be subpoenaed to testify.

UPDATES

 

With bureaucraps as the apparatchiks

Far From a Democracy, the U.S. Is a Functional Oligarchy.

Americans are led to feel free through the exercise of meaningless choices. There are only two political parties. There is a reduction of the number of media companies. Banking has been reduced to only a handful of banks. Oil companies. These are important, and you’re given very little choice. … You know what your freedom of choice in America is? Paper or plastic. — George Carlin

“Democracy™ is on the ballot,” went the incessant, mindless talking point, over and over, pushed by glassy-eyed Democrat Party surrogates this election cycle. And they’re going to recycle that talking point for as long as possible, because that’s all they’ve got.

The benefit of promoting Democracy™ as the central selling point to elect Democrats is that the term is amorphous. The vast majority of targeted voters who hear about the importance of Democracy™ won’t ever really think critically about what it entails or, more importantly, whether it actually exists.

Sad to say, it doesn’t. Democracy™ in America in 2022 is a childish fantasy. A pipe dream. A mirage.

That the United States is a thriving democracy, through persistent propaganda in public schools and corporate media, has become an unquestionable article of faith. But back in 2014, before Orange Hitler rained on the Democracy™ parade, when the neoliberal star-child Obama reigned supreme at the pinnacle of Democracy™, two political science researchers quietly destroyed the narrative.

Instead of mindlessly adhering to the Democracy™ mythology, the researchers quantitatively analyzed how the gears of government actually turn. They isolated thousands of policy decisions and stacked them up against public opinion divided by economic status and interest groups.

Here’s what they found, as published in “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens” (emphasis added):

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. 

The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism… When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose.

Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the US political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it… average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence [over US policy].

What that means, in a nutshell, is that, unless you are a privileged member of the D.C.-centric governing class, your preferences about what should happen in your own country matter not at all, full stop. Elite interests are not your interests.

When exactly America lost its true democracy or whether it ever truly manifested in the first place is obviously up for debate. What is not debatable is that Americans’ birthright of self-governance as enumerated in the founding documents of this Great Experiment has been stolen — specifically, and ironically, by the same band of ravenous vultures who preach nonstop about the Democracy™ they stifle.

Trump was 100% over the target when he promised to #draintheswamp. Unfortunately, the swamp is murkier than it’s ever been, with no real hope of remedy in the immediate future.

Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster … for when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.  — Friedrich Nietzsche

Township argues proposed gun range not covered by Second Amendment

HOWELL TWP. — Township officials and their attorneys are again trying to get a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit over a proposed shooting range.

Oakland Tactical Supply owner Mike Paige and five firearms owners recently made headway in federal appeals court in their 2018 suit against the township, which sent the case back to a lower court, but now the plaintiffs will have to convince the same district court judge who ruled against them in 2020 to change his mind.

In their suit, Oakland Tactical and gun owners  Scott Fresh, Jason Raines, Matthew Remenar, Edward Dimitroff and Ronald Penrod claim the township violated the Second Amendment by denying Paige’s request to amend the township’s zoning ordinance to allow shooting ranges on land zoned for agricultural residential development.

U.S. District Court Judge Bernard Friedman ruled in 2020 the township did not violate the gun owners’ constitutional rights.

This August, U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals judges sent the Howell Township case back to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in light of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on gun rights in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, which struck down a New York law requiring state residents to have a special need to carry weapons outside the home.

The Supreme Court ruling also changed the “test” lower courts should use when determining the constitutionality of firearm regulations.

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“You Won’t Answer the Question” — Senator Rand Paul Confronts FBI on Scooping Up Online User Data

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) confronted FBI Director Christopher Wray about the collusion with social media companies and whether the FBI scoops up private information to identify users.


“Is  or any other social media company supplying private messages or data on American users that is not compelled by the government or the FBI?” Paul asked Wray. “No warrant, no subpoena, they’re just supplying you information on their users?”

“I don’t believe so, but I can’t sit here and be sure of that as I sit here,” Wray replied.

“Can you give us a yes or no by going back to your team and asking? Because it’s a very specific question. Because if they are, it’s against the law,” Paul said, invoking the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. “This was done to protect the privacy of people so we could feel like we can send an email or direct message to people without having that information given over. It’s a very specific question: Will you get with your team of lawyers and give us a specific answer? Because this is the law. If you’re doing it, then we need to go to court to prevent you from receiving this information.”

