Category: Goobermint

How much longer? As long as they can keep pumping him full of whatever anti-dementia drug cocktail that will keep the meat puppet at least able to function at a minimal level. That’s how long

And no, he’s not being too harsh on SloJoe™ who should be a patient in an Alzheimer’s unit.

HOW MUCH LONGER CAN THIS GO ON?
Today’s Biden struggle with the Teleprompter delivered this 15-second gem:

Back in 2010, P.J. O’Rourke said the Republican mid-term landslide was a restraining order against Obama. Maybe this year’s likely mid-term GOP blowout will be understood as a national intervention, in which the people will tell Democrats that it is time for Biden to be put out to pasture and the Democratic Party sent to rehab.

Chaser: Maybe I am being too harsh on Biden. It’s understandable that Democrats would have trouble pronouncing “kleptocracy.” It could just as easily happen to Elizabeth Warren.

 

WH Response on ‘Disinformation Board’ Shows Just How Desperate for Control They Are

It was not a coincidence that you had Elon Musk buying Twitter and then all of sudden, the Biden team found the need to form a Ministry of Truth run by the DHS — otherwise known as a creepy-sounding “Disinformation Governance Board.”

Now, the first reaction to such an effort by the Biden Administration that most people would have to this is how incredibly Orwellian it is. The second might be that it’s exactly what the First Amendment was designed to protect against. The third might be to take notice this says “governance,” and is being run by the Department of Homeland Security, which usually is pursuing threats and crimes.

So, can fully-declared speech crimes be far away, when you start to have things like this? And finally, this was formed specifically “ahead of the midterms” to deal with “misinformation” peddled to minority communities — which sounds like they’re going to do all they can to try to shut down speech that they think might hurt their chances, just as they did in 2020. And how typical of the Biden Administration to treat minorities as though they can’t make a judgment about the information they receive themselves — this is treating minorities like children to whom the government needs to explain things.

The very people who were upset about President Donald Trump calling media false stories “fake news” are just cool with the government now weighing in and determining what is “true” or not true. These are also the same folks who promoted the Russia collusion hoax for years, as well.

But when asked, White House Press Secretary (soon to be MSDNC propagandist) Jen Psaki acted as though no one could have an issue with their agenda.

“It sounds like the objective of the board is to prevent disinformation and misinformation from traveling around the country in a range of communities,” Psaki said. “I’m not sure who opposes that effort.”

How about any sane person who believes in the Constitution? Every American should oppose this — it violates everything for which we are supposed to stand.

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White House defends DHS ‘disinformation’ board: ‘Not sure who opposes that effort’
Mayorkas announced the creation of the ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ on Wednesday

White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Thursday defended a recently-announced Department of Homeland Security effort to combat “disinformation” on issues related to COVID-19 and elections.

Asked by Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich for more information what DHS’ Disinformation Governance Board would be doing specifically, Psaki said, “I really haven’t dug into this exactly, I mean, we of course support this effort but let me see if I can get more specifics.”

The White House announced its support for an effort from the DHS to crack down on what it considers to be online disinformation.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified Wednesday that a Disinformation Governance Board had recently been created to combat online disinformation and Politico reported that Nina Jankowicz, who previously served as a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, will head the board as executive director.

“We know there has been a range of [disinformation] out there about a range of topics, I mean, including COVID for example, and also elections and eligibility,” Psaki said, adding that she would check for additional information on what the board plans to do.

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Observation O’ The Day

YEP, THAT’S BIDEN’S STAGFLATION THAT JUST ARRIVED:
That 1.4 percent contraction in the economy in the first quarter of 2022 represents the first statistical evidence that we’re entering a period of roaring inflation and stagnate growth.

“The trade deficit ballooned massively, due to mushrooming imports. American exports fell by 9.6 percent, while imports went up by 17.7 percent. Economists had predicted a 1 percent economic growth rate, rather than the decline in the economy that actually occurred,” reports Liberty Unyielding’s Hans Bader.

And the cause is clear, according to Bader, who says “the economy is being held back by Biden administration policies that discourage work, reward idleness, and make it harder for companies to attract employees. Biden enacted policies that reduced the size of America’s private-sector workforce and made America less economically competitive.”

It’s almost like it’s a plan.

BLUF:
If the Biden administration wanted to fight stagflation, it would be cutting red tape, encouraging business activity and investment and slashing federal spending. But it’s not doing that.

