Category: Enemies Domestic

New Documents Reveal Huge Scale of Government Cellphone Tracking of Citizens.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) used mobile location data to track people’s movements on a much larger scale than previously known, according to new documents unearthed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

It’s no secret that U.S. government agencies have been obtaining and using location data collected by Americans’ smartphones. In early 2020, a Wall Street Journal report revealed that both Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) bought access to millions of smartphone users’ location data to track undocumented immigrants and suspected tax dodgers.

However, new documents obtained by the ACLU through an ongoing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit now reveal the extent of this warrantless data collection. The 6,000-plus records reviewed by the civil rights organization contained approximately 336,000 location points across North America obtained from people’s phones. They also reveal that in just three days in 2018, CBP obtained records containing around 113,654 location points in the southwestern United States — more than 26 location points per minute.

The bulk of the data that CBP obtained came from its contract with Venntel, a location data broker that aggregates and sells information quietly siphoned from smartphone apps. By purchasing this data from data brokers, officials are sidestepping the legal process government officials would typically need to go through in order to access cell phone data.

Documents also detail the government agencies’ efforts to rationalize their actions. For example, cell phone location data is characterized as containing no personally identifying information (PII) in the records obtained by ACLU, despite enabling officials to track specific individuals or everyone in a particular area. Similarly, the records also claim that this data is “100 percent opt-in” and that cell phone users “voluntarily” share the location information. But many don’t realize that apps installed on their phones are collecting GPS information, let alone share that data with the government.

The ACLU says these documents are further proof that Congress needs to pass the bipartisan Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, proposed by by Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rand Paul (R-KY), which would require the government to secure a court order before obtaining Americans’ data, such as location information from our smartphones, from data brokers.

Shreya Tewari, the Brennan Fellow for ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, said: “Legislation like the Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act would end agencies’ warrantless access to this data and head off their flimsy justifications for obtaining it without judicial oversight in the first place.”

Spokespeople for Venntel and Homeland Security did not immediately comment on the report.

Spoiler Alert: It’s All a Scam
This is war. We need to go on the offensive. It starts by describing the four corners of deceit, exposing them, and actually taking them back. It is late, but never too late.

Here is the hard-discovered truth.

The Left, which now controls all the centers of power and the commanding heights of the world economy, seeks to codify their ideology as science, and thereby make it irrefutable. You can’t disagree with it or you are a kook or insurrectionist. You are outside what Thomas Kuhn, called the “paradigm of normal science.”

Think about it. Everything these authorities tell you is true is, in fact, precisely the opposite of the truth.

Global warming is a hoax.

Universities are about indoctrination, not education.

Government is a form of manipulation with a two-tiered justice system.

The media is fake and journalism died long ago.

The financial system is a Ponzi scheme.

Trump did not collude with Russia.

The border is wide open.

Inflation is not transitory.

Defunding the police increases crime.

The pandemic did not originate in a wet market from pangolins.

Joe Biden is illegitimate.

Crackhead Hunter is not innocent.

Epstein didn’t kill himself.

Black Lives Matter and critical race theory are not about racial justice.

Women are not men and vice versa.

Virtue signaling isn’t about virtue.

Religion is not malevolent.

The late, great Rush Limbaugh was one of the first to visualize and expose the “four corners of deceit” in our culture that altogether combined, suffice to lie to students, citizens, and the American people.

The four corners of deceit are: government, academia, science, and the media. I had a hard time coming to this radical conclusion myself, as I wanted to believe otherwise, was not a conspiracist, and have attained all the laurels on offer from our current system. Just read my memoir, Davos, Aspen & Yale. I have been behind the elite curtain.

Like an Orwell novel, the clock is striking 13 in America. The farm animals on top know it and are so cynical they are laughing all the way to the bank and the voting booth. The populace, like lemmings, just goes along. What else can they do? As in the Thomas Hardy tale, Far From the Madding Crowd, the sheep, listless and unknowing, just fling themselves off the cliff, one after the other.

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It seems to me that they’re grasping at any straw they believe might have the barest chance of accomplishing anything.
Well, as long as it’s Bloombutt’s money they’re wasting…..

BLUF
The good news is that none of these prior complaints appear to have gone anywhere, and based on the weak sauce Everytown presents as evidence in its complaint against Daniel Defense my guess is that the same will be true here as well.

Everytown files Federal Trade Commission complaint against Daniel Defense

When you’ve got your own in-house law firm funded by your billionaire backer, its easy to waste time and effort on unserious efforts, which helps explain Everytown’s new complaint against Georgia gunmaker Daniel Defense accusing it of “deceptively marketing” firearms to teenagers through its advertising and brand placement in video games and movies. More fundamentally, however, the gun control group’s filing with the Federal Trade Commission is part of a broader strategy aimed at shutting down gun companies, and the complaint against Daniel Defense is only the latest in a string of similar filings against members of the firearms industry in recent months

We’ll get to those prior complaints in a few paragraphs, but first let’s delve into Everytown’s ridiculous assertions.