“Well, I can tell you that I’m quite confident that we’re following the law —, ” Wray started.

“Well, that’s not the answer, ” Paul responded.

“ — but what I will also follow up with you to make sure we get you more information; more detailed information,” Wray added.

“Is the FBI obtaining anonymous social media data and then using technical methods to pierce the anonymous nature of the data?” Paul questioned.

Wray paused before asking, “Anonymous social media data?”

“So you purchase data,” Paul said. “People purchase data all the time and we sort of tolerate it for advertising and things because it’s anonymous data. Are you purchasing what is said to be anonymous data through the marketplace and then piercing the anonymous nature to attach individual names to that data? Are you purchasing data and then piercing the anonymous nature of that data?”

“So the manner in which we use — we usually use the term commercial data — is probably longer than I can explain here. But again, let me —, ” Wray said appearing to dodge the question.

“So you will not answer the question of whether or not you’re attaching names to anonymous data,” Paul stated.

“I think it’s a more complicated answer than I can give here,” Wray responded.

“So, so far we’re 0 for 2 at getting you to answer this, but you’re pledging you will actually answer the question because you have to realize the frustration; we’ll write you a letter and your team of lawyers will write back with a 15-page letter that says nothing and you won’t answer the question. These are very specific. This is whether you’re obeying the law, whether we can have confidence. I want to have confidence,” Paul said.

“We are obeying the law,” Wray responded.

“Well, you’re saying that, but you won’t tell us the answer,” Paul stated. “You aren’t telling me the answer. And the answer is: Are you collecting data not compelled by a warrant? That would not be in compliance with the law. But you won’t answer that you’re not collecting that data.”

Eventually, Paul asked, “Are you getting tips and leads from social media companies?”

“We get tips and leads from companies, absolutely,” Wray acknowledged.

“You may think this is jolly well to get all this stuff without a warrant that people volunteer to you, but many of us are alarmed that you’re getting this information that are private communications between people because it is against the law – it’s against the law for Facebook or social media companies to give it to you, but it’s also against the law for you to receive it,” Paul ended.

GOP Rep. Greene Says Kevin McCarthy, House GOP Will Defund Special Counsel Investigating Trump

Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green on Friday said that current House Minority Leader and likely next House Speaker Kevin McCarthy would deny funding to the Department of Justice special counsel investigating former President Donald Trump.

In a Tweet detailing the plan, Greene insisted McCarthy would invoke the Holman rule, a procedural measure by which the House may adjust appropriations legislation to reduce the salary of or fire specific government employees. They may also use it to cut specific programs.

“Holman Rule. Look it up! [McCarthy] is going to put it in place,” Greene wrote. “That means no money for Garland’s politically weaponized Special Counsel. Don’t promise too many jobs! Whoops defunded.”

It was not immediately clear whether Greene was predicting such action or announcing that McCarthy had made the decision. Just the News has sought comment from Greene’s office. McCarthy’s office could not immediately be reached.

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Friday that he was appointing Jack Smith as special counsel to oversee the DOJ investigations relating the former president.

“The Department of Justice has long recognized that in certain extraordinary cases it is in the public interest to appoint a special prosecutor to independently manage an investigation and prosecution,” Garland said. “Based on recent developments, including the former president’s announcement that he is a candidate for president in the next election and the sitting president’s stated intention to be a candidate as well, I have concluded that it is in the public interest to appoint a special counsel.”

McCarthy has thus far not announced any plans akin to what Greene has indicated. The California Republican this week won his party’s nomination for speaker while the party. Republicans won control of the House during the 2022 midterm elections, meaning McCarthy will likely be the one driving the lower chamber’s operations in the next congressional session.


Household debt soars at fastest pace in 15 years as credit card use surges, Fed report says.

Households increased debt during the third quarter at the fastest pace in 15 years due to hefty increases in credit card usage and mortgage balances, the Federal Reserve reported Tuesday.

Total debt jumped by $351 billion for the July-to-September period, the largest nominal quarterly increase since 2007, bringing the collective household IOU in the U.S. to a fresh record $16.5 trillion. That’s an increase of 2.2% from the previous quarter and 8.3% from a year ago.

The increase follows a $310 billion jump in the second quarter and represents a $1.27 trillion annual increase.

