Wilson Combat Announces Expansion of Facilities and Production
Jefferson County parks & rec district to take up concealed carry ban as gun rights fight goes local.
LITTLETON — A large special district in Jefferson County may be among the first entities in Colorado to test the limits of a new law allowing local governments to enact gun control laws within their jurisdiction.
The ink from Gov. Jared Polis’ pen on a new bill allowing the Foothills Parks and Recreation District (FPRD) to ban all firearms, including concealed carry by lawfully permitted citizens, from its facilities had only been dry for three days when FRPD staff brought up the idea at its board of directors meeting on June 22.
According to those at the meeting, it appeared at first that the board was ready to vote on the ban that night, until it was suggested that they wait for public comment at the next meeting, which is scheduled for 6 p.m. on July 27.
FPRD Executive Director Ronald Hopp confirmed to Complete Colorado that the board has asked its staff to bring forward a concealed carry ban to a future meeting, but was not sure when that would be.
“It hasn’t been confirmed that it will be at the July meeting or not, but at a future meeting the board has asked to add an agenda item to consider adding a concealed carry ban to our existing policy which bans open carry from our parks, trails and facilities,” Hopp said. “Given the new legislation that was approved by the governor and the legislature … they asked to have an agenda item to consider adding concealed carry to that prohibition.”
Quote O’ The Day:
“I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.” ― Joseph Stalin .
source: The Memoirs of Stalin’s Former Secretary by Boris Bazhanov.
was stalin a personal hero of his or just a guy he looked up to?
— Jonathon Snyder (@JonathonSnyder) July 13, 2021
“…outrage over the hypocrisy of allowing border crossers by land but not those who are seeking asylum for real reasons by sea.” ?
This is easy to understand. Mexicans in California tend to vote Demoncrap while Cubans in south Florida tend to vote Republican.
‘Outrageous:’ Mayorkas Blasted for Vowing to Reject Asylum-seeking Haitians, Cubans.
Funny how that goes! pic.twitter.com/lzJUhCa2fM
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) July 14, 2021
“Allow me to be clear: if you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States,” Mayorkas said.
The warning comes as Cuban authorities are cracking down on demonstrators after massive protests erupted in the country over the weekend. At least 100 people are missing or have been arrested so far. In Haiti, the nation has been rocked by turmoil after President Jovenel Moise was assassinated last week.
Mayorkas fled Cuba with his parents in 1960 after Fidel Castro’s communist takeover of the country, a point he spoke about when President Biden nominated him to lead DHS.
“When I was very young, the United States provided my family and me a place of refuge,” Mayorkas tweeted. “Now, I have been nominated to be the DHS Secretary and oversee the protection of all Americans and those who flee persecution in search of a better life for themselves and their loved ones.”
But on Tuesday, Mayorkas said those attempting to make it to the U.S. by sea will be stopped by the Coast Guard and returned to their countries.
“If individuals make, establish a well-founded fear of persecution or torture, they are referred to third countries for resettlement,” Mayorkas said, reports CBS News. “They will not enter the United States.”
STEPHEN MOORE: OPEC and Big Oil’s New Best Friend, Joe Biden
The price of oil surged to $75 a barrel the other day under President Joe Biden’s green energy policies. The price was as low as $35 a barrel under former President Donald Trump because he believed in American energy dominance (“Drill, baby, drill”). So, more oil meant lower prices at the pump. It was effectively a massive, multibillion-dollar tax cut for lower- and middle-income earners of tens of billions of dollars a year.
But now, with the exploding demand for energy as the world economy reopens, the self-defeating Biden policy is to curtail oil drilling here at home, which is often done by the smaller and independent “wildcat” drillers. Instead, this administration enriches the major oil companies such as Exxon and Chevron with existing wells that are suddenly more profitable to drill. This is why the gas price at the pump is $3.29 a gallon nationally and above $5 a gallon in California.
