Tucker Carlson used his opening monologue tonight to point out the serious problems with federal “red flag laws” as proposed. WATCH:
Monday, June 13, 2022
X22, Christian Patriot News, and more- June 13
Today has been quite hilarious. 1st off, Hallmark is greenlighting a new show for next year, even though it got rid of everything that it's viewers loved and have replaced with, well you know. Reported on it earlier: https://wwwp-lives.blogspot.com/2022/06/former-family-friendly-network-believes.html
2nd hilarious thing of the day:
I knew it was going to be on DVD, but the fact of the matter is, it's still hilarious that CBS thinks that stuffing a DVD filled with the absolute worst episodes to ever air on network TV with what will probably be junk that most online fans have probably seen on Instagram sometime in the last year will make it seem 'appealing'! 😂😂 It's called the 'Season from Hell' by me for very good reasons.
Here's tonight's news:
No, They’re Not Sending Their Best
The character and culture of America
have become more like the Third World.
America is one of the most welcoming nations on the planet, but you would never know it listening to our mass media. An unceasing avalanche of contempt for Americans and their “racist” and “backward” ways flows from the mouths of liberal talking heads on cable news. It is particularly maddening to listen to this talk from recently arrived immigrants in positions of power and influence. The likes of U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Ana Navarro on “The View,” and MSNBC’s Mehdi Hasan have done very well for themselves in the United States, but they don’t do a very good job of showing their gratitude.
Imagine if you invited someone over for dinner and they spent the night making snide comments about your out-of-date kitchen. It’s just not polite.
Many of these figures wear the “child of immigrants” and “hyphenated-American” labels like honorifics (“I love hyphens,” Navarro says), a wise career move in a time that treats borders as arbitrary lines and those who cross them illegally as more worthy than Americans. These super-citizens are not shy about exercising their privileges. They never stop talking about their foreign background, which they use as a cudgel against the native-born. They tend to become particularly voluble in the aftermath of politically charged events with the potential to transform the culture and laws of the United States.
With gun control back in the news, we have heard an awful lot of unsolicited complaining from these people—who probably would not be here if not for the 1965 Hart-Celler Act that opened the nation up to millions of Third World immigrants and their descendants—about everything they think needs to be changed in the country that generously gave them and their families a new home. After first noting she is a “child of immigrants” for etiquette’s sake, New York Times journalist Farnaz Fassihi laments that because of gun violence, “everyone I know wishes they could raise their children outside of America.”
Can you believe it? Naughty, gun-toting Americans have lost the approval of transients with no respect for the American way of life.
Mehdi Hasan is a British man of Indian ancestry who became a naturalized American citizen within days of the 2020 election. Naturally, he’s using his MSNBC show to call for the repeal of the Second Amendment:
But Mehdi, you’ll say . . . conservatives will accuse liberals of wanting to take away their guns. They already say that! . . . If this is how they respond to background checks, then part of me wonders, why don’t Democrats go further? Why not put the Second Amendment on the table for negotiation? If that’s what they’re using to block the mildest, most basic, most popular of gun control measures, why not put it on the table? Why not make the Constitution a living document again by, you know, amending it? We’ve done it before.
Hasan raises a number of interesting points. Here’s another one for us to chew on: how did somebody with such overt hostility to the liberties enshrined in our Bill of Rights get citizenship in the first place? And why has he not been deported yet?
New York Times contributor and first-generation American Wajahat Ali, who is of Pakistani descent, wonders in a recent article whether the time has come for him to flee the United States. He is the real victim of generations of rapid demographic and cultural change that Americans never requested. America, he writes, has become too hostile to nonwhites and Muslims like him. (Pakistanis are among the wealthiest ethnic groups in America. Another example of white supremacy in action!)
Ali proffers a laundry list of banal grievances about guns, “mass incarceration,” QAnon, “white supremacy,” the “Big Lie,” and of course, the Great Replacement “conspiracy theory.” Blah, blah, blah. America is “number one in all the wrong categories,” he writes. “Our democracy” is under threat by uppity conservative white people who rejected the “free and fair” 2020 election.
“It’s pretty clear that this country and its democracy aren’t trending in the right direction,” Ali concludes.