Debt has surged over the past year due to inflation running near its highest pace in more than 40 years and amid rising interest rates and strong consumer demand.

The biggest contributors to that debt load came from mortgage balances, which rose $1 trillion from a year ago to $11.7 trillion, and credit card debt, which climbed to $930 billion.

The credit card balance collectively rose more than 15% from the same period in 2021, the largest annual jump in more than 20 years, according to the New York Fed, which released the report. The increase “towers over the last eighteen years of data,” a group of Fed researchers said in a blog post on the central bank site.

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Dangerous Use of Serial Numbers Found Unconstitutional

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)-– The most dangerous use of a serial number on a firearm is as a registration number. In effect, gun registration is gun confiscation. It was not the intent for which serial numbers were made. They were created to track firearms with production changes and as a way for government arsenals to track the production and military use of weapons.

A federal court recently held a law passed in 1990, which makes possessing a firearm with a removed serial (registration) number illegal, is unconstitutional.

This is an important decision. It has relatively minor effects at this time. The law was a step toward universal firearms registration.

Finding the law unconstitutional subverts the push for government control over firearms.

Suppose a person cannot be punished for merely possessing a firearm from which a serial number has been removed. In that case, the entire scheme for government control over legally owned firearms falls apart.

There cannot be effective gun registration if a person cannot be punished for possessing a gun with the serial number removed.

The legal ability to possess firearms without serial numbers buttresses the deterrent effect of an armed population.

If government agents demand a person turn in a firearm that is registered to them, they can remain silent.

If the firearm appears at some later date, and the serial number has been removed, it becomes difficult to connect the firearm to the person it was registered to.

It becomes difficult to punish a person for an act someone else commits with a firearm originally purchased by them.

A unique serial number is a key to efforts to register and control firearms by the administrative state. Nelson T. “Pete” Shields of Handgun Control, inc. laid out the plan in 1976:

 “We’ll take one step at a time, and the first is necessarily – given the political realities – very modest.  We’ll have to start working again to strengthen the law, and then again to strengthen the next law and again and again.  Our ultimate goal, total control of handguns, is going to take time.  The first problem is to slow down production and sales. Next is to get registration.  The final problem is to make possession of all handguns and ammunition (with a few exceptions) totally illegal.”

When people may not be punished for possessing a firearm whose serial number has been removed, the plan falls apart.

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It’s long, but read the whole thing at your convenience

These Counties Experiencing Election Issues Have One Thing In Common

It suffices to say that Election Day didn’t go as planned for some polling places that experienced and are still experiencing ballot-counting issues. Despite the varying election-related difficulties, multiple jurisdictions share one foreseen commonality. There’s a common thread connecting five counties spread across several states that were in disarray on Election Day: federal “monitors.”

On the eve of the elections, the Biden administration’s Department of Justice announced Monday it would be dispatching such monitors to as many as 64 jurisdictions in almost half of U.S. states on Election Day to oversee federal election law “compliance.”

According to the DOJ’s watch list, Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County, Texas’s Harris County, Arizona’s Maricopa County, and Pima County, and Nevada’s Washoe County all had the feds there “monitoring” polls. The nationwide deployment is a notable expansion. Nevada wasn’t on the DOJ’s roster two years ago during the presidential election cycle in 2020. Still, it was on the DOJ’s radar this time, and Pima County—Arizona’s second-most populous, which holds Tucscon—is among the new additions.

These five jurisdictions supposedly under in-person DOJ supervision throughout Tuesday suffered major muck-ups.

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Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft Responds to Joe Biden’s DOJ’s Attempt to Harass Cole County Clerk

Over the weekend, TGP reported that the Biden regime was harassing a local county clerk in Missouri in an effort to plant federal DOJ employees onsite during today’s election process.  

Assistant US Attorney Charles Thomas wrote Cole County Missouri Clerk Steve Korsmeyer this week and notified him that the Biden DOJ will be in Jefferson City, Missouri on Monday and Tuesday to inspect and harass election officials during the midterm elections in Missouri.


As most of you are aware, this is the most radical far-left office in the US government.

Why are they making a visit to the middle of Missouri on election day? Why did they spring this on the Cole County Clerk now?

And does the DOJ have jurisdiction over Missouri elections?

And should they not have gone through the Secretary of State’s office?

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft is very capable, and honest, and has an open door. Why did they bypass the Missouri Secretary of State?