Are these higher-energy prices transitory? Harold Hamm, one of the fathers of modern shale gas innovations, doesn’t think so. Instead, he predicts the price may surge to more than $100 a barrel, which means well over $4 a gallon at the pump.
The most significant deterrent to more drilling on these shores is the Biden de facto moratorium on domestic drilling on federal lands. How foolish is this? Up to an estimated $50 trillion of energy resources are right below our feet. This is like a buried treasure that could supply energy for 100-plus years. In addition, the royalties and taxes would help pay off some of our $30 trillion national debt.
Here’s the worst part of the story. None of this tomfoolery is doing any good for the environment. Even Biden’s own Energy secretary, Jennifer Granholm, has complained that in some ways, the Biden policies are making carbon emissions worse by approving pipelines of dirty energy from Russia to Germany while killing pipelines from relatively cleaner oil and gas here in the United States.
What is clear is that the renewable energy push and the subsidies for electric cars and electric batteries aren’t going to change our fossil fuel energy demands for years. So, it is only a question of whether we get the oil from here at home or from some of our major adversaries, such as Russia.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports that even coal is making a comeback. After years of low prices, the coal price is now spiking due to less production. Biden has declared war on American coal, which has led to the closing of coal plants across the country. As utilities begin to awaken to the low reliability of wind and solar power, coal is in demand as a backup energy source to prevent blackouts. The rest of the world, especially Asia, is still addicted to coal. China now builds coal plants at a faster rate than we shut them down.
What sense does it make to shutter American coal when we have more of it, a 400-year supply, than any other nation? And our coal is the cleanest.
So, the Biden energy plan is bad for jobs, bad for consumers, and bad for the environment. My prediction is that global and U.S. carbon emissions are going way up this year and next.
The irony of this story is that the industry that Biden and the greens hate the most is benefiting from his foolish policies.
And, yes, those are the Saudi oil sheikhs you are seeing rolling on the ground laughing at us.
BLUF:
The report concluded: ‘A major peer-level conflict in the 21st Century will likely play out largely in the naval theaters of operations; unlike the surface Navy’s last major war, which concluded 76 years ago, such a conflict will likely proceed swiftly and not permit significant time for organizational learning once it is underway.’
‘Unless changes are made, the Navy risks losing the next major conflict.’
But I guess that won’t matter as much as the fleet’s diversity index being up to date?
A scathing new report commissioned by members of Congress has claimed that the Navy’s surface warfare forces have systemic training and leadership issues, including a focus on diversity that overshadows basic readiness skills.
The report prepared by Marine Lt. Gen. Robert Schmidle and Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, both retired, came in response to recent Naval disasters, including the burning of the USS Bonhomme Richard in San Diego, two collisions involving Navy ships in the Pacific and the surrender of two small craft to Iran.
The authors conducted hour-long interviews with 77 current and retired Navy officers, offering them anonymity to identify issues they wouldn’t feel comfortable raising in the chain of command.
The report found that a staggering 94 percent of the subjects believed the recent Naval disasters were ‘part of a broader problem in Navy culture or leadership.’
‘I guarantee you every unit in the Navy is up to speed on their diversity training. I’m sorry that I can’t say the same of their ship handling training,’ said one recently retired senior enlisted leader.
The report focused on issues within the Navy’s surface warfare forces, as opposed to submarine and aviation, and suggested that issues in the surface fleet could be unique due to better funding and training for submarine and aviation units.
One of the key issues raised by the officers interviewed for the report was a concern that Navy leaders spend more time focusing on diversity training than on developing warfighting capacity and key operational skills.
‘Sometimes I think we care more about whether we have enough diversity officers than if we’ll survive a fight with the Chinese navy,’ lamented one lieutenant currently on active duty.
‘It’s criminal. They think my only value is as a black woman. But you cut our ship open with a missile and we’ll all bleed the same color,’ she added.
What about Cuba ????
— andry soler (@soler_andry) July 14, 2021
If my memory serves me, this ‘Special Rapporteur’ investigated Israel and came to the predetermined conclusion that Israel was an apartheid nation that committed war crimes.
