Gotta have something for the courts to do and lawyers to bill hours for

Police save burglar who was shot by homeowner in Haines City

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — In a dramatic turn of events, police saved the life of an alleged burglar after he was shot by a homeowner in Haines City early Friday morning, authorities said.

Haines City Police Chief Goreck shared more information about the incident at a press conference Friday afternoon.

He said the homeowner and his girlfriend returned to the residence at about 1:45 a.m. and saw two strangers standing in the kitchen.

I-4 shut down 12 hours after woman’s body found, police say
Police said the homeowner, who has a permit to carry concealed weapons, drew his firearm and fired five rounds at the suspect closest to him.

The homeowner and his girlfriend fled the property with their puppy and called 911.

Police met the homeowner while he was driving to the station and questioned him. Goreck said he immediately surrendered the weapon and showed them his permit. He has been cooperating with the investigation, according to police, and is not facing charges at this time.

“Based on the totality of the evidence at this time, it does appear to be a case of Stand Your Ground,” Goreck said.

When police arrived at the residence, the suspects were nowhere to be found. Investigators collected five shell casings at the scene, and noticed a trail of blood droplets leading outside.

K9s picked up a scent and tracked one of the suspects about 100 yards away to Boomerang Park. He was found under a pavilion, suffering from four gunshot wounds.

“Even though this was a felon who had been illegally inside someone’s house, [police] immediately changed focused, changed gears, and went from a search and locate and apprehend, to saving this individual’s life,” Goreck said.

One officer rendered first aid and applied direct pressure to his wounds. Three other officers performed life-saving measures. One used a tourniquet on his leg to stop the bleeding.

“These four officers were able to save this individual’s life. They were able to stop the bleeding enough so that when he was finally airlifted to a trauma center—Osceola Regional Medical Center— that at this moment he’s still alive,” Goreck added.

Goreck said the man remains in critical but stable condition. Police were still working to identify the other suspect.

According to Goreck, the suspect who was injured is no stranger to law enforcement. His rap sheet includes arrests for grand and petit theft, burglary and loitering and prowling among other charges, Goreck said.

Police said he was found with some of the homeowner’s property. He faces charges of burglary to a residence and grand theft.

“One should expect that if you are brazen enough to enter into someone’s residence and it is not yours, with intent to commit an unlawful act, there maybe repercussions.” Goreck said. “We live in Florida, and more so, we live in Polk County, and most people are armed.”

Get Ready for Another Cynical, Useless, Gun-Control Push by Democrats

The first question any reasonable person asks after a horrible crime is, “What could have been done to stop it?” Yet after every mass shooting, gun controllers suggest unworkable, unconstitutional, completely ineffectual ideas that target people who will never commit a crime.

After the twin mass shootings in California last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom (flanked by armed guards) told CBS News more federal gun-control laws were needed because the Second Amendment is “becoming a suicide pact.” What he didn’t mention was that California has passed not only every law Senate Democrats are proposing in Washington but a slew of others. Anti-gun group Giffords gives California an “A” rating for having the “strongest gun safety laws in the nation and has been a trailblazer for gun safety reform for the past 30 years.”

California already has “universal” background checks. It has a 10-day waiting period limit for handgun purchases, a microstamping system, a personal safety test, the ability to sue gun manufacturers even if they haven’t broken any law, an age hike on the purchase of certain firearms including rifles from 18 to 21, “red flag” laws that allow police to confiscate guns without due process, a ban on magazines that hold more than 10 rounds, among many other restrictions. Short of letting cops smash down the doors of peaceful gun owners, California has a law for it. And all it’s done is leave its citizens defenseless.

The day of the Monterey Park shooting, President Joe Biden again called on Congress to pass a federal “assault weapons” ban. So-called assault weapons have been banned in California since 1989. Last year, the state passed another bill making them super-duper illegal: SB 1327. From 1989 until today, gun trends in California mirror those of the nation at large. Which is unsurprising. The Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, despite Biden constantly claiming otherwise, did nothing to alter gun violence trends. Homicide rates began to ebb nationally before the ban was instituted. When the ban expired in 2004, and the AR-15 became the most popular rifle in the country, gun violence continued to precipitously fall — by 2014, gun homicides were the same as they were in 1963 — until the appearance of COVID.