On Sunday Secretary of State Ashcroft responded on Twitter to the actions by the corrupt Biden DOJ.

Secretary of State Ashcroft announced he was supporting Steve Korsmeyer, who rightfully declined the DOJ’s offer to harass voters in Cole County.

Secretary of State Ashcroft goes further and offer the DOJ to discuss their request further at his office.  SOS Ashcroft backs the local county clerk.

DeSantis Pushes Back Against Biden DOJ Monitors Interfering in Florida’s Election

The DeSantis administration is pushing back against President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice’s apparent effort to send in election  “monitors” inside state-run polling locations within several Florida counties.

In a letter to  John “Bert” Russ, Deputy Chief & Elections Coordinator for the Department of Justice by Florida Department of State General Counsel Brad McVay, the DeSantis administration warns that under Florida statute,  DOJ monitors “are not permitted” inside Florida polling locations.

But Department of Justice monitors are not permitted under Florida law. Section 102.031(3)(a) of the Florida Statutes lists the people who “may enter any polling room or polling place.”

“Earlier today, the Florida Department of State received copies of your letters to Miami-Dade and Broward Counties in which you seem to indicate that the Department of Justice will send monitors inside polling places in these counties,” reads the letter.

“We also understand you sent a similar letter to Palm Beach County. But Department of Justice monitors are not permitted under Florida law. Section 102.031(3)(a) of the Florida Statutes lists the people who “may enter any polling room or polling place.” Department of Justice personnel are not included on the list. Even if they could qualify as “law enforcement” under section 102.031(3)(a)6. of the Florida Statutes, absent some evidence concerning the need for federal intrusion, or some federal statute that preempts Florida law, the presence of federal law enforcement inside polling places would be counterproductive and could potentially undermine confidence.”

The DeSantis administration will in turn dispatch its own election integrity monitors to ensure that the federal government does not interfere in Florida’s election process. The decree from the Florida Department of State comes a day or so after Broward County activist Chris Nelson first posted an email to “field clerks” he received from a source.

The author of the of email in question urges Supervisor of Elections workers to “grant them access to see the process.”

“These are the DOJ agents that will be roaming the County on Election Day. We must grant them access to see the process. Mostly they will be checking to see if we have the ADA machines out, properly set up with adequate space, available, people trained to use them, etc. They will have DOJ credentials.”

The apparent elections overstep by the Biden administration could be perceived as a form of election day intimidation.

This story is developing

BLUF
The American Founders, in their quest to create a limited government to prevent this evil, created the First Amendment. It plainly states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…”

We now know the DHS has now been working quietly for years to abridge free speech, and it has done so with no explicit legal authority; the laws Congress passed speak not a whisper about regulating speech.

The Department of Homeland Security needs to be put in check, and it reminds us of an ancient question: quis custodiet ipsos custodes (who guards the guardians)?

Who Authorized the Department of Homeland Security to Police Online Speech? Not Congress
Newly published documents obtained by the Intercept show the US government is actively shaping online discourse and policing speech. This invites a question: who gave them this authority?

When George W. Bush signed the Homeland Security Act in 2002, the goal was to improve national security by strengthening government at various levels and helping them identify and respond to threats, particularly terrorism.

”The continuing threat of terrorism, the threat of mass murder on our own soil, will be met with a unified, effective response,” said Bush. ”Dozens of agencies charged with homeland security will now be located within one cabinet department with the mandate and legal authority to protect our people.”

The law contained “severe privacy and civil liberties problems,” the ACLU argued, but the legislation enjoyed broad bipartisan support. Only nine Senators voted against it (eight Democrats and one Independent).

Bush tapped Tom Ridge as the first secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, but public policy experts admitted it was unclear precisely what the new department would do.

”The first challenge is to lower expectations,” Paul C. Light of the Brookings Institution told The New York Times. ”People should think they will be safer, but remember we have a long way to go.”

One thing not mentioned in the Homeland Security Act is free speech. The word “speech” does not appear on even one of the law’s 187 pages.

Nevertheless, newly-published documents published by The Intercept show the extent to which the DHS is now actively involved in using the power of the US government to shape online discourse and police speech by pressuring private platforms behind closed doors.