I’ll bet this Special Rapporteur investigating America will come to the same predetermined conclusion that America is the most racist, unequal, evil country on earth.
Then the Biden administration will be ‘forced’ to invite the UN to do something about it, which means handing over sovereignty to a bureaucratic cesspool that hates us.
The Rise Of a Secret Unaccountable Police Force in America
Our founders knew that concentrating too much power in any one federal agency – especially a law enforcement agency – could lead to a tyrannical police state. It was one of their greatest fears. After all, they knew a thing or two about tyranny, and it was something they wanted to avoid at all costs.
As a result, today’s federal law enforcement agencies have very limited authority and very specific missions: Border Patrol patrols the borders, of course; DEA investigates narcotics; and the ATF enforces archaic alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and explosives laws. The FBI has by far the broadest powers, but it too is constrained by a very specific set of rules and guidelines from the U.S. Attorney General – a process called predication. Contrary to what’s depicted on television, before FBI special agents can swoop in and take over a case, they must first have a federal predicate – they must believe that a federal crime or national security threat exists before they can investigate.
All of these federal agencies are transparent and accountable to the public, although some more so than others. They’re all subject to the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which was signed into law in 1966, and they routinely publish annual reports as well as internal investigations by their inspectors general.
All federal law enforcement agencies keep the public informed of their activities – all except one.
If you want to create a secret police force, the U.S. Capitol Police would be a good choice, since they’re already halfway there. The agency has scant oversight. It’s shrouded in secrecy and refuses to change.
The United States Capitol Police (USCP) is part of the legislative branch, which is exempt from FOIA requirements. Because they report to Congress, the USCP believes they too are exempt from FOIA. I should point out by way of comparison that even the CIA is subject to FOIA. Additionally, the USCP publishes no annual reports, and even the findings of its own inspector general are kept secret and not made public.
The mission of the USCP is to “Protect the Congress – its members, employees, visitors, and facilities – so it can fulfill its constitutional and legislative responsibilities in a safe, secure and open environment,” so you would think that the agency would focus its enforcement efforts in Washington, D.C., but that is no longer the case.
Congress is now seeking to nationalize the USCP by creating “field offices” in different states. Two field offices are planned for now, but more are coming.
“The new USCP field offices will be in the Tampa and San Francisco areas. At this time, Florida and California are where the majority of our potential threats are,” the agency announced in an email last week.
These new field offices will be used to “investigate threats” made against members of Congress, Acting USCP Chief Yogananda Pittman announced last week.
Clearly, Pittman and the agency she heads are reeling from the events of Jan. 6th 2021. In her press release titled: “After the Attack: The Future of the U.S. Capitol Police,” Pittman spells out some of the changes that have already taken place. While the chief announced the acquisition of two new “wellness support dogs” – Lila and Filip – a “pivot towards an intelligence-based protective agency,” the purchase of new riot helmets, shields, and less-than-lethal munitions. Note that she did not identify the types of threats her officers will investigate in their newly created regional offices.
The one thing that is clear, given the USCP’s penchant for secrecy, the public will never know what they’re up to.
The Big Lie On Gun Study Funding
For years, we were told the reason there wasn’t more research done on “gun violence” is because they legally couldn’t. See, the law stated that federal dollars couldn’t be used to advocate for gun control, and the CDC decided that meant they couldn’t conduct research on gun violence, probably because they knew what their intentions were and how that would influence results, so they just skipped the research.
And then they blamed it on a law that didn’t actually prevent research.
However, some people bought into that lie. Some still are.
So, when an op-ed tries to play the middle ground yet still repeated this Big Lie, there’s no reason to take the authors seriously.
Murder in the U.S. has become political once again, an issue for both the left and the right. But the U.S. can’t afford to bicker on this.