Daniel Defense has leaned on social media, especially Instagram, which has a young user-base, to promote its weapons, the complaint says, and the company does not restrict access to its accounts to users who are old enough to buy its products.

In one Instagram post, for example, the company featured a picture of Post Malone holding one of its rifles with the caption: “MK18 got me feeling like a rockstar.”

Another post, from the same day as the Uvalde shooting, promoted the DDM4 V7 model rifle — the same one the gunman would later use — with the hashtag “loadout,” a term for the gear a soldier carries into battle that the complaint says is a reference to “Call of Duty,” a game the shooter reportedly played. The company also often uses hashtags such as #callofduty and #cod to make its “Call of Duty” references on social media, the complaint says.

That’s it? Post Malone and Call of Duty?

I’m a soon-to-be 48-year old who listens to Post Malone (ironically after my wife, who’s nine years my senior, turned me on to his music) and played Call of Duty and other first-person shooters for years until fairly recently, and I’m far from alone. In fact, according to data on Call of Duty demographics, only about 1/4 of all players are younger than 25, which makes sense given the game’s “M” rating. Everytown has absolutely no evidence that Daniel Defense is intentionally marketing its firearms to younger teenagers, which frankly would be a terrible business strategy given that you can’t even purchase a rifle until you’re 18-years old. And if Daniel Defense is marketing its products to adults under the age of 21 there shouldn’t be an actionable issue since that age group is able to lawfully purchase and possess a long gun under federal law.

This complaint has less to do with Daniel Defense specifically and much more to do with the gun control lobby’s attack on the firearms industry as a whole.

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Missouri Attorney General Condemns FBI’s Illegal Attempts to Harvest Concealed Carry Permit Information from Missouri Sheriffs

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – Today, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray demanding that they cease their attempts to illegally obtain information from local sheriffs on Missourians who have concealed carry permits. Missouri law specifically prohibits the sharing of information on concealed carry permit holders to any entity – local, state, federal, or otherwise.

“The FBI has absolutely no business poking around in the private information of those who have obtained a concealed carry permit in Missouri,” said Attorney General Schmitt. “The Second Amendment rights of Missourians will absolutely not be infringed on my watch. I will use the full power of my Office to stop the FBI, which has become relentlessly politicized and has virtually no credibility, from illegally prying around in the personal information of Missouri gun owners.”

The Missouri Attorney General’s Office became aware that the FBI is planning to travel to Missouri in August to do “audits” at sheriff departments across the state, which would include harvesting information on those who have legally obtained a concealed carry permit. The letter states, “It has come to my attention that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has informed several Missouri county sheriffs that they will be showing up in August to ‘audit’ CCW permit holder records. The FBI states that, ‘The audit includes an onsite review of your Concealed Carry Weapons Permits…’ Let me be perfectly clear. Allowing federal agents from the FBI to have access to records of Missourians who have a permit to carry a concealed weapon violates Missouri law and infringes on our Second Amendment rights.”

Missouri law states, “Information retained in the concealed carry permit system under this subsection shall not be distributed to any federal, state, or private entities . . . .” § 571.101.9(2), RSMo.

At the end of the letter, Attorney General Schmitt promises to use the full power of his Office to stop the FBI’s attempts to obtain information on Missouri concealed carry weapons permit holders.

The full letter can be found here: https://ago.mo.gov/docs/default-source/press-releases/2022-7-13-ltr-fbi.pdf?sfvrsn=5fbbdf7_2

Not surprising for demoncrap tyrants

Gavin Newsom’s Weird Idea of ‘Freedom’
Newsom resembles a pathetic owner of a once successful but now run-down, high-priced gas station without clients.

In a run-up to what is likely to be a 2024 presidential bid, California Governor Gavin Newsom hit upon the bizarre idea of boasting in commercials that California is America’s true “free” state.

Part of his ad campaign is to attack Florida—currently run by Newsom’s possible rival, Governor Ron DeSantis.

Yet, with the most burdensome regulations and high tax rates, Newsom’s California is arguably the most unfree state in the union.

In return for these steep costs, the state’s public institutions, infrastructure, and services are among the country’s worst.

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Not surprising for demoncrap tyrants

Politicians Defy the Supreme Court’s Ruling on the Right To Bear Arms
Several states are retaining subjective criteria for carry permits or imposing new restrictions on gun possession.

After the Supreme Court upheld the right to bear arms last month, some states promptly complied with the ruling by eliminating subjective requirements for carrying a gun in public. But other states are either dragging their feet or refusing to acknowledge the decision’s implications.

The Court said New York had violated the Second Amendment by requiring “proper cause” to carry handguns for self-defense, a standard that gave local officials wide discretion to reject carry-permit applications. But anti-gun politicians have other tricks up their sleeves, including similarly vague standards and bans on firearm possession in specific locations, that will invite further litigation to vindicate a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution.

New York responded to the Court’s rebuke with a law that eliminates the “proper cause” requirement but specifies a long list of “sensitive locations” where gun possession is a felony punishable by up to four years in prison. Those restrictions will make it impractical or legally perilous for many permit holders to actually exercise the right recognized by the Court.

