June 23
1280 – During the Reconquista, in the Battle of Moclín, the Emirate of Granada ambush a superior pursuing force, killing most of them in a military disaster for the Kingdom of Castile.
1683 – William Penn signs a friendship treaty with Lenni Lenape Indians in Pennsylvania.
1780 – American General Nathaniel Greene, commanding 1500 men of the New Jersey Militia, defeats a 5000 man force of British Army troops and Hessian mercenaries at the Battle of Springfield, effectively ending British ambitions in New Jersey.
1810 – John Jacob Astor forms the Pacific Fur Company and orders the construction of a base of operations; Fort Astoria, present-day Astoria, Oregon – at the mouth of the Columbia River.
1812 – During the War of 1812, Britain revokes the restrictions on American commerce it had try to enforce, thus eliminating one of the chief reasons for going to war.
1865 – Confederate Brigadier General Stand Watie surrenders his army at Fort Towson in the Oklahoma and Indian Territory
1868 – Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for an invention he calls the “Type-Writer.”
1894 – At the initiative of Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the International Olympic Committee is founded at the Sorbonne in Paris to organize modern athletic competition modeled after the ancient Olympic Games.
1914 – Pancho Villa defeats Victoriano Huerta at Zacatecas
1926 – The College Board administers the first SAT exam.
1931 – Pilot Wiley Post and Navigator Harold Gatty take off from Roosevelt Field, Long Island, in the Lockheed Vega Winne Mae, to make the first circumnavigation of the world in a single engine plane.
1938 – The Civil Aeronautics Act is signed into law, forming the Civil Aeronautics Authority in the United States.
1947 – The Senate follows the House of Representatives in overriding President Truman’s veto of the Taft–Hartley Act, restricting the power of labor unions
1959 – Convicted Manhattan Project spy Klaus Fuchs is released after only 9 years in prison and allowed to emigrate to Dresden, East Germany.
1960 – The FDA declares G. D. Searle & Company’s Enovid to be the first officially approved combined oral contraceptive pill in the world.
1961 – The Antarctic Treaty, which sets aside Antarctica as a scientific preserve and bans military activity on the continent, comes into force
1969 – Warren E. Burger is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court by retiring Chief Justice Earl Warren.
1972 – Title IX of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 is amended to prohibit sexual discrimination to any educational program receiving federal funds.
2013 – Nik Wallenda becomes the first man to successfully walk across the Grand Canyon on a tight rope.
2016 – The United Kingdom votes in a referendum to leave the European Union, by 52% to 48%.
I present you with the justification for American citizens being allowed to own armor piercing ammunition and explosive devices. https://t.co/5VpWDflUO2
— GunFreeZone Blog (@GunFreeZone) June 22, 2023
She is lamenting that our society is not more like China’s, where the goobermint monitors you from birth and intervenes when your social index score gets too low.
The “guns cause killings” idea is bogus. (Dec. 1, 8A, “Guns, not mental health issues, cause US mass shootings”) There are more guns than people in America.
If guns cause violence, then the annual homicide rate should be more than 1 million killed, with hundreds of thousands wounded. The streets of every city, town and village should be running red with blood, and the bodies should be stacked like cord wood in the streets.
Two classes of homicides dominate mass media today: gang warfare killings and mass shootings by lone killers. Gang warfare is concentrated in urban areas. One-on-one homicides are fairly rare and sprinkled across America. Mass shootings are even more uncommon.
Dealing with lone killers would require America to tackle the very tough issue of privacy. In the past 60 years, civil libertarians have invented an impenetrable bubble of privacy around everyone. This makes it difficult or impossible for employers, law enforcement and school officials to do anything before a mass shooting takes place.
A final observation: Every handgun sold to honest, law-abiding citizens is a vote of “no confidence” in government’s ability — or even willingness — to control street crime.
– Brian Bloedel, Accomac, Virginia
What They Mean by ‘Civility’
The New York Times raises no objection to murderous, racist rhetoric at a Common Cause rally.
The New York Times editorial page, a division of the New York Times Co., on Saturday endorsed Common Cause’s personal attack on Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. As we explained Friday, Common Cause, a Washington-based corporation, is complaining about Scalia and Thomas’s having joined Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, the 2010 decision that overturned a law criminalizing certain political speech by corporations.
As the Times explains, Common Cause implies that Scalia and Thomas had a conflict of interest:
The framers of our Constitution envisioned law gaining authority apart from politics. They wanted justices to exercise their judgment independently–to be free from worrying about upsetting the powerful and certainly not to be cultivating powerful political interests.
A petition by Common Cause to the Justice Department questioned whether Justices Scalia and Thomas are doing the latter. It asked whether the court’s ruling a year ago in the Citizens United case, unleashing corporate money into politics, should be set aside because the justices took part in a political gathering of the conservative corporate money-raiser Charles Koch while the case was before the court.