The nation is ranked in the global murder rate index worse than Pakistan, Sudan and Angola. Homicides in American cities rose an estimated 30% in 2020 and were up another 24% early this year. Los Angeles reported last week that shootings had spiked by half this year.
Fortunately, with decades of empirical data about what works and what doesn’t, we now know how to prevent murder. It turns out that both the liberals and the conservatives were on to something.
There are two broad ideological camps in this political quagmire: the law-and-order camp that supports more policing and tougher law enforcement and abhors gun control, and the criminal justice reform and Black Lives Matter camp that demands safety from police violence and racism and wants guns off the streets.
Republicans vilify Democrats as soft on crime. And Democrats face an internal rift between progressives who demand an end to violent and unfair policing, and those worried that such a focus would not help in the face of growing violent crime. In his response so far, President Biden has walked a fine line: emphasizing that states can use the $350 billion in COVID-19 relief funds to bolster local police departments, but also calling for better enforcement of gun control laws.
So far, so good.
But it’s later when things really go off the rails.
Preventing murder also requires a serious discussion about guns. As one study summarizes it: “More Guns, More Crime.” Pro-gun politicians seem to have known this all along, why else would they have blocked federal funding for research about the relationship between firearms and homicide for 25 years?
Enough already. End the murder politics. Dueling soundbites will lead to a rerun of the 1990s, when Democrats postured to look tough on crime to win elections. We know how that story ended: Then-Sen. Biden wrote a crime bill that ballooned the American prison population without reducing crime.
This time we know better, and we should do better. If we burst out of the ideological bubbles, the U.S. can build an evidence-based strategy to end the killing.
How can we end the politics and burst out of ideological bubbles when the authors are perpetuating one of the biggest political lies in the gun control debate?
Federal funding for research was never blocked. As noted previously, it prevented federal money from being spent to advocate for gun control. The CDC decided that meant they couldn’t research guns, likely because they had preconceived notions of what they would find and were bound and determined to find it.
Gun research continued, some of it funded with federal money, but this was open and honest research that found what it found and reported it as they saw it.
Yet when you uncritically claim that the research was blocked for 25 years, you’re ignoring the actual facts. You’re perpetuating a lie that was popular with anti-gunners and the media, though I repeat myself, yet had no basis in reality. If you can get such a basic fact wrong, why should anyone take anything else said at face value?
Besides, at the end of the day, the discussion on gun control is about more than reducing crime. If that’s all it was about, the debate would look very different. No, in part it’s about restricting the constitutionally protected rights of law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms. The rights of individuals need to be protected first and foremost.
It’s not just a political question. It’s a question of civil liberties.
Then again, if the op-ed writers couldn’t even look past the Big Lie on gun research, why would I expect them to really understand what the gun debate is about?
The Truth About Handgun Stopping Power (Hint: It’s Complicated)
Which handgun caliber has the most stopping power, the 9mm, .40 S&W, or .45 Auto? Answer: No one knows
When it comes to handgun stopping power, there’s no shortage of experts, studies, theories, and anecdotes offering “definitive proof” that one cartridge is better than another.
Gig Harbor homeowner fatally shoots man who broke into his house
A Gig Harbor [Washington] homeowner fatally shot an intruder Sunday evening, after the man appeared to break into the wrong house, police said.
The incident began shortly after 10 p.m., when the unidentified man drove to an address near the corner of 80th Street Northwest and Rosedale Street, said Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Darren Moss.
The man drove up into the front yard of the home, broke a window, entered the residence, then began “marching up their stairs.” Asked whether he was armed, Moss said the man “had a large bottle of alcohol with him.”
“The homeowner fired and hit the suspect, who passed away right there,” Moss said. “We believe that the deceased’s family lives just around the corner somewhere, so he broke into the wrong house.”
Moss said that the man was “yelling and screaming at the people inside the house.” He said the homeowner was questioned over the shooting, adding that investigators in the early stages were treating it as an act of self-defense.
Mural Honoring George Floyd in Toledo, Ohio Destroyed by Lightning Strike
A George Floyd mural in Toledo, Ohio was destroyed by a lightning strike Tuesday afternoon, according to witnesses.
News that a left-wing author’s anti-White “picture book” is being read or assigned in public schools in a dozen states helps make the case that the “secular religion” of critical race theory is a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy argued Tuesday.
Ramaswamy, founder of Roivent Sciences, told “America Reports” that it is very troubling to see school districts across the country highlight Anastasia Higginbotham’s “Not My Idea” in young childhood curriculum..
Scholar Christopher Rufo published a list of school districts in Pennsylvania, California, Illinois, Washington, Massachusetts, Arkansas, Montana, Oregon, Indiana, Ohio, New Jersey and Maine that reportedly either recommend the reading to students or instruct teachers to read aloud.
This is good news as the deck replacement project has been in a holding pattern.
Lumber Wipes Out 2021 Gain With Demand Ebbing After Record Boom
Lumber, which at one point was among the world’s best-performing commodities as the pandemic sent construction demand soaring and stoked fears of inflation, has officially wiped out all of its staggering gains for the year.
Prices at Monday’s close are now down 0.6% for the year as demand eases and supply expands in response to earlier gains. The rally turned a common building product into a social media sensation and a flash point in the debate over U.S. monetary policy. At one point, lumber futures were trading as high as $1,733.50 per thousand board feet, more than quadruple the level of a year earlier.
Lumber’s drop is among the most dramatic examples of the easing in commodity prices after rallies in raw materials from copper to corn earlier this year fueled concern that rising costs would undercut the economic recovery. U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell last month cited lumber’s decline as evidence that price pressures will cool as supply bottlenecks from the reopening economy are worked out and stimulus fades.
Well, as if anyone needed any more confirmation that demoncraps were nothing more than commie scum.
Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-FL) introduced a resolution to support the Cuban people in their demands for freedom against “the brutal oppression of the Communist dictatorship in Cuba.”
Díaz-Balart — a Cuban-American — asked the international community to stand behind the recent protests against the island’s regime. Initial cosponsors for the House resolution include Steve Scalise (R-LA), Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL), Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), Greg Steube (R-FL), Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), Byron Donalds (R-FL), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), and Liz Cheney (R-WY).
According to Díaz-Balart’s statement:
For 62 years, the Cuban people have struggled for freedom and human rights under a brutal, repressive dictatorship. On this day, which also coincides with the anniversary of the Tugboat Massacre, we also remember the regime’s decades of malevolence, including the Brothers to the Rescue Shoot-Down, the firing squads, torture, arbitrary arrests, killings, human trafficking, those who fled in makeshift rafts through shark-infested waters, and the many activists who have suffered or perished for simply daring to speak against the regime. The Cuban people will be free, and they will remember those who stood with them.
Commentary on the 4th Circuit’s ruling:
If the Fourth Circuit doesn’t reverse this en banc, it seems very likely that the Supreme Court will agree to hear the case (given the disagreement between the Fourth Circuit and the Fifth Circuit on this question, and given that the Fourth Circuit panel has struck down a federal statute), assuming the federal government asks for Supreme Court review. If the Fourth Circuit does reverse this en banc, the Court may still hear the case (but would be much less likely to, if the Fourth and Fifth Circuits end up on the same side, upholding the federal statute).
FDA adds warning to J&J COVID-19 vaccine over links to rare autoimmune disorder.
July 13 (UPI) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a new warning for the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine over its association with an increased risk of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare autoimmune disorder where the immune system damages the nerve cells.
The FDA announced the update to the one-shot jab on Monday in a letter to the company as well as in amendments to its fact sheets on the vaccine in response to new data showing cases of people displaying symptoms of the syndrome within 42 days of receiving the shot.
The warning states: “Reports of adverse events following use of Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine under emergency use authorization suggest an increased risk of Guillain-Barre syndrome during the 42 days following vaccination.”
Janssen is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.
The FDA said in its fact sheet for recipients and caregivers that “[t]he chance of having this occur is very low.”
Between 3,000 and 6,000 people develop Guillain-Barre syndrome each year in the United States with only about 100 people of the 12.8 million Johnson & Johnson dose recipients having shown symptoms, the FDA said. Of those who exhibited symptoms, 95 were hospitalized and there was one death.
The agency said that while there is enough evidence to suggest an association between the vaccine and the syndrome “it is insufficient to establish a casual relationship.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on its website Guillain-Barre syndrome is a rare disorder of the immune system attacking nerve cells, causing muscle weakness and sometimes paralysis and often follows infection of a virus or bacteria.
The CDC said men older than 50 were at greater risk of contracting the syndrome after receiving the shot.
Johnson & Johnson released a statement Monday stating it has updated its COVID-19 vaccine factsheet to include the new warning while reiterating that evidence continues to prove its vaccine protects against the coronavirus.
“Evidence has demonstrated that Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot COVID-19 vaccine offers protection against COVID-19 disease and prevents hospitalization and death, including in countries where viral variants are highly prevalent,” it said.
The FDA gave the Johnson & Johnson jab emergency use approval in late February.
In April, CDC issued a warning for the vaccine concerning its association with a rare blood clotting disease, ending a federal government temporary halt to the drug’s distribution.
Destroying Our Military from Within
President Joe Biden and the left are doing what no adversary has ever accomplished: destroying America’s military. What has never happened from without is now happening from within. Our armed forces’ ability to deter war and conduct military operations in defense of our nation is being undermined by those responsible for readiness to accomplish these missions.
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act. It requires, inter alia, that orders for military operations must pass from the president, through the secretary of Defense and then directly to the commanders of our 11 unified combatant commands. The Joint Chiefs of Staff — the generals and admirals who head each branch of our armed forces — are not in this “chain of command,” but they are responsible for ensuring combatant commanders have adequately trained personnel, weapons and equipment to accomplish their geographic and functional missions. They are also required to provide advice to the president and Defense secretary on strategy, policy, training and readiness.
Today, the readiness of our armed forces is being adversely affected by indoctrinating our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Guardsmen and Marines in politically correct tripe such as critical race theory, systemic racism and “white privilege” in the military. Retention of junior and midgrade officers is dropping like a stone. Reenlistments are down. Recruiters are waiving standards once deemed important. Yet, the Joint Chiefs are going along to get along.
There are two serious problems with the general’s response. First, our troops are not learning critical race theory voluntarily. They are forced to do so. Second, critical race theory is not being offered as evidence of how our enemy thinks. It is being presented as what’s wrong with our country.
Members of Congress should ask all our senior military officers how teaching critical race theory improves combat ability, preparedness or morale? If it doesn’t, why teach it? How does teaching our troops that the country they swore to serve and protect is evil and unworthy of their loyalty build esprit de corps? How can troops in combat know their fellow warriors have their backs when they have been taught to distrust each other on the basis of race?
In our forthcoming book, “We Didn’t Fight for Socialism,” we asked more than 500 veterans why they volunteered to serve in uniform and go in harm’s way when necessary. Nearly all gave virtually the same response. They joined, served and risked life and limb because they love our country. For them, America means freedom, liberty, opportunity and self-determination; principles encouraged throughout their service. Now, thanks to Biden and the top brass at the Pentagon, our troops are learning just the opposite.
When we served in the Marine Corps, semper fidelis — “always faithful” — was our motto. To this day, semper fidelis is more than a slogan. For us, it is a way of life. We were taught that it meant to always be faithful to God, country, Corps and each other. Fast forward to the present. Our troops are now being asked to be faithful to a leftist belief system that denies God, tears down our country, undermines military preparedness and makes service members distrustful of each other. Biden and his leftist puppet masters are doing what no foreign enemy has been able to do: destroy our military. Sadly, they are being assisted by weak generals and admirals playing politics.