Then again, the shooter at Monterey Park didn’t use an assault weapon. He used a Cobray M11 9mm semi-automatic gun — “one of the most useless handguns in existence” — which some reporters referred to as an “assault pistol.” It’s a scary looking, if antiquated gun (out of production since 1990) that, in this iteration, fires one cartridge with a single trigger squeeze like almost every other gun owned by civilians — including AR-15s.
The gun was already illegal in California.
As is carrying any gun into a no-gun zone.
As is murder.

After the killers of Monterey Park (72 years old) and Half Moon Bay (66) struck, Biden, naturally, called on Congress to pass legislation to raise the minimum purchase age for “assault weapons” to 21. Many mass shooters are young men, but the average age of mass shooters is 32. The number of ARs used in the commission of murder in the hands of a person under 21 is a fraction of 1%.

All mass shooters obtain guns illegally, or legally before having any criminal record (or because of a mistake by the police, as was the case in Charleston and elsewhere). Most incidents are perpetrated by young men who have exhibited serious antisocial behavior. In many, if not most, cases, the shooter is already on the cops’ radar because he has threatened others, as was the case from the Parkland shooter to the Highland Park shooter to the Half Moon Bay shooter and many, many others. In a study of mass shootings from 2008 to 2017, the Secret Service found that “100 percent of perpetrators showed concerning behaviors, and in 77 percent of shootings, at least one person — most often a peer — knew about their plan.” The best thing we can do is uphold laws that already exist.

None of this is to argue that simply because some people ignore laws, they are unnecessary or useless. It’s to argue that laws that almost exclusively target innocent people from practicing a constitutional right, and do nothing to stop criminals, are unnecessary and useless. The central problem in this debate is that Democrats believe civilian gun ownership itself is a plague on the nation, so it doesn’t really matter to them what gun is being banned or what law is being passed, as long as something is being “done.”

The other side believes that being able to protect themselves, their families, their property and their community from criminality — and, should it descend into tyranny, the government — is a societal good. They see gun bans as autocratic and unconstitutional, and, also, largely unfeasible. And they’re right.

No Second Amendment Would Render Us Powerless

America is on a razor’s edge. Three mass shootings within 48 hours have the usual liberal suspects exploiting the carnage to push gun control.

President Biden and his acolytes keep babbling the same platitude that is as smug as it is irrelevant. After a tragic shooting, Democrats keep bleating about how no hunter needs a semi-automatic weapon to kill deer.

This snide commentary shows a complete ignorance of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Second Amendment right of individuals to own guns has absolutely nothing to do with hunting. The right to own guns “shall not be infringed” by the government because that very government is why individuals own such guns.

The Second Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights, a charter of negative liberties that protects Americans from their own government. If the government were to ever turn inward and try to commit genocide, they would face resistance from armed citizens.

The issue is not whether America’s government would ever turn inward. What matters is that without the Second Amendment, they easily could. With the Second Amendment, their task is much more difficult.

The dark reality is that the American government only exists under a threat of death to that government. This is a collective truth, not a call to rebellion. Every one of our legal 325 million citizens can remember that they individually say and do matters. If not liberty, then death.

Our First Amendment allowing us to challenge ideas and people exists only because of our Second Amendment. As Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar stated, “The framers recognized that self-government requires the people’s access to bullets as well as ballots.”

This is no antiquated concept in modern America. We have approximately 77.49 million adult gun owners. 2020 reflected the highest number of firearm sales in history, with 39,695,315 background checks for the sale of firearms and explosives. Americans own over 436.4M million guns . These are comforting facts.

Your individual conversations, vote and money matter as much as anyone else’s, all backed by the threat of the government’s demise. That is part of America’s shadow, never to be forgotten.

The United States, Mexico and Guatemala are the only three countries in the world that currently have a constitutional right to own a gun. Six other countries had a constitutional right to bear arms but repealed those laws.

America is the only country with a right to keep and bear arms without constitutional restrictions. Our Second Amendment is rare and exceptionally good.

This is why leftists remain set on trying to limit guns. Only then can Americans be fully controlled. That is not our way nor our agreement.

Every regime of death began by removing guns. The philosophy of the power of owning guns and knowing why we have them is at its essence as important as the guns themselves.

Our Second Amendment backing our First Amendment right to call out hypocrisies and lies is America’s own nuclear balance. Our government points its warheads at us. We in an act of detente point back ours collectively.

There is an inherent understanding, even in places led by tyrants: that those who go too far and try to implement tyranny in America, will one day see their power usurped, and their reign ended. This is detente for our people, not a darker position of violence. We must never forget the shadow side of our Second Amendment and its darker threat of death as a real tool for maintaining the balance of power in America.

God forbid we ever need to even think about using our arms, as citizens, against government. The Second Amendment thus still remains as a a useful reminder to those who lead us, why the Amendment was crafted in the first place – by our Founders.

Guns Don’t Kill People . . . People Kill People

Three recent mass shooting incidents in California have “gun violence” in the news again.  And most assuredly loud calls for banning guns will also be heard.

Tragedies like these three incidents make me think about a line from the 1953 film “Shane.” In the movie the lead character Shane famously remarks to Marian Starrett, ‘A gun is just a tool, Marian.  It’s no better or worse than the man using it.’

While this is true, it’s only true up to a point.  Guns are tools but they are not ordinary tools.  They were invented as weapons of war.  But they do  serve necessary and useful purposes as well.  Guns are used for hunting and other sport. They are also used for self-defense.

Guns

A number of television shows depict the reliance people here in the U.S.  have on hunting as a means of providing food.   The biathlon, in the Winter Olympics, and target and skeet shooting (clay pigeon shooting), are also  popular sports among gun enthusiasts.  And as the Heritage Foundation points out:

“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost every major study on defensive gun use has found that Americans use their firearms defensively between 500,000 and 3 million times each year.”

Case in point: On July 17, 2022 a man lawfully carrying a firearm shot and killed an “an assailant suspected of fatally shooting three people and injuring two others in an Indiana mall on Sunday evening.”  The incident took place at the Greenwood Park Mall just outside Indianapolis.  Greenwood Police Chief Jim Ison called the man a “hero.”

And this brings us back to Shane’s point – a gun is no better or worse than the man (or woman) using it.  So let’s not get emotional or delusional about guns.  As the adage says, “Guns don’t kill people.  People kill people.”

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January 28

814 – Louis the Pious becomes King of the Franks on the death of his father Charlemagne

1521 – The Diet of Worms begins, with Martin Luther summoned to renounce or reaffirm his views that the Roman Catholic Church has declared to be heretical.

1547 – Edward VI becomes King of England on the death of his father Henry VIII

1851 – Northwestern University in Evanston, becomes the first chartered university in Illinois.

1902 – The Carnegie Institution is founded in Washington, D.C. with a $10 million gift from Andrew Carnegie.

1909 – With the exception of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, U.S. troops leave Cuba.

1915 – The U.S. Revenue Cutter Service and the U.S. Life Saving Service are merged to create the United States Coast Guard.

1922 – Washington, D.C. experiences its largest snowfall to date which causes the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre to collapse, killing over 100 people.

1956 – On CBS Stage Show, Elvis Presley makes his first national television appearance.

1964 – An unarmed United States Air Force T-39 Sabreliner on a training mission, is shot down over Erfurt, East Germany, by a Soviet MiG-19.

1980 – US Coast Guard Cutter Blackthorn collides with the tanker Capricorn while leaving Tampa, Florida and capsizes, killing 23 of the 50 Coast Guard crewmembers aboard. Of special note, 20 years later, as a result of a review of reports, 18 year old Seaman Apprentice William “Billy” Flores is posthumously awarded the Coast Guard Medal, that service’s highest award for heroism in peacetime, due to him remaining at his post to issue life jackets, saving many of his crewmates lives at the ultimate loss of his own.

1982 – US Army general James L. Dozier is rescued by Italian anti-terrorism forces from captivity by the Red Brigades.

1986 – On mission STS-51-L, the external fuel tank of Space Shuttle Challenger explodes 73 seconds after liftoff, disintegrating the craft and killing all 7 astronauts on board.

1991 – Over Iraq, USAF Captain Donald Watrous, flying a F-15, engages and shoots down an Iraqi MiG-23

2002 – TAME Flight 120, a Boeing 727, crashes in the Andes mountains in southern Colombia, killing all 94 passengers and crew aboard.

2021 – A nitrogen leak at a Foundation Food Group poultry processing facility in Gainesville, Georgia kills 6 workers.