If the answer turns out to be yes, it would be yet more evidence that the court must change its policy–or rather its nonpolicy–about recusal.
The answer will not turn out to be yes, for Common Cause’s complaint is not only meritless but frivolous. Koch was not a party to the lawsuit. Citizens United, which brought the case to the court, is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation, just like Common Cause.
Further, both Justices Scalia and Thomas, in joining the majority opinion, merely reaffirmed the legal positions that they, along with Justice Kennedy, had previously taken in dissenting from the precedents that Citizens United overturned: McConnell v. FEC (2003) and, in Justice Scalia’s case, Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990, the year before Thomas joined the court). Thus it is preposterous to suggest that their purported association, years later, with “powerful political interests” influenced their decision in Citizens United.
Common Cause’s complaint does not even allege any actual impropriety on the justices’ part. In its letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, the corporation asserts that “it appears” the justices “have participated in political strategy sessions.” This is based on promotional material for a conference called “Understanding and Addressing Threats to American Free Enterprise and Prosperity,” which says that “past meetings have featured such notable leaders as Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.”
What exactly did Justices Scalia and Thomas do at the conferences “it appears” they attended? Neither Common Cause nor the Times offers any evidence bearing on the question. But the Times makes another accusation against Justice Scalia that may provide a clue:
Earlier today, an acquaintance who has a ‘source’ at NOAA had related this:
I have a source who shared that NOAA picked up the possible implosion right around the time it disappeared. I was embargoed from sharing that information, but I feel it’s OK to share with you guys at this point and wonder if that will come out in the news conference.
U.S. Navy Heard What It Believed Was Titan Implosion Days Ago
Underwater microphones designed to detect enemy submarines first detected Titan tragedy
WASHINGTON—A top secret U.S. Navy acoustic detection system designed to spot enemy submarines first heard the Titan sub implosion hours after the submersible began its mission, officials involved in the search said.
The Navy began listening for the Titan almost as soon as the sub lost communications, according to a U.S. defense official.
Shortly after its disappearance, the U.S. system detected what it suspected was the sound of an implosion near the debris site discovered Thursday and reported its findings to the commander on site, U.S. defense officials said.
“The U.S. Navy conducted an analysis of acoustic data and detected an anomaly consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating when communications were lost,” a senior U.S. Navy official told The Wall Street Journal in a statement.
“While not definitive, this information was immediately shared with the Incident Commander to assist with the ongoing search and rescue mission.”
The Navy asked that the specific system used not be named, citing national security concerns.
Democrat Donor Arrested for Starting Massive Fire Democrats Blamed on Climate Change.
What happened: Authorities busted a Democratic donor for allegedly starting a “ginormous inferno” in Yosemite National Park. Democratic politicians had insisted climate change was to blame for the blaze, which destroyed more than 100 homes and injured several firefighters in July 2022.
• Edward Fredrick Wackerman (his actual name) of Mariposa, Calif., faces a number of charges including aggravated arson following his arrest on Friday.
By the numbers: The arson suspect has donated $1,775 to Democratic candidates and committees since 2020, government records show, including a $1,000 donation to Tim Ryan’s failed U.S. Senate campaign in 2022 and $400 to the Lincoln Project, a disgraced liberal super PAC.
• The so-called Oak Fire destroyed 127 homes and 66 outbuildings. Roughly 6,000 people were forced to evacuate as the inferno torched 30 square miles of land and smoke from the fire drifted more than 200 miles into parts of Nevada and the San Francisco Bay Area.
What they’re saying: “Ed Wackerman is facing several felony charges, including aggravated arson. These charges carry serious legal consequences and the District Attorney is committed to ensuring a fair trial and upholding justice,” Mariposa County District Attorney Walter Wall said in a statement. Authorities did not say how Wackerman is believed to have started the fire.
What they said: “Thank you to all the firefighters and first responders working tirelessly under difficult conditions to combat the #OakFire,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D., Calif.) wrote on Twitter on July 25, 2022. “Worsening drought and severe weather will only continue to put lives and property at risk from wildfire if we don’t take climate action NOW.”
• “More people will be killed and the survival of our civilization is at stake,” former Vice President Al Gore said on July 24, 2022, citing climate change as the reason “droughts and fires are hitting us so hard.”
Crucial context: Several days before Wackerman’s arrest, authorities busted Democratic donor Themis Matsoukas for allegedly performing sexual acts with his dog at Rothrock State Forest in Pennsylvania. “I do it to blow off steam,” the Elizabeth Warren supporter told investigators.
• Matsoukas is 64 years old; Wackerman is 71.
