A very odd story unfolds. According to recent media reporting Hunter Biden and Hallie Biden were involved in a domestic issue involving his handgun in late 2018. Hallie Biden was Hunter’s former sister-in-law who began a romantic relationship with Hunter after the death of Hunter’s brother, Beau. According to reports the gun was thrown by Hallie Biden into a trash can behind a grocery store near a school, she returned later and the gun was gone.
It appears the gun was found by a local man who rummages through dumpsters for recyclables, also known commonly as “dumpster diving.” Days later the man returned the gun to an unknown entity. However, in the interim Secret Service agents went to the gun store where Hunter Biden purchased the firearm and asked the gun store owner, Ron Palmieri, for the purchasing paperwork.
Mr. Palmieri feared a cover-up of sorts for the lost gun was underway, and did not give the secret service agents the paperwork. Instead he later turned over the paperwork to the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (BATFE), who have federal jurisdiction over lost firearms. “POLITICO obtained copies of the Firearms Transaction Record and a receipt for the gun dated Oct. 12, 2018.”
Curiously the Secret Service says they have no record of agents involved in contact with Palmieri asking for paperwork. The incident remains a mystery and no charges were ever filed.
(Via Politico) […] Neither Hallie Biden nor George Mesires, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, responded to requests for comment.
The gun-store incident occurred during a period after Hunter Biden’s administrative discharge from the Naval Reserves for his positive cocaine test and his subsequent divorce from his first wife, Kathleen. At the time of the gun incident, Hunter was in a romantic relationship with Hallie, the widow of his latebrother, Beau.
The incident began when Hallie searched Hunter’s pickup, which was parked at her home in Wilmington, because of unspecified “suspicions she had,” according to the Delaware State Police report. Inside the truck, she found a .38 revolver.
Hallie took the gun to Janssen’s Market, a nearby high-end grocery store where the Bidens are longtime regular customers. There, she tossed the gun, wrapped in a black shopping bag, into a trash bin outside of the store.
Later that day, Hallie informed Hunter of what she had done, and he instructed her to retrieve the gun, according to the police report. When Hallie returned to the grocery store, she found that the gun was missing from the garbage bin and reported the issue to the store. Police received calls from the store’s general manager, Paula Janssen, and from another person, according to the report.
The missing gun caused heightened concern, according to the police report, because the grocery store sits across the street from Alexis I. du Pont High School. Arriving on the scene, Delaware State Police retrieved security camera footage from the store and interviewed Janssen, the store manager. “We complied with the police and gave them whatever security footage we could,” Janssen told POLITICO.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation also responded to the scene, according to people familiar with the situation. At the time, the FBI was monitoring Hunter Biden as part of an investigation that remains ongoing and that currently focuses on his taxes. The FBI declined to comment.
In addition to questioning Hallie, police called Hunter to the scene, where he was questioned outside the store’s loading dock area and explained he used the gun for target practice, according to the report.
At one point, two of Janssen’s employees, described by the police report as “Mexican males,” walked past the loading dock area, and Hunter told a police officer that the store had some suspicious people working for it. Asked if he was referring to those two staffers, Hunter responded, “Yea, prolly illegal,” according to the report.
When a police officer asked Hunter whether the gun had been used in a crime, the officer reported that Hunter “became very agitated with me and asked me if I was intentionally trying to make him mad,” according to the report.
When the officer asked Hunter whether he had been doing drugs or drinking heavily, he responded, “Listen, it isn’t like that. I think she believes I was gonna kill myself,” according to the report.
An officer asked Hunter whether he had called his father about the incident before he arrived. Hunter responded, “I have never called my dad for anything,” according to the police report.
After being questioned, Hunter retrieved the case for the gun — which included the gun’s serial number — from Hallie’s house and returned to the grocery store to hand it over to police, according to the report.
While police questioned Hunter and Hallie, two Secret Service agents arrived at the store where Hunter had purchased the gun, StarQuest Shooters & Survival Supply in Wilmington, according to the two people familiar with the incident. The agents showed their badges and identification cards to Palmieri, the store’s owner, and asked to take possession of the Firearms Transaction Record that Hunter had filled out to buy the gun earlier that month, according to the people familiar with the incident. (read more)
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has detailed how a Republican Senate delegation to the border, led by him, encountered human traffickers and cartel members yelling at them and taunting law enforcement -- as they saw the crisis at the border up close.