Why not?

Stagflation is staring Biden in the face — but he refuses to change course.

First we were told inflation was imaginary. Then we were told it was “transitory,” the result of COVID-inflicted supply-chain problems. Then we were told it was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fault.

Now people are starting to admit the massive runaway spending of the Biden era has something to do with it. But we’re also facing stagflation, a mixture of inflation and slow growth, and the government also plays a role in turning inflation into stagflation.

As Milton Friedman famously warned, inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon. When the government pumps the economy up with excess dollars — something usually referred to as “printing money,” though a too-literal USA Today fact-checker hastened to assure us that much of the money created isn’t actually printed on paper — inflation results. When you have more money in the system than goods, the price of goods goes up. That’s inflation, and it’s what’s happening now.

We’re seeing it everywhere, from soaring food and gasoline costs to a housing “bubble” that looks more like inflationary pricing to increases in rents and automobile prices and just about everything else. The latest figures, meanwhile, show that the economy shrank 1.4% last quarter, making it the worst since the pandemic’s start; economists had expected 1.1% growth.

There are two ways to address inflation: Remove some of the money from the system, which the Federal Reserve did in the past via higher interest rates, and increase the supply of goods. At this point in 1980, when inflation soared, the federal funds rate was nearly 20%. Presently, it’s 0.33%.

In the Carter era, we saw not only runaway inflation but stagflation. People normally associate inflation with an overheated economy, but the sluggish Carter economy was not even close to running hot. We had economic stagnation and inflation, which led to the coinage of the term “stagflation.”

Now we’re seeing the same thing. And I suspect the reason is the same.

Scholars of administrative law refer to the 1970s as a period of “regulatory explosion.” The inflationary spiral was driven by the massive increase in spending under Democratic President Lyndon Johnson. But when Republican Richard Nixon came in, he didn’t do enough to restrain spending. Worse yet, he midwifed the greatest expansion of federal regulatory authority since the New Deal. In fact, in many ways the regulation was more intrusive and pervasive.

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Another Government Agency Is Being Weaponized to Go After Conservatives

I don’t mean to be the wet blanket here. We should celebrate liberals freaking out over Elon Musk’s $44 billion Twitter purchase. We should be celebrating the end of censorship and a new era of free speech on the platform. It’s a huge win for conservatives, but the war is far from being over. As with these victories, we face another, larger battle on the horizon. The enemy is not new; it’s the government again. Yet, this time they’re taking the Twitter ethos regarding “disinformation” national.

Rebecca touched upon this last night, but the warning flares must be fired again. Load the magazines, clean the guns, and sharpen the bayonets because Goliath is coming. The Department of Homeland Security is creating a “Disinformation Governance Board.” I’m sure this will be a smooth operation, right? Let’s be frank about this because you all know what’s going on here. This Thought Police department is being created to help Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterms. It’s a Democratic attack machine within the DHS funded by our tax dollars. Like the IRS, FBI, and DOJ before them, another government institution has been weaponized by the Left to attack people they don’t like (via Fox News):

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified Wednesday that the Department of Homeland Security is creating a “Disinformation Governance Board” to combat misinformation ahead of the 2022 midterms.

Mayorkas appeared before the House Appropriations Subcommittee to discuss the fiscal 2023 budget for the Department of Homeland Security.[…]

Mayorkas said a “Disinformation Governance Board” had recently been created and will be led by Undersecretary for Policy Rob Silvers co-chair with principal deputy general counsel Jennifer Gaskill.[…]

Hours later, Politico reported that Nina Jankowicz, who previously served as a disinformation fellow at the Wilson Center, will head the board as executive director.

Jankowicz was part of a band called the Moaning Myrtles. She also said armed Trump supporters would show up at the polls to intimidate voters. And she’s a Russian collusion peddler. That alone is the disqualifying factor.

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San Jose hit with second lawsuit over new gun control laws

The mandatory tax and insurance liability requirements San Jose is imposing on legal gun owners won’t take effect until August of this year, but the lawsuits seeking to overturn the new ordinances are already starting to pile up. The Firearms Policy Coalition launched a legal challenge against the ordinances on Tuesday of this week, becoming the second gun rights organization to try to overturn the new laws before they’re enforced.

San Jose’s gun owner insurance requirement is a “demonstrable attack” on Americans’ right to keep and bear arms, said FPC vice president of programs Adam Kraut.