Bottom line: We need a total and complete shutdown of liberal Baby Boomers entering state and national parks until we can figure out what the hell is going on.
BLUF
The American people deserve to know that when it comes to criminal enforcement, they are not on the same playing field as the wealthy and politically connected class. The preferential treatment Hunter Biden received would never have been granted to ordinary Americans.
So That’s Why Hunter Biden Got a Sweetheart Plea Deal When He Did.
Just days after Hunter Biden reached a sweetheart plea deal with his father’s Justice Department to avoid jail time for tax and gun crimes, the House Ways and Means Committee unveiled new testimony from IRS whistleblowers alleging roadblocks were set before them to ensure preferential treatment to President Joe Biden’s son. What’s more, whistleblower testimony claims that the U.S. attorney overseeing the probe of Hunter’s alleged tax crimes had his attempts to charge hunter in 2022 denied.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO) confirmed on Thursday that his committee had “credible whistleblower testimony alleging misconduct and government abuse that is resulting in preferential treatment” for the president’s son, Hunter Biden. That testimony regarding the investigations “for tax crimes that include evading taxes on income from foreign sources,” the Missouri Republican explained, could only be taken by the Ways and Means Committee.
Missing Titanic submarine found, crew killed in deep-sea catastrophe
BOSTON – The search for the missing OceanGate Titan submersible came to a tragic end Thursday when search-and-rescue teams discovered a “debris field” on the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titanic, where the crew was headed before losing contact with their surface vessel Sunday morning.
“The debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber. Upon this determination, we immediately notified the families,” U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral John Mauger told reporters. “On behalf of the United States Coast Guard and the entire unified command, I offer my deepest condolences to the families.”
The announcement came hours after the USCG alerted the public that a robotic vehicle made the discovery.
“A debris field was discovered within the search area by an ROV near the Titanic,” the USCG said just before noon. ROV stands for remotely operated vehicle. Experts were evaluating the information.
The Titan lost contact with its surface vessel, the Polar Prince, around 1 hour and 45 minutes into its dive Sunday morning, about 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and around 400 miles southeast of St John’s, in Canada’s Newfoundland.
“We understand debris has been found which may be the landing frame and a rear cover of the tail instrument compartment of The Titan lost on previous dives,” Richard Garriott, the president of the Explorers Club which had members on the missing sub, wrote to the group, according to a spokesman. “We hear there may be additional debris, but no updated visuals of the submersible.”
Inside the vessel were OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush; British businessman turned adventurer Hamish Harding; father-and-son Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, who are members of one of Pakistan’s wealthiest families; and Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a former French navy officer and leading Titanic expert.
“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” OceanGate said in a statement. “Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time.”
The U.S. Coast Guard headed a unified command that involved commercial assets, research vehicles and military counterparts from Canada, France and the United Kingdom.
Search-and-rescue crews spent the week deploying high-tech buoys, robotic vehicles known as ROVs, surface vessels and aerial searches in an effort to pinpoint the missing sub’s location.
The ROVs will remain in the area to gather more information, Mauger said, but he said he could not estimate the prospects of whether the victims’ remains could be recovered.
“This is incredibly unforgiving environment down there on the sea floor, and the debris is consistent with a catastrophic implosion of the vessel, and so we’ll continue to work and search the area down there, but I don’t have an answer,” he said.
As of Thursday morning, several with the ability to reach the ocean floor had been deployed in the Atlantic as the Titan’s estimated initial supply of 96 hours of oxygen dwindled – including the Victor 6000, which descended from the French L’Atalante research vessel to the ocean floor.
A Canadian vessel, the Horizon Arctic, also deployed its ROV Thursday morning, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, Canadian pilots picked up repeated sounds during their search.
Carl Hartsfield, a retired Navy captain and a scientist from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said during a USCG briefing that the noises had been “described as banging.”
Authorities did not elaborate and had not discovered their source on Wednesday.
The Toughest Job In D.C. — Transcribing Biden’s Remarks
Watching President Joe Biden try to make his way through a speech is painful enough. Reading a transcript of it is worse. Not just because Biden’s words are even more confusing in print, but because you start to feel a strong sense of pity for the person responsible for figuring out what he is trying to say, how much of it to transcribe verbatim, and which facts to correct.
We looked through Biden’s remarks from just this month and found 15 instances where the transcriber felt compelled to make corrections on things the president said.
Here’s an example from one 11-minute speech he gave over the weekend in Palo Alto.
Forty million — 40 million Americans already drinking water that thousands of farmers rely on for — for
integration[irrigation]. And 40 million count on that river and so do the farmers….Folks, flood mitigation: $3.5
million[billion] to reduce or eliminate the risk of repetitive flood damage to buildings, plus $1 billion in funding mitigation measures to increase community resilience, like supporting adaptations of hazard-resistant building codesAnd maybe most important, I’ve committed by
2020[2030], we will have conserved 30 percent of all the lands and waters the United States has jurisdiction over and simultaneously reduce emissions to blunt climate impacts.