"We have been listening to and seeing cartel members, human traffickers right on the other side of the river, waving flashlights yelling and taunting Americans, taunting the Border Patrol because they know under the current policies of the Biden administration they can flood over here," Cruz said in a video.
CCP Adviser Outlined Detailed Plan to Defeat US, Including Manipulating Elections
A leading Chinese professor—who is also an adviser to the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP)—laid out a comprehensive plan for the communist
regime to overthrow the United States as the world’s superpower.
The professor’s multi-pronged strategy involves a range of malign
actions to subvert the United States while strengthening the Chinese
regime. They include: interfering in U.S. elections, controlling the
American market, cultivating global enemies to challenge the United
States, stealing American technology, expanding Chinese territory, and
influencing international organizations.
The plan was explained in detail by Jin Canrong, a professor and
associate dean of the School of International Studies at Beijing’s
Renmin University of China, in a July 2016 speech
on “Sino-U.S. Strategic Philosophy” given over two full days at
Southern Club Hotel Business Class in south China’s Guangzhou City.
“We want to be the world leader,” Jin said, explaining Chinese Leader Xi Jinping’s desire for a “national rejuvenation” of the country.
Dubbed “teacher of the state” by Chinese netizens, Jin is a prominent
scholar known for his fiery anti-U.S. rhetoric. He is an advisor to two
powerful bodies of the CCP, the Organization Department, and the United
Front Work Department, though it is unclear how close he is to Xi.
Weakening the United States
The strategy to topple the United States was composed of two broad
components: weakening America through both internal and foreign sources;
and strengthening the Chinese regime’s economic, military, and
diplomatic power.
Using a metaphor of a company to illustrate the U.S.-China dynamic,
Jin likened the United States to a company president, and China to a
vice president who wants the top job.
“The United States is a middle-aged man, who is good looking, has
strong capabilities, and support from most employees,” Jin said.
“[To replace it], we first need to create the conditions to make it
easier for the United States to make mistakes. Second, we should make it
as busy as possible [dealing with problems], to the extent that it will
feel depressed and want to give up. Third, we should become intertwined
with the United States, so that it can’t attack us.”
Jin said the CCP was thinking of many ways to weaken the United
States, which he described as a “very difficult” task. The professor
offered four practical tactics.
1. Manipulating Elections
Jin suggested that the CCP should interfere in U.S. elections to
bring pro-Beijing candidates to power. He singled out races for seats in
the House of Representatives as an easy target.
“The Chinese government wants to arrange Chinese investments in every
single congressional district to control thousands of voters in each
district,” Jin said.
He noted with a population (at the time) of about 312 million and 435
congressional districts, roughly 750,000 residents live in each
district.
“The voting rate in the United States is about 30 percent, which
means around 200,000 residents in each congressional district vote for
the representative in that district,” Jin said. “Normally the difference
of votes between two candidates is 10,000 or less. If China has
thousands of votes on hand, China will be the boss of the candidates.”
Jin said China’s ambition is to control at least the House.
“The best scenario is China can buy the United States, and change the
U.S. House of Representatives into the second Standing Committee of the
National People’s Congress,” he said, referring to the committee that
oversees the CCP’s rubber-stamp legislature.
2. Controlling the US Market
Ramping up Chinese investments in the United States is another way to
exert influence in the country’s political system, Jin said, noting
that this tactic has the added benefit of enriching Chinese business
people and the CCP.
“The investment opportunities in the United States are relatively
good,” he said. “The U.S. market is open—more open than the Japanese and
European ones,” he continued, adding that its benefits include its
size, transparency, and stability.
He said the Chinese regime wants Chinese business people to control
the U.S. market, and also for them to develop their businesses in the
country.
To reach this goal, the Chinese regime had tried to negotiate with
Washington for the U.S.-China Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT). The
agreement was actively negotiated for the decade prior to 2017, but fell
off the agenda during President Donald Trump’s administration.
Some U.S. companies wishing to enter the Chinese market, and the U.S.-China Business Council have advocated for the signing of a BIT.
3. Fostering Enemies of the US
Jin said the CCP’s “strategic task” was to make sure the United States has not less than four enemies.
Four enemies are needed to stretch the United States’ resources while
bogging the government down in domestic debates over which threat to
prioritize, Jin said.
For instance, before WWII the United States had two adversaries, Nazi
Germany and the Soviet Union. “The Americans debated over and over
about who is the real threat,” he said.
