Well, I may have spoken too soon.
That, or the media will do their level best to make this go away

Biden: ‘There’s Nothing We Can Do to Change the Trajectory’ of the Pandemic

On his first day in office, Joe Biden signed an executive order mandating masks be worn on federal property at all times, declaring: “Wearing masks isn’t a partisan issue — it’s a patriotic act that can save countless lives.”

Two days later, Biden is saying “There’s nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months.”

I’m sorry, but haven’t we been told for months that lockdowns and mask mandates were crucial to stopping this virus? How does Biden explain mandating masks on federal grounds and property only to now say that there’s nothing that can be done to change the trajectory of the pandemic? Joe Biden spent months blaming Trump for the pandemic, blaming him for the deaths caused by the virus, but now there’s nothing that can be done to change its trajectory? The narrative of the past year has been that Trump botched the pandemic and that electing Biden and the Democrats would make it all better. Now he’s telling us nothing can be done that actually matters. Nothing will alter the course of the pandemic. It doesn’t matter who’s in charge.

Biden also promised the pandemic response would improve on his watch, declaring in October, “We’re eight months into this pandemic, and Donald Trump still doesn’t have a plan to get this virus under control. I do.”

Biden’s flip-flop seems even more egregious considering that he has taken office with two approved vaccines, another on the way, and a distribution system in place, all thanks to President Trump and Operation Warp Speed. A competent administration would be able take this system that’s already in place and get the country vaccinated.

But the wrong person is in charge. During the H1N1 pandemic in 2009, the Obama-Biden administration failed to achieve its vaccine production goals, having predicted in the early summer of 2008 that they’d have 160 million vaccine doses by late October, but ended up with fewer than 30 million. This failure led to a public outcry and congressional investigations. It also cost lives. A study by Purdue University scholars determined that the failure of the Obama-Biden administration to produce enough vaccines in time meant that the vaccine would arrive “too late to help most Americans who will be infected during this flu season.” The study determined that the CDC’s planned vaccination campaign would “likely not have a large effect on the total number of people ultimately infected by the pandemic H1N1 influenza virus.”

The Obama-Biden administration’s response to the H1N1 pandemic was so bad that his former Ebola czar, Ron Klain, now serving as Biden’s chief of staff, admitted that the response was botched.

So I guess it’s not too shocking that Biden is finally admitting he’s powerless to stop the trajectory of the pandemic.

Still, it’s amazing how the rhetoric changes once the campaign is over and you’re suddenly in charge. One can’t help but wonder if the keys to the country have been handed to an administration that doesn’t even know how to drive.

Gun Laws Don’t Stop the Killing

A recent report looks to see if laws restricting the right to keep and bear arms might have effects on homicides and suicides not caused by guns. They found no increase or decrease in non-gun homicides associated with changes in gun related homicides, and the data regarding suicides were too sparse to be useful. Their report was based on examining a series of earlier studies.

To the authors’ credit, they noted that some experts describe a substitution effect, that is, a person not killed by a firearm may instead be killed by some other form of violence. They cite several previous studies finding that those not suiciding by shooting are likely to do so by other means, and that homicides not committed by shooting will probably occur by other means.

There are however a number of problems with the publication.  The authors seem to see all homicides as bad, and never mention justifiable homicides. These often involve self-defense, or appropriate actions by police or bystanders to protect the innocent. The researchers seem to assume that any reduction in homicides is desirable, ignoring the injuries, arsons and assaults prevented by the appropriate use of force.

A recent DRGO contributor noted the existence of many dozens of peer-reviewed academic studies conducted by a wide range of authors suggesting that widespread gun ownership deters crime. He pointed as well to a specific instance in which children died needlessly because security officers were unarmed. In this school shooting, in which many children lost their lives, the justifiable homicide of the shooter would have avoided heartbreak for families and  prevented the school career of many teenagers from ending in a mournful trip to a cemetery.

Academics have found evidence that Right-to-Carry laws deter violent crime, including rapes and murders, and also lower burglary rates, while restrictions on concealed carry laws may increase the number of people who are murdered. Having a firearm is especially important for women, who are typically smaller and not as strong as those who attack them—being armed can compensate for this difference. Reports of homeowners using guns to defend against intruders are reported daily. Since intruders are often young men, it’s common that the occupant of a household are less physically powerful, and thus a justifiable homicide by a firearm prevents death or injury at the hands of a criminal.