Other examples from this month as they appear in the official White House transcripts:
- “Mary
Robinson[Barra], the Chairman of the Board of General Motors …” - “Instead, I signed into law the Bipartisan Safers [sic] Community Act, which you’ve referenced several times today …”
- “Last summer, I had the honor of bestowing the Presidential Meda- — Medal of Freemon [sic] — Freedom on distinguished Americans …”
- “The ticket seller,
SeatGreek[SeatGeek], is also set to give customers the option of seeing all-in, upfront prices …” - “And I’m pleased we’re also joined by x-pay [sic] — xBk, a small venue in Des Moines, Iowa, that’s going be using all upfront pricing for its hundred events at — a year as well …”
- “Let me tell you, the Inflation Reduction Act includes $369 billion to comat [sic] — combat climate change …”
- “We made clear — they made clear that we’d rather th- — they’d rather threaten the default of the U.S. economy than cut or get rid of, for example, $30 billion in taxpayer subsidies to oil companies who made $200 million [sic] last year — billion. I said ‘million.’ Billion dollars last year …”
- “When we were at the G7, we talked about — one of the meetings was — they used to call the Build Back Better World. It’s not that now. It’s the
PIII[PGII] — P-triple-I [sic] …” - “At the G7, it was originally called Build Back Better World, but we were talking about — there’s a new
PPI[PGII] — anyway — an industrial policy that we’re all signed on to …” - “As Commander-in-Chief, I was proud to have ended the ban on transgester [sic] Americans — transgender Americans serving in the United States military …”
- “And finally, this executive order means more resources, especially when it comes to improving military families’ access to quality,
defendable[dependable], and affordable — affordable childcare …” - “This could have been the week that a catastrophic — catastrophic devault [sic] — default happened …”
But, while the White House appears to be trying to present an accurate record of Biden’s mumbles and stumbles, even this is a cleaned-up version of history.
At that same Palo Alto event, what the audience heard Biden say was: “Here in California, the goverer — you and I stood together.” But the official transcript has Biden correctly pronouncing the word “governor.”
Then there are all the times the transcriber just has to give up and put “(inaudible)” in places where Biden so garbles his words that nobody can make them out. That happened at a Cabinet meeting earlier this month, when Biden said “I’m going to ask Natalie, quickly, to explain, while you’re all here, how it works. We don’t have the ability — it’s not — we don’t have a laptop to type over (inaudible). We’re just going to show you.” (See whether you can decipher the missing words at the 3:34 mark on the video.)
And all this is to say nothing of the bizarre and befuddling things that routinely come out of Biden’s mouth these days. Such as when he ended a speech saying “God save the Queen, man.” Or when he declared that “We have plans to build a railroad from the Pacific all the way across the Indian Ocean.”
Last week, Biden attended an event about the rebuilding of I-95 after a section collapsed outside Philadelphia, which also featured the city’s mayor, the state’s governor and its even more remarkably incoherent junior senator. After the mayor praised Biden’s response to the event, Biden went back up the podium to say “I might add that if I didn’t, I’d be sleeping alone.” Which he apparently meant as a joke, but which nobody understood. So, he came back to the mic to say: “I have to explain … I better explain that sumdonnowhatmtal. My wife’s a Philly girl.” Then, looking confused, he says, “alright, where we goin’?”
That part of the event, captured by C-SPAN, didn’t make it into the White House transcript.
Well, it’s SloJoe. We shouldn’t expect him to make sense
Biden’s Latest Anti-Gun Claims Aren’t Just False — They Don’t Even Make Sense
Biden’s most recent anti-gun claims during the National Safer Communities Summit are false, incomplete, and incoherent.
Biden’s gun control speech on Friday at the National Safer Communities Summit in Connecticut got attention because the president nonsensically concluded with “God save the Queen, man.” However, this was not his only incoherent claim.
In his speech, Biden stated: “Put a pistol on a brace, and it ma- — turns into a gun. Makes them where you can have a higher-caliber weapon — a higher-caliber bullet coming out of that gun. It’s essentially turning it into a short-barreled rifle, which has been a weapon of choice by a number of mass shooters.”
Of course, a “stabilizing brace” doesn’t turn a pistol into a gun. A pistol already is a gun.
What’s more, stabilizing braces have only been used in two mass public shootings (Dayton, Ohio, in 2019 and Boulder, Colorado, in 2021), but there is no evidence that the braces even made any difference in these attacks.