“Governments cannot run roughshod over the constitutional rights of their people simply because they do not care for the rights they choose to exercise,” Kraut said.
FPC’s lawsuit seeks a judgment declaring the ordinance unconstitutional to prevent the city from enforcing it.
FPC attorneys asserted that the ordinance will not improve public safety, nor reduce gun violence.

“It will only burden those who already follow all firearm laws. Even city officials admit that, ‘of course, criminals won’t obey insurance or fee mandates,’” the lawsuit states.

“It is unfathomable to think that the elected officials of San Jose believed such an ordinance would survive a constitutional challenge, particularly when they admit that criminals will not obey the mandates contained within, leaving only the peaceable people of San Jose to be burdened by the ineptness of its government,” Kraut said.

The lawsuit, known as Glass v. San Jose, argues that not only do the insurance mandate and fee violate the Second Amendment rights of city residents, they infringe on their First Amendment rights as well.

The Ordinance directs the City Manager to designate a nonprofit organization that will spend firearm owners’ money on “programs and initiatives” to “mitigate” the supposed “risk” of the “possession of firearms.”

The fee provision thus forces firearm owners to associate with an organization of the City’s choosing and subsidize expressive activities of the organization’s choosing, in violation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Janus v. American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees.

Mayor Sam Liccardo may not see a problem with forcing gun owners to pay a fee to a third-party group that will be pushing anti-gun talking points, but hopefully the courts will keep SCOTUS precedent in mind as they consider the constitutionality of the city’s new ordinances.

As for the insurance mandate, FPC argues in its filing that it, along with the annual fee on gun owners, is a clear infringement on our right to keep and bear arms.

Neither provision is based in any “historical tradition” of firearm regulation. Heller, 554 U.S. at 626–28. City officials have themselves touted the Ordinance as the first of its kind. See Ex. A at 3. As such, the Ordinance is categorically invalid under Heller.

Even if the Ordinance were instead subject to means-ends scrutiny, it still violates the Second Amendment. The fee and insurance provisions directly and substantially burden the core Second Amendment right to possess firearms for self-defense and other lawful purposes.

The Ordinance should therefore be subjected to strict scrutiny. In any event, it is at least subject to heightened scrutiny under the standard currently operative in the Ninth Circuit. See, e.g., United States v. Chovan, 735 F.3d 1127, 1137 (9th Cir. 2013). And the Ordinance fails any level of heightened scrutiny.

Neither the fee nor the insurance provision is tailored, narrowly or otherwise, to the City’s apparent goal of reducing gun violence and its associated costs. As seen above, none of the evidence before the City, and incorporated in the Ordinance’s recitals and findings, suggested that Ordinance would have that effect.

FPC points out that the provisions of the ordinance apply only to legal gun owners, and despite the claims of city officials that the funds raised by the annual “fee” on gun ownership will go directly to fund anti-violence initiatives, the 2A org argues that the funds won’t be used to  “defray any of the municipal costs” of gun-involved crime in the city. Instead the ordinance “singles out already law-abiding citizens to pay for anticipated services that they do not need, that are largely unrelated to safe firearm ownership, and that are thus unlikely to reduce such costs..”

The fee and insurance provisions thus fail to serve their purported purpose. This failure confirms what City officials have already implied: that the Ordinance’s actual purpose is to reduce firearm ownership by increasing deterrent costs, creating a pretext for confiscating firearms and outsourcing firearm regulation to private insurers, apparently in the hope that they will regulate firearm owners in ways that the City is unwilling or constitutionally unable to do itself.

That’s exactly right. San Jose’s ordinances aren’t designed to make life a little harder on violent criminals. The provisions target legal gun owners with pretty severe consequences, including the seizure of lawfully-owned firearms, if they don’t cough up cash to the city (or the third party organization that will collect the fees) and insurance companies for the “privilege” of exercising their Second Amendment rights.

It’s akin to a Second Amendment poll tax, and even in California, I’d like to believe this will be a bridge too far for the legal system to condone. But since this is California we’re talking about, it could be a long and winding road to the Supreme Court before San Jose’s anti-Second Amendment ordinance is finally stripped from the local law books.

It’s always been about control, whether it’s free speech, a free press, or the right to keep and bear arms. We may see more people waking up to this.

