Lakewood Church Shooting Bodycam Released
Bodycam footage from the Lakewood Church shooting shows multiple off-duty officers working on the church security team engaging a 36-year-old would-be mass murderer. The attacker, reportedly a Muslim transgendered woman named Genesse Moreno, brought a rifle with “Free Palestine” written on it.
Ultimately, the church security team shot and killed the woman, who was an illegal alien with a criminal history and mental problems.
Tragically, the social misfit terrorist also brought her 7-year-old son Samuel. He took a round to the head that was apparently fired from the security team.
While it’s always easier to Monday morning quarterback a dangerous situation after the fact, particularly if you weren’t the one in the middle of the fire fight, there are some takeaways every police officer, security team member and, simply put, gun owner who carries a gun for self defense can walk away from after watching the video of the attack and ensuing shootout at Lakewood Church. In the videos released, it appears at least one of the Houston cops did not quite rise to the level of training needed to handle such a situation. Far from it. Specifically, the bodycam from “Officer Moreno” (yes, the officer shared the same last name as the shooter) showed a poorly-trained officer struggling to properly hold his gun
Moreover, “Officer Moreno” didn’t exactly aggressively engage the perp. To the contrary, it was almost as if he was hiding from the homicidal attacker. His barricade tactics seemed nonexistent as well. He’s lucky he didn’t get killed.
You can watch for yourself. Here’s the video on Twitter.
🚨 BREAKING: Houston police have released the body-worn camera footage of the Texas megachurch shooting where an armed Hispanic woman with pro-Palestine beliefs attempted a mass murder. pic.twitter.com/XYemU4nIxP
— Mia Cathell (@MiaCathell) February 26, 2024
“Distinguished” economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is back with another ridiculous op-ed, gang. This time, the elitist, bubble-dwelling left-winger made a complete fool out of himself by declaring “white rural rage” is the “single greatest threat facing America” today.
Not only did Krugman fail to connect the dots between “white rural rage” and whatever “single greatest threat” he concocted in his TDS-riddled brain, but he also failed to provide a single example of how this alleged rage is manifested.
In other words, yet another out-of-touch crock of crap from Mr. Krugman.
In a Monday NYT op-ed titled “The Mystery of White Rural Rage,” Krugman hyperbolically wrote (emphasis, mine):
[P]rogress isn’t painless. Business types and some economists may talk glowingly about the virtues of creative destruction, but the process can be devastating economically and socially for those who find themselves on the destruction side of the equation. This is especially true when technological change undermines not just individual workers but whole communities.
This isn’t a hypothetical proposition. It’s a big part of what has happened to rural America.
This process and its effects are laid out in devastating, terrifying, and baffling detail in “White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy,” a new book by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman. I say “devastating” because the hardship of rural Americans is real, “terrifying” because the political backlash to this hardship poses a clear and present danger to our democracy, and “baffling” because at some level I still don’t get the politics.
Krugman doesn’t “get the politics” because his brain, like all left-wing brains, is consumed with all things Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans. Sure, progress — pushed by technology — can be difficult for blue-collar America. We get that. But where is the “white rural rage,” Mr. Krugman, and how is it the single greatest threat to America, given that we have hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens from all over the world flowing into this country monthly?
And how is “white rural rage” a clear and present danger to our democracy when we see repeat violent offenders regularly released to the streets of Democrat-run cities, often until they commit horrific crimes? I could continue, but please.
Later in his op-ed — which I found somewhat humorous — Krugman touched on wealth redistribution, the favorite tool in the Democrat toolbox.
The decline of small-town manufacturing is a more complicated story, and imports play a role, but it’s also mainly about technological change that favors metropolitan areas with large numbers of highly educated workers.
Technology, then, has made America as a whole richer, but it has reduced economic opportunities in rural areas. So why don’t rural workers go where the jobs are? Some have. But some cities have become unaffordable, in part because of restrictive zoning — one thing blue states get wrong — and many workers are reluctant to leave their families and communities.
So shouldn’t we aid these communities? We do. Federal programs — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and more — are available to all Americans but are disproportionately financed from taxes paid by affluent urban areas. As a result, there are huge de facto transfers of money from rich, urban states like New Jersey to poor, relatively rural states like West Virginia.
Again, did you see a single word of explanation about Krugman’s “white rural rage” or the “clear and present danger” created by this “rage”?
On Finland’s new ranges, Puukko knives and Sisu
When Soviet Red Army troops poured across the Finnish frontier three months after the outbreak of World War II, Simo Häyhä, a farmer and member of Finland’s Civil Guard, laid down his pitchfork, picked up his M28-30 Mosin Nagant, jammed his Puukko knife in his belt and calmly went out to kill communists.