Even so, few realize that stabilizing braces were originally designed to allow veterans with hand disabilities to hold handguns, not for mass shooters to commit a crime more effectively. The braces are straps that allow the disabled person to keep hold of the gun when it recoils. Without a gun and a steady aim, disabled people are very vulnerable to criminals. But Biden will never mention that.
Even when pistol braces are used among law-abiding gun owners who are not disabled, their personal efforts to ensure steadier aim are not inherently negative or dangerous.
If Biden is worried about the dangerous potential of more powerful guns with less recoil, he should also address the various ways they can be obtained apart from stabilizing braces. For example, rifles are powerful weapons — 70 out of 82 bullets used in rifles are ranked as more powerful than a .223. If a criminal wants reduced recoil, he can simply use a rifle — heavier guns dampen the recoil, and rifles weigh more.
What’s more, in guns with short barrels, such as pistols, the bullet leaves the barrel before full pressure is developed and travels at a lower velocity. However, if an attacker wants a more powerful and more compact gun, there are alternatives to handguns. He can easily saw off part of the barrel of the rifle. After all, when facing multiple life sentences for murder, an additional penalty for sawing off the end of a rifle won’t make much difference.
But even Biden’s claim that short-barrel rifles are the weapon of choice for these mass murderers is also ridiculous. Again, only two of the roughly 100 mass public shooters over the last 25 years involved handguns with pistol braces. In 56.4 percent of mass shootings, only handguns were used (no braces), in 14.9 percent, rifles were used, and in 16 percent of attacks, rifles and another type of gun were used.
Finally, there is Biden’s screaming claim that “We are sending dangerous weapons, particularly assault weapons, to Mexico.” Mexico’s president does indeed blame America for his country’s high murder rate — in some recent years, it has been six times higher than the rate in the U.S.
According to data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), close to 70 percent of all criminally-owned guns in Mexico traced from 2009-2014 came from the U.S. A significant number of these were purchased legally in southwest states before being criminally smuggled over the border.
However, these figures are based only on the limited number of guns that Mexican authorities have seized, traced, and submitted to the agency for checking. For instance, Mexico submitted 11,000 guns to the ATF in 2007-08, though it seized 29,000. Of those, they successfully traced 6,000, and 5,114 (or 85 percent) of those traceable weapons came from the U.S. Thus, only about 17.6 percent of the firearms that Mexico collected were traced back to the U.S. That’s a small subset.
More recent data from the ATF for 2016 to 2021 even shows that the 70 percent has declined to around 50 percent, but we don’t have the rest of the breakdown in the numbers for this later period. And a 2016 U.S. Government Accountability Office report complained of limited collaboration with Mexican authorities on tracing guns.
And what about the fully automatic guns and grenades used to commit murders in Mexico? You can’t just go into gun stores in the U.S. and buy these types of weapons. However, between 2005 and 2014, the Mexican government seized more than 13,000 grenades.
“These kinds of guns — the auto versions of these guns — they are not coming from El Paso,” Ed Head, an Arizona firearms instructor with over two decades of experience as a U.S. Border Patrol agent told Fox News. “They are coming from other sources. They are brought in from Guatemala. They are brought in from places like China. They are being diverted from the military. But you don’t get these guns from the U.S.”
Similarly, as an anonymous Tijuana-based police authority told Fox News, “Most cartels buy in bulk, and the weapons are coming from places like Nicaragua and other South American countries. Also Asia and some from the Middle East.”
Machine guns, grenades, and other weapons are also stolen from the Mexican military before being sold to these cartels.
Unfortunately, the news media and their “fact-checkers” are prone to ignore Biden’s false gun claims from misstating how guns work to the source of Mexico’s violent crime problem. Sure, once in a while they acknowledge how he lied about a U.S. cannon ban at the country’s founding. But they refuse to address his lies and how they are unjustly shaping today’s public opinion surrounding gun ownership.
Meet the U.S. Senate’s Gun-Control Caucus
It is real American political theater to think of all the members of the U.S. Senate’s new gun-control caucus, which formally named itself the “Gun Violence Prevention Caucus,” sitting around a table in some hidden-away chamber in the Dirksen Senate Office Building plotting their many gun-control schemes—and, as you’ll see, they do have quite the list. This, after all, is how Hollywood has often treated the pro-freedom side.
Indeed, the members of this little gun-control cabal, as this was going to print, are a who’s who of senators who want to strip this civil right from we the people. They are Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Edward Markey (D-Mass.) and John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.).
Closed-door meetings and quiet handshakes do take place as one senator promises to co-sponsor another’s bill if that senator will vote for their proposed legislation (or if they won’t oppose some measure). And there are legislative tactics congressional leadership can use to rush legislation with little debate or, in some cases, to temporarily conceal what is in a bill—such is why Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) once famously (as it was an honest disclosure) gaffed when she referred to Obamacare: “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
Also, with certain types of legislation, riders and earmarks can be attached at the last minute that might have nothing to do with what that legislation is supposed to do.