BLUF:
In the end, the battle over Elon Musk controlling Twitter has nothing to do with oligarchs or online safety, just as the Cambridge Analytica controversy had nothing to do with a technical distinction between contractors and employees. Instead, it is merely the latest chapter in the battle over who controls the digital public square – and which political party determines its rules.

Reaction To Musk Offer Suggests Content Moderation More About Control Than Safety

The reaction among the press and tech communities to Elon Musk’s efforts to purchase Twitter has been nothing short of apocalyptic. A common theme has been that democracy itself would be under threat if unelected billionaire oligarchs controlled what was allowed online. Yet this is precisely how social media works today. The Musk controversy, like the Cambridge Analytica story before it, highlights the real issue: the fight over content moderation is less about online safety and more about who controls the digital public square.

Only a year ago, the media cheered the unilateral decisions by a handful of billionaires to effectively banish then-President Donald Trump from the digital public square. Lawmakers and media outlets alike proclaimed the societal benefits of private companies controlling the digital public square beyond the reach of government. In contrast, the possibility of a libertarian-leaning billionaire like Musk wielding that same power has been presented as nothing short of an attack on democracy itself.

In January, the Washington Post argued that oligarchs banning Trump wasn’t censorship; now it warns of the “risks of social media ownership.” Former Facebook chief security officer Alex Stamos argued, “If you want people to be able to interact, you need to have basic rules” for speech. Former FCC chair Tom Wheeler went further, proposing a “First Amendment-respecting process in which the government doesn’t dictate content but does cause there to be an acceptable behavioral code.” In short, tech billionaires enforcing speech rules that align with Democratic Party priorities is a benefit to society; Republicans or libertarians wielding that same power is a threat.

This double standard has been in place for some time. Consider how it played out a few years ago, in the Cambridge Analytica “scandal” involving the Trump campaign.

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Pinheads To Create Official Ministry Of Truth: Climate “Disinformation” To Be Banned

Regular readers are sick of reading, yet must endure it once more, that officially defining “misinformation” and “disinformation” necessitates the creation of a Ministry of Truth. Some agency must define official “truths” and must police deviations from them, otherwise there can be no formal things as “misinformation” and “disinformation”.

If one possessed genuine universal timeless unchanging and unchangeable necessary capital-T capital-D Dogmatic Truths, then such a Ministry could only do good.

If such a Ministry existed when DTs do not, it serves a purpose besides guarding truth. This purpose could be anything, from encouraging insanity to bending political will toward goals in which rulers, even if they themselves are uncertain about the circumstances behind the goals or the necessity of the solutions, nevertheless still desire strongly. Often, as we have seen over and again, this purpose is propaganda propagation toward suspicious goals, meant to enrich or empower regime supporters.

Such a Ministry, as we have also often discussed, need not be formally constituted, and can be, as ours is, spread across the bureaucracy. The longer it exists, however, the more formal it becomes. Let’s see how that works.

There are no DTs for coronadoom. This is because there are no contingent DTs, and all contingent propositions are subject to uncertainty, however great or small. This means all propositions used in science are not DTs (except for a handful of metaphysical foundational propositions). Scientific propositions, therefore, can have no guardians, no honest Ministry of Truth. (A MOT is different than coincidental semi-uniform instruction seen in schools; though with accreditation, such instruction can devolve into a MOT.)

We all recall too well what happened with coronadoom. The mutings, cancellations, firings, restrictions, mandates, criminalizations and on and on, all led by a combination of over-zealous governance and a nascent formal Ministry of Truth.

These moves were welcomed by many because they were worked into a state of fearful frenzy. Panic excused many ills in the effeminate desire for safety, safety, safety.

Once these mechanisms of control are in place, they are not abandoned easily. Bureaucracies are like business: they do not dissolve, they seek new purposes.

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Colorado town scales back gun control proposals

I’m a fan of preemption. In fact, I wish we had federal preemption when it comes to gun control laws, though there’s no chance of that happening anytime soon.

In Colorado, they don’t have it. They used to but don’t anymore, which is causing a bit of a problem, to say the least.

But public outcry forced one city to at least scale back its attempts at gun control.

The Edgewater City Council has significantly scaled back — at least for now — most of what it planned to consider in way of new gun rights restrictions being encouraged by an anti-gun advocacy group, after dozens of residents and others emailed and showed up at an April 19 work session to express their displeasure on possible ordinances targeting gun owners.

Edgewater is a metro-area home rule city of just over 5,000 people bordered by Denver to the east, Lakewood to the south and west, and Wheat Ridge to the north.

The potential ordinances that the council decided to continue discussion on were:

  • Prohibiting open carry of guns city-wide.
  • Prohibiting licensed concealed carry in city-owned buildings and parks.
  • Prohibiting licensed conceal carry in daycare centers and preschools.
  • Banning so-called “ghost guns,” a name given by anti-gun activists to guns made by individuals, but that do not have serial numbers.
  • Setting a waiting period for buying a firearm of 3-10 days.
  • Dealer regulations with an effective date grandfathering in Edgewater’s one gun dealer.
  • Mandatory reporting requirement for lost or stolen guns, which is already covered under state law.

The initial proposal included a local assault weapon ban and a ban on 50-caliber ammunition as well as “armor-piercing” ammo.

Local officials claim reporting of the earlier proposals was “misinformation” despite the information coming from the city’s website.

I guess the city is promoting the fake news and everyone else is wrong for taking them at their word.

Anyway, they got pushback. That’s a very good thing, especially since not everyone who spoke up is on the right politically.

Numerous Edgewater residents spoke out at the April 16 meeting against the proposed measures, with some saying they don’t expect the council to listen, nor do they believe the items taken off the list will remain off the list.

“I’ve watched our city council make laws restricting the freedom of the law abiding in line with progressive political philosophy for a long time,” said resident Larry Welshon. “In this case they are gutting the Second Amendment through incremental disassembly. I’d be delighted to be wrong, but past history proves this council is progressive.”

Welshon reminded the council that in a survey conducted by the city in 2021, only 47 percent of residents believe the council acts in their best interests.

But not all who spoke out against the ordinances could be considered conservative in their viewpoint.

“I am about as liberal as the day is long,” said resident Randy Novack, who said he was a neighbor to one of the council members whom he agrees with most times. “However, I’ve been shooting since I was a kid.”

So it’s not just that the council is progressive, but they’re anti-gun despite some self-described liberals in the city not being anti-Second Amendment.

That’s quite fascinating.

It’s also why preemption is such an issue. Edgewater, Colorado is a city of fewer than 6,000 people. It’s not difficult to imagine someone passing through such a city and running afoul of at least one of these anti-Second Amendment proposals, especially if this is just the beginning as some believe.

Suddenly, someone who intends to abide by the law may well find themselves facing criminal charges. Preemption helps to mitigate much of this.

Of course, since Colorado decided to drink the gun control Kool-Aid, this is the kind of thing we’re going to keep seeing from them.

And people in places like Edgewater, which borders Denver, are ultimately going to pay the price for this particular flavor of stupidity.

The one saving grace, though, is that the people of these cities still get a say and they’re not afraid to tell their community leaders to back off.

Now they just need to shut down the rest of these proposals that will accomplish absolutely nothing.

Who are the ‘ghosts’ in ghost guns? Firearms manufacturer disputes federal crackdown on untraceable weapons

On a quiet street in Rochester, Beaver County, the Master-Ammo Co. operates out of a cramped garage in an unassuming white house, its machine room strewn with power tools, boxes of bullets and shotgun shells.

Under fluorescent lights sits Sam Piccinini, a gunsmith who’s dealt in weapons and ammunition for nearly a decade. On a metal shelf behind him, a dull black AR-15-style rifle rests flat on its side.

Mr. Piccinini holds up a silver-colored 80% finished receiver, the part of a firearm that contains its trigger assembly. It is the foundation of a self-assembled weapon that’s sold in kits – dubbed more recently as “ghost guns” — because the kits are not given serial numbers and are sold without background checks, making them virtually untraceable for someone looking to build one.

To this Western Pennsylvania gun merchant, a new federal crackdown that blames ghost guns for a spike in U.S. shootings is rooted in bad information about the weapons and who buys them, despite supporters of stricter gun control lauding it as a step toward curbing violence.

To make a comparison, Mr. Piccinini holds up in his other hand a finished receiver, this one black. Lasered into its side are the words “Let’s Go Brandon,” a phrase used by some to denounce President Joe Biden. Unlike the 80% receiver, this one has noticeably defined and machined grooves that allow for a barrel and other parts to be installed to make it an operating firearm. And it contains a serial number.

On April 11, Mr. Biden’s U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had submitted to the Federal Register a final regulatory rule designed to curb the proliferation of ghost guns nationwide amid a sharp increase in shootings.


Sam Piccinini talks about the milling process required to complete work on a lower receiver on Thursday, April 21, 2022, in his store in Rochester.Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Under the rule, the unfinished ghost gun kit would be regulated the same as the finished product, in part an effort to keep untraceable weapons from being built for criminal activity.

Mr. Piccinini isn’t buying it.

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When ‘reality’ rears its ugly head

Biden launches $6 billion effort to save nuclear power plants, to help combat climate change.

The Biden administration is launching a $6 billion effort to rescue nuclear power plants at risk of closing, citing the need to continue nuclear energy as a carbon-free source of power that helps to combat climate change.

A certification and bidding process opened Tuesday for a civil nuclear credit program that is intended to bail out financially distressed owners or operators of nuclear power reactors, the U.S. Department of Energy told The Associated Press exclusively, shortly before the official announcement. It’s the largest federal investment in saving financially distressed nuclear reactors.

Owners or operators of nuclear power reactors that are expected to shut down for economic reasons can apply for funding to avoid closing prematurely. The first round of awards will prioritize reactors that have already announced plans to close.

The second round will be opened up to more economically at-risk facilities. The program was funded through President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure deal, which he signed into law in November.

“U.S. nuclear power plants contribute more than half of our carbon-free electricity, and President Biden is committed to keeping these plants active to reach our clean energy goals,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. “We’re using every tool available to get this country powered by clean energy by 2035, and that includes prioritizing our existing nuclear fleet to allow for continued emissions-free electricity generation and economic stability for the communities leading this important work.”

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Biden’s Earth Day Remarks Show Just How Much He Is Deteriorating.

I wrote about how Joe Biden’s confusion and delusion went into overdrive when he was in Portland on Thursday.

But if it’s possible, I think it might even have been worse Friday in Seattle, during his Earth Day remarks.

First, we’ll note that it took Biden’s visit to do something about the homeless problem near the Westin Hotel where Biden was staying. Local media reported they removed two homeless camps nearby. According to the mayor’s office, the camps were cleared “to ensure safety” for Joe Biden.

Oh. How nice. It would be nice if they would care about the safety of the residents of Seattle, as the problem has burgeoned out of control. This is just a face-saving temporary measure, unfortunately, as the camps will likely be back. But that was the good part. Then came Biden’s remarks.

He went into word salad on our “natural wonders.” But his word salad is different from that of Kamala Harris, because his brain seems to break mid-sentence, while she just goes on and on, saying essentially the same thing.

He went into that creepy, weird whispering thing, when talking about offshore windmills.

“I don’t want to hear about it anymore, you don’t like looking at them…They’re pretty,” he intoned.

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This was ruled on by the Supreme Court way back in 1968 in Haynes v U.S.

Excluding Criminals from Gun Checks is Bad
Biden/Harris Gun Plan Omits Criminals. New Plan Only Affects Innocent People

Mass media has overlooked, or failed to recognize, that the core of the Biden administration’s announced plan for so-called “gun control” would overlook criminals and the arsenals they have already. Strict laws to stop this have been passed, but enforcement tools, budget and most crucial a crime-stop attitude is missing. The Administration has adopted a take-guns-from-the-innocent mindset. For crime control, we must move past defund-the-police, police-are-oppressors and guns-are-evil mindset now in the curriculum. Biden and his team must recognize that if courts and cops don’t enforce the laws, disarming the public will only make things worse.

The recent focus on newly vilified so-called “ghost guns” is a perfect case in point. Murders, primarily in disadvantaged neighborhoods, are in the tens of thousands. Where’s the media? At a rose garden presser attacking a new gun concept. The murderers walk free. Meanwhile newshounds take the bait and assault homemade firearms—constitutionally protected property. This is sleight of hand by leadership, ignoring crime control and scapegoating arms—that criminals basically don’t use! “Gun control” doesn’t stop criminal behavior, it lets it thrive.

Proposed gun registries for specialty firearms cannot even address the “guns-on-the-streets” narrative. There are no guns “on the streets,” ghost-like or otherwise. Guns are in criminal hands, from lack of attention. Armed street criminals cannot legally possess guns in the first place, you cannot expect them to register.

Mandating it would require them to self-incriminate, a blatant violation of the 5th Amendment—criminals cannot be forced to use any proposed ghost registry. The new plan is mainly a way to compel more government databases—small requirements, with illegal compulsion, inching up to massive bans. Mass media should make this clear if they’re doing their job but they aren’t. Mass media wants you registered, and it shows. Even logic dictates this glaring flaw in the proposal—if you could require people banned from guns to register, you could just round them up and their illegally held firearms.

 

WA state Supreme Court rules against Edmonds gun storage law

OLYMPIA — The Washington Supreme Court has struck down an Edmonds gun storage ordinance in a court order reaffirming state law that local governments can’t impose their own firearms regulations.

In an opinion signed by all nine justices, the court ruled that Washington state law “fully occupies and preempts the entire field of firearms regulation within the boundaries of the state.”

The ruling stems from an ordinance passed by the city of Edmonds in 2018 requiring that people secure their firearms. It allowed for civil fines of as much as $10,000 if an at-risk person or child gained access to an unsecured gun.

The city of Seattle passed a similar law that year, which has also been challenged.

Thursday’s ruling was a victory for gun rights organizations, such as the National Rifle Association and the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation, both of which participated in the legal challenge.

In a statement, Alan Gottlieb, founder and vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation, called the ruling “a great victory for the principle of state preemption.”

“This should send a signal to other municipal governments — especially the City of Seattle against which we have a nearly identical pending lawsuit — that they cannot enact their own gun restrictions in violation of state law or the state constitution,” Gottlieb added.

The foundation is also involved in the challenge of Seattle’s safe-storage law, Gottlieb wrote in an email. That Seattle challenge had been held up in anticipation of a ruling on the Edmonds case, he wrote, and “We will now move for judgment in our favor and win.”

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Fauci proves again that bureaucraps believe themselves to be above law, or the Constitution.

Anthony Fauci Seems To Think The CDC Outranks Our Courts

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should have the authority to mandate mask wearing regardless of whether it is in compliance with the law.

After a circuit court judge in Florida ruled that the CDC could not impose a mask mandate on public transportation Monday, Fauci blasted the decision in an interview with CNN’s Kasie Hunt released Thursday. The top medical advisor to President Joe Biden said he was “surprised and disappointed” that a court would step in on a public health issue.

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To recap:
CDC APPROVES BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S APPEAL TO BRING BACK AIRLINE MASK MANDATE.

Psaki Admits Appealing the CDC Mandate Ruling Is All About Preserving Power

In Wednesday’s White House press briefing, Jen Psaki was asked about the Biden administration’s rather disjointed reaction to a federal judge in Florida striking down the CDC’s mask mandate for travelers and its delayed response to the ruling — as Townhall reported earlier this week.

But when given the opportunity to explain and justify the Biden administration’s decision to appeal the federal judge’s invalidation of the CDC’s federal mask mandate, Psaki admitted that the White House would fight the ruling in order to “preserve that authority for the CDC to have in the future.” That is, it’s not about The Science(TM), it’s about protecting power.

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The ATF Does Not Make Law

The Reload reports that Marvin Richardson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, is being demoted and replaced by U.S. attorney Gary Restaino. Richardson, a career ATF official, has now been twice passed over for the permanent leadership post, and once demoted.

Meanwhile, Biden’s first choice for permanent director of the agency, anti–Second Amendment activist David Chipman, had to withdraw after a few red-state Democrats joined Republicans in opposing him. Setting aside Chipman’s radicalism, he also happened to be completely underqualified for the job. Last week, Biden nominated a similarly political candidate, Steve Dettelbach, a milquetoast apparatchik from Ohio who the president probably thinks can sneak through opposition.

It is likely that Richardson was fired, as Stephen Gutowski reports, because of a New York Times piece featuring grousing gun-control activists calling Richardson “an industry-friendly subordinate pumping the brakes” on Biden’s anti-gun agenda. It’s clear from the piece that gun-control groups want the ATF to punish gun manufacturers — for existing as an industry, not for breaking any laws — and limit legal gun ownership, which, needless to say, isn’t its charge. They’re mad at Richardson for failing to treat gun groups as terror organizations and for his reluctance to crusade for more gun control. While the ATF director answers to the president,  Democrats seem to want the agency to bypass Congress to implement, rather than to enforce, laws. That’s not how this works.