Häyhä shot more than 540 Red Army troops in just three months — most using iron sights — becoming the most successful sniper in history. Häyhä survived the Winter War, died at the age of 96 and remains one of Finland’s most celebrated national heroes.
Today, Finland maintains a tradition of arms seldom seen outside of the United States. There are approximately 1.5 million registered firearms, but it is estimated there are about the same number of unregistered firearms, which were secretly cached after World War II and the Winter War. The Finns cannot afford to be disarmed, which even their government understands. Their country of 5.6 million people shares an 830-mile border with Russia, which has a population of 143 million, so the Finns can never stop preparing to fight the Russian Bear.
Tensions escalated last year after Finland joined NATO. Russian saw this as a threat and vowed to retaliate. The government in Helsinki took this very seriously. Unlike the Biden-Harris administration, which views law-abiding American gun owners as a threat, Finland incorporates armed civilians into its national defense strategy, so they decided to boost civilian firearm training to help counter the latest Russian threat.
According to the Guardian, the Finnish Defense Forces started by building 300 additional shooting ranges to “encourage more citizens to take up the hobby in the interest of national defense.”
“The present government aims to increase the amount of shooting ranges in Finland from roughly 600-700 up to 1,000. This is because of our defense model, which benefits from people having and developing their shooting skills on their own,” Jukka Kopra, a Minister of Parliament who chairs the country’s defense committee told the British newspaper. A government spokesman added that the new construction will include “rifle” and “tactical” ranges.
Takeaways
February 28, 2024
The “Airman” Who Set Himself on Fire for Hamas was Antifa Ex-Cult Member
A former leftist cult member who hooked up with anarchist and socialist groups and then killed himself for their approval.
“The “Airman” Who Set Himself on Fire for Hamas was Antifa Ex-Cult Member”
If you had told the average person that an anarchist or an airman had set himself on fire to protest Israel’s campaign against Islamic terrorists, you would get two very different reactions.
Unsurprisingly the media led with the data point most likely to produce a favorable reaction. And Aaron Bushnell cynically played the same game, wearing (the wrong) uniform to his Hamas suicide attempt rather than the Antifa red in which he had been previously photographed.
The Washington Post gets around to admitting that Bushnell was an “anarchist”.
Less than two weeks before Aaron Bushnell walked toward the gates of the Israeli Embassy on Sunday, he and a friend talked by phone about their shared identities as anarchists and what kinds of risks and sacrifices were needed to be effective…
Lupe Barboza, 32, said she met Bushnell in San Antonio in 2022 at an event for a socialist organization. She said they bonded over their politics …
“He was outraged, and he knew that no one who is in charge is listening to the protesters out there every week,” Barboza said. “He knows that he has privilege as a White man and a member of the military.”
But the Washington Post then misleadingly suggests he was raised in a Christian cult.
Bushnell was raised in a religious compound in Orleans, Mass., on Cape Cod, according to Susan Wilkins, 59, who said she was a member of the group from 1970 to 2005. She said that she knew Bushnell and his family on the compound and that he was still a member when she left in 2005. Wilkins said she heard through members of Bushnell’s family that he eventually left the group.
The group, called the Community of Jesus, has faced allegations of inappropriate behavior, which it has publicly disputed. In a lawsuit against an Ontario school, where many officials were alleged to be members of the U.S.-based religious group, former students called the Community of Jesus a “charismatic sect” and alleged that it “created an environment of control, intimidation and humiliation that fostered and inflicted enduring harms on its students.” The school, now defunct, disputed the allegations…
Wilkins also said it is common for members of the Community of Jesus to join the military, describing the transition as moving from “one high-control group to another high-control group.”
All of this prompts WaPo readers to think that the Community of Jesus is some conservative group. The reality is COJ was a leftist cult that appealed to high-flying liberals.