Still, this gun-control caucus will have a hard time secretly moving any of its agenda items forward, as the American process of writing, debating and passing major legislation through both chambers of Congress invites a lot of attention and discussion—and some of the people watching are your NRA-ILA lobbyists.
With all of that said, why did these anti-Second Amendment senators form a gun-control caucus?
Politics. Such a caucus allows them to gather for the cameras as they virtue-signal about their stated desire to “reduce gun violence,” as if guns are violent critters that need to be neutered or outright disposed of. These gun-control-caucus members know that much of the mainstream media will further their narratives without questioning the specifics. They also know they can use talking points related to such proposed legislation to fundraise and to make the claim to their voters that they’re trying to do something—and they can then add that the NRA, yes, your freedom-loving association, just won’t let them push it over on the American people.
Such is also why much of the proposed legislation on this gun-control caucus’ list have disingenuous titles. And it’s why all of these legislative ideas are worded with misleading explanations.
This caucus’ ideas include the Age 21 Act (legislation that would strip away the constitutional rights of law-abiding, legal adults), a new Assault Weapons Ban (an idea that blames guns instead of criminals for crimes), the Crime Gun Tracing Modernization Act (an act that would create a national gun-owner database), Ethan’s Law (legislation to empower federal agents to go into citizens’ homes to enforce gun-storage mandates), the Protecting Kids from Gun Marketing Act (legislation to empower the Federal Trade Commission to censor advertising from firearms companies and groups) and much more.
Also, as this was going to print, this gun-control caucus said they planned to introduce the 3D Printed Gun Safety Act, the Accountability for Online Firearms Marketplaces Act, the Background Check Completion Act, the Federal Firearm Licensing Act, the Gun Violence Prevention Through Financial Intelligence Act, the Keeping Gun Dealers Honest Act and much more. Explanations of what these bills would contain are thin, but, given the past positions of these caucus members, it isn’t hard to fill in the gun-control details.
Now, for a moment, imagine if a Second Amendment-supporting caucus in the U.S. Senate were to come up with its own list. They could have The Individual Freedom Act (a national reciprocity bill), the Civil-Rights Act for Self-Preservation (a bill to ensure the disenfranchised get their Second Amendment freedom, too), the Right to Stop Evildoers Act (an end to “gun-free” zones) … well okay, all of those ideas aren’t deceptive in the least; they are honest, so the comparison to the gun-control legislation really doesn’t hold up.
The point is, these senators have created a gun-control caucus to provide fuel for even more agenda-driven gun-control coverage from mainstream-news outlets. Instead of targeting the actual problem—the criminals who use guns to harm others—this gun-control caucus is yet another political tool designed to blame America’s 100-million-plus gun owners for the actions of criminals.
This, then, is not a “Gun Violence Prevention Caucus,” as they call themselves, as that would be a caucus focused on legislation that goes after violent criminals; this is, rather, a gun-control caucus focused solely on disempowering average Americans.
I’ll go with plain stupidity.
CEO guy is down there in the sub with his inspirations 🙂
— The Stranger (@eviljinious1) June 21, 2023
Louisville police say man fatally shot while trying to carjack undercover police officers
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — A man was shot and killed by a Louisville Metro Police officer Monday afternoon after police said he tried to carjack two undercover officers in Louisville’s Portland neighborhood. But the man’s father is pushing back on what police say led up to his son’s death.
According to Interim Police Chief Jackie Gwinn-Villaroel, the incident took place just after 1:30 p.m. near the intersection of Griffiths Avenue and North 22nd Street.
Gwinn-Villaroel said two undercover officers with LMPD’s Fugitive Unit were inside a vehicle attempting to apprehend a suspect in an unrelated investigation when their vehicle was approached by a man in his 20s.
According to Gwinn-Villaroel, the man had a gun and attempted to carjack the officers.
One of the officers — a 10-year veteran of the department — shot the man with his service weapon.
The officers immediately tried to render medical aid, according to Gwinn-Villaroel, but the suspect died as a result of his injuries. Neither of the officers were injured.
Hours after the shooting, a man named Mark Jaggers reached out to WDRB News. He said his son, Mark Jaggers Jr., wasn’t trying to carjack anyone and that he thought the car was dumped off near their Portland home and wanted to take it for a joyride. When he opened the door, two undercover officers were inside.
“That car was sitting here for three hours,” said Jaggers. “My son thought it was a stolen car.”
Jaggers said he watched video from a neighbor’s security camera after the shooting. He said the alley where it happened is a known drop-off spot for dumped cars.