“If the United States has four enemies, it will totally lose its direction.”
Analyzing the situation as of 2016, Jin concluded that the United
States only has three adversaries: “Terrorism is definitely an enemy of
the United States. Russia looks like another one … Definitely, the
United States treats us as a competitor … It’s not enough.”
The professor said that in the past few years, the CCP had tried to
develop Brazil into an adversary of the United States, but was
unsuccessful because Brazil “didn’t want to be improved.”
He said the CCP had pumped a lot of investment into Brazil in the bid
to get its support on global issues, including taking stances against
the United States. Xi had visited Brazil in 2014 and agreed to invest in
infrastructure in the country’s western region, as well as a railway to
link ports in Brazil and Peru.
Jin said the Chinese regime has given up on this approach and is trying to find a candidate to develop into a U.S. adversary.
4. Causing International Problems for the US
Jin said the Chinese regime was at a strategic advantage due to the
United States’ role as global enforcer: whenever there is a crisis in
the world, the United States would have to intervene to maintain global
stability, which in turn drains U.S. resources and diverts its attention
away from China.
As examples, he cited the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which he
described as “completely not strategically valuable” endeavors that cost
the United States “$6 trillion and 10,000 soldiers’ lives.”
The result was that the United States “wasted ten years [without
being aware of China’s development], and let China grow big,” Jin said.
Another possible tactic is to sell the CCP’s holding of U.S. Treasury
bonds to precipitate a debt crisis, he said. According to the U.S.
Treasury, China currently holds nearly $1.1 trillion in U.S. treasury securities.
Finally, engaging in drawn-out negotiations with the United States is
also an effective strategy to bog down the United States, while giving
the regime the time to focus on developing itself, according to Jin.
During such negotiations, the United States wouldn’t take punitive
actions against the CCP such as sanctions, and instead focus its energy
on preparing and carrying out the talks. Meanwhile, the Chinese regime,
which has no intention of negotiating in good faith, would use the
breathing space given to it over the course of the negotiations to
solidify its power both inside and outside of China.
Former deputy national security advisor Matthew Pottinger in February warned
of the CCP’s “negotiation traps.” Pottinger said years of successive
formal dialogues between the two sides, such as the “Strategic Economic
Dialogue” allowed the regime to “draw out the clock” and continue its
economic assaults on the United States with impunity.
Strengthening the Chinese Regime
Jin said the Chinese regime has greatly relied on the U.S. trade and
investments to spur its economic development over the past four decades.
He highlighted four approaches to expand the CCP’s economic and
political power at home and abroad.
1. Stealing US Technology
The professor admitted that the CCP has depended on stolen American technology to fuel its growth.
“China’s industry has a large output, but lacks certain technology,”
Jin said. “In the past 30 years, we bought technology, 46 percent of
which were from Germany. But the United States has the best technology,
but it doesn’t sell to us.”
He added, “Americans think that Chinese hackers steal a lot of their
things. This may very well be true.” Jin said key technology for China’s
J-20 fighter jet and DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile was
stolen from the United States.
The regime is also eager to get its hands on American space technology.
In June 2016, China’s Long March 7 rocket sent
an orbital debris clean-up satellite Aolong-1 to space. Beijing claimed
that Aolong-1 only brought space debris back to earth, but Jin
suggested the satellite had another mission.
“The U.S. said that [Aolong-1] was collecting American satellites
[from the space], and bringing them back to China,” Jin said. “We can
disassemble [the American] satellites and reassemble them into Chinese
ones.”
2. Expanding the Regime’s Territory
Jin believed that the Chinese regime would occupy the whole of the South China Sea and Taiwan in the near future.
The CCP lays claim to almost all of the South China Sea despite a 2016 ruling
by an international court finding that its territorial claims were
unlawful. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan also
have competing claims in the waterways. Home to rich fishing grounds and
potentially valuable natural resources, the South China Sea is also one
of the world’s major shipping routes.
Beijing has sought to bolster its claims in the strategic waterways
by building artificial islands in the area and building military
outposts on them.
“In one and half years [in 2013 and 2014 under Xi’s administration],
China has created more than 3,200 acres of territory. The other four
claimant states have created only 100 acres in 45 years,” Jin said.
Jin predicted that the CCP would continue to create more features in the South China Sea.
He also boasted about the regime’s success in wresting control of the Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines in 2012 with the help of Chinese fishing boats and coast guard vessels.
“Even if the Philippines wants the United States to take over the
reefs [in the South China Sea], the United States can’t guard them,” Jin
said. “If the United States stations an aircraft carrier there, China
can simply send 2,000 fishing boats and surround the carrier. Then the
carrier doesn’t dare to fire at the fishing boats.”
In relation to Taiwan, the CCP has more ways to bring the democratic
island under its control, Jin said. The regime views the self-ruled
island as part of its territory and has vowed to bring Taiwan under its
fold with force if necessary. For instance, the regime could bribe
Taiwanese politicians, ban trade and tourism from China, convince the
few remaining countries that recognize Taiwan diplomatically to switch
to China, blocking Taiwan’s participation in international organizations
and meetings, and assassinating some Taiwanese to instill fear among
the population.
3. Building Global Influence By Leading Projects
Xi’s global strategy to bolster the regime’s global power has two
pillars, according to Jin. One is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI),
the other is the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP).
BRI, previously known as One Belt One Road,
is a massive global investment strategy launched by the CCP in 2013
aimed at bolstering its economic and political influence across Asia,
Europe, Africa, and South America. The project involves investments in
infrastructure and natural resource projects in countries. It has been
criticized by the United States and other countries as an example of “debt trap”
diplomacy, that saddles developing countries with unsustainable debt
burdens while allowing the regime to export its technology and
governance abroad.
“The ultimate purpose of BRI is to team up with the industrial power
Germany. Then there’s no position of the United States in the world’s
industrial playing field,” Jin said.
Similarly, Jin said the FTAAP, a proposed free trade agreement
between 21 Asian-Pacific countries, would also open a conduit of
influence for the CCP in the region.
The professor also believed that Chinese-backed development banks,
the New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank,
would work to Beijing’s advantage, as countries that received loans from
the banks would then be beholden to the regime, Jin said.
“We are building up our friend’s circle in the world. We will be more
powerful than the United States with more friends,” he said. “Then we
can tell the United States that we are the only representative of the
world.”
4. Influencing International Organizations
Jin also explained the CCP’s plan to exert greater influence over
global bodies such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization,
the World Health Organization, Interpol, the International Monetary
Fund, the International Olympic Committee, and the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development.
The Chinese regime’s goal is for “all these international
organizations to be controlled by China. We can appoint someone who
speaks Chinese [who represents China] to be its leaders,” Jin said.
During his speech, Jin emphasized that Xi was unlike his predecessors
in his ambitions. Previous CCP leaders, such as Deng Xiaoping, Jiang
Zemin, and Hu Jintao worked hard to develop the regime’s power but
didn’t dare to use it, he said.
“No matter how much power you have, it’s nothing if you don’t dare to
use it,” Jin said. “Chairman Xi dares to use it. [Xi’s authorities]
have the power, dare to use that power, and all of its attacks make the
other party bleed.”
Xi’s ambitions, however, cannot be revealed to the outside world, the professor said.
When Xi took power in 2012, he urged the country to realize the
“Chinese dream.” This meant becoming a “moderately well-off” country by
2021, and then a “strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious, and modern
socialist country” by 2049.
Jin explained that Xi’s target is actually to replace the United States as the world’s only superpower by 2049.
“[Chinese] Ministry of Foreign Affairs keeps on saying [at press
briefings] that China loves peace. But no reporters at the press
briefings believe this,” Jin said.
The race in Iowa 2 was declared some time ago now, with Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks defeating the Democrat Rita Hart by six votes. Miller-Meeks was certified by Iowa as the winner after a recount was done and after a court decision declared Miller-Meeks the winner. Hart could have challenged the decision in the Iowa courts but instead, she decided to try to get the Democratic House to overturn the results and declare her the winner knowing that she likely wouldn’t have prevailed in any further challenge in Iowa.
Some of the Democrats appear to be all in on swiping the race, despite the raging hypocrisy of how the House Democrats went after President Donald Trump for even daring to question the results of his election, yet they want to overturn the results here simply because they know they can, hang their pious hypocrisy about caring about the voters. But other Democrats have expressed concern about overturning the results.
We’ve written at some length about it. My colleague Sister Toldjah wrote most recently on the slimy efforts of the Democrats’ lawyer, Marc Elias. This is particularly hypocritical given how Elias handled many of the cases against the Trump campaign.
Another hypocrite in the matter, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) spoke about the situation in a video that’s gone viral today and she was really rocking the crazy eyes/evil villain look in it. You can see why it went viral, because she claims she gets to declare who the winner is.
In the video, she claimed, “If I wanted to be unfair I wouldnt have seated the Rep from Iowa because that was my right on the opening day. I would have just said, you’re not seated, and that would have been my right as Speaker to do.”
No, it wouldn’t have been her right, she apparently think she rules by fiat. While it is true that the House can overturn the results of a certified election, it’s rare and it involves a review by committee that’s supposed to be looking at the facts, not just a declaration by Pelosi because she wants to hold onto power.
“Although the House has broad authority over its elections, a state-issued election certificate generally provides prima facie evidence of the regularity and results of an election to the House,” the Congressional Research Service wrote in a January report.
Pelosi’s comment just adds to the sense that Democrats are not going to be fair about this. Talk about being mafia-like and drunk on her own power.
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Twenty Chinese military aircraft entered Taiwan’s air
defence identification zone on Friday, in the largest incursion yet
reported by the island’s defence ministry and marking a dramatic
escalation of tension across the Taiwan Strait.
The island’s
defence ministry said the air force deployed missiles to “monitor” the
incursion into the southwestern part of its air defence identification
zone. It also said its planes warned the Chinese aircraft, including by
radio.
It
marked the largest incursion to date by the Chinese air force since
Taiwan’s defence ministry began disclosing almost daily Chinese military
flights over the waters between the southern part of Taiwan and the
Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands in the South China Sea last year.
Some
of the Chinese aircraft flew in the airspace to the south of Taiwan and
passed through the Bashi Channel which separates the island from the
Philippines, Taiwan’s defence ministry said in a statement.
A
person familiar with Taiwan’s security planning told Reuters the
Chinese military was conducting exercises that would simulate an
operation against U.S. warships that sail through the Bashi Channel.
China, which
claims Taiwan as its own territory, has stepped up military activities
near the democratic island in recent months, a move Taiwan says
jeopardizes regional stability.
The
presence of so many Chinese combat aircraft on Friday’s mission -
Taiwan said it was made up of four nuclear-capable H-6K bombers and 10
J-16 fighter jets, among others - was unusual and came as the island’s
air force suspended all training missions after two fighter jet crashes
this week.
There
was no immediate comment from China’s defence ministry. Beijing
routinely says such exercises are nothing unusual and are designed to
show the country’s determination to defend its sovereignty.
Separate
from the Unesco World Heritage Site list, the status aims to protect
traditions, knowledge and skills, so they are not lost over time.
Some
10 billion baguettes are consumed in France each year, according to
data site Planetoscope, but about 20,000 bakeries have closed since
1970, as shoppers go to bigger supermarkets instead, where the baguettes
are typically not made using traditional methods.
French
bakers say the listing would safeguard an art that has been passed down
through generations and would protect the baguette from global
plagiarists.
"This
title would comfort bakers and encourage the next generation," Mickael
Reydellet, owner of eight bakeries, told Reuters news agency.
There
are concerns that traditionally crafted loafs in French bakeries are
being increasingly replaced by those made on giant assembly lines and
sold in supermarkets.
"The
first errand we ask of a child is to go buy a baguette from a bakery,"
Dominique Anract, president of the bakers' federation, told Reuters. "We
owe it to ourselves to protect these habits."
Flat breads from Iran and Kazakhstan have already made the Unesco list, along with the Neapolitan art of pizza twirling.
The
baguette fought off stiff opposition for the French bid from the
zinc-plated rooftops of Paris and the Jura region's Biou d'Arbois wine
festival.
UNESCO will announce its decision in late 2022.
The
last list included a lantern festival in South Korea, sauna culture in
Finland, and a grass-mowing competition in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
From
the very first moment of Biden's first press conference, one could tell
that the days of Trump press conferences were gone. You remember those
days, don't you? Gotcha questions, lectures, fights, interruptions,
blatant disrespect — not from Trump, but from the media. It was they
who created a sense of chaos and divisiveness, not Trump. It was very
different this time. The media were on their best behavior, but even
they couldn't protect Biden from himself. Otherpostshereaddress more substantive issues raised in the press conference. This is just about style points for both Biden and the media.
Speaking of the first moment, Kayleigh McEnany noticed something striking about the press:
Right out of the gate, the White House press corps stands for President Biden.
Would have been nice if they would have routinely shown that level of respect for President Trump. I hope this is not indicative of softball questions to come!
Her
hope was bound to be disappointed because the media's softballs were
something else entirely. Before that, though, Biden made a few
statements. To this biased observer, it was obvious that Sleepy Joe had
been given an infusion of something to wake him up. Maybe it was just a
strong cup of coffee, but his dilated black pupils were
unnerving. This meme, which predates the press conference, makes the
point:
His eyes also reminded me of a silly shtick in the TV show Supernatural,
which had two brothers fighting all the evil things out there,
including demons. To demonstrate that someone was possessed by a
garden-variety demon, the show invariably had their eyes go totally
black — kind of like Joe's:
Biden
then took questions. He never looked at the room. It was obvious that
he was picking the names on a written list. Moreover, when the chosen
reporter asked his question, Biden immediately had in front of him the
appropriate notes to answer that question. Suspicious much? As I'll
discuss below, though, even reading straight from his notes didn't
prevent Biden from babbling and saying strange things.
As
is traditional, Biden asked his first question of an AP
reporter. "Zeke" asked a politely phrased question about Biden's
challenges on "immigration reform, gun control, voting rights, climate
change," when facing "stiff united opposition" from Republicans. Joe
responded by boasting about his COVID successes — all of which were
solely due to Trump's efforts — and then babbled on.
The
Emmy for most partisan, pandering question went to NPR's Yamiche
Alcindor, a notorious activist pretending to be a journalist. While the
question was ostensibly about overcrowding at the border, she led with
this:
You've
said over and over again that immigrants shouldn't come to this country
right now. This isn't the time to come. That message is not being
received. Instead, the perception of you that got you elected as a moral
decent man is the reason why a lot of immigrants are coming to this
country and entrusting you with unaccompanied minors.
Biden gratefully accepted her characterization of him as "the nice guy." You can read here Biden's
myriad dishonest statements about the situation at the border. After
he'd spoken for a while, a mixture of lies, crude attacks on Trump, and
confusing statements, Biden suddenly stopped and said:
Am
I giving you too long an answer, because if you don't want the detail.
No, no, but I mean, I don't know how much detail you want about
immigration. Maybe I'll stop there.
That's totally compos mentis.
When
the subject of the filibuster came up, Biden randomly announced, "I
believe that we should go back to the position on the filibuster that
existed just when I came to the United States Senate 120 years ago." He
did not seem to be joking. The filibuster came into being in 1806, so
120 years (taking us back to 1901) was completely random. Media outlets
are now trying to play it as a joke, but nobody laughed:
A
real attempt at a joke that fell perfectly flat was Biden's bizarre
attempt to show that the filibuster is so evil that it doesn't even
relate to Jim Crow; instead, it's more closely associated with Jim
Crow's evil older cousin, "Jim Eagle."
Despite
the left's tender, loving respect, he was offended (and incoherent)
when one reporter dared ask him about his running for re-election:
Look,
I don't know where you guys come from, man. I've never been able to
travel. I'm a great respecter of fate. I've never been able to plan four
and a half, three and a half years ahead for certain.
Biden
did take care to avoid any rough handling. Notably, he did not call on
Fox's Peter Doocy, who might actually have asked a real question with a
challenging follow-up.
Ominously,
though, when asked if he thought he'd be running against Trump in 2024,
he said, "I have no idea whether there'll be a Republican
Party." Given the Democrats' efforts to jettison the filibuster and
create permanent one-party rule, that was a worrisome statement.
At
the end of it all, even Chris Wallace, whose disgraceful handling of
the first presidential debate helped leverage Biden into the White
House, found the press conference disappointing and inadequate:
Fox News’ Chris Wallace: "I was also struck by the fact that it seemed on every foreign policy question... [Joe Biden] went to his briefing book... and was reading obviously White House guidance, White House talking points. Covering Ronald Reagan for 6 years, I never saw that." pic.twitter.com/nZOcJw6Laa
Otherwise, as Thomas Lifson said,
it was a boring press conference, with obsequious media and a man
robotically reading from his notes, except when he wandered off in
confusion. The most exciting thing about the press conference, if
exciting is the right word, is the frisson of fear every sane person
should have felt knowing that Biden is the most powerful man in America
and that the Fourth Estate (and, in a way, Fifth Column) will do
anything to keep him propped up.
When is the last time anyone, even a conservative, has made an affirmative argument in favor of gun ownership based on the inherent virtue of gun ownership?
The latest horrific mass shooting in America, this time roughly 30 miles from my Denver home, happened on Monday. Ten died, and the suspect—a Trump-hating Syrian immigrant, hardly the MAGA hat-clad white man that the media so clearly desired—has been charged with ten counts of first-degree murder.
The Boulder, Colorado, shooting has, predictably, reopened America’s tiresome debate over gun policy. The suspect used an “AR-style” modern sporting rifle, thus assuring that Democrats and their media sycophants would rally anew for bans on that technically undefinable and cosmetically amorphous subclass of semiautomatic weapons colloquially referred to as “assault weapons.”
Never mind that the previous 10-year federal “assault weapons” ban, in place from 1994-2004, had no discernible effect whatsoever on gun crime. Never mind the wisdom embodied in the oft-repeated truism that, as a general rule and particularly in a country with more firearms in circulation than people, restrictive gun laws tend to solely disarm law-abiding citizens. Never mind the fact that Colorado already has a “red flag” law in place. Never mind the apparent fact that a more restrictive immigration policy pertaining to Middle Easterners would have been the more causally related public policy alteration. Nope—this time, Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats tell us, an “assault weapons” ban is obvious both as a remedial course correction and as a prophylactic crime-fighting tool.
Conservatives naturally should be very skeptical of efforts to further infringe on the firearm acquisition and ownership rights of law-abiding gun owners. But notwithstanding the fact that I am a proud gun owner—including an “AR-style” modern sporting rifle—it is not necessarily a timeless conservative principle, per se, to universally take a maximalist stance on an individual right to keep and bear arms. Indeed, it is reasonable to ponder the possibility that just and proper gun policy ought to be contextualized based on a polity’s underlying conditions.
The Constitution (with its Second Amendment so cherished by gun owners like me), John Adams once famously said, was “made only for a moral and religious people” and is “wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” The paradigmatic conservative Edmund Burke similarly once argued that “men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.” Alas, Americans in the year 2021 can be said to be neither a “moral and religious people” nor particularly well disposed to putting “moral chains upon their own appetites.”
To be sure, gun restrictions are generally still bad public policy due to reasons both intrinsic—criminals do not, by definition, abide by laws—and pragmatic—in a country with more guns than citizens, an Australia-style “buyback” program would be infeasible to the point of absurdity, even if it were not blatantly unconstitutional. But the very rhetorical and intellectual currency of our firearm policy discourse has become woefully debased over the decades. At the time of the American founding, gun ownership was viewed not merely as a check on government tyranny and a logical outflow of the natural, common-law right to self-defense. It was also viewed as virtuous: something that was, can, and ought to be deployed to protect one’s family, one’s home and one’s community. In this sense, a well-armed citizenry was not simply an outgrowth of any particular natural or legal right; rather, it was viewed as fundamentally just and redounding to the common good of a well-functioning, internally harmonious society.
The reader here will conjure up images of frontiersmen and homesteaders protecting their remote homes with flintlock muskets—and there is a lot of accuracy to the early- to mid-republic authenticity of those images. But when is the last time anyone, even a conservative, has made an affirmative argument in favor of gun ownership based not on constitutional meaning or contextual prudence but on the inherent virtue of gun ownership? The long, steady decline of this once-prevalent school of thought is certainly due, in part, to the hollowing out of America’s religiosity and temperance. But it is also due to the fact that manliness itself is increasingly viewed not as a virtue to be nourished and cherished but as a “toxic” vestige of a bygone barbarism that must be tamed and ultimately excised. A society that loses its belief in the importance of manliness qua manliness will necessarily fail to appreciate the virtue of a home- and hearth-protecting paterfamilias. There is a direct, unmistakable connection between the decline of the former and a lessened respect for the latter.
Our firearm policy discourse is hackneyed and wearisome, but if progressives continue to push for confiscatory overcorrections, then conservatives must continue to trot out familiar arguments against draconian strictures. Conservatives’ job would certainly be easier, though, if our society still retained the intellectual currency of yore.
It appears the gun was found by a local man who rummages through dumpsters for recyclables, also known commonly as “dumpster diving.” Days later the man returned the gun to an unknown entity. However, in the interim Secret Service agents went to the gun store where Hunter Biden purchased the firearm and asked the gun store owner, Ron Palmieri, for the purchasing paperwork.