 

‘A perfect storm for the whole food system right now’: One of the world’s largest fertilizer companies warns that every country—even those in Europe—is facing a food crisis

The Ukraine war upended the global economy in many ways. Energy markets have been among the most affected, with declining Russian oil and natural gas exports to the West sparking a domino effect of fuel crises worldwide. But the war has also warped another critical facet of the global economy: food.
Prior to the war, Russia and Ukraine were global breadbaskets as top producers and exporters of wheat, sunflower seeds, and barley. The fighting ended up aggravating hunger and food crises in low-income countries that are dependent on imports. But both Russia and Ukraine are also key cogs in the global fertilizer industry, and the war has triggered a shortage of the critical commodity that few people consider but is nevertheless essential to global food security.
Much as Russian President Vladimir Putin leveraged the world’s reliance on his country’s fossil fuels to weaponize energy supplies during the war, he is doing something very similar with fertilizer and food, Svein Tore Holsether, CEO of Norwegian chemical company Yara International, among the world’s largest fertilizer producers and suppliers, told the Financial Times in an interview published Thursday.
Putin’s energy gambit, which sent fossil fuel prices soaring and left Europe on the brink of recession last year, has so far not gone as expected, with a warm winter working against him and Europe able to buy natural gas from elsewhere. But Holsether warned the world’s reliance on Russia for fertilizer threatens more disruption of food supply, adding to existing challenges of logistics bottlenecks and climate change.
“If you look at the role that we have allowed Russia to have in global food supply, we depend on them. How did that happen? What kind of weapon is that? And Putin is weaponizing food,” Holsether said.
“It is sort of a perfect storm for the whole food system right now: very challenging in Europe, of course, with higher prices; even worse in other parts of the world where a human being dies every four seconds as a result of hunger,” he added.

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ISIS-Inspired Terrorist Convicted on All Accounts for 2017 NYC Attack

A federal jury on Thursday convicted ISIS-inspired terrorist Sayfullo Saipov on 28 counts stemming from a deadly incident in 2017 during which he drove a rented truck through numerous civilians.

Prosecutors relayed that Saipov, a native of Uzbekistan, had indicated his motivation for the attack came from his interpretation of Islam, which had been inspired by ISIS propaganda.

“‘The Islamic State shall endure.’ These were his words to tell the world why, why he attacked this city, why he targeted innocent civilians, why he turned a bike path into his battlefield, why he ran them over without mercy,” said Assistant US Attorney Jason Richman during the court proceedings, the New York Post reported.

Saipov’s lawyer contended that though he was inspired by ISIS propaganda, Saipov did not carry out his attack in order to join the group outright. Defense attorney David Patton did not deny his client’s guilt for the attack, but merely disputed that he was seeking to join the terror group in so doing.

Twenty-six of the charges Saipov faced were for federal racketeering and stemmed from the allegation that he sought to join the terror group.

Nine of the counts for which the jury convicted him make Saipov eligible to receive the death penalty, according to the Post. The trial will soon proceed to an argument about the application of that penalty.

 

January 27

1302 – Dante Alighieri is exiled from Florence.

1606 – The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament begins

1776 – The “noble train of artillery” of heavy guns captured from Fort Ticonderoga New York, Henry Knox in command, arrives at Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1785 – The first public university in the U.S., the University of Georgia at Athens, is founded.

1825 – Congress approves the formation of the Indian Territory within what is now the state of Oklahoma.

1880 – Thomas Edison receives a patent for his incandescent lamp

1939 – First flight of the Lockheed P-38 Lightning.

1943 – The first American bombing attack on Germany during World War II  takes places when the 8th Air Force sorties 91 B-17 and B-24 bombers to attack the U-boat construction yards at Wilhelmshaven.

1945 –  The Soviet Army’s 322nd Rifle Division liberates the surviving inmates of the Auschwitz-Birkenau deathcamp in Poland.

1951 – Above ground nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site begins with Operation Ranger, with B-50 bombers dropping 5 bombs over Frenchman Flat in Nye county Nevada.

1967 – During a launch rehearsal test on Pad 34 of the Kennedy Space Center at 06:31 hrs EST, astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee are killed in a fire inside their Apollo 1 Command Module

1973 – The signing of the Paris Peace Accords officially ends the Vietnam War.

1980 – Through cooperation between the U.S. and Canadian governments, 6 American diplomats secretly make their escape from Iran.

1991 – Over Iraq, USAF pilots, flying F-15s, engage Iraqi jets. Captain Jay Denney shoots down 2 Iraqi MiG-23s, and Captain Ben Powell shoots down an Iraqi MiG-23 and Mirage F-1

1996 – Germany first observes the International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

2010 – Apple announces the introduction of the iPad.

2011 – The Yemeni Revolution begins as over 16,000 protestors demonstrate in Sana’a, the capitol city

2013 – During a university student party at the Kiss nightclub in the Brazilian city of Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, 242 people are killed when a fire breaks out from a band igniting pyrotechnics on stage.

Another problem with Gun Violence Archive’s numbers

Supporters of gun control love to use Gun Violence Archive as an authoritative source on the number of shootings we have in this country. The number of mass shootings as compiled by the site–a number that doesn’t reflect what most people think of as a mass shooting, it should be remembered–is presented uncritically by the media.

It happens all the time, and in the wake of two shootings in California, it’s happening yet again. While we know plenty about those two shootings and will likely learn more as we go forward, proponents of gun control site Gun Violence Archive’s total number of mass shootings to show it’s more than those two incidents.

Take this editorial as just one example.

History is full of horrific events in which we shake our heads and ask, “How did that happen? What were they thinking?”

The Holocaust and slavery are two prime examples.

It begs the question of what is transpiring today that will be regarded by future generations as deplorable. That historians will record with the hope that they will never be repeated.

Climate change, yes. And then there is gun violence.

California has had three mass shootings in the last four days. Seven people were killed and one injured in Half Moon Bay on Monday. One person was killed and six injured at an East Oakland gas station later that evening. Eleven people were killed and nine injured in Monterey Park on Saturday.

We are not even at the end of the first month of 2023. Yet the Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay shootings bring the number of mass shootings (in which four or more people were killed or injured) to 39 this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. That follows the 647 mass shootings recorded in 2022 and 690 mass shootings in 2021.

Of course, what follows is the true-to-form call for gun control we typically see from many editorial boards.

Now, in the wake of two deadly mass shootings, I sort of get it. However, they’re not just holding those two incidents up as why we somehow need gun control. They’re holding Gun Violence Archive’s numbers up as well.

And yet, what do we know about any of those shootings?

Well, we know three or more people were injured at those shootings–the low standard the site uses to categorize something as a mass shooting in the first place, which includes gang warfare, drivebys, and so on–but little else.

If we’re going to have a conversation about how we need gun control, about how certain guns shouldn’t be allowed in private hands, or how certain people should be legally barred from buying guns, shouldn’t we also need to know about any of those hundreds upon hundreds of so-called mass shootings?

I ask because I know statistically where most of those weapons came from, and it’s not from lawful gun sales.

How can you say that the gun laws are insufficient when so few of these hundreds of “mass shootings” were carried out with a lawfully-obtained firearm in the first place?

See, Gun Violence Archive is a favorite among the media and anti-gun set (but I repeat myself), yet it only shows part of the picture. To cite their numbers without important context on where those guns were obtained amounts to little more than trying to view a masterpiece by only looking at one single bit with a microscope.

It’s not a full picture by any stretch.

And it matters because while actual mass shootings make headlines, the real violence problem in our country happens in our inner cities. They get counted by Gun Violence Archive to try and push gun control when all the gun laws in the world aren’t going to help.

Lawyers who helped win US Supreme Court case train sights on Illinois assault weapon ban

CHICAGO — Two Second Amendment lawyers who helped win a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down a New York concealed carry gun law are now challenging the constitutionality of Illinois’ assault weapons ban – with help from the National Rifle Association.

Paul Clement, who successfully argued the New York case, is one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs in the latest federal lawsuit seeking to overturn Illinois’ two-week old ban.

Clement is a former partner in Kirkland & Ellis’ Washington, D.C., office who served as solicitor general of the United States, representing the government in cases before the nation’s top court from 2004 to 2008, during the George W. Bush Administration.

Clement and attorney Erin Murphy began their own firm after Chicago-based Kirkland & Ellis decided it would no longer handle Second Amendment-related litigation. Murphy, who was part of the New York case, is also working on the challenge to Illinois’ assault weapons ban, filed Tuesday in the Southern District of Illinois.

Plaintiffs in the new federal lawsuit are Sparta resident Caleb Barnett, Marion resident Brian Norman, Benton-based Hood’s Guns & More, Benton-based Pro Gun and Indoor Range and the National Sports Shooting Foundation, Inc.

Although the NRA is not listed as a plaintiff, a spokesperson for the organization told the Sun-Times it joined the National Sports Shooting Foundation to bring forth the suit, similar to what it did in the case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which was ultimately taken up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Demand for ‘Commonsense Gun Laws’ is the Road to Citizen Disarmament

U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Polls show that a majority of Americans want Congress to pass commonsense gun laws,” Dave Saldana asserts for Reader’s Digest in an opinionated hit piece on the right to keep and bear arms posted (under “news,” naturally) on MSN. “These laws would not ban gun ownership or repeal the Second Amendment.”

Reader’s Digest…how disappointing. I guess with all the other woke “capitalist rope-sellers,” seeing them turn was to be expected.

What the “majority of Americans want” depends not only on where the polls lead them with calculated questions but also on what they actually know about the “laws” they are being queried on, which in this case, is mostly what the media tells them. That, and rights aren’t contingent on majority rule—otherwise, two of us could do whatever we wanted to one of you.

Funny how when you test them on it, protecting minorities isn’t really what the left wants to do at all. Unless by “minority,” you mean the global elites…

As for the assurance that 2A and guns are safe if you give the grabbers what they want, the rest of Saldana’s regurgitation of tired talking points and goals they’ve let slip for decades show that to be a lie. And since the right it recognizes was not created by the government, something that has been recognized in the Cruikshank and Heller cases by the Supreme Court, repealing the Second Amendment would not eliminate what it was worded to protect, the ravings of retired dotard “justices” notwithstanding.

In any case, saying they won’t take all guns when they have no legitimate authority to take any is more than a bit like saying “We don’t want to rape you, just molest you a bit.”

The only rational response to that is “No. Your move.” Besides, they really do want to rape you.

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January 26

1564 – The Council of Trent establishes an official distinction between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.

1699 – Under terms of the Treaty of Karlowitz, signed in Sremski Karlovci Serbia, the Great Turkish War of 1683–1697 in which the Ottoman Empire was defeated at the Battle of Zenta by the Holy League, officially ends. The Ottomans ceding control of Central Europe, and establishing the Habsburg Monarchy as the dominant power in the region.

1837 – Michigan is admitted as the 26th U.S. state.

1838 – Tennessee enacts the first prohibition law in the United States.

1855 – Under terms of the The Point No Point Treaty signed at Point No Point, on the northern tip of the Kitsap Peninsula. the  S’Klallam, Chimakum, and the Skokomish tribes cede the northern Kitsap Peninsula and Olympic Peninsula to the U.S.

1861 – The state of Louisiana secedes from the Union.

1863 – Massachusetts Governor, John Albion Andrew receives permission from the Secretary of War to raise a militia regiment of men of African descent, the 54th Massachusetts Infantry commanded by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw.

1870 – Virginia rejoins the Union under Reconstruction

1885 – Troops loyal to the purported Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah, conquer Khartoum, killing the Governor-General Charles George Gordon.

1905 – The world’s largest diamond ever, the Cullinan, weighing 3,106.75 carats (that’s 1 pound 5 ounces) , is found at the Premier Mine near Pretoria in South Africa.

1911 – Glenn Curtiss flies the first successful American seaplane.

1915 – The Rocky Mountain National Park is established by an act of the U.S. Congress.

1920 – Former Ford Motor Company executive Henry Leland launches the Lincoln Motor Company.

1945 – While in command of B Company 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment, near Holtzwihr, France, 2nd Lieutenant Audie Murphy displays valor and bravery in action for which he will later be awarded the Medal of Honor.

1949 – The Hale telescope at Palomar Observatory sees first light under the direction of Edwin Hubble, becoming, at the time, the largest aperture optical telescope.

1980 – Under terms of the Camp David Accords, diplomatic and business relations between Egypt and Israel are formally established.

1991 – Flying F-15s over Iraq, USAF Cpts, Rhory Draeger, Tony Schiavi and Cesar Rodriguez each engage and shootdown Iraqi Mig-23 fighters.

1992 – Boris Yeltsin announces that Russia will stop targeting United States cities with nuclear weapons.

1998 – On live T.V., President Clinton openly lies when he denies having had “sexual relations” with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

2009 – Nadya Suleman, the “Octomom” gives birth to the world’s first surviving octuplets at the Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Offices in Bellflower, California/

2020 – A Sikorsky S-76B helicopter flying from John Wayne Airport to Camarillo Airport, crashes in Calabasas, 30 miles west of Los Angeles, killing all 9 aboard, including Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna.

 

The nomenklatura is real. It sprang to life with the first law Congress passed that restricted the people and exempted goobermint.

American Nomenklatura.

A few weeks after Elon Musk formally acquired Twitter in October 2022, a senior official at the company who quit in the wake of Musk’s arrival took to the New York Times to pour cold water on Musk’s vision for the social-media platform. Yoel Roth, whose title had been Head of Trust and Safety, sought to assure his fellow progressives. Roth wrote that even if Musk wanted to remove the web of content-moderation rules and procedures Roth had helped create and enforce, the tech billionaire would be unable to achieve his aim. “The moderating influences of advertisers, regulators and, most critically of all, app stores may be welcome for those of us hoping to avoid an escalation in the volume of dangerous speech online,” he wrote.

What Roth meant was this: No Internet platform is an island, and Musk simply didn’t have the power to do what he wanted despite his 100 percent ownership of the social-media platform. It wasn’t merely that Musk would have to contend with Twitter’s progressive workforce, which believes that some political speech is so awful that it should be throttled or banned. He would also come into conflict with European regulators, the Federal Trade Commission, and Congress, all of whom also seek to limit what can be said online. And what about the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a trade organization of some of the world’s biggest consumer brands that advocates for “online safety”—a euphemism for protecting social-media users from accounts that may offend, harass, or trigger them?

He would also be dogged by advocacy groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, which have found a new and lucrative mission monitoring social-media platforms for hate speech. They work hand in hand with elite journalists and think tankers, who have taken to tracking the spread of misinformation and disinformation online. In Washington, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security have personnel whose job it is to alert social-media companies to foreign propaganda and terrorism. In Atlanta, the Centers for Disease Control seeks to quarantine dangerous information that might lead Americans to forgo masks or vaccine boosters. And perhaps most important, there are other Silicon Valley giants—Apple and Google—that provide the digital storefronts or app stores that Twitter needs to update their software and continue to run its service.

Call it the “content-moderation industrial complex.” In just a few short years, this nomenklatura has come to constitute an implicit ruling class on the Internet, one that collectively determines what information and news sources the rest of us should see on major platforms. Talk about “free speech” and “the First Amendment” may actually be beside the point here. The Twitter that Musk bought was part of a larger machine—one that attempts to shape conversations online by amplifying, muzzling, and occasionally banning participants who run afoul of its dogma.

The existence of this nomenklatura has been known for a few years. But thanks to Musk and his decision to make Twitter’s internal communications and policies available to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and others, more detail is now known on why and how this elite endeavors to protect us from all manner of wrongthink.

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Sen. Hawley’s Insider Trading Bill Returns To Congress Under New Title ‘PELOSI Act.’

U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) reintroduced his 2022 insider trading bill Tuesday that would ban lawmakers and their spouses from holding and trading individual stocks and force political figures to return profits to American citizens under a new title dubbed the “PELOSI Act.”

The Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments (PELOSI) Act comes just over a year after Hawley introduced the original bill, in which he accuses politicians of somehow outperforming the stock market every year they hold office.

This time around, the senator’s updated version takes a jab at California Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who many Republican lawmakers had slammed after her husband, Paul Pelosi, sold up to $5 million worth of shares in Nvidia, a California company that produces semiconductors, just before the House voted on a bill surrounding the domestic chip manufacturing industry.

“For too long, politicians in Washington have taken advantage of the economic system they write the rules for, turning profits for themselves at the expense of the American people,” Hawley said in a news release.

In addition to prohibiting members of Congress from taking advantage of the market and wielding their power and privilege over American citizens, The PELOSI Act would also ban said politicians from holding diversified mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, or exempt U.S. Treasury bonds.

Six months upon assuming office, the bill would require new congressional members to divest or place prohibited holdings in a blind trust — to remain there while they are serving the American people.

Spouses of American politicians in Congress would also have to forfeit any investment profits back to the American people through the U.S. Treasury.

Violation of the Act could result in losing the ability to deduct the losses of those investments on their income taxes and other additional fines.

Earlier this month, Business Insider reported at least 78 congressional members, Democrats and Republicans alike, had violated a 2012 law known as the STOCK Act — Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act — which lawmakers designed to combat insider trading among lawmakers and force public servants to disclose their personal financial dealings, including any stock trade made by themselves, a spouse, or a dependent child.

Still, according to the report, lawmakers allegedly broke the law, citing ignorance, clerical issues, and accounting mistakes.

“As members of Congress, both Senators and Representatives are tasked with providing oversight of the same companies they invest in, yet they continually buy and sell stocks, outperforming the market time and again,” Hawley said. “While Wall Street and Big Tech work hand-in-hand with elected officials to enrich each other, hardworking Americans pay the price.”

Every two years like clockwork, her staff dusts off the same old bill, changes the title to match the year, and resubmits it. It will never go anywhere, and everyone knows that, but it’s her pet bill ever since the old ’94-’04 ban didn’t have the votes to get re-enacted. This will go on until she either finally decides to retire, or one day doesn’t wake up.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein Introduces Bill to Ban 205 ‘Assault Weapons’

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced legislation Monday to ban “205 military-style assault weapons by name” and prohibit transfer of “high capacity” magazines.

Feinstein cited the January 21, 2023, Monterey Park shooting as the impetus for the reintroduction of the “assault weapons” ban.

She said, “We were tragically reminded this weekend of the deadly nature of assault weapons when a shooter used one to kill 11 people and injure 9 more at a Lunar New Year celebration in California.”

In addition to banning the “sale, manufacture, transfer and importation” of 205 specific firearms, Feinstein’s bill requires “a background check on any future sale, trade or gifting of an assault weapon covered by the bill.” (This would apply to guns grandfathered in, if the bill were to become law.)

Her bill also contains an addendum to “[prohibit] the sale of assault weapons to individuals under 21.”

The alleged Monterey Park attacker was 72 years old and Monday’s alleged Half Moon Bay attacker was 67 years old.

Police say shooting at Roswell business was self-defense

ROSWELL, N.M. (KRQE) – Roswell Police are saying the shooting death of a man will be ruled self-defense. Police say Brian Jaramillo was shot multiple times Monday morning by his wife inside a business the two owned.

Investigators determined Brian Jaramillo was beating his wife and threatened to kill her when the shooting occurred. Police say they do not plan to file charges against the woman.

I wouldn’t say she purposefully lying. She just likes that paycheck too much to actually do any research on her own for the facts of the matter.
She reads from out of a notebook that has all the approved answers for probable questions already provided for her. And if it doesn’t have an answer for her to parrot, she always uses one of two or three standard ‘boilerplate’ deferrals she’s memorized.

FACT CHECK: WH Press Sec. Falsely Claims ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban Reduced Mass Shootings

CLAIM: White house press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed the result of the 1994-2004 “assault weapons” ban was that “mass shootings went down.”

VERDICT: False.

Jean-Pierre opened Tuesday’s press conference by talking about the mass shootings that have been occurring in California, the state that has more gun control than any other state in the Union.

Ironically, one of California’s gun controls is an “assault weapons” ban.

Nevertheless, Jean-Pierre pushed for an “assault weapons” ban at the federal level, saying, “The last time we had an ‘assault weapons’ ban on the books, thanks to the President and Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) leadership, mass shootings actually went down.”

Jean-Pierre’s claim is 180 degrees out of sync with the information discovered and published by the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Justice (NIJ).

Breitbart News reported the NIJ’s findings, which were originally published just as the “assault weapons” ban was coming to an end. The NIJ made clear that the ban could not be credited with any reduction in crime.

The Washington Times quoted University of Pennsylvania professor Christopher Koper, author of the NIJ report, saying, “We cannot clearly credit the ban with any of the nation’s recent drop in gun violence. And, indeed, there has been no discernible reduction in the lethality and injuriousness of gun violence.”

The NIJ report continued, “The ban’s effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement.” It put matters into perspective by pointing out that “assault weapons” were “rarely used in gun crimes even before the ban.”

Breitbart News noted on January 18, 2013, that “’assault weapons’ were tied to less than .012 per cent of overall deaths in America in recent years (2011)”. This point is poignant, in light of the NIJ report showing “assault weapons” were “rarely used” in crime to begin with. The guns are bulky and difficult to conceal, making them a bad choice for criminals seeking to avoid detection.

Also, the January 21 Monterey Park attacker used a pistol, and NBC Bay Area’s Christine Ni noted that the January 23 Half Moon Bay attacker appears to have used a handgun as well.

Jean-Pierre’s claim that the 1994-2004 “assault weapons” ban reduced mass shootings does not square with the Department of Justice’s NIJ report.

Nah…SanFranNan would never do something like that, would she?

Just a coinkidink I’m sure………