They were two overweight boozing housewives who hid their drinking, their harridan brawling and their lesbian affair from all but a few obeisant servants. They lived like royalty with a private plane at their command, a Jaguar, a Bermuda estate and a flat in England…
And having founded an ultra-authoritarian Christian community that attracted the wealthy, the successful and often the mind-bruised to their compound on Massachusetts’s Cape Cod peninsula…
As word of the community’s formation spread through New England and across the United States, a handful of single women became the first to join, followed by young academics and professionals, people from business and government, and the socialite elite, refugees from the drug culture and hippiedom, many carrying the wounds of troubled and unhappy childhoods and looking for certainty in life, for rules, structure and something to belong to…
A 1985 article in Boston magazine characterized the C of J members as a “roll call €¦ from the Social Register and Who’s Who” — executives or children of executives of major corporations, an ex-chairman of the global accounting firm that is now Ernst & Young and former president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, an ex-assistant defence secretary, a former senior editor from Doubleday, family scions of Texas oil and agriculture money, the daughter of a former president of the New York Stock Exchange, a Rockefeller heiress (Isabel Lincoln Elmer, self-styled Cinderella Rockefeller), celebrity Christians such as Jeff and Carrie Buddington, former hippie drug dealers featured in Life magazine…
COJ’s leading ladies appropriated Christianity to found an otherwise generic cult. They were not religious per se until they started to run a faith-healing operation. If you doubt their politics, look at the laudatory New York Times orbit and the fact that most of the critical stories about COJ have come from conservative media outlets like The Boston Herald and Canada’s Globe and Mail.
Who’s the sort of person who would commit suicide in a graphic public way for his politics? Aaron Bushnell was a former leftist cult member who hooked up with anarchist and socialist groups in search of an identity and then killed himself for their approval.
He graduated from a cult to a death cult.
Poll: Almost a Third of Americans Say the First Amendment Goes ‘Too Far’
The survey also found that two-thirds of respondents believe that America is on the “wrong track” when it comes to free speech.
According to a new poll from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a First Amendment organization, nearly a third of Americans, including similar numbers of Republicans and Democrats, say that the First Amendment goes “too far” in the rights it guarantees. More than half agreed that their local community should not allow a public speech that espouses a belief they find particularly offensive.
“Those results were disappointing, but not exactly surprising,” said FIRE Chief Research Adviser Sean Stevens in a Tuesday press release. “Here at FIRE, we’ve long observed that many people who say they’re concerned about free speech waver when it comes to beliefs they personally find offensive. But the best way to protect your speech in the future is to defend the right to controversial and offensive speech today.”
The survey, which was conducted in partnership with the Polarization Research Lab (PRL) at Dartmouth College, asked 1,000 Americans about their opinions on free speech and expression. The survey found that “when it comes to whether people are able to freely express their views,” over two-thirds of respondents said they believed America was headed in the wrong direction. Further, only 25 percent of respondents agreed that the right to free speech was “very” or “completely” secure.
The survey also asked respondents to read a dozen controversial statements and pick the one they found most offensive. The most disliked beliefs were that “all whites are racist oppressors,” followed by statements like “America got what it deserved on 9/11” and “January 6th was a peaceful protest.” The survey then asked respondents whether they’d agree with allowing this opinion to be expressed in different circumstances.
Half of the respondents said that their community “definitely” or “probably” should not permit a public speech expressing the opinion they found most offensive. A whopping 69 percent said a local college should “definitely” or “probably” not allow a professor who holds such an opinion to teach there. Over a quarter of respondents said that someone who previously said the offensive opinion should be fired from their job.
These results indicate that though the average American is concerned about protecting free speech rights, a significant portion of the population seem poised to welcome increasing censorship.
“The average American already thinks that free speech in America is in dire straits. Most worryingly, they think it will get worse,” said Stevens. “These findings should be a wake-up call for the nation to recommit to a vibrant free speech culture before it’s too late.”
Wow. Do not compare Christians who were and are given the option of denounce Christ or die as the same as a guy setting himself on fire. They were MURDERED. He committed Suicide. There is a difference. https://t.co/3IwVWCmVc5
— Force of Light Entertainment 🎙 (@ForceofLightEn1) February 27, 2024
Klamath Dam Removal: ‘It’s an Environmental Disaster.’
‘They purposefully made a disaster and are leaving taxpayers and the locals to clean up their mess’
This is the first article in a series about the Klamath Dam Removal project in Siskiyou County.
The removal of dams along the Klamath River in Siskiyou County, Northern California was sold as necessary to save salmon – specifically, “to restore habitat for endangered fish.”
The dams are part of the Klamath project, a series of seven dams built in the 1910’s and 1920’s in the Klamath Basin to bring electricity and agricultural water mitigation for Southern Oregon and Northern California, the Globe reported in 2020. However, in recent years, concerns over the dams’ effect on the wildlife and fishing industry have been raised, especially regarding claims of fish facing extinction because the dams.
In 2018, plans were released to destroy the dam system. However, those plans halted in 2019 because of data errors and issues over who owns the dams. The Bureau of Reclamation swiftly issued a study on the dams’ effects through 2024, leading to California to again push for destruction of the dams.
In June 2020, the Federal Energy Regulatory Committee halted plans again, ruling that PacificCorp, an Oregon utility company owned by Warren Buffett’s Omaha-based Berkshire Hathaway, would have to transfer it’s hydroelectric license and co-licensee with the Klamath River Renewal Corp., as well as pay $250 million toward getting out of the demolition project to avoid any liabilities around the demolition.