Ali lays it on thick. “It’s tough to love a country that doesn’t love you back, and even tougher to fight for it as it’s trying to kill you,” he writes. Surveying his escape options, New Zealand catches his eye: they take gun violence seriously there and there are “a lot of halal options.”
Setting aside the quality of Ali’s witless writing, it’s clear that he doesn’t actually like America all that much. Like many of the same stripe, he has an idea of what America should be. He just doesn’t like America as it really is. The free republic of our founders, or what is left of it, offends and repels him. Until 1965, America was not even a legitimate nation: it “has always been a land of violence, hypocrisy, and contradictions,” but starting about 60 years ago, “it’s also been a country that has often slowly and painfully trudged forward towards progress.”
We use the term “refugee” (or used to, anyway) to describe a person fleeing genocide or war, not whatever it is that Ali is complaining about in his article. Those who abhor the folkways and values of the United States are free to leave at any time. They are not being held against their will. They can always find some other place to call home that is more suitable to their political and racial preferences. This is one luxury that most native-born Americans do not have. If things go south, they have nowhere else to run. It is they who are being displaced, who have had their nation transformed without their consent and who are mocked over this fact on a daily basis by the likes of Wajahat Ali.
If anyone should be angry, it is they, not ungrateful interlopers who are just now finding that they don’t want to live here. And let’s be honest, we know they’re bluffing. We know because on most days, Hart-Celler Americans with MSNBC jobs can be found gloating about the “Great Replacement conspiracy theory.” They know which way the country is shifting. They could at least be polite about taking possession of the land others have called home for generations.
But why should they be, when our country treats them like nobility? Our founders abolished the privileges of European aristocracy when they established a free and equal democracy, but America today is becoming more like an Old World caste society: every day, the media, politicians, entertainers, and innumerable ordinary “folx” under the boot of a repressive woke culture bow and scrape to flatter “people of color” and prop up their self-esteem.
But this compulsory ritual humiliation is not enough to satisfy the Navarros, Alis, and Hasans of the world. America is still too “racist,” which is to say too white, for their liking. There are too many guns floating around in the hands of law-abiding Republican voters. There is still too much freedom to spread “hate speech” on social media. There isn’t enough centralized control. MSNBC contributors ranting about “disinformation” don’t get enough sway over the public square. There are still too many maskless faces and unvaxxed bodies, too many blue-collar white guys in gas guzzlers on the highways.
America is still too American.
Many recent arrivals come with an expectation that their new home will become more like their old home, and they make little effort to help maintain the things that made their new home a great and prosperous nation. The overwhelming majority of Hispanic and Asian voters support the policies of the Democratic Party, which more and more resemble those of a Third World dictatorship: mass censorship, rigged elections, ethnic patronage, using the justice system for retribution, and disarming the population.
Why do Americans tolerate this? Why does our country put up with abuse from foreigners who exploit the goodwill of our people to destroy the things we hold dear, who exult in spitting on our home day after day from positions in media and government that they would not have, if not for the benevolence of the country that took them in?
If you wanted to convince Americans that it was a mistake to open up our borders to the Third World, the Mehdi Hasans of the world are doing a splendid job.
Don’t Blame the Second Amendment
A free people must be ever vigilant against the usurpation of power and its abuse.
Another horrific school shooting, this time in Uvalde, Texas, has reignited the debate over gun control. On the one side are those who blame the tool—the gun—that the shooter used in the massacre. On the other are those who blame the deranged young man who was in violation of several gun laws as he gunned down innocent children in his monstrous attack.
As usual, the event featured the disgraceful spectacle of politicians and journalists exploiting the tragedy as a means of fundraising and scoring political points. For advocates of gun control, those who oppose their measures are, at best, sellouts to the NRA and, at worst, directly responsible for pulling the trigger themselves. They have the blood of innocents on their hands.
The gun control litany has been on full display since the shooting. We must ban assault rifles and high-capacity magazines. Joe Biden has added 9 mm handguns to the list of firearms to be banned. For some, confiscation is on the table.