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Although the X in the bullet is metallic and is part of the core, it works just like the polymer insert of the Winchester USA Ready Defense bullets to prevent the hollow point from getting clogged up and basically turning the bullet into  FMJ. Modern tech.

BXP Personal Defense is designed for superior personal defense performance in reliability, expansion and penetration. The X-Point is designed to shield the hollow point through intermediate barriers.

X-POINT TECHNOLOGY
Guards hollow point for consistent expansion and penetration. Rapidly transfers energy to the target. Formed metallic hollow point for consistency, toughness and reliability.

Ted Cruz wore a mask emblazoned with the Gonzales Flag’s “Come and Take It” logo to President Joe Biden’s inauguration Wednesday.

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 20: Sen. Ted Cruz (C) (R-TX), wearing a face mask that reads "Come and Take It", arrives to the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. During today's inauguration ceremony Joe Biden …

BLUF:
Brennan is defining “insurgency” as anyone who “has an ideology other than neoliberalism—in other words, other than the ruling class.” The elites in the ruling class, he warned, are about to “congeal and merge with the power of the state.”

It’s a chilling notion, one that is by no means unimaginable.

Gird Your Loins, Libertarians. The Biden Admin Is Going to Be Keeping an Eye on You.

Former CIA Director John Brennan let the cat out of the bag during an MSNBC appearance Wednesday, saying that the Biden administration is laser-focused on rooting out “insurgency movements” in the U.S., cracking down on pernicious malefactors like (gasp!) libertarians. No, really.

“Members of the Biden team who have been nominated or appointed are now moving in laser-like fashion to uncover as much as they can about what looks similar to insurgency movements that we see overseas, where they germinate in different parts of the country,” Brennan warned. “They gain strength and it brings together an unholy alliance frequently of religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians.” [Emphasis added]

.@JohnBrennan: Biden intel community “are moving in laser-like fashion to try to uncover as much as they can about” the pro-Trump “insurgency” that harbors “religious extremists, authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians” pic.twitter.com/SjVXWhPhR8

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 20, 2021

Pay no attention to the antifa and BLM nutters who were torching American cities all summer, it’s people like Justin Amash and Rand Paul we need to worry about.

I’m sure our astute readers will recall that Brennan, as director of the CIA, was a libertarian’s worst nightmare. Scott Shackford wrote at Reason in 2018:

As director of the CIA, Brennan defended terrible practices such as torture and extrajudicial drone assassinations. Under him, the CIA secretly snooped on Senate Intelligence Committee staff who were researching and producing a report critical of the CIA’s use of torture in interrogations of terrorism suspects during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Then Brennan played dumb about it. And then nothing happened. Brennan is neither the hero of this story nor a victim, and he is probably still going to do just fine as a talking head on the news.

Such critiques might explain why Brennan, who was nominated to the post of CIA director by Barack Obama, has it in for libertarians. The question is whether Biden (or whoever’s calling the shots in the Oval Office tonight) also has libertarians in his sights. In his inaugural address, Biden vowed to wage war on “political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism that we must confront and we will defeat.”

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Scratch a lib and find a tyrant too.

The Morning Rant

The Democrat party, once the party of slavery, and when that ended the party of segregation and overtly racist policies, has morphed into the party of the rich and well connected, and even worse, the party of corporatism. That is not to say that they have abandoned their roots; scratch a progressive and find a racist.

Any successful challenge to their current superiority must include consistent and loud denunciations of their elitist supporters and their elitist behavior. Pound the message night and day,

The Democrat Party is the party of wealth and privilege.
They have walls to keep you out, but let into our country the people who are taking your jobs.
They drive fancy cars but want you to pay $5/gallon for gasoline.
They want men to compete with your daughters in athletics.
They hate the police, but want to disarm you.
And on and on. Make the distinction. Freedom vs. tyranny. Liberty vs. the boot of government on our necks.

But, that will obviously come from a new party, because the Republican party as currently constituted is incapable of any significant challenge to the Democrats. In fact, they need to be destroyed as quickly as possible.

And here is step one! Sign up for every mailing list you can, and when the solicitations arrive, send them back in the prepaid envelope, hopefully pushing the weight into the next higher cost level. Engage them at every opportunity. When they call, chat amiably for as long as possible. Waste their time and money.