Governor Newsom implored Buffett to back the demolition project to save the salmon populations that Native American tribes in the area rely on. “The river is sick, and the Klamath Basin tribes are suffering,” said Newsom in his letter. “The Klamath dam removals are a shining example of what we can accomplish when we act according to our values.”
Many tribes also issued a joint letter with Governor Newsom in support of the dams destruction.
Even when you burn yourself alive for left wing ideology, it isn't enough for the far left pic.twitter.com/H6wWSltJcN
— Harrison Krank (@HarrisonKrank) February 26, 2024
Editorial Says WA Gun Control Bill ‘Uses Public Safety as Smoke Screen’
An editorial in the normally pro-gun-control Seattle Times says a gun control measure aimed at licensed firearms retailers “pushes gun control to a level of punishment for legitimate businesses.”
Singling out House Bill 2118 from among three measures still in play, the Times editorial board recognizes the restrictive nature of the legislation.
“Some lawmakers may not like the selling of guns in Washington,” the editorial acknowledges, “but it’s a legal business. The Times editorial board praised the Legislature for enacting laws that banned the sale of assault-style weapons and ammunition over the past two years. But HB 2118 unnecessarily tightens the rein on gun dealers while using the public’s safety as a smoke screen.”
It is a stunning acknowledgement from a newspaper editorial board which traditionally has supported all kinds of gun control measures.
How is American Freedom Too Sensitive for Public Spaces?
If a freedom-loving NRA member from, say, 1994, had been able to look into a crystal ball and see 30 years forward to today, they’d no doubt be pleased and perhaps a bit jealous, but also a little perplexed.
They’d notice the U.S. Supreme Court decisions in D.C. v. Heller (2008), McDonald v. Chicago (2010) and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen (2022), which together decree that the Second Amendment is not a second-class right. It protects each law-abiding citizen’s right to own and carry firearms for self-defense and for other legal purposes. They’d be pleased to see this.
They’d notice the massive expansion of constitutional carry, the passage of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act in 2005 and the huge growth in gun ownership and of concealed carry in general and, again, they’d be pleased.
They’d see all the new and useful carry options in handguns, holsters and more and would likely be a little jealous.
Indeed, they’d marvel at the renaissance for this freedom.
But they’d also shake their heads and clench their fists at the endless, and often novel, attacks from gun-control proponents on our Second Amendment rights.
And then, finally, they’d have to be perplexed as they wondered what this “sensitive-places” thing is all about.
Violent crime peaked in 1993 within the United States. Since then, it has trended downward due in great part to the “broken windows” style, proactive police work, video surveillance everywhere, and the increase of concealed carriers. In 2020, the year of the Covid 19 lockdowns, crime spiked again in the wake of the rioting surrounding a particular incident of police action.
What has followed since is an increase in lawlessness. The combination of police being afraid to do their jobs due to progressives seeking to prosecute them even when they do everything right, along with progressive prosecutors who confuse justice reform with simply not prosecuting violent offenders, has led to a complete breakdown of law and order in urban areas.
Police retirement is at an all-time high, and recruitment is at an all-time low. The movement to defund and hamstring police while simultaneously not prosecuting violent offenders is a social suicide pact that is gleefully embraced by large cities, so here we are.
For many years, the leaders in the self-defense community have warned, “You are on your own; nobody is coming to save you.” While it has always been true in the sense that the police simply cannot arrive on time to stop an in-progress assault, now it is quite literally true that police may never come at all. Response times are at a low, and many departments are running on skeleton crews, so depending on where you live, you may get no response, no matter what the situation is.
Ironically, most who have driven this political agenda of defunding the police are also entirely on board with civilian disarmament. Make no mistake, this faction wants you unarmed and helpless and wants to ensure that there are no police to protect you either, from the criminals that they intentionally set loose on your streets.
Those who support such policies remain willfully foolish until the point that their own door gets smashed in or they get carjacked, personally, even though they think such things only happen on the other side of town, not in their gentrified neighborhood.
Biden Convinced Media He Was ‘Powerless’ To Fix Border Crisis. Then He Changed His Mind.
The Biden administration let it be known on Thursday [the 22nd] that the president is considering taking executive action to address the crisis at the southern border. News outlets appeared impressed.
Axios called the leaked White House plan to limit asylum claims President Joe “Biden’s Bold and Risky Border Move.” Politico declared it a “sweeping new approach.” The New York Times put four reporters on the story.