Gun rights advocates observe that we already have many gun laws on the books but that those who want to shoot up a school can do so because there is nothing to stop them. A “gun-free school zone” tells a shooter that no one will be shooting back. Active shooters aren’t looking for a gun fight. They don’t walk, guns blazing, into a police building Also, the Uvalde shooter (I will not name him), like many of his murderous predecessors, was known to law enforcement, but no action was taken against him.
There is a great deal of misinformation—if not disinformation—regarding “assault weapons.” Contrary to popular belief, the “AR” in AR-15 does not stand for “assault rifle” but “Armalite,” the company that first manufactured the AR-15, which it subsequently sold to Colt. Like most magazine-fed pistols and rifles, it is a semiautomatic weapon, which means that the shooter must pull the trigger for each round discharged. The military version, the M-16, which was introduced during the Vietnam War, differs from the AR-15 in that it has a selector, enabling the shooter to depress the trigger once to fire multiple rounds.
The first rifle with the features of today’s AR-15 was introduced in 1907: the semiautomatic Winchester Model 1907, which anyone could buy from the Sears-Roebuck catalog. While American soldiers continued to carry bolt-action rifles until they were issued the M-1 Garand at the beginning of World War II, American citizens had access to a rifle that differs from today’s AR-15 in that it fired a larger round (.351 caliber) and lacked the short, black, plastic stock that makes the AR-15 look so sinister.
The fact that both the Winchester M-1907 and the AR-15 were developed and sold to U.S. civilians before they were adapted to military use leads to the question often raised by advocates of gun control: why is it necessary for ordinary citizens to own “military-style” weapons?
The answer lies at the heart of America’s constitutional system and explains the critical importance of the Second Amendment. What is new about the gun control debate is that gun control advocates, who once at least paid lip service to the Second Amendment of the Constitution, now target it openly. For instance, Biden recently claimed that “the Second Amendment is not absolute.”
First, it is important to realize that the Constitution does not grant or confer “rights.” It protects the antecedent rights that individuals possess “by nature.” Those fundamental rights are enumerated in the Declaration of Independence: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Abraham Lincoln articulated the relationship between the Declaration and the Constitution: the latter was, he wrote, a “frame of silver” around the former, “the apple of gold.” The frame of silver exists for the sake of the apple of gold.
Implicit in the right to life and liberty is the right of self-defense, both against others and a tyrannical government. The idea of an armed citizenry as a bulwark against tyranny and governmental oppression lies at the heart of the Second Amendment. America’s founders inherited the teachings of the 17th century “Commonwealthmen,” such as James Harrington, who wrote in opposition to Oliver Cromwell’s use of a standing army to abolish Parliament and rule as a dictator. They saw the same use of a standing army by royal governors to usurp the rights of colonists.
Many advocates of gun control argue that the wording of the amendment—“a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”—means that only members of the National Guard, the successor to the founders’ militia, are to be armed. But this misconstrues what the founders meant by the term. For them, a militia, “a people numerous and armed,” constituted the ultimate guardian of liberty, the primary means of enabling citizens not only to protect themselves against their fellows but also to protect themselves from an oppressive government.
“The militia is our ultimate safety,” said Patrick Henry during the Virginia ratifying convention. “We can have no security without it. The great object is that every man be armed . . . .” Both the Pennsylvania and Vermont constitutions asserted that “the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state . . . .”
The Constitution represented a compromise between advocates of a standing army and the militia. Over time, the militia declined in importance, being supplanted by state volunteers from the Mexican War to World War I and eventually by a federalized National Guard, bearing little resemblance to the founders’ militia, except the claim to be “citizen soldiers.” Indeed, today the term “militia” is often used derisively as a group of potential insurrectionists and usually dismissed as “white supremacists.”
What can be done to prevent tragedies like Uvalde? Improve security at schools. Abolish the nonsensical idea of gun-free zones. Pay serious attention to potential shooters who telegraph their intentions. Focusing on guns is the worst sort of mental laziness. As the case of the aforementioned Winchester M-1907 suggests, access to powerful firearms does not explain the recent spate of mass shootings. When I was growing up, many high schools had shooting clubs. Teenagers carried rifles and shotguns in their cars and trucks. Other problems in American society, e.g. absent fathers, a disdain for masculine virtues, and social isolation, are more likely at fault.
The Second Amendment is not the culprit here. The founders understood the importance of an armed citizenry. History has shown us what happens when the country’s people are disarmed. Some may claim that our government poses no such threat to U.S. citizens, but recent events should have disabused us of that conceit. A free people must be ever vigilant against the usurpation of power and its abuse. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, “it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions, to bind those whom we are obliged to trust with power.” And an armed citizenry is the surest foundation of republican vigilance.
Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared originally at GoLocalProv in Providence, Rhode Island.
Republicans Prepare to Play the Sucker After 'Gun Safety' Bill Is Revealed
The rush to “do something” in the wake of the mass shootings in Buffalo, NY, and Uvalde, TX, has led to a bipartisan group of senators pursuing so-called “gun safety” legislation over the last several weeks. When the effort was announced, I penned a critique of the Republicans involved, noting that any compromise is simply giving Democrats the leverage to keep demanding more.
Now, we’ve got our first preview of what’s going to be in the bill in question. According to EWTN, it’s going to include a range of measures, from funding for “red flag” laws to increased background checks to funding for mental health and schools.
I want to be fair here because, in a vacuum, most of those measures are not objectionable. I believe there’s ample evidence that red flag laws are largely useless and exist to make people feel better, not actually prevent mass casualty events. We’d also need a lot more details on what “deeper checks” means.
Overall, though, if this bill truly doesn’t include any actual anti-gun policies (i.e. bans and confiscation), that makes it far more palatable, even if I think a few of the measures are ineffective. The red flag laws will apparently remain at the state level, and they can be challenged in court if necessary. I don’t really have a problem with deeper background checks either, as long as that doesn’t translate to “universal background checks” being used as a national gun registry. Gun dealers do actually need more information, including juvenile and mental health records, when selling guns.
Further, I doubt anyone is against funding for mental health and school security, since those have been the two chief alternatives to gun control offered by conservatives, with me among that number.
Given all that, why do I still say Republicans are being suckers here? To clarify, it’s not because of anything specifically in this bill, assuming the reporting on what’s in it is accurate. Rather, I think the GOP is walking into a trap because they have done nothing to assert that this bill is the end of the road.
Here’s the thing. There is going to be another mass shooting. No matter how many laws we pass, evil people will get their hands on the tools necessary to commit evil acts. When that mass shooting occurs, Democrats are going to scream about how the last “gun safety” bill wasn’t enough and how we must “do something.” That “do something” will include confiscation and outright bans on common weaponry. By compromising now without laying a marker down they are willing to stand by, they are simply handing Democrats the leverage to take the whole pie the next time around.
The left-wing push to ban semiautomatic weapons is not going to end here. Republicans that don’t recognize that are being suckers.
Kamala Explains We're Part of the Western Hemisphere and Reveals Their True Priorities
Kamala Harris has a habit of spewing out a lot of words that don’t say very much. People have christened them “word salads” because it always seems like she’s been told she has to fill in time, and she just repeats a lot of the same thing over and over again. But the general takeaway always seems to be that she thinks she’s saying something very consequential that you must hear, but she generally doesn’t say much of anything.
One of my personal favorites? The “significance of the passage of time.”
Someone likely told her that it’s a good speaking device to repeat your points for emphasis. But that doesn’t mean saying the same thing over and over again, or treating your audience like they’re five years old, while you’re not saying anything of significance in that passage of time.
But she was asked about Central America and the Summit of the Americas, which just wrapped at the end of the week. We saw Joe Biden get ignored there and take a swipe at the media.
Harris said they had raised $3.2 billion to invest in Central American countries “that are our neighbors as the United States because we are also a member of the Western hemisphere.”
Wow, we’re members of the Western hemisphere? Do tell! She’s at it again, trying to share with us her fourth-grade knowledge of the world.
But here’s a thought. What about first investing in raising money for our own country? How about putting more attention to shoring up our security at the border? She wants to send more money to countries that tend to have corrupt leadership, so it can be fiddled away as it has been in the past. What is it that she thinks sending money to the other countries is going to do to stop them from coming to the United States? It hasn’t stopped it in the past.
They can’t make Honduras the United States, for example, no matter how much money they give them. Although perhaps they are trying; they’re doing their best to bankrupt the people in this country with the crushing inflation and gas prices, while pouring out our tax dollars to other countries in Central America and elsewhere, like Ukraine.
But there’s a kicker to the story that she’s leaving out. While she’s talking about raising money for these countries (as opposed to working for our own country), she doesn’t say the very countries we’re giving these billions to — Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, where a lot of the illegal aliens are coming from — just blew us off by not coming to the Summit of the Americas when we invited them.
It was a debacle showing our decreased power and influence in the world under Biden. That’s the respect that they are showing us under the Biden Administration. They’ll take our money and then snub us. And our reaction? Kamala just gave it — we’ll just keep giving them money, even when they do that. They know — under Biden — they can do what they want and treat us badly, but that wouldn’t stop the money spigot.
El-Erian Speaks in Coded Language About Inflation Not Going to Improve
Mohamed El-Erian is generally more correct than most, but the insufferable coded language he is required to use makes it difficult for the ordinary person to see exactly what he is saying. For this CBS segment, we will apply the decipher. [Transcript Here]
Notice this key phrase in the beginning of his discussion of inflation. “Of course, we know about the Ukraine war, we know about the energy transition, also the Federal Reserve mischaracterize inflation and fell behind.” No, Mohamed, most Americans do not know about the forced energy transition and how that has created this unavoidable inflation spiral. How about dropping the code and saying it directly? Joe Biden initiating the Green New Deal means much higher prices are permanent.
El-Erian speaks about supply side inflation, but doesn’t want to talk about the next phase, demand and service side inflation. The three month inflation data is higher than the year-over-year inflation data. That means inflation is growing. There is no way for inflation to drop when the most recent price increases are significantly higher than the previous price increases. Inflation is now detached from any intervention. WATCH:
Consumer demand for non critical goods are contracting at the same time prices continue rising (that’s stagflation). Demand side contraction, what El Erian calls “demand destruction,” means lost jobs (that’s recession). Food, fuel and energy prices all continue rising. The field costs are higher than current fork costs, and that (30%+) wave of inflation coming in from over the horizon is going to blow the doors off any economic growth. The process is unavoidable now.
The credit markets will feel the impact before the end of the year as consumers will no longer be able to make payments for loans, and still eat. Mortgage defaults will increase, vehicle repossessions will increase, credit card debt and bankruptcies will increase. The credit markets will get drowned in a tsunami of default. That’s the direct language El Erian will not use, but it is present inside the coded-language he does use.
If you did not purchase a house this year, you are ahead financially. Equity and values are plummeting.
Former family friendly network believes it can win people back by greenlighting a new show
In what looks to be a desperate as hell attempt to keep or win viewers, Hallmark greenlit a new show today set to air in 2023, after getting rid of all their current mystery movie series (some on cliffhangers!), all of their current shows (and their longest running show still hasn't had a renewal decision made on it yet!), and after the ratings keep sinking for their new, bland, won't-know-if-they-are-woke-until-they-air movies.
Here's the show's description. Source: https://deadline.com/2022/06/hallmark-channel-greenlights-ride-primetime-drama-series-rodeo-dynasty-1235043969/
Saddle up, Hallmark fans: the channel has greenlit Ride, an original primetime series about a rodeo dynasty.
Set to premiere in 2023, Ride is described as a multigenerational family drama that follows the lives of the Murrays as they struggle to keep their beloved ranch afloat. Here’s the logline: “After a tragic loss, each character embarks on an empowering journey of transformation and self-discovery while also uncovering a twisted web of secrets, threatening to tear the family and their small Colorado town apart at the seams. Emotions run high and clashes are common in the complicated Murray clan, but they are a tight-knit group who don’t give up easily. And the three strong women of the family – widowed rodeo queen Missy, matriarch Isabel, and former teen run-away Valeria – resolve to stand strong against all challenges and save their land, come what may.”
Production on Ride is set to begin this summer in Calgary, Alberta in Canada. It’s co-produced by Endeavor-backed Blink49 Studios and Seven24 Films, in partnership with Bell Media for CTV Drama Channel in Canada. The series is based on an original script by husband and wife writing team Rebecca Boss & Chris Masi (Our Kind of People), who along with Sherri Cooper-Landsman (Beauty and the Beast, Brothers and Sisters) are showrunners and executive producers.
“As we continue to grow our slate of heartfelt and thought-provoking series, we are delighted to get to work with a creative team behind some of our favorite shows, including our talented and creative showrunners, the incredible producing team at Blink49 and award-winning executive producer Greg Gugliotta, Elana Barry and Josh Adler,” said Lisa Hamilton Daly, Executive Vice President, Development, Crown Media Family Networks.
“We were immediately hooked by the story of the resilient Murray women,” added Laurie Ferneau, Senior Vice President, Development, Crown Media Family Networks. “We couldn’t be more excited to work with the incredible team at Blink49 to bring their engrossing story to viewers.”
“We are thrilled to be partnering with Hallmark Channel, Bell Media and our co-production partner Seven24 on this addictively entertaining new series. This deal reflects our commitment to invest in premium content with a creative-first and audience-first approach, working with some of the best talent in our industry,” said John Morayniss, CEO Blink 49.
“Get ready to be swept up in the epic romance of ‘Ride’,” added Carolyn Newman, Executive Vice President, Global Scripted and Virginia Rankin, Executive Producers, Blink49 Studios. “Rebecca Boss, Chris Masi and Sherri Cooper-Landsman are creating a truly juicy family saga set against the backdrop of the west.”
“There’s nothing I love more than a grounded family drama that delivers dynamic and inclusive storytelling so when I first read Rebecca & Chris’ pilot, I was instantly hooked,” remarked Greg Gugliotta, Executive Producer, Nitelite Entertainment. “We knew that the Murray Ranch would find a home and we’re proud and excited to be part of the venerable Hallmark family in 2023.”
Along with Boss, Masi and Cooper-Landsman, John Morayniss (Sharp Objects), Carolyn Newman (Run) and Virginia Rankin (Transplant) are executive producing for Blink49 Studios; Greg Gugliotta (The Fosters, Good Trouble) and F.J. Denny (The Thing About Harry) will executive produce for Nitelite Entertainment; Elana Barry (The Good Neighbor) and Josh Adler (Work in Progress) will executive produce for Circle of Confusion; and Jordy Randall (Heartland, Wynonna Earp) and Tom Cox (Heartland, Wynonna Earp) will executive produce for Seven24 Films.
Paolo Barzman (Wynonna Earp, Lost Girl) will direct and executive produce. Blink49 Studios will handle the international distribution for the series.
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If this kind of show was announced back in say, 2018 or 19, I'd definitely be interested. Because back then, the network could be trusted to not bow down to the woke mob. Now, watching any of their new movies is basically a coin flip on whether or not it's actually clean! Who wants to be a secret gay relationship is part of the 'web of secrets'?
I smell a real desperate move here. Well, good luck losers! Let's see how many will be interested in this after your next mostly woke Christmas movie line up! (after last year, I won't be surprised if they try to surpass the amount of wokeness they snuck into their new movie line up. And that was a big embarrassing number!!)
'Surprise Witness' Called by J6 Committee Reveals Big Conflict for Liz Cheney
There are a lot of problems with the Jan. 6 Committee, not the least of which it is a compromised, biased group that has only been appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). You’re not talking about an independent investigation looking for the truth. I’m not even sure we have objective law enforcement doing that anymore in this case. This is a political show trial meant to do what it can to help the Democrats’ chances in the midterms.
As I noted, they started off being deceptive in terms of how they presented what President Donald Trump said that day, leaving out him calling for people to act “peacefully,” and after the riot started, telling people to “go home” in “peace.” That showed you right off the bat that they weren’t going to have an honest presentation–but a Hollywood hatchet production with the help of a former ABC official.
But they’ve released a list of some of the witnesses that they’re going to call on Monday, and it has at least one witness who should set off all kinds of conflict red flags. It also says a lot about how they operate.