“The suspect attempted to carjack the officers with a gun,” Chief Gwinn-Villaroel said at the scene. “One of the officers shot the suspect with his service weapon.”
Jaggers said when he got the call, he heard someone screaming “in the alley.”
“And when I got here, that’s when I saw my boy on the ground,” he said.
Jaggers’ son died at the hospital. His father is pushing back on the accusation that his son was trying to carjack the officers. He doesn’t believe his son knew anyone was inside the car.
“My son thought it was a dumped car. I know it’s still illegal, I know. But it’s not worth getting shot over,” he said.
Hours after the shooting, in the same area where it happened, friends and family released balloons in his memory as they wait for more answers and Jaggers prepares to bury his son.
Kentucky State Police will lead the investigation into the shooting, Gwinn-Villaroel said. The agency has statewide jurisdiction and investigates police shootings throughout the state at the request of local law enforcement agencies.
Police later said Rex Wright Jr., 23, is the person detectives were initially looking for. He turned himself in after the shooting. He was wanted for a non-fatal shooting incident.
Wright is charged with one count of assault and six counts of wanton endangerment in connection with an incident on May 28, 2023.
June 22
1593 – The allied Christian armies of Austria and Croatia under Ruprecht von Eggenberg and Tamás Erdődy, defeat the moslem Ottoman army of Gazi Telli Hasan Pasha, at Sisak in central Croatia, at the confluence of the Sava and Kupa rivers.
1633 – The Holy Office in Rome forces Galileo Galilei to recant his view that the Sun, not the Earth, is the center of the Universe in the form he presented it in.
1807 – In the Chesapeake–Leopard Affair, the British warship HMS Leopard attacks and boards the American frigate USS Chesapeake off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia in the search for deserting British sailors.
1839 – Cherokee leaders Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot are assassinated in Indian Territory for signing the Treaty of New Echota, which had resulted in the removal of most members of the tribe to Indian Territory referred to as the Trail of Tears.
1870 – The United States Department of Justice is created by the U.S. Congress.
1898 – During the Spanish-American War, 6,000 men of the U.S. Fifth Army Corps begin landing at Daiquirí, Cuba, unopposed against a force nearly double in size.
1918 – The collision of a Michigan Central Railroad troop train running into the rear of the Hammond Circus train, near Hammond, Indiana, kills 86 people and injures 127 more.
1940 – France is forced to sign the Second Compiègne armistice with Germany, in the same railroad car in which the Germans signed the Armistice in 1918.
1941 – Nazi Germany invades the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa.
1942 – The Pledge of Allegiance is formally adopted by Congress.
1944 –President Roosevelt signs the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill, into law
1948 – Due to the introduction of the West German Deutsche Mark the previous day, making the Reichsmark, which was still legal tender in the Soviet zone worthless, the East German puppet government introduces their version of the Deutsche Mark.
1969 – The Cuyahoga River catches fire in Cleveland, Ohio, spurring the passing of the Clean Water Act and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.
1978 – Charon, the first of Pluto’s satellites to be discovered, is first seen by astronomer James W. Christy, at the United States Naval Observatory, in Washington D.C.
1984 – Virgin Atlantic beings service with a flight from London to Newark.
1990 – Checkpoint Charlie is dismantled in Berlin.
2009 – A Washington D.C Metro train traveling southbound near Fort Totten station collides into another train waiting to enter the station killing 9 people including the train operator and injuring 80 more.
SloJoe’s relationship with the truth was always nonexistent but now his lies don’t even make sense.
There is nothing unique about being a scatterbrained 80-year-old. But a scatterbrained 80-year-old should not be president.
The other day, Joe Biden ended a big gun-control speech in Connecticut with the words, “God save the queen, man.” Why did the president express adoration for the departed Brit monarch? Was he confused about royal succession? Is he a Sex Pistols fan? Who knows.
When asked about the incident, White House aides offered nonsensical and conflicting answers — because they have absolutely no idea, and neither does the president. It’s likely that the octogenarian spontaneously used a cool-sounding phrase, much like when your elderly neighbor tells you to “keep on truckin,’” for no apparent reason. It happens.
Yet, Axios writer Alex Thompson points out that Biden “has an arsenal of wacky phrases.” And the president’s “quirky aphorisms,” he contends, “are sometimes weaponized by Republicans to insinuate the 80-year-old president is in mental decline.”
There is no need for insinuation. Biden’s mental acuity, never impressive, has considerably deteriorated. Sure, he also tends to botch “old-timey” sayings like, “lots of luck in your senior year,” which he says is a gibe from his Corn Pop days. But most reporters who pretend perceptions of Biden’s decline are due to his propensity for homespun maxims or previously unknown stuttering problems almost surely wouldn’t find him fit enough to babysit their kids.