Any other suggestions? These are actions we can take to try to reclaim our country and some sort of political representation that honestly reflects our desires and goals for our country

Collaboration Between Government and Big Tech Giving Rise to Totalitarianism, Experts Warn

The formation of a totalitarian state is just about complete in America as the most powerful public and private sector actors unify behind the idea that actions to stamp out dissent can be justified, according to several experts on modern totalitarian ideologies.

While many have warned about the rise of fascism or socialism in “the land of the free,” the ideas have largely been vague or fragmented, focusing on individual events or actors. Recent events, however, indicate that seemingly unconnected pieces of the oppression puzzle are fitting together to form a comprehensive system, according to Michael Rectenwald, a retired liberal arts professor at New York University.

But many Americans, it appears, have been caught off guard or aren’t even aware of the newly forming regime, as the idea of elected officials, government bureaucrats, large corporations, the establishment academia, think tanks and nonprofits, the legacy media, and even seemingly grassroot movements all working in concert toward some evil purpose seems preposterous. Is a large portion of the country in on a conspiracy?

The reality now emerges that no massive conspiracy was in fact needed—merely an ideological alignment and some informal coordination, Rectenwald argues.

Despite the lack of formal overarching organization, the American socialist regime is indeed totalitarian, as the root of its ideology requires politically motivated coercion, he told The Epoch Times. The power of the regime is not yet absolute but it’s becoming increasingly effective as it erodes the values, checks, and balances against tyranny established by traditional beliefs and enshrined in the American founding.

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BLUF:
It will be interesting to watch in the days and weeks ahead if the tolerance for this activity by the Democrat politicians in Portland and Seattle remains what it has been, or if they finally decide that the toll it is taking on their police and city budgets is too much.  I expect we’ll see the media narrative on these “protests” begin to shift in the weeks ahead.

In Portland and Seattle Antifa Reminds the Biden Administration That it Still Hates America

Wasn’t this Kabuki Theater all supposed to end with the installation of the Hiden/Barris Administration?

Apparently, Antifa in Portland and Seattle didn’t get the memo because the “Black Bloc” was out in both cities on Wednesday night, breaking windows — at the offices of the Democrat Party — burning flags, and engaging in running battles with the police.

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Citing Biden’s plans, local lawmaker renews plan to push back on federal gun laws

JEFFERSON CITY — A local lawmaker is once again pushing a bill to curb the reach of federal gun laws, and this time he says it can’t wait.

Sen. Eric Burlison, R-Battlefield, told a committee Tuesday his proposal to bar state and local law enforcement from enforcing federal gun laws stricter than Missouri’s is exactly what Missouri needs to keep new President Joe Biden’s gun control agenda in check.

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An empty Biden inauguration for a false victory

For those who still think Joe Biden won his election legitimately and with popular support, you need only look at the two screen captures  comparing the crowds at the previous presidential inauguration (at the top) and the crowd today at Biden’s inauguration.

Comparing crowds at presidential inaugurations

It is also important to note that the Trump crowd in 2017 was totally normal, comparable to every past public inauguration since such events became occasions of grand splendor.

For Democrat Joe Biden, however, the lack of a crowd is essentially unprecedented. While past inaugurations were greeted with large enthusiastic crowds of citizens coming to celebrate the democratic and peaceful transition of power, today’s event was heralded by wartime security, barbed wire fences, military checkpoints, and a military police guard of 25,000 troops. Biden officials claimed this tight security was necessary because of the threat of violence.

I ask however: If 80 million voters swarmed the polls on November 3rd to elect Joe Biden, why does his new administration feel so afraid of the American people? No president in the past was this terrified of taking his oath of office in front of a gigantic crowd. Even Abraham Lincoln did so before a huge crowd in 1865, even as the Civil War still raged, as the photo below shows most emphatically.

Abraham Lincoln surrounded by crowds at 2nd inauguration

Abraham Lincoln surrounded by crowds at 2nd inauguration
The red arrow points at Lincoln speaking.

No, the inauguration of Joe Biden is something quite different than any past American transition of power. It comes surrounded by numerous allegations of election tampering and vote count fraud. A vast part of the population — quite likely the majority of the country — strongly believes the election was stolen, a belief that has been reinforced by the aggressive resistance of election boards and Democrats to investigate those allegations. That resistance has been so strong that the Democrats and their supporters have even made it their goal to blacklist and destroy anyone who even dares raise the question.