One of the witnesses is Bill Stepien, a former Trump campaign manager. But there’s also something else that’s important about Stepien. He’s currently advising Rep. Liz Cheney’s opponent, Harriet Hageman, in the Wyoming primary that will be held in August. They’re calling him after Cheney just had some very bad polling in her race. So voila, suddenly they need to call Stepien? Can we say concerning conflict here? If she grills him that’s a big problem, but even if she doesn’t, because she’s so prominent on the Committee, it’s a big issue.
It wasn’t going over well.
As we’ve previously reported, Cheney is not looking good in her race, running far behind, and needs to pull something out of the hat to win.
Stepien is not coming voluntarily–he’s coming under subpoena–so he may not exactly be a friendly witness to them.
Why are they even calling any of these people, if this is supposed to be about the riot? The answer is that it isn’t about the riot, it’s about trying to find anything else they can that could hurt Republicans or President Donald Trump.
Stepien’s ‘crime’ appears to be believing there were issues in the election. Pro-tip, Committee? That’s not a crime, nor is that a part of the riot. If that’s a crime, can we go back and retroactively look into all the Democrats who objected to electors including Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who is on the J6 Committee? Notice how it’s a part of the process, but when Republicans suddenly do what Democrats have been doing for years by objecting, then there’s a problem.
Today's Senate 'Bipartisan Gun Safety' Proposal Is Just as Bad as You Feared It Would Be
“We have two parties here, and only two. One is the evil party, and the other is the stupid party. … I’m very proud to be a member of the stupid party. … Occasionally, the two parties get together to do something that’s both evil and stupid. That’s called bipartisanship.”
M. Stanton Evans
Sunday, a bipartisan group of Senators agreed to an expanded package of ‘common sense’ gun control measures. The Vichy Republican contingent consisted of Pat Toomey (PA), Susan Collins (ME), Lindsey Graham (SC), Thom Tillis (NC) and Bill Cassidy (LA) under the leadership, if I may be so bold as to use such a word, of John Cornyn (TX). My colleague Bonchie covered the deal in Republicans Prepare to Play the Sucker After ‘Gun Safety’ Bill Is Revealed. This is how he sums it up:
Here’s the thing. There is going to be another mass shooting. No matter how many laws we pass, evil people will get their hands on the tools necessary to commit evil acts. When that mass shooting occurs, Democrats are going to scream about how the last “gun safety” bill wasn’t enough and how we must “do something.” That “do something” will include confiscation and outright bans on common weaponry. By compromising now without laying a marker down they are willing to stand by, they are simply handing Democrats the leverage to take the whole pie the next time around.
The left-wing push to ban semiautomatic weapons is not going to end here. Republicans that don’t recognize that are being suckers.
Now Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy has released more detail on what is included in the deal, and “suckers” hardly does the Republican participants credit for their duplicity.
NEWS: We have a deal. Today a bipartisan group of 20 Senators (10 D and 10 R) is announcing a breakthrough agreement on gun violence – the first in 30 years – that will save lives.
2/ Major funding to help states pass and implement crisis intervention orders (red flag laws) that will allow law enforcement to temporarily take dangerous weapons away from people who pose a danger to others or themselves.
3/ Billions in new funding for mental health and school safety, including money for the national build out of community mental health clinics.
4/ Close the “boyfriend loophole”, so that no domestic abuser – a spouse OR a serious dating partner – can buy a gun if they are convicted of abuse against their partner.
5/ First ever federal law against gun trafficking and straw purchasing. This will be a difference making tool to stop the flow of illegal guns into cities.
6/ Enhanced background check for under 21 gun buyers and a short pause to conduct the check. Young buyers can get the gun only after the enhanced check is completed.
7/ Clarification of the laws regarding who needs to register as a licensed gun dealer, to make sure all truly commercial sellers are doing background checks.
8/ Will this bill do everything we need to end our nation’s gun violence epidemic? No. But it’s real, meaningful progress. And it breaks a 30 year log jam, demonstrating that Democrats and Republicans can work together in a way that truly saves lives.
9/ So grateful to @JohnCornyn @kyrstensinema @SenThomTillis @SenToomey @Sen_JoeManchin @SenBlumenthal @SenatorCollins @LindseyGrahamSC @ChrisCoons @TeamHeinrich @BillCassidy and others for their amazing work to get us this far.
10/ Drafting this law and passing it through both chambers will not be easy. We have a long way before this gets to the President’s desk. But with your help and activism, we can get this done. This time, failure cannot be an option.
I’ve already expressed my opinion about the cravenness of Republican officeholders who crawl over broken glass to appease Democrats; see Don’t Bother Me With Your ‘Common Sense’ Gun-Grabbing Ideas, I’m Not Playing the Game, and Matthew McConaughey Sold the White House’s Gun-Grabbing Agenda Today Just Like He Has for Years. In my opinion, the problem is less a case of needing more laws and more one of chickensh** prosecutors with a political agenda refusing to enforce the laws already on the books. If we passed a law making prosecutors criminally liable for future gun crimes of anyone not prosecuted for a gun offense, I’d go along with that plan.
Let’s look at the items on the list.
2/ Red Flag laws are a civil rights non-starter as far as I’m concerned. Giving a disgruntled neighbor, a deranged leftist relative, or a vindictive current or former “partner” the ability to have your weapons confiscated while you bear the burden of proving you are not dangerous is antithetical to our system of justice. Above and beyond the Kafkaesque process, the procedure is a sham. A judge will not deny a “Red Flag” order and risk that person killing someone with a firearm. They are never giving your firearms back for the same reason. This is simply a backdoor for anti-gun activists to harass and intimidate gun owners. Any Republican who votes for this is not worthy of our support.
3/ I’m not convinced “community mental health clinics” do very much other than provide a sinecure purple-haired transgenders with an MSW degree. Be that as it may, linking these clinics to a bill ostensibly designed to prevent school shootings means that schools will be pressured to refer students to the clinics for evaluation and treatment. If they don’t, their reason for existence will be revealed as a fraud (SPOILER ALERT: it is). Those mental health referrals will be made by the same people who teach Critical Race Theory, make your elementary school student experiment with “pronouns,” and groom them towards transgenderism and the remainder of the alphabet soup of perversions. If we want more “community mental health clinics,” then authorize them independent of any gun control law. By the way, mental health people are pretty adamant that mental health is not a factor in the overwhelming majority of shootings. The problem is Evil, not crazy.
4/ If you want to understand what “closing the boyfriend loophole” opens the door to, check out what goes on in Title IX sexual harassment/assault hearings in colleges. Without a cohabitation requirement, you are fair game for any woman you went out with one time who wants revenge. If you feel in danger, get a restraining order and stay the hell away from the person. If you can’t qualify for a restraining order, then maybe vindictiveness, not personal safety, is your goal.
5/ Straw purchases are already illegal. Gun trafficking, unless you have a Federal Firearms License, is illegal. Without seeing an actual proposal, my best guess is that this will end the private sale of weapons, the so-called “gun show loophole” that the anti-gunners have been after for years.
6/ Other than the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), I don’t know of any other systems available for background checks that do not involve field investigators. I suspect there is no such system, and this law will try to create any additional level of surveillance of American citizens. The problem with NICS continues to be incomplete and inaccurate information entered into the system. I am at a loss of what an “enhanced” background check would include that isn’t a restraining order, a felony conviction, or a civil commitment order. Just joking, those “community mental health centers” will feature prominently here. I also don’t know how you make a juvenile record available for “young” buyers without making it available to nearly everyone and why only “young” buyers would be subject to such an “enhanced” background check
7/ What constitutes a “licensed gun dealer” is damned clear. This is aimed at shutting down the private sale or gifting of firearms.
10/ Dude, you are in Congress. Failure is always an option.
This is all eyewash. Besides funds for hardening schools, the whole plan is an exercise in “doing something.” Literally, nothing in this proposed bill would have done any good in any major shooting. It wouldn’t even have an impact on Saturday night in Chicago or LA, which is where the focus should be for anyone serious about ending firearms deaths. I’d done playing this game. As Bonchie and I have pointed out, this is not an end state but a waypoint. This is just the anti-gun left getting Republicans to buy into the concept of silly measures that can’t work so that at some point in the future, the left can say we’ve tried everything, and they know there will be quisling Republicans to help them ban firearms.