In addition to listing myriad places where permit holders may not carry firearms, New York’s law bans guns in all private establishments open to the public unless they post conspicuous signs announcing that they are deviating from the default rule—a step many business owners will be reluctant to take. A bill backed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta takes a similar approach.

New York’s law retains a requirement that permit applicants demonstrate “good moral character,” an assessment that includes perusing their social media posts. Bonta likewise maintains that California’s “good moral character” standard remains constitutional, and he suggests that controversial opinions could be disqualifying.

UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment specialist, thinks such a wide-ranging inquiry is “clearly unconstitutional.” Volokh notes that “the government can’t restrict ordinary citizens’ actions—much less their constitutionally protected actions—based on the viewpoints that they express.”

Although Massachusetts dropped its “good reason” criterion for carry permits, it still requires that an applicant be “a suitable person to possess firearms,” a standard that leaves considerable room for subjective judgments. The same vague requirement applies in Connecticut, where Attorney General William Tong has promised to resist any changes to the law.

Delaware requires that a carry-permit applicant demonstrate “good moral character” and “a good reputation for peace and good order.” The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), an industry group, reports that Delaware officials are taking a “wait and see” approach, meaning the law probably won’t be changed without additional litigation.

In Rhode Island, the attorney general “may issue” a carry permit based on “a proper showing of need,” while local licensing authorities “shall issue” a permit “if it appears” that the applicant is “a suitable person to be licensed” and either “has good reason to fear an injury to his or her person or property” or has “any other proper reason” to carry a handgun. Attorney General Peter Neronha seems to think his state’s rules are different enough from New York’s that no reform is necessary.

“This Case Involves a Religious Psychic Trying to Break a Family Curse by ‘Cleaning’ ‘Dirty’ Money”
By contrast, Hawaii Attorney General Holly Shikada last week said a concealed-carry applicant in that state will no longer be required to show he represents “an exceptional case” and has “reason to fear injury” to his “person or property.” Maryland and New Jersey recently dropped similar requirements: “good or substantial reason” in Maryland and “justifiable need” in New Jersey.

Even before the Court’s ruling, the vast majority of states either did not require permits for carrying firearms or had “shall issue” carry-permit laws, meaning applications generally were approved as long as gun owners met objective criteria. Those policies recognize, as the Court did, that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” cannot be treated as a privilege for the lucky few.

Some politicians still seem determined to reject that point. They will not respect their constituents’ rights until new constitutional challenges force them to do so.

George Soros and the EU Parliament condemn the SCOTUS for following the Constitution.

This year on July 4, George Soros penned an editorial piece expressing his concern against the limited government principles of these United States, specifically the idea of state sovereignty as detailed by the Tenth Amendment.  On a day when many Americans celebrate independence from a far-off and unrepresentative government, a foreign-born globalist castigated the supreme law and court of these United States.  In the article, Soros wrote:

From abroad, the US is threatened by repressive regimes led by Xi Jinping in China and Vladimir Putin’s Russia who want to impose an autocratic form of government on the world.

But the threat to the US from the domestic enemies of democracy is even greater. They included the current Supreme Court, which is dominated by far-right extremists, and Donald Trump’s Republican Party, which placed those extremists on the Court.

Recent decisions regarding abortion, the scope of the EPA, and God-given rights to self-defense have apparently struck a nerve.  Soros kicks it off by denouncing Alito’s line of reasoning in the reversal of Roe v. Wade, inferring that “logically,” the Court might regress towards racial inequality — masterfully applying the Alinsky tactic of “rubbing raw the sores of discontent.”  He then gripes about the decision that “denied the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to issue regulations needed to combat climate change” before claiming the SCOTUS is beholden to the gun lobby, rather than the words of the Second Amendment.

Soros wasn’t alone in his indignation or his constitutional illiteracy.  Subsequently, just one week after the publication of Soros’s critique, the Parliament of the European Union took a vote officially condemning the American High Court for returning to responsibly interpreting our supreme governing document.

What don’t these European elites understand?  In America, legislative bodies are tasked with lawmaking, not the Courts and not the Executive.  The Constitution does not explicitly mention abortion, so at the moment, that decision legally belongs to each individual state.  And aside from the obvious fact that the EPA has no right to exist, it certainly has no authority to dictate “regulations” to be followed as though they were federal or state law.  Lastly, the Second Amendment is quite clear when it says “shall not be infringed.”  Interpreting that correctly does not hinge on the financial clout of the “gun lobby.”

It’s no secret that George Soros and the European Union embrace and encourage the erosion of American strength and sovereignty.  This structure of government, founded upon Judeo-Christian principles, is antithetical to global tyranny and oppression, and their disdain for our Constitution cannot be concealed.

The dishonesty of the gun control mob

It’s so predictable, maybe we should start calling it “Gun Control Day.”

Like the movie “Groundhog Day,” it happens again and again after a mass shooting, like the one at a July Fourth parade near Chicago that killed seven people and wounded two dozen.

The professional anti-gun mob — i.e., liberal Democrats and the major media outlets — immediately spring into action and exploit the tragedy as much as they can.

As they did this past week, they automatically blame guns, renew their calls for stricter gun reforms or dream about completely outlawing the private ownership of guns.

It doesn’t matter if the mass shooter was crazy, a terrorist or just plain evil, the gun control nuts are as unrealistic and dishonest as they are predictable.

If we’d only outlaw handguns and “weapons of war” like the semi-automatic AR-15, they cry again and again, these bloody mass killings and street shootouts would virtually disappear.

Sounds easy, doesn’t it?

But in the real world, the one we 330 million Americans live in, there are nearly 400 million guns in the hands of private citizens.

Guns of all kinds are virtually in every corner of America, thank the Lord.

About 44 percent of U.S. households contain at least one, according to the 2021 National Firearms Survey.

About 32 percent of people older than 18 own a firearm — that’s 81 million people.

About 42 percent are female, 58 percent male. About 25 percent of Blacks, 28 percent of Latinos and 34 percent of whites own guns.

The average gun owner owns five firearms. Handguns are the most common type, but 30 percent of gun owners — 24.6 million individuals — have owned an AR-15 or similarly styled rifle that looks like an assault weapon.

About 20.7 million gun owners have a permit to carry a concealed handgun in public, and that number is growing, notably among Black women.

The gun-controllers like to mock conservatives who say guns don’t kill people, people do. But last time I checked, Glocks and AR-15s don’t pull their own triggers.

Fewer than .005 percent of America’s 400 million guns were used to commit a murder in 2021.

Only about half of the year’s 20,000 homicides involved handguns — and far more people were killed by knives, fists and rocks than rifles of all kinds.

We know who — not what — is responsible for most of America’s gun violence.

It’s not law-abiding gun owners. It’s criminals, gang members and other lawbreakers who laugh at the idea of abiding by any tougher gun law.

The liberal media are generally quiet about the gang-related gun violence that kills dozens of young black men each weekend in cities across the country.

They don’t give us Monday morning body counts from deadly places like Chicago — where 70-plus people were shot and killed during the July Fourth weekend.

In case you haven’t heard, over the holiday weekend, at least 220 Americans were shot to death and about 570 were wounded, according to the GunViolenceArchive.com, which documents each incident.

It’d be nice if the country’s top journalists would do their jobs and challenge the gun control mob when they say they want to rid America of guns.

“Whose guns will you take away exactly?” the media might ask. “Everyone’s?”

“And how do you plan to do it? Are you going to go to the south side of Chicago or South Central LA, knock on doors and take people’s guns away?”

“Who will actually take the guns? The National Guard? The Marines?”

“Realistically, how many of America’s 400 million guns do you think you’ll collect?”

It’s a certainty that a whole bunch of good Americans will refuse to cooperate with the totalitarian dream of the gun control mob, but my son Cameron has a deal he wants to make with them.

“As soon as they disarm the inner city neighborhoods of Chicago, St. Louis and East LA, the rest of us will all turn in our guns. Let us all know when you’re done with that.”

New York Tells Supreme Court ‘Thank You, Sir. May I Have Another?’

New York has made a return appointment for Constitutional scrutiny of their gun-carry laws.

Almost immediately after the Supreme Court struck down the state’s previous law over the subjective nature of its “proper cause” clause, New York is back with a beefed-up and even more subjective “good moral character” clause. In addition to requiring multiple references, the newly-passed standard for issuing gun-carry permits includes a social media review. Instead of relying on objective standards, such as an applicant’s record of convictions or mental health commitments, the state is doubling down on the subjective judgment of its permitting officials.

Instead of judging whether somebody has “proper cause” to carry a gun based on specific threats to their life, state officials will now judge whether or not they are of “good moral character” based on their tweets and Facebook posts. It’s difficult to see how the outcome will be any different.

It’s difficult to see how the legal fight will be any different either. Except, perhaps, how quickly New York loses.

New York is defying the Supreme Court. And it’s not trying to hide that fact.

“With this action, New York has sent a message to the rest of the country that we will not stand idly by and let the Supreme Court reverse years of sensible gun regulations,” Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado said in a statement.

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Gov. Hochul: Here’s What the Data Actually Says

It only took 30 seconds, that’s all. New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul held a press conference calling back her state’s legislature for an “extraordinary” session to pass more gun control after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down New York’s restrictive and subjective “may issue” pistol permit license scheme.

In 30 seconds, she vocalized why her gun control agenda is destined to fail.

Failed Approach

Gov. Hochul exclaimed, “I’m absolutely shocked,” after the Supreme Court held in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen that the Second Amendment protects the right of law-abiding Americans to carry a firearm in public for self-protection. She shouldn’t be. It only takes a simple reading of the actual amendment.

She called her state’s Democratically-controlled legislature back to Albany to restrict where licensed conceal carry permit holders can lawfully carry their firearms. The new laws include even more restrictive provisions like background checks and a state database for ammunition purchases, increased training requirements to obtain the permit, a mandatory sit-down, in-person interview and even requiring applicants to submit social media accounts for content review.

“Do you have the numbers to show that it’s the concealed carry permit holders that are committing crimes? The lawful gun owner will say you’re attacking the wrong person,” asked Albany-based CBS 6 News anchor Anne McCloy. “It’s really people that are getting these guns illegally that are causing the violence, not the people that are going to get the permit legally and that’s the basis for the whole Supreme Court argument. Do you have the numbers?”

“I don’t need to have numbers,” the governor shot back. “I don’t have to have a data point to point to to say this is going to matter.”

That’s what is called “the tell.”  These laws aren’t aimed at stopping criminals. They’re designed to rob law-abiding citizens of their rights.

What’s The Data Say?

Some estimates suggest New York has more than 200,000 concealed carry permit holders. For the entire United States, it’s over 21.5 million. These are law-abiding gun owners that meet state requirements and were approved after an FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) verification. New York is one of the states with the most stringent conceal carry requirements.

The actual data shows that concealed carry permit holders are among the most law-abiding people in America. The Heritage Foundation’s 2019 data says, “… concealed-carry permit holders accounted for 801 firearm-related homicides over a 15-year span, which amounts to roughly 0.7% of all firearm-related homicides during that time.”

A Fox News report paints a picture Gov. Hochul would rather ignore. According to the FBI, Census Bureau, and Rand Corporation data, states with lower rates of gun ownership and more restrictive gun control – like New York – have more firearm murders per 100,000 residents as a percentage of the gun-owning population than states with high gun owner rates.

New York ranks fifth, with just 19.9 percent of households saying they possess a firearm and 1.53 firearm homicides per 100,000 residents. The Violence Policy Center attempted to “fact check” a claim about concealed carry holders committing fewer crimes but ended up “revealing” there were 37 firearm incidents (not specifically intentional homicide) involving concealed carry permit holders between May 2007 and May 2022. That’s less than 2.5 per year in the entire country.

Crime rates, especially in New York City, continue to climb.

Gov. Hochul and Albany Democrats praised themselves for their “fast work” to jam through more restrictions on law-abiding New Yorkers. The policies won’t stop criminals from perpetrating their crimes. It will, however, turn law-abiding New Yorkers into criminals overnight when enacted in a few months.

Gov. Hochul isn’t to be bothered with facts.  She doesn’t need the data or the science. She doesn’t even need to focus laws on holding criminals accountable. When it comes to gun rights, Gov. Hochul needs only the echo chamber of New York’s legislature to nod in agreement as they strip New Yorkers of their rights.

Oil from U.S. reserves sent overseas as gasoline prices stay high

HOUSTON, July 5 (Reuters) – More than 5 million barrels of oil that were part of a historic U.S. emergency reserves release to lower domestic fuel prices were exported to Europe and Asia last month, according to data and sources, even as U.S. gasoline and diesel prices hit record highs.

The export of crude and fuel is blunting the impact of the moves by U.S. President Joe Biden to lower record pump prices. Biden on Saturday renewed a call for gasoline suppliers to cut their prices,  drawing criticism from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

About 1 million barrels per day is being released from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) through October. The flow is draining the SPR, which last month fell to the lowest since 1986. U.S. crude futures are above $100 per barrel and gasoline and diesel prices above $5 a gallon in one-fifth of the nation. U.S. officials have said oil prices could be higher if the SPR had not been tapped.

“The SPR remains a critical energy security tool to address global crude oil supply disruptions,” a Department of Energy spokesperson said, adding that the emergency releases helped ensure stable supply of crude oil.

The fourth-largest U.S. oil refiner, Phillips 66 (PSX.N), shipped about 470,000 barrels of sour crude from the Big Hill SPR storage site in Texas to Trieste, Italy, according to U.S. Customs data. Trieste is home to a pipeline that sends oil to refineries in central Europe.

Atlantic Trading & Marketing (ATMI), an arm of French oil major TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA), exported 2 cargoes of 560,000 barrels each, the data showed.

Phillips 66 declined to comment on trading activity. ATMI did not respond to a request for comment.

Cargoes of SPR crude were also headed to the Netherlands and to a Reliance (RELI.NS) refinery in India, an industry source said. A third cargo headed to China, another source said.

At least one cargo of crude from the West Hackberry SPR site in Louisiana was set to be exported in July, a shipping source added.

“Crude and fuel prices would likely be higher if (the SPR releases) hadn’t happened, but at the same time, it isn’t really having the effect that was assumed,” said Matt Smith, lead oil analyst at Kpler.

The latest exports follow three vessels that carried SPR crude to Europe in April helping replace Russian crude supplies.

U.S. crude inventories are the lowest since 2004 as refineries run near peak levels. Refineries in the U.S. Gulf coast were at 97.9% utilization, the most in three and a half years.

There are methods provided, by the Constitution itself, to fix any ‘problems’. These clotheads masquerading as intellectuals simply don’t like that any change has to be widely and predominately seen as necessary for it to happen

MSNBC Guest: We’re ‘Slaves’ to ‘Ancient’ Constitution Causing Tragedies

Georgetown University Law School Professor Rosa Brooks said on MSNBC during Tuesday’s broadcast of “The ReidOut” that Americans were “slaves” to the U.S. Constitution she said was written by “a tiny group of white slave-owning men.”

Anchor Joy Reid said, “What do you make of this sense that we now essentially live at the mercy of whoever can go into the store and buy an AR-15 and decide to shoot whoever is available?”

Brooks said, “I was thinking, boy, those sounds are like the sounds you hear in war zones. And there are people all over the world who have lived during armed conflicts, and when does the mortar fall on your house, when does the soldier or the tank come down the street and just kill you. We are now living in that world, too, and we have brought it on ourselves. We can’t say, oops, it’s the Russians’ fault. They shouldn’t have invaded us.”

The MSNBC guest added, “This is us. This is 100% us, and it’s because we are essentially slaves to a document that was written more than 230 years ago by a tiny group of white slave-owning men. And we cannot break out of the bondage that we have imposed on ourselves from feeling like we have to– everything by our Supreme Court is decided in reference to this ancient document which is just not serving us well. It is causing enormous problems and enormous tragedies at this point.”

Hmmmm. Pritzker is wrong. I guarantee, with near metaphysical certitude, he knows he’s wrong too and is simply lying because he thinks that most people are too stupid to realize he’s lying.

Their swords and every terrible implement of the soldier are the birthright of Americans…. The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments but where, I trust in God, it will always remain, in the hands of the people  —Tench Coxe ( a member of the “second rank” of this nation’s Founders and a leading proponent of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, wrote prolifically about the right to keep and bear arms

Illinois Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker: Founding Fathers Would Not Support ‘Constitutional Right to an Assault Weapon’

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) reacted to the Highland Park parade attack during a Monday press conference by suggesting America’s Founding Fathers would not support a “constitutional right to own an assault weapon.”

Pritzker tweeted a video of his comments on the attack, saying, in part, “Our Founders carried muskets, not assault weapons, and I don’t think a single one of them would have said that you have a constitutional right to an assault weapon with a high-capacity magazine.”

In another portion of his comments Pritzker said, “It does not have to be this way, and yet we as a nation, well, we continue to allow this to happen. While we celebrate the Fourth of July just once a year, mass shootings have become … our weekly American tradition.”

The muskets used by the Founding Fathers–the muskets they used to defeat the British military and secure freedom–were very much like the military-issue muskets British Redcoats used when shooting at colonists and members of George Washington’s forces.

U.S. House candidate and former Navy SEAL Eli Crane reacted to Pritzker’s statement on muskets vs. “assault weapons” by telling Breitbart News, “The gap between the firepower of U.S. citizens and the military now is far greater than the gap that existed between colonists and the combination of regimented and ad hoc military forces that had just defeated Britain.

“Think about it. The military has Predator drones–that can drop a Hellfire missile and erase your home without you even knowing it was above you–and they have nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers. Now compare that to what we’re allowed to own today. There’s just no comparison. The American people are greatly outgunned by the 21st century military, far more so than were the colonists in the 18th century.”

Is this really a question?

Attorney General Garland playing favorites with civil liberties?

When discussing the Second Amendment, one of the conditioning exercises I’ve personally had to go through has to do with language. Many people did and or do have to be conditioned to look at so-called “gun rights” through the correct lens. Friend, fellow contributor at AmmoLand News, and author of the Good Gun Bad Guy book series Dan Wos, often talks about optics and language. One big takeaway I received from him many years ago, is that so-called “gun rights” are civil liberties/rights. So-called “gun control” laws are in fact anti-civil liberty laws. This is an important concept to understand because when the talking heads bring up “civil rights”, they often outright ignore the Second Amendment. It seems this includes Attorney General Garland, the Supreme Court reject and Biden-Harris flunkey.

Recently Garland delivered remarks about the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) new strategic plan going forward.

“The Justice Department was founded exactly 152 years ago, on July 1, 1870. Today, the Department’s urgent mission continues: to uphold the rule of law; to keep our country safe from all threats, foreign and domestic; and to protect civil rights.

“The Strategic Plan we are issuing today reflects that charge. It organizes the Justice Department’s important responsibilities into five areas of focus that will guide our work in the years to come.”

Garland and his ilk loves to bring up that the DOJ was founded to protect civil rights. Let’s take a look at what areas of focus are being zeroed in on to bring equality or make stuff equitable, whatever it is we’re dealing with in 2022 to say “level playing field” (even though equitable is not, and equality is considered a pejorative).

“Our first area of focus is upholding the rule of law, which is the foundation of our democracy. To that end, we will continue to work to uphold the norms and principles that are essential to the fair application of our laws and to the Justice Department’s independence and integrity.

“Our second area of focus is keeping our country safe. The Justice Department will continue to counter both foreign-based and domestic-based threats that endanger our safety and our democracy. These include the threats posed by nation-states, terrorist groups, cyber criminals, and others who seek to undermine our democratic and economic institutions, as well as the threats posed by violent crime, drug-trafficking organizations, and those who target vulnerable populations.

“Our third area of focus is protecting civil rights. We will continue to use every resource at our disposal to reinvigorate civil rights enforcement, including by defending voting rights, deterring and prosecuting hate crimes, advancing environmental justice, and expanding access to justice.

“Our fourth area of focus is ensuring economic opportunity and fairness for all. The Department will continue to strengthen its antitrust and consumer protection efforts; combat fraud, waste, and abuse; and investigate and prosecute corporate crime and the individuals responsible.

“Our final area of focus is administering just court and correctional systems. The Justice Department will continue to work to ensure that our nation’s immigration court system is fairly administered, and that our federal prisons and detention centers are safe, transparent, and effectively managed.”

Those civil rights that Garland mentioned “defending voting rights, deterring and prosecuting hate crimes, advancing environmental justice, and expanding access to justice.” are ripe to be explored. Okay, voting rights and hate crimes are real issues. Giving more access to so-called justice, also a real issue, but I’m sure Garland has a different view on what that means than we do. “Advancing environmental justice” is just another progressive mind game to push environmental terrorism upon the population, and thus control everyone through “green” initiatives and mandates. Digression, thank God the EPA got a spanking from SCOTUS. That may save the Republic in more than one way going forward. I’m talking about you ATF, as well as others.

Looking at the plan for focus 3 on civil rights specifically, we find somewhat parroted sentiments to Garland’s remarks.

STRATEGIC GOAL 3: PROTECT CIVIL RIGHTS

The Justice Department was founded during Reconstruction to protect the civil rights promised by the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments.  This work required confronting the racist conduct of the Ku Klux Klan and others who used terror and violence to keep Black Americans from exercising their rights.

Today, more than 150 years after the Department’s founding, far too many Americans still face discrimination.  Among other things, discrimination persists in voting, housing, and the criminal justice system, and historically underserved communities have disproportionately borne the brunt of the harm caused by pandemic, pollution, and climate change.

We honor the Department’s history by committing to a whole-of-Department approach to protecting civil rights and reducing barriers to equal justice and equal enjoyment of the rights, privileges, and immunities established by the Constitution and laws of the United States.

What other rights did Black Americans have infringements placed on? The right to keep and bear arms. And like today, Black Americans, and or those in underserved communities, still have their Second Amendment rights kept out of reach in many instances due to permitting laws, other regulations, and exorbitant fees.

Garland and the DOJ can’t sit back and brag about how great they are to minorities and protecting civil liberties if they refuse to respect all the fundamental rights. Beyond respecting the fundamental rights, the DOJ should be encouraging citizens to exercise said rights.

Nowhere ever have I seen the DOJ or Garland proclaim that any person, marginalized or not, take up arms should they ever need them in the event of a self-defense situation. If Garland, the DOJ, the Biden-Harris Administration, et.al. really cared about the protection of these communities and said persons’ civil rights, don’t you think they’d also encourage them to pick up the slack where our police and justice system cannot provide the same?

It was just back in May that I pointed out the same hypocrisy coming from Garland:

Pulling a page out of history, let’s look at that Department of Justice and what they were up to from the time of its founding. Two years after the official formation of the DOJ, an April 19, 1872 letter addressed to the House of Representatives noted within Messages and Papers of the Presidents Ulysses S. Grant, Grant addressed some issues that his then Attorney General and others communicated to him:

EXECUTIVE MANSION , April 19 , 1872. To the House of Representatives : …

Most, if not all, of this information, except what I derived from the Attorney – General, came to me orally, and was to the effect that said counties were under the sway of powerful combinations, properly known as “Kuklux Klans,” the objects of which were by force and terror to prevent all political action not in accord with the views of the members; to deprive colored citizens of the right to bear arms and of the right to a free ballot; to suppress schools in which colored children were taught, and to reduce the colored people to a condition closely akin to that of slavery; that these combinations were organized and armed, and had rendered the local laws ineffectual to protect the classes whom they desired to oppress; that they had perpetrated many murders and hundreds of crimes of minor degree, all of which were unpunished; and that witnesses could not safely testify against them unless the more active members were placed under restraint.

Garland, Biden-Harris, the DOJ, and the rest of the anti-freedom caucus members are silent on the deprivation of the right to bear arms. Garland’s July 1st release comes a week and a day after the Supreme Court had to lay down, yet again, the law of the land and make clear that the Second Amendment…

…is not “a second-class right, subject to an entirely different body of rules than the other Bill of Rights guarantees.”

But why should we split hairs over this fact that’s been stated more than once for the digestion of governmental officials? Well, maybe because they talk a big game but really do fail to deliver on their word salad. Garland can get back to us about civil rights when his DOJ looks into all the gross infringements of the Second Amendment in this country, including the topic of executive overreach. This especially needs to be brought up in light of recent events. That EPA ruling is looking better and better by the day! Until then it’s best that Garland stays in his swamp as the Biden-Harris flunkey he is, where he’s thankfully not a Supreme Court Justice.

I’ve got a phone number for the author
1-800-CRY-BABY

Word’s mean things. And the idea that one can be like Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland:

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”

with the words of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, is how we’ve gotten to the point we’re now at; where bureaucraps, politicians, judges and justices have deceitfully twisted the words of the Constitution into whatever pretzel would get them the results they wanted.

America gets first taste of an originalist Supreme Court
Experts and justices alike are critiquing the conservative majority for an uneven application of their judicial philosophy.

WASHINGTON (CN) — Following a deluge of blockbuster rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court, experts have likened the legal underpinnings of those decisions from the court’s conservative majority to a revolution in constitutional law.

Reading many of the court’s opinions this term, you’ll find the phrase “original meaning of the constitutional text” quite frequently. This phrase refers to the judicial philosophy known as originalism, which interprets the Constitution based on the original understanding at the time it was adopted.

“The government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the majority opinion that struck down New York restrictions on who gets to carry a concealed weapon. “Only if a firearm regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s ‘unqualified command.’”

Thomas’ opinion in the gun case lays out an originalist framework for deciding if concealed-carry regulations violate the Second Amendment. This means that gun laws in 2022 would violate the Constitution unless they are analogous to gun laws in the 1790s.

The same reasoning was used in the court’s decision that overruled Roe v. Wade and eliminated the federal right to abortion.

“The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote.

Originalism has percolated in legal circles for years, but experts say this is the first time in history a majority on the Supreme Court has adopted the philosophy.

“Over the history of the United States Supreme Court, about six justices have taken the view that the Constitution should be interpreted as solely as it was understood at the time that it was adopted,” David Cole, the national legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a phone call. “So it’s very much a minority view. There have been over 100 Supreme Court justices, only six took this originalist approach. Just so happens that five of the six are on the court today.”

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Democrats Hate Every Second Amendment Victory Because It Challenges Their Monopoly On Power

Democrats hate the Second Amendment for the same reasons they hate free speech and fair elections: They want a monopoly on violence, words, and power.

When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down New York’s gun licensing scheme as unconstitutional last week, outraged leftists freaked out and started calling for the end of the judicial branch as we know it.

“It has become necessary to dissolve the Supreme Court of the United States,” far-left sports commentator Keith Olbermann tweeted. Other verified Twitter users claimed that, as a result of the ruling affirming Americans’ Second Amendment rights, the highest court in the land is “illegitimate,” “thoroughly corrupt,” and “mass shooters” wearing robes.

The law was accurately ruled unconstitutional, plain and simple, but that’s not good enough for leftists who despise the fact that Americans can and will defend themselves.

Why do Democrats despise the Second Amendment so much that they want to effectively banish a branch of the government over it? Because it strips them of their ability to control everything and accumulate power.

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BLUF
They could have taken their victories and shut up, but they couldn’t. They had to push and push and push and push until they finally ended up in court. They can’t stop because their rage comes from the vast, burning nihilistic emptiness inside them that no amount of expanded abortion rights or “pride” months or drag queen story hours or transgressive love stories in Disney cartoons can ever satisfy.

….in the end, that’s what they really want. An end to their restlessness and their war against their own savage gods. All we want, by contrast, is to be left alone with a culture we love and prize and wish to pass on to our children. But they want to take us with them because, as we all know, misery loves company. Either we’ll learn to care, or they’ll die trying. Because in their world, right now, everything’s coming up guns and Roeses, and they can’t have that, not now, not ever.

Guns N’ Roeses.

It has long been a dictum of mine that, as far as the progressive Left is concerned, “they never stop, they never sleep, they never quit.” After their twin defeats at the Supreme Court last week, regarding two of their most sensitive issues (both of which derive from their devotion to cultural suicide, which is their principal objective), don’t expect them to give up easily. They subscribe to their version of Islamism or the Brezhnev Doctrine: once they’ve conquered moral or physical tparerritory, it can never go back to the way it was. They see themselves as the heroes of their own movies, good red-diaper babies constantly battling the forces of revanchism and irrendentism, which are you. The idea that they’re the bad guy never occurs to them:

These are, after all, the same people who refused to accept George W. Bush’s narrow presidential victory in 2000 (“selected, not elected”); refused to accept Bush’s win over John Kerry in 2004; rained hellfire and brimstone down on poor Sarah Palin, whose only crime was a surfeit of motherhood, and snarlingly turned on her running mate and their erstwhile favorite maverick, John McCain in 2008; and went bonkers over the surprise victory of Donald Trump in 2016, thus triggering the entire “Russian collusion” hoax that started with Hillary Clinton and eventually came to embrace the FBI, the intelligence community, the media, and the judicial system.

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