The tight security imposed on Biden’s election acts as proof that those allegations might very well carry weight. If Biden was truly elected legitimately, he would not feel the need to be surrounded by barbed wire and tens of thousands of soldiers, like any tinpot dictator. No, like Lincoln he would be able to nonchalantly walk through a crowd of fellow citizens, with everyone confident that the person the American people actually chose was now in office.

The military nature of Biden’s inauguration signals the end of American democracy in other ways. It is clearly a sign that the Washington swamp, having finally gotten rid of outsider Trump, is now telling us they will no longer tolerate further resistance to their power. That corrupt ruling class of bureaucrats can now wield the military against you if you dare oppose them, and today’s occupation of Washington was their way of proving this fact to everyone.

You will accept their rule, or you will face blacklisting, censorship, and even the sound of storm-troopers banging at your door, there to arrest you for wrong-think.

And if you doubt me, just give it time. The downward path to dictatorship by this Washington crowd has been steady and continuous since President Bill Clinton got away with perjury in the late 1990s. They will go there, mark my words.

What will Americans do in response? For myself, I tell them to go to hell. I will be a free American until the day I die, and if that means they come at me with guns because they don’t like what I write, so be it. It will only prove that I stand for freedom, and they for oppression.

Which side are you on?

He needs to figure out a lot on his side don’t like him either

‘We must end this uncivil war,’ Biden says, taking over a U.S. in crisis

Standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol two weeks after a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the building, Biden called for a return to civic decency in an inaugural address marking the end of Trump’s tempestuous four-year term.

“To overcome these challenges, to restore the soul and secure the future of America, requires so much more than words. It requires the most elusive of all things in a democracy: unity,” Biden, a Democrat, said after taking the oath of office.

“We must end this uncivil war that pits red against blue, rural versus urban, conservative versus liberal. We can do this – if we open our souls instead of hardening our hearts.”

insurgency?
From my experience, the demoncraps have no idea what a real insurgency looks like. But there’s a real possibility they may get to.

BLUF:
There has been much discussion recently about whether Republicans will be able to move on from Trump, whether they will be able to give him up once he leaves the presidency. Perhaps the bigger question is whether Democrats will be able to do that. For Nancy Pelosi, the answer appears to be no.

Trump Derangement Syndrome In A Post-Trump World

TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME IN A POST-TRUMP WORLD. President Trump will become former President Trump tomorrow. When Joe Biden takes the oath of office, Democrats will control the White House, the House, and the Senate. An ambitious agenda lies ahead for the new Democratic administration. And yet there are signs that some Democrats’ obsession with Donald Trump — the condition known as Trump Derangement Syndrome, or TDS — will be as strong, or perhaps even stronger, after Trump leaves than when he was in the White House.

Exhibit A is the fact that Democrats plan to hold an impeachment trial for the president after he has left office. They plan to use the Constitution’s method for removing a president when the president is no longer president.

But that is not the only sign of lingering TDS. Look at a new conversation between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton, on Clinton’s podcast, “You and Me Both.” There was much to discuss about the Biden agenda, but you will not be surprised to learn that President Trump dominated the conversation. The two reached back into the Trump-Russia matter — what the president calls the “Russia hoax” — to call for yet another Trump investigation.

“I hope, historically, we will find out who [Trump is] beholden to, who pulls his strings,” Clinton said. “I would love to see his phone records to see whether he was talking to [Russian leader Vladimir] Putin the day that the insurgents invaded our Capitol.”

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City’s Carjacking Surge Shows No Sign Of Slowing, So Residents Are Buying Guns

HYDE PARK — Carjackings have been on the rise in Chicago for more than a year. After a 135 percent jump in 2020, the trend is continuing with 61 carjackings reported in the first 10 days of 2021.

As city officials and police scramble to address the issue with meetings, City Council hearings and community alerts, some Chicagoans are taking matters into their own hands against the advice of law enforcement: They’re applying for concealed carry permits.

Kelly Milan, a Northwestern graduate student, was carjacked Friday morning in Hyde Park in front of William H. Ray Elementary School.

About 8 a.m., the budding journalist drove her 2014 Jeep Cherokee to the school, 5631 S. Kimbark Ave., to interview students for the Hyde Park Herald.

“I got out of my car and locked my car and was in the middle of the street when I saw a running car in the middle of the street,” Milan said. “Immediately, I thought something bad was going to happen. Then, two guys got out of the car. One guy made eye contact with me and started running towards me. I just started saying ’No, no, no, no, no’ and I winced because he was running towards me and I thought he was going to take me down.