“In a March meeting, Laura Dehmlow, an FBI official, warned that the threat of subversive information on social media could undermine support for the U.S. government,” The Intercept wrote of one message. “Dehmlow, according to notes of the discussion attended by senior executives from Twitter and JPMorgan Chase, stressed that ‘we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.’”

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The FBI will not be forgiven after Tuesday.

The House Republicans’ bruising report is a statement of intent

It is said that towards the end his life as he sank into dementia, Maurice Ravel was tormented by the theme from Bolero playing over and over in his head. I would not be surprised to hear that Christopher Wray, head of America’s Staatspolizei (also known as the FBI) is suffering from a similar torment as the theme from the movie Jaws plays over and over in his noggin.

In fact, I suspect that John Williams’s minatory masterpiece is playing at Democratic redoubts all across the country. Merrick Garland hears it, as do Raphael Warnock, Tim Ryan, Mark Kelly, Catherine Cortez Masto, Katie Hobbs and Gretchen Whitmer. I decline to speculate about the music bouncing around in John Fetterman’s head, but I know it is loud and distressing. As one commentator noted, Tuesday’s red wave in the midterm elections is going to be like the red elevator scene in The Shining. I had to look that one up but, yep, it seems like an appropriate metaphor for what is about to happen.

Some hapless scribe called Emily Oster recently wrote an article for the Atlantic called “Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty.” That’s not bloody likely, Emily. The fallen angel Anthony Fauci and power-hungry apparatchiks throughout the land destroyed businesses, ruined nearly two years of education and socialization for children, made it impossible to visit your dying grandmother, go to the beach or to church or celebrate your favorite nephew’s birthday. Meanwhile, they forced millions to wear pointless masks and undergo experimental vaccinations whose safety, it now emerges, is highly questionable. The spectacle of the coercive power of the state being wielded against ordinary citizens going about their lives was frightening and outrageous.

“Amnesty” comes from the Greek word ἀμνηστία, whose primary meaning is “forgetfulness.” In common parlance, the word carries a suggestion of forgiveness as well. But neither forgetfulness nor forgiveness is on the docket. People are not about to forget what the politicians and their bureaucrats just did to them. And if they do not forget, neither will they forgive.

Nor are they going to forget what the FBI has done and is doing to us. The dawn raids against non-violent political rivals of the regime and pro-life activists, the nationwide dragnets to nab people who protested against the 2020 election, the spying on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, manufacture of forged evidence in order to mobilize the awesome surveillance apparatus of the state against American citizens and undermine Trump’s presidency. The bill of indictment is long and damning. How long? More than a thousand pages in its first iteration, which GOP members of House Judiciary Committee dropped on Friday under the title “FBI Whistleblowers: What Their Disclosures Indicate About the Politicization of the FBI and Justice Department.”

What they indicate is an agency that has gone rogue and should be dismantled. This has been a theme sounding for more than a years now. Roger L. Simon, writing for the Epoch Times, said that the FBI, like ancient Carthage, must be destroyed. Holman Jenkins, writing for the Wall Street Journal, said that the agency had to be abolished. I’ve argued the same case several times, here, for example, and here. In my column for the December Speccie, I suggest that FBI be relocated to Kansas City and have its budget cut by 75 percent. “Then,” I write, “it should be taken apart altogether,” not least because “a national police is probably unconstitutional certainly un-American”

With few exceptions, the consensus is that the Bureau is beyond reformation or reclamation. Friday’s lengthy J’Accuse underscores the moral bankruptcy and corruption of the FBI.

Its opening statement provides a bracing summary:

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Comment O’ The Day
No government has ever seen an area of human activity they couldn’t make worse given sufficient budget. This is an important first step in misallocating vast oceans of human and monetary capital.

Soon we will look back fondly at today’s straightforward and streamlined regulatory environment as “The good old days, when it was fast and easy to get stuff done”.

FCC proposes new bureau for space activities

WASHINGTON — The chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission announced plans Nov. 3 to reorganize the agency and create a bureau devoted to the its increasing work with space systems.

In a speech at a Satellite Industry Association event, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced her intent to reorganize the commission’s International Bureau into a new Space Bureau and a standalone Office of International Affairs. That reorganization, she said, would give satellite licensing and regulatory work greater prominence and access to more resources.

“The organizational structures of the agency have not kept pace as the applications and proceedings before us have multiplied,” she said, saying that the FCC has applications under consideration for systems totaling 64,000 satellites. “You can’t just keep doing things the old way and expect to lead in the new.”

Having a bureau devoted to space, she said, would go hand-in-hand with efforts to increase staffing and develop new regulations for space systems. “This organization will help ensure that the new Space Bureau and the Office of International Affairs stay relevant, efficient and effective over time.”

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‘Politicized bureaucracy’ has FBI ‘rotted at its core,’ GOP charges in shocking report.

The FBI is “rotted at its core,” has a “systemic culture of unaccountability” and is full of “rampant corruption, manipulation and abuse,” according to whistleblowers cited in a damning report released Friday by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee.

The report, which runs 1,050 pages with appendices, amounts to a preview of coming investigations should Republicans win back the House in the Nov. 8 midterm elections.

“America’s not America if you have a Justice Department that treats people differently under the law,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Friday morning. “It’s supposed to be equal treatment under the law. That’s not happening and we know it’s not happening because 14 brave FBI agents came to us as whistleblowers and told us what exactly is going on here.”

In the document, GOP lawmakers accuse the bureau’s top brass of pursuing a “woke, leftist agenda” by artificially inflating the number of domestic extremism investigations, burying the investigation into first son Hunter Biden, and forcing out conservative employees.

“Quite simply, the problem — the rot within the FBI — festers in and proceeds from Washington,” the report’s introduction read. “[T]he FBI and its parent agency, the Justice Department, have become political institutions.”

 

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ATF, Enforcer of Gun Laws, Lost ‘Thousands of Firearms, Firearm Parts’ to Thieves
The agency should be abolished and its employees sent to seek jobs in the private sector.

With inflation, prices are up pretty much across the board, but if you’re looking for a new gun for recreation or self-defense, here’s a hint: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is offering them at an absolute steal. Seriously, the federal agency tasked with enforcing firearms regulations has such poor security that thousands of guns and gun parts once in its possession disappeared in the hands of thieves. And it has yet to fully implement recommended reforms.

“Since September 2015, the ATF has utilized the National Disposal Branch (NDB), formerly the National Firearms and Ammunition Destruction (NFAD) Branch, to centralize and streamline the disposal process of forfeited and ATF-owned firearms. Each year, the ATF destroys thousands of firearms at the NDB,” the U.S. Justice Department’s Inspector General noted in announcing a recent report. “The DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) undertook this audit following the discovery that thousands of firearms, firearm parts, and ammunition had been stolen from NFAD from 2016 to 2019.”

So, for three years, the agency that enforces every petty and intrusive federal regulation regarding firearms (as well as alcohol, tobacco, and explosives) let its own security personnel (“a DHS contract security guard was convicted in connection with these thefts”) pilfer its inventory.

Strictly speaking, the report isn’t about the thefts themselves, which were discovered by accident during a traffic stop. The recent report delved into the ATF’s progress in implementing anything resembling the security procedures it requires of the private gun dealers it oversees—or maybe just something more challenging than leaving “intact weapons … in unsecured boxes and unlocked containers.” So, how is the ATF doing at storing firearms at least as securely as you might expect of private businesses?

“The ATF has implemented several new control procedures to reduce the risk of firearm thefts,” the report found. “However, the ATF has not implemented all improvements to NDB operations recommended over three years ago.”

Among other challenges, even well after the disposal facility was identified as a grab-bag for the firearms black market (the convicted security guard, Christopher Lee Yates, sold what he stole), the Inspector General “identified several ATF policies regarding firearm storage and evidence tracking with which the NDB is not in compliance.” Of course, implementing new security measures doesn’t matter much when “staff does not consistently adhere to established operating procedures in place to mitigate the risk of firearms being lost or stolen. Specifically, we observed, in the NDB facility surveillance footage, staff occasionally circumventing controls pertaining to facility and vault access solely for the sake of convenience.”

Staff stored guns on top of vaults instead of inside them, left keys lying around, propped exterior doors open, didn’t sign people in and out, and otherwise engaged in more sloppiness than you might expect of people who had already been caught with their pants down and were told to tighten things up. Then again, government workers aren’t generally held to the same standards as the private sector.

The ATF has long had an adversarial relationship with gun owners and sellers, but last year, the Biden administration deliberately stepped up the hostilities.