Every week, the president of the United States says something completely bonkers, and everyone goes on with their day. We’re not talking about his propensity to lie about politics or his blustery lifelong fabulism (his “folksiness,” The New York Times recently explained, “can veer into a personal folklore” with “the factual edges shaved off to make them more powerful for audiences.”) We’re talking about his inability to articulate simple ideas without notes — and often with notes. There are rarely any fact-checks of these statements. How can there be? They don’t even make sense as lies. There is no handwringing about the role of competency in our democracy. There is no discussion about the 25th Amendment.
Just listen to any one of his speeches. “Put a pistol on a brace, it turns into a gun — makes it more — you can have a higher-caliber weapon, higher-caliber bullet coming out of that gun,” the president explained before wishing Her Majesty his best. This was also complete gibberish. There is so much gibberish.
Only a couple of days before his “God save the queen” comment, Biden informed a crowd gathered for a League of Conservation Voters endorsement that “we” have “plans to build a railroad from the Pacific all the way across the Indian Ocean,” which must have really impressed everyone in attendance. “We have plans to build in Angola one of the largest solar plants in the world,” Biden went on. “I can go on, but I’m not. I’m going off-script. I’m going to get in trouble.”
A few days before the railroad comment, Biden couldn’t remember Winston Churchill’s name when speaking to the prime minister of Britain. Listen, I’m not great with names myself, and I’m sure as an 80-year-old I’d have trouble recalling world leaders … but I’m confident I wouldn’t think myself competent enough to be the most powerful man in the world. Nor should Biden.
That same week, when asked why a Ukrainian FBI informant referred to Biden as the “Big Guy,” the president lashed out for being posed “dumb questions.” He does this often in frustration. When the president isn’t flubbing canned lines to the rare tough question, he yells things like “c’mon, man!” A few years ago, this kind of rhetoric was considered democracy-shattering. Now, it’s quirky and folksy.
The week before he couldn’t remember Churchill’s name, the president also tripped and fell on stage after a commencement speech at the Air Force Academy. Biden’s surrogates pointed out that there had been a sandbag right there, as if no one, whether young or old, could possibly be expected to walk over a small bag without falling to the floor.
You might recall that after the former president gingerly navigated a ramp after giving a speech at West Point in 2020, The New York Times’ headline the next day was: “Trump’s Halting Walk Down Ramp Raises New Health Questions.” The president, the Times went on, “also appeared to have trouble raising a glass of water to his mouth during a speech at West Point a day before he turned 74, the oldest a president has been in his first term.”
The sitting president is now six years older than Trump was at the time — he would be a decade older should he finish a second term.
Of course, everyone ages differently — John Fetterman, only 53, can barely put together a thought while some septuagenarian is out there writing his literary opus right now. Nor is there anything wrong with or especially unique about being a scatterbrained and tired 80-year-old. In this case, maybe Americans who elected a scatterbrained and tired 80-year-old deserve to be governed by him — good and hard, as Menken might say. But please stop pretending Biden is OK. He’s not.
‘Both Serena and Venus lost to the 203rd ranked male tennis player’
Riley Gaines was a key witness at a Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday to push back against efforts by Democrats to pass the Equality Act, which would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as protected classes to the nation’s nondiscrimination laws.
During testimony Wednesday, panelist Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, refused to concede that biological men have an advantage over biological women in sports. Robison cited the claim that men cannot beat Serena Williams in tennis.
Asked to weigh in, Gaines quickly shut down the claim. “Both Serena and Venus lost to the 203rd ranked male tennis player, which — they’re phenoms for women,” Gaines said.
She also explained that even though she has more accolades and national rankings as an NCAA swimmer from the University of Kentucky than her husband — who also swam competitively for the school — “he could kick my butt any day of the week, without trying.”
Dem witness: "There's been this news article about men that think they can beat Serena Williams in tennis. And it's just not the case. She is stronger than them." @Riley_Gaines_: "Both Serena and Venus lost to the 203rd ranked male tennis player." pic.twitter.com/MSAnV6IA5t
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 21, 2023
It was one highlight reel among many produced by Gaines, a spokeswoman for the Independent Women’s Forum, as she told senators that gender identity policies that allow men to compete against women “exclude female athletes.”
At times Gaines’ testimony was emotional, and she appeared to hold back tears as she spoke of changing in the locker room alongside biological male and fellow NCAA swimmer Lia “Will” Thomas.
“A 6-foot-4, 22-year-old male equipped with and exposing mail genitalia. … No one asked for our consent and we did not give our consent,” she said. “… We were forced to take our swimsuit off in front of a male who was doing the exact same thing, if nothing else I truly hope how you can see this is a violation to our right to privacy and how some of us have felt uncomfortable, embarrassed and even traumatized by this experience.”