“Then I started saying, ‘Please don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me.’ He said, ‘Where are your keys?’ and forcibly went through all my pockets. He grabbed my keys and my phone. The other guy was just leaning by the car, watching it.

“I was begging for my life. It was really, really terrifying. You never think you’re going to be a victim of a carjacking, let alone one outside an elementary school at 8 a.m., but here we are and it’s happening.”

Milan’s story is not unique. Carjackings shot up 135 percent in 2020, with 1,415 reported that year compared to 603 in 2019, according to the Chicago Police Department. So far in 2021, carjackings are on a pace to break last year’s record with 61 happening over the first 10 days of the year, up from 22 during the same period in 2020.

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Even Politico, one of the more leftist of leftist publications, is no longer covering up for Biden

On the eve of his inauguration, Politico published an article that contains a line about SloJoe’s lack of mental acuity.

For higher-profile remarks, [Biden would] obsessively rehearse portions until he committed them to memory. And at times through the various iterations of outlining remarks, Biden could grow downright ornery.

“I would never say this,” Biden once snapped at an aide, aghast over the prepared remarks he was reviewing, according to a person in the room during a speech prep session last year. “Where did you get this from?’”

The aide explained that Biden had just said it in a public speech a couple of weeks earlier.

Biden forgetting part of a stump speech is bad enough, but this is an incident that took place last year, but has only come out now. Biden’s handlers kept it under wraps until now. How many other examples of Biden’s mental state have been concealed?

The election is over. Trump is out of office. Biden’s senility is no longer taboo. His sole purpose was to play the role of an “electable” candidate who could appeal to independents and anti-Trump Republicans under that guise just to get Trump out of office.

I know of people taking bets on when he’ll be shuffled off the scene so Kamala’s handlers can take over.

WA Legislature Eyeballs Bills to Ban ‘Assault Weapons’

Almost as predicted by opponents of anti-gun Initiative 1639, the measure that among other things invented a definition for a “semiautomatic assault rifle,” anti-gun Democrats in the Washington Legislature have introduced legislation to ban so-called “assault weapons.”

I-1639 defined “semi-auto assault rifles” as literally any self-loading rifle, regardless of caliber (including rimfires) that has ever been manufactured anywhere in the world. Under the more specific definitions found in Senate Bill 5217 and its companion measure, House Bill 1229—both introduced at the request of anti-gun Democrat Attorney General Bob Ferguson—rimfires do not appear to be included. But semi-auto centerfire rifles are, and it’s quite a list. The legislation would also prohibit folding stocks and other accessories.

Both bills are now in committee. The House version is in the House Committee on Civil Rights and the Judiciary. The Senate version is in the Law & Justice Committee.

Two years ago, following passage of I-1639, Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich told reporters the only reason to create the definition in state statute was to one day allow a move to ban such firearms.

I-1639 includes this definition:

“Semiautomatic assault rifle” means any rifle which utilizes a portion of the energy of a firing cartridge to extract the fired cartridge case and chamber the next round, and which requires a separate pull of the trigger to fire each cartridge.

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Montana: Senate Judiciary to Vote on Permitless Carry Legislation Tomorrow

Tomorrow, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider Permitless Carry Legislation, House Bill 102.  Please contact committee members and ask that they SUPPORT House Bill 102.

House Bill 102 will strengthen Montana’s self-defense laws by allowing law-abiding Montana gun owners to carry a firearm for self-defense throughout the state without first having to obtain a government-mandated permit to do so.  Further, this bill will remove some of Montana’s “gun-free zones” from the list of prohibited places and stop the unnecessary disarming of Montanans as they go about their day-to-day lives.

Again, it is important that you please contact members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and ask them to SUPPORT House Bill 102.

Skynet smiles

Army is working on Frankenbots with living tissue to better robot capabilities

The thought of living tissue and machinery meshed together brings up images of grotesque cyborgs and far-future sci-fi films, but at the Army Research Laboratory a robot with living, organic muscles may not be that far off.

ARL’s Combat Capabilities Development Command is teaming up with universities in North Carolina to develop studies in bio-hybrid robotics.

The idea is just as fantastical as you may be imagining. ARL wants to fuse living tissue with cold metal to build robots that may be able to gain the agility and versatility of living creatures.

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