“The Justice Department is announcing a new policy to underscore zero tolerance for willful violations of the law by federally licensed firearms dealers that put public safety at risk,” the White House announced in 2021. “Absent extraordinary circumstances that would need to be justified to the Director, ATF will seek to revoke the licenses of dealers the first time that they violate federal law.”

The ATF was obviously listening and eager to please the administration.

“The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives revoked gun store licenses at a higher rate in 2022 than in any year since 2006,” The Trace, “the only newsroom dedicated to covering gun violence,” trumpeted earlier this month. “The total more than triples the number of licenses revoked in 2021, when a similar number of dealers were inspected.”

But, while some of the violations that could get a license to sell firearms revoked are potentially serious, many are of the sort best described as bureaucratic missteps.

“At the direction of the Biden administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) appears to be revoking the licenses of firearm dealers for even minor paperwork violations,” AmmoLand, which covers shooting sports, observed in May. After reviewing the list of criteria for targeting gun dealers, AmmoLand pointed out that “‘falsifying records’ is a very broad category that can include making simple errors on Form 4473, and ‘failing to respond to a trace request’ could result from simply missing an attempted contact by ATF.”

In particular, it should be noted, the ATF requires that “Any Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) who has knowledge of the theft or loss of any firearms from their inventory must report such theft or loss within 48 hours of discovery to ATF and to the local law enforcement agency.” These reports must “be made by telephone and in writing to ATF.”

The ATF also publishes a flyer on “Loss Prevention for Firearms Retailers” that includes handy tips about records-keeping, locking stuff up, and not employing sketchy people. You have to wonder what the ATF would say about a private facility that was ripped off for years on end by its own staffers and still failed to implement serious security measures after the fact. I expect that the consequences would be a bit more serious than a single arrest and then business as usual despite a tut-tutting reprimand.

The nicest thing you can say about the ATF is that it’s an unserious and unaccountable bureaucracy. Often it’s explicitly contemptible, such as during the Fast-and-Furious gun-walking scandal, and its setting up mentally disabled youths to take the fall during gun-and-drug stings. After those abuses of individual rights and public trust, the failings of the National Disposal Branch almost pale by comparison.

The theft of “thousands of firearms, firearm parts, and ammunition” from the federal body tasked with enforcing firearms regulations on the private sector is just further evidence that the ATF has no good excuse for existing. Like so many other government agencies, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives should be abolished, and its employees sent into the world to seek honest jobs in the private sector, if anybody will have them.

Enhanced Background Checks Discriminating Against 18-20 Year Olds to Start Nov. 14

Washington, DC – -(AmmoLand.com)- As a result of the passage of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) of 2022, the NICS Section has been working towards the implementation of an enhanced background check process for persons between the ages of 18-20.

The enhancement provides the opportunity for additional outreach and research to be conducted regarding the existence of any juvenile adjudication information and/or mental health prohibition. As a result, transactions on persons between the ages of 18-20 will initially be delayed allowing for the additional outreach. To conduct this outreach and research, the address of the individual will be collected so that the appropriate local law enforcement entities may be contacted.

For all FFLs conducting checks through the FBI, the enhanced process for persons under the age of 21 will begin on November 14, 2022.

NICS transactions for persons under the age of 21 could be extended for a period up to ten business days. As a result, it is possible for an FFL to be contacted with an updated Brady Transfer Date in certain scenarios. In these situations, NICS staff will be calling to advise of the change. For now, any updated Brady Transfer Date received from the NICS Section should be notated in Block 32 of the ATF Form 4473. Please remember when telephonically contacted by the NICS Section, you will be asked to verify your FFL license number and codeword. In preparation, this may be information you want to have handy for your staff and/or remind them of. If you are a NICS E-Check user, please note calls related to any change to the Brady Transfer Date will be a temporary solution until the NICS can be updated to automatically send the change in date via the E-Check.

Please note, if no potentially prohibiting information is located, the transaction will be proceeded as soon as possible. All descriptive information, including address, will follow normal purge requirements (i.e., deleted from NICS within 24 hours of the FFL receiving a proceed status.)

If you have store locations in states serving as a Point of Contact (POC) state, meaning a state entity conducts the NICS checks, please note the enhanced process for persons under the age of 21 may have already been implemented and/or will be implemented as soon as practicable.

The NICS Section is working in collaboration with numerous other entities in the implementation of all aspects of the BSCA and will keep you informed as additional information and/or guidance becomes available.