It was an abrupt pivot for the mainstream media, which have long repeated Biden and his Democratic allies’ claims that he is all but powerless to slow the unprecedented flood of migrants into the United States.
FLASHBACK: After congressional Republicans earlier this month killed a Democrat-backed border bill, the White House denied GOP claims that the president already has the power to deal with the crisis.
“Every day between now and November, the American people are going to know that the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his MAGA Republican friends,” Biden said.
The media rushed to prove him right:
Joe’s handlers and physician may get him awake for a few seconds at a time ……but here is Joe Biden 99.9% of the time.
— Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) February 27, 2024
Jill needs to be held to account for elder abuse.
The people of the U.S. need to know who is REALLY running the goobermint because whoever it is does NOT have the Constitutional power to do so.
Question: What’s your 2024 agenda?
Bitler: "My 2020 agenda is to finish the job." 💩
FFS 🤦🏽♂️ pic.twitter.com/DvtWMhSoBa
— 🔥🇺🇸 KC 🇺🇸🔥 (@KCPayTreeIt) February 27, 2024
BLACK HILLS PICKS UP $30 MILLION NAVY/MARINE CORPS AMMO CONTRACT
South Dakota-based Black Hills last week beat out five other ammunition makers to deliver 9mm ammo to the Navy and Marine Corps.
The $30,885,083 firm-fixed-price, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract covers the procurement, manufacturing, testing, inspection, and packaging of 9mm barrier blind cartridges to the Navy and Marine Corps. These will be for use in the services’ front-line 9mm pistols including the Beretta M9 and SIG Sauer M17 and M18.
The rounds were chosen for “combat purposes to provide enhanced terminal effects,” as described by the contracting agency, the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Corona Division, in Norco, California. NSWC Corona first listed the contract opportunity last June and had six competitive bids submitted.
Although it is not disclosed what loads were submitted for testing, Black Hills introduced its Honey Badger Line of self-defense ammo in 2015, which used a monolithic copper solid projectile to consistently penetrate barriers. In its 100-grain +P version, the Black Hills Honeybadger 9mm archives 1,250 FPS velocity out of a 4.4-inch test barrel and generates 347 foot-pounds of energy. The company also makes a 125-grain Subsonic Honeybadger.
Compare this to the standard M1152 load developed by Winchester which was selected in 2016 as the ammunition supplier for the U.S. Army Modular Handgun System program. Using a 115-grain flat nose full metal jacketed bullet, the 9x19mm Luger round has a distinctive shape. With a brass case and military primer, it has an advertised velocity of 1,320 FPS at the muzzle which translates to 445 foot-pounds of energy. Downrange these shifts to 1,301/432 at 5 yards and 132/387 at 25 yards, according to the tables provided by the company.
The work on the Navy’s new barrier blind cartridge will be performed at Black Hills’ Rapid City plant and is expected to be completed by February 2029.
A U.S. District Judge has granted an injunction prohibiting the enforcement of California’s law that exposes firearms manufacturers and retailers to lawsuits in the state for lawful commerce in firearms that takes place entirely outside the state of California when those legally made and sold products are misused by criminals and others.
The ruling by Judge Schopler in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of California enjoined the enforcement of California AB 1594, the so-called “Firearm Industry Responsibility Act.” NSSF sued to challenge the law in June 2023 and moved for an injunction. In granting the injunction, Judge Schopler found the law is likely unconstitutional because it violates the Commerce Clause.
“We are thankful the court enjoined the state from suing members of the firearm industry under this unconstitutional law that attempts to use the real threat of liability on commerce beyond California’s borders and impose its policy choices on its sister states,” stated NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Lawrence G. Keane.
Among other provisions, California AB 1594 bans the manufacture, sale and marketing of firearms the state deems “abnormally dangerous.” It allows civil lawsuits against a firearm industry member to be filed by the Attorney General, any municipality and any person who claims to have suffered harm from the misuse of a legal, lawfully sold firearm by a remote third party. The law unconstitutionally invades the sovereignty of sister states by directly regulating lawful commerce occurring entirely outside the state of California in violation of the Commerce Clause and the United States’ system of federalism. The law also violates the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) enacted by Congress in 2005 to stop just these sorts of frivolous lawsuits against members of the industry.
“We are reviewing the balance of the court’s decision and whether we will file an amended complaint to provide the court more details on how California’s unconstitutional law and its threat of crushing liability is causing real and ongoing harm to members of our industry,” Keane said.
NSSF also claims in its lawsuit that the law also infringes on the Second Amendment and chills First Amendment rights by restricting protected free-speech advertising of Constitutionally-protected products that are lawfully made and sold – even when that advertising takes place outside of California’s borders.