Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Crime and Punishment — January 6 Edition

We need to stand with January 6 defendants and all political prisoners being punished chiefly for their beliefs


Criminal sentencing conveys a society’s moral sense. The worst crimes get the death penalty or life without parole. At the other extreme, misdemeanor offenders may be met with fines, diversion programs, time served in county jail, or probation. In between are many gradations, which reflect the individual characteristics of the offender and the objective aspects of the crime itself.

This week, we saw extreme sentencing for the Capitol protest on January 6, 2021. Specifically, members of the Proud Boys received draconian sentences for the archaic, rarely prosecuted crime of “seditious conspiracy.”

Stretching Archaic Statutes

The offense of seditious conspiracy is incredibly vague, but the Civil War-era statute is aimed at violent attempts to overthrow the government. Under the statute’s language, calling the protests a seditious conspiracy is a real stretch. Almost everyone involved thought they were protesting an unfair electoral count in accordance with their constitutional rights to “peaceably assemble” and “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Obviously, there was no way their protests (and even any violence) would overthrow the government or change the election’s outcome. Julie Kelly deserves credit for exposing the shaky legal foundations for these charges.

At most, the nonviolent offenders engaged in technically illegal, but minor offenses, such as trespassing or “parading” in the Capitol. This used to be praised as “civil disobedience,” but now the government treats picayune violations of the law as the equivalent of the Battle of Bull Run.

By way of background, conspiracy liability could apply to any offense. Conspiracy liability—and its cousin, RICO enterprise liability—have faced substantial criticism for their extensive scope. Under the law governing conspiracy, the only necessary act to support a conviction is an agreement to engage in the illegal act. From there, every conspirator is liable for the acts of every other conspirator in furtherance of the conspiracy.

This is why the Proud Boy’s leader, Enrique Tarrio, has been found guilty, even though he was not even present in Washington D.C. on January 6. He was ultimately sentenced to 22 years, the longest sentence to date for a January 6 defendant. His codefendant Joe Biggs received 17 years, which included a terrorism enhancement for shaking one of the barriers outside the Capitol.

These Sentences are Extreme in Comparison

While conceding that these are harsh punishments, one might believe that they are typical of the federal system. After all, federal sentences tend to be long and, even with good time credit, inmates must serve at least 85% of their time. But a review of federal sentences for ordinary crimes provides important context.

In May of 2022, Samuel Templeman was sentenced to 13 years and 4 months for conspiring to sex traffic a child—his child to be exact. His wife received 6 years for possession of child sexual abuse material. No word on whether either of them may have shaken a fence.

A convicted felon, Antonio Eugene Brutton, was convicted of possessing a firearm, as well as possession with intent to distribute meth, fentanyl, heroin, and marijuana; he got a whopping 16 years in federal prison.

A real jerk, Diane Durbon, got 10 years for defrauding a vulnerable elderly person of half a million dollars. Her coconspirator and daughter got 2 years.

Michael Virgil, who robbed an armored truck of $312,000 in cash, got 10 years in federal prison.

These sentences sound appropriate and normal, about what one would expect. The one exception is the punishment of the sexually abusive parents; in that case, the court showed incredible leniency considering their horrific human trafficking offenses.

One might also consider another hypothesis: that the combination of criminal acts and hostility to the government drove the long sentences. This does not withstand scrutiny. Compare the sentencing of the January 6 offenders to the genuinely violent BLM rioters from the summer of 2020.

An Antifa protester attacked a U.S. Marshal with a hammer during a protest in Portland; he received a sentence of a little under four years. 

A BLM arsonist lit a pawn shop on fire in Minnesota and someone died in the fire; the DOJ charged the arsonist, Montez Lee Jr. with a federal offense. But when it came time for sentencing—and the guideline sentence was 20 years because of the loss of life—the government asked for a downward departure from the guidelines.

The government’s presentence filing said that Lee was in Minneapolis “to protest unlawful police violence against [Black] men, and there is no basis to disbelieve his statement.” Lee was ultimately sentenced to 10 years in prison.

In asking for the downward departure, the Assistant U.S. Attorney invoked the words of Martin Luther King Jr., who told CBS-TV in 1966, “We’ve got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard.” Indeed, it is.

Not Hypocrisy, But Hierarchy

Conservatives love to play “Hypocrisy Bingo,” pointing out the left’s double standards. But the left is not going to be shamed from its current course. Advancing leftism is the lodestar for their morality.

That is why there is now a very clear hierarchy for those caught up within the federal criminal justice system. Left-wing offenders are the least culpable, and they get prosecutors to argue for downward departures. Then come street criminals, who are sentenced within the guidelines. Then there are those on the right, who face novel charges and get the book thrown at them.

There is some precedent for this. Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote in the Gulag Archipeligo how political prisoners were treated worse in the Soviet system than regular criminals, whom the regime used to terrorize its political enemies. We also know how the Soviet Union, like other totalitarian regimes, created a whole class of pseudocriminals, who were given extremely harsh sentences for things like telling the wrong kinds of jokes or convoluted claims of sabotage and hoarding.

The key to understanding these apparent contradictions was the concept of “class justice.” Class justice was less concerned with what one did compared to the question of one’s membership among the disfavored bourgeoisie or Kulaks. Class justice simply makes the “friend/enemy” distinction a formal part of the law.

Such repression may repellent and hateful, but that does mean it is ineffective. While repression and politicized justice risk galvanizing the opposition, such activities can also create a climate of compliance and fear. Judging by the disappearance of right-wing street activism since 2020, it is having some effect.  There’s no more MAGA truck parades or Berkeley street battles, nor massive demonstrations outside the courthouses where Trump is being persecuted.

Looking back, this is one reason I wrote that the January 6 protest was “worse than a crime, it was a mistake.” The overheated protest, which devolved into a low-key riot, involved sufficient force and symbolic violence to infuriate the regime and also fill it with paranoia, but it was not nearly focused or violent enough to leave the regime’s leaders and functionaries in actual fear. It’s not like there were a wave of resignations from federal employment the way we saw police resigning during 2020’s BLM riots.

After 2020, I believe the governing class realized that they were truly hated by millions of Americans, even though their opponents on the right continued to follow the old rules of American politics. So the system changed the rules. It treated trespassers like felons. It pretended election protests were an unprecedented affront to the peaceful transfer of power. And it launched a nationwide dragnet, treating minor acts of civil disobedience as if they were worse than the 9/11 attacks.

In short, the right tried to swing a punch, and the left-in-power responded with a howitzer.

Resistance in a Time of Persecution

The ongoing lack of right-wing activism suggests that the issue is not fear, but realism. People on the right are beginning to accept how hostile the system is. They know that the more edgy groups are crawling with feds and confidential informants. And they also now realize that if someone they’re associated with decides to “act the fool,” they could get in trouble. The indictments of Trump and his top lieutenants only reinforces this view.

Under these conditions, why pretend things are normal, as if we just need to do more precinct walks and run the right TV ads? While the Republican primary crew haven’t gotten this messages, most Republican voters have, which is why they’re going to support Trump no matter what. They are skeptical he will be allowed to win and also skeptical that he will be allowed to govern if he does win. But voting for Trump is a loud and clear “no confidence” message to the system and the corrupt managerial class that rules it.

Between censorship, rigged elections, relentless propaganda, and two-tiered criminal punishment, the system is not leaving many ordinary political options for its opposition. Besides the obvious lesson to be cautious and circumspect, we can learn a few things from the left. While we disagree profoundly with their goals, we can learn from their methods.

The most important lesson is that the left never punches left. They resist with all their might criticizing the more extreme elements among them, including their street fighters. They treat these groups as a necessary vanguard, who function to pry open the Overton Window.

We need to adopt a similar aloofness from any pressure to condemn the more vigorous elements on the right. Such condemnation produces no good will, and it encourages a regime strategy of “divide and conquer.” We need to stand with the Proud Boys and January 6 defendants and all of the political prisoners who are now being punished chiefly for their beliefs.

All dissidents must act as people functioning outside of the system, whether they like it or not.



X22, And we Know, and more- Sept 13 🎂🎉

 




The Empire Strikes Back

Conservative establishmentarians are becoming bolder about showing their revulsion for the populist Right


Conservative establishment journalists are hardly making a secret of their revulsion for the populist Right. In fact they are wearing that contempt proudly, as a badge of honor. The New York Post has just offered selections from American Breakdown, a book-length social commentary by Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker. This impressionistic study of why “America doesn’t trust itself,” begins its litany of complaints with what should be a predictable gripe: “And yes, let’s acknowledge it: Trump and his friends have surely played a part in undermining trust in recent years with their stream of falsehoods about stolen elections and other bogus claims.” Since Baker in the next several paragraphs tells us about the dishonesty of the media and the Deep State, how can he be sure the outcry of the populist Right against a rigged election in 2020 are uniformly false?

An even less subtle attack on the populist Right has come from neoconservative columnist Douglas Murray who last week wrote a commentary with the title “Pence Can’t Turn the Clock Back on the Republican Party.”” According to Murray, “the problem was not in the program” pushed by the Trump administration.  The “problem” was that neither Trump nor his followers would accept the hard work of selective, delicate reform. Because Trump failed in this task, “a new generation of GOPers believe it isn’t worth performing the careful surgery.” Moreover, “There is a type of conservative who has become a type of revolutionary. They want to blow up half the country’s institutions and tear down the other half. Not unlike their opponents on the left. The FBI isn’t working as well as we’d like? Let’s burn it down and salt over the earth. The Department of Education is inefficient and too controlled by the teachers’ unions? Destroy the Department of Education.”

Obviously, populism is as much of a problem for Murray as it is for the explicitly anti-populist Pence, whom Murray hypocritically scolds for his negative remarks on the subject. For Murray and our former vice-president, favoring the dissolution of the Department of Education (which Reagan promised to shutter), is an “unconservative” outrage. But why exactly is the call to abolish a department created by the Carter administration, as a favor to teachers’ unions, and which now vigorously pushes LGBT instruction in public schools a reckless, “revolutionary” act. And why is it equally revolutionary (perhaps I should say “insurrectionary’) to call for the abolition of the FBI, which has been so weaponized by the Left that it may be beyond “delicate” tinkering with. The FBI is not a constitutionally established branch of our government, like the judiciary, which the Left has also weaponized. The FBI is a federal agency that was placed under the Department of Justice. Why is the proposal from some on the right to abolish this dangerously politicized surveillance agency tantamount to calling for scorched-earth war against the Left?

There is a settled view among establishment conservatives and a fortiori among neoconservatives that political institutions created or occupied by the Left should be treated as sacred by virtue of having been around for a while. These institutions, if kept, may even yield jobs for one’s friends or relatives. In any case, defending pillars of government overreach bespeaks “moderateness” and an indication that the defender can be invited to gatherings with liberal celebrities without causing social embarrassment.

Recently while reading in Tablet an otherwise engrossing article “The Bronze Age Pervert’s Dissertation on Leo Strauss,” I was struck by this gratuitous dig at the Claremont Institute for taking the populist side in the current struggle for the soul of the Right:

“In recent years, a set of wholly immoderate West Coast Straussians have convinced themselves that America needs a Trumpist revolution to reclaim ‘the republic’ from the progressive-bureaucratic ‘regime,’ election results notwithstanding. Divided between hapless moderates and unhinged reactionaries, the American Straussian project seems to be unraveling.”

While East Coast Straussians, according to the author, are prone to “soporific lectures,” the more riotous West Coast Straussians have become menacing reactionaries. The attack by the author, Blake Smith, does nothing to advance our understanding of the Bronze Age Pervert’s dissertation, but it may be designed to show that the writer seeks establishment conservative respectability and pursues that while writing for an unabashedly neoconservative site. But why is someone an “unhinged reactionary” for resisting a “progressive-bureaucratic regime” which is subverting our constitutional freedoms and harassing and persecuting its political opposition? Perhaps establishmentarians don’t regard what the Biden administration has done to weaponize entire departments of the government and turn surveillance agencies against critics of the Left as something that calls for serious pushback.

This may be the key difference between what is now referred to as the populist Right and the conservative establishment. Those who grouse too loudly about our current political condition may distress our “moderates” even more than the only mildly objectionable Left.



Here’s What the House GOP Should Do Right Now to Fight Democrats’ Republic-Crushing Lawfare

If House Republicans don’t jump into the deep end, 
the Dem lawfare campaign may succeed in taking out Trump. 
That will be the beginning of the end of our republic.



House Republicans are bringing a butter knife to a gunfight as Democrats, including their media and government lapdogs, conduct an unprecedented lawfare campaign to destroy President Trump.

Through a series of lawless indictments and bogus civil lawsuits, Democrat prosecutors are waging an all-out political war on Donald Trump. Their goal is to weaken Trump or outright eliminate him from the 2024 presidential race. At a minimum, they want Trump on the defensive, distracted by legal issues, instead of focusing on the American people during his campaign. They know they can’t beat him on Nov. 5, 2024, so their ultimate goal is to imprison him. It’s a playbook straight out of any third-world Marxist hellhole.

House Republicans must step up and go on offense. Democrats only respect power. So using power is the only way to hold Democrats accountable and stop this corrupt and un-American lawfare campaign that is singularly focused on keeping the Republican front-runner out of the White House. Speeches, television appearances, and strongly worded letters are not enough. Republicans must fully wield the power the American people gave them to protect and defend the Constitution. Through the oversight and appropriations processes, House Republicans can put an end to the weaponization of our law enforcement. They have the constitutional power — they simply must choose to exercise courage and use it.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy can set the tone for the rest of the Republican Party by launching impeachment inquiries into both Joe Biden for his corruption and Merrick Garland for his weaponization of justice. Biden has compromised himself by becoming involved with his corrupt son’s selling of the family name and White House access to make millions from foreign despots. He’s shown a willingness to sell out his country to enrich his family. Every day that Congress sits idly by and does nothing about it is a disgrace.

Likewise, Garland has weaponized the Justice Department to protect Biden and his corrupt son. He is abusing federal law enforcement resources to go after his boss’s chief political opponent while ignoring rampant crime in our cities and at our border. This is a dereliction of duty and an abuse of power, and he should be removed from office. 

The House Judiciary Committee should serve as the tip of the spear. House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, his fellow committee members, and the staff have the best ability and largest responsibility to end this charade and impose accountability on Washington. I commend Jordan for his initial reaction to these indictments, including demand letters to Soros-funded Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Democrat Fulton County DA Fani Willis. But a lot more should be done.

Now is the time to be worried about underreacting, not overreacting. Democrats are using every lever of power they have. Republicans should do the same. The House Judiciary Committee should subpoena documents and communications from the Biden White House, Biden Justice Department, and each of these Democrat prosecutors’ offices immediately. Every day the GOP waits, it loses ground. 

House Judiciary Republicans should start their investigations with officials at Biden’s DOJ — namely Garland, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, FBI Director Christopher Wray, Special Counsel Jack Smith, and Smith’s counselor Jay Bratt. The timing of these indictments — after waiting 30 months after Trump left office — is not random. They are choreographed.

The subpoenas can’t be isolated to just the Biden Justice Department. House Judiciary Republicans should obtain each and every piece of correspondence related to Trump from New York Attorney General Letitia James, Bragg, his lead prosecutor Matthew Colangelo, and Willis. This lawfare campaign is so extensive that those names should only be the start — there will surely be more to uncover. 

Once each document is with the House Judiciary Committee, it’ll be time to ramp up the oversight. Jordan should put Biden White House and Justice Department officials under oath. Constant staff depositions. Regular public hearings. The entire country should have the opportunity to put on the news and see House Republicans expose Democrats’ corrupt lawfare campaign for what it really is: an anti-democratic and republic-ending electoral assault on Trump.

Democrats aren’t just conducting this lawfare campaign because they hate Trump and will do anything to ensure he won’t win in 2024. They’re doing this because Biden is weak, dementia-ridden, and corrupt. Democrats won’t let Trump wipe the floor with him. It’ll be Democrats in the justice system joining up with Biden to take out Trump in 2024.  

Where else is there an opportunity for House Republicans to aggressively attack the Democrats’ lawfare campaign? The appropriations process. The House Appropriations Committee should include two specific appropriations riders.

First, it should cut off the spigot of money used to interfere in the presidential election: “No federal funds may be used to prosecute any major presidential candidate on or before Nov. 5, 2024.”

Second, it should ensure that any state or local government that chooses to use its office as a political weapon is punished: “Any state or local jurisdiction that prosecutes any major presidential candidate on or before Nov. 5, 2024, loses all federal funding.”

These basic steps will help ensure this election is free from the type of government interference and manipulation that are the hallmarks of third-world banana republics. House Republicans should act — and act now. The D.C. swamp is the only place on the planet where the reptiles lack backbones. Let’s see if House Republicans can find theirs.

If GOP lawmakers don’t jump into the deep end, the Democrat lawfare campaign may succeed in taking out Trump. That will be the beginning of the end of our republic.



Tony Buzbee Destroys Another Paxton Impeachment Schemer



Someone on the Twitter noticed that Tony Buzbee is like the film actor, Matthew McConaughey. 😂 Too funny, because it’s true.

Buzbee has been chewing through the fraud and manipulation that stems from the Bush family effort to target Attorney General Ken Paxton.  Democrats and authentic Republicans in Texas have been working together to keep the political system under their control.  The long-term goal to turn the state blue is against the interests of the state residents, but that doesn’t stop the Bush family from trying.

In this segment, Paxton attorney Tony Buzbee starts grinding the patina off the schemes the professional Republicans created in order to remove a non-compliant, non-Bush aligned, attorney general.  It’s a good segment, very good. WATCH:



✝ Big interview from Great American Family CEO

 



Source: https://deadline.com/2023/09/great-american-media-bill-abbott-pure-flix-faith-family-programming-interview-1235545223/

EXCLUSIVE: Two years after taking over as CEO of Great American Media, Bill Abbott is ready to talk about what it’s like to run the faith and family-focused company. So far, he’s seeing great progress with Great American Family: though star Candace Cameron Bure stirred up controversy earlier this year by saying how she wants to “keep traditional marriage at the core” on the cable channel, new viewers have continued to find their way there — so much that Nielsen reports that it is the fastest-growing network for the tenth consecutive month (By August, it was up 169 percent in total day household ratings).

It also leads all networks in year-over-year viewership increases. 

“It’s not easy starting from scratch, but we have assembled a high quality offering that we’re very proud of and we’ll see in fourth quarter how it plays out when we add 20 more original movies to our schedule,” Abbott tells Deadline. “We’ve been at this for two years. We’re just entering our third year and it’s an incredibly competitive landscape and very hard to break out. And yet over the past 10 months, every month we’ve been the fastest growing linear cable channel. So we feel really good about that. We feel really good about all the talent that we’ve brought in and the high quality content that we’ve produced.”

Here, the former Hallmark exec talks about Great American Media’s recent merger with Pure Flix, how the channel is weathering the strike, and why it’s so important for the channel to celebrate faith.

DEADLINE: How has the strike impacted your business?

BILL ABBOTT: We prepared really well for it. We saw it coming and we put all of our movies into production in March, April, May, and June. We’ll have a full slate of Christmas movies and we produced everything that was scheduled to run in 2023 before the strike started. 2024 is a different story, but for 2023, we’re in a good place. We felt all along that this was kind of inevitable, unfortunately.

DEADLINE: Are you buying any international programming to help plug some holes?

ABBOTT: No, we don’t need to, fortunately.

DEADLINE: What was so important about the merger with Pure Flix?

ABBOTT: Well, it’s the first time [that someone is] developing a quality streaming and linear service that will be branded under the same umbrella in the faith and family space. There’s a huge blank space in this category and we are focused relentlessly on high quality content that will satisfy the underserved viewer, in a way that entertains and inspires. There’s a lot of content out there that goes in a different direction and we are going to stay in that family, faith and hometown values area.

DEADLINE: Will there be content unique to Great American Pure Flix?

ABBOTT: We’re there now. The beauty of streaming is that you don’t have to be as focused on being relentlessly consistent. Our philosophy on the linear side is that you need to deliver the audience a very similar product on a very consistent basis. That’s what drives the advertising model. Yet on the streaming side, we have plenty of room to develop more dramatic programming, more lifestyle content, more mysteries, different things in different genres that if you’re approaching a streaming service, you can pick and choose what you want to watch. It’s not the same type of force fed experience that linear is.

DEADLINE: You talk a lot about how the channel celebrates both faith and family. Why is it important for you to continue to say that you celebrate faith?

ABBOTT: Well, I think that’s a big distinction between us and the typical channel that may say they’re family. Not all of our projects incorporate faith, but a good majority or a good portion of our content is faith driven and really seeks to reinforce faith and its place in people’s lives and in family lives. And the two in many ways go together and are very much again missing from the overall landscape.

DEADLINE: When you speak of faith, do you mean Christianity?

ABBOTT: No, I don’t think so. Faith comes in many forms and there’s not a way in which we approach faith other than to treat it with respect and dignity and to celebrate it. It’s not about being overtly anything other than supportive of the concept of faith and family and feeling good about it.

DEADLINE: When you launched the channel, you mirrored a lot of what Hallmark was doing. So what makes Great American Family unique?

ABBOTT: A lot of the executives who were with me at Hallmark came over here. They were the ones who helped establish that format and that business. So in a lot of ways we view it like we’re not so much copying Hallmark as we are bringing the content that we created over here. From our point of view, what makes it unique is that we’re producing with talent that is very unique and that has a high standard and is very high quality content and also incorporates a little bit of faith and is relentlessly family.

DEADLINE: Are there any misconceptions about the channel that you would like to dispel?

ABBOTT: I think that the biggest thing that we have to work on is getting the word out there about who we are and what we do more than anything. I guess the biggest thing that I’d want to dispel is the fact that there’s only one or two channels that dominate this market and we all know who they are. That’s a misconception because we’re producing content that’s equal or better with better talent than anybody else in this category.

DEADLINE: Inclusive programming that reflects today’s population is now a huge priority for all platforms. Does Great American share that commitment and if so, what way?

ABBOTT: I mean, we certainly look to replicate the population in our content. We understand that diversity is certainly important. It is not always the easiest path to pursue because we do a lot of our production in Canada that make it sometimes a little more challenging with our just being new to the game, but certainly an area of focus.

DEADLINE: What’s it like being judged for who you don’t have in your movies?

ABBOTT: It’s no fun. It’s no fun. In all seriousness, we are just trying to focus on what we do well, what people come to us for and what we are working so hard on to convey, which is creating a fun, great, uplifting experience for people. You just hope that things get taken in that light.

DEADLINE: You’ve made it clear that it’s not easy launching a network. Are you a point yet where you feel like you can breathe?

ABBOTT: Candidly? No. I would never have thought we’d be at the point where we still were running pretty hard. We’re in the middle of an advertising recession, the strike, and cord cutting accelerating. There are a number of overall macro factors that have made the business that much more difficult in 2023 than we anticipated in 2021. And then you add to that the competition and the model being very much in question around how ultimately programmers get paid for creating great content. We know the streaming model needs a lot of work and is underwater in a lot of places. So there are big challenges out there that make it that much tougher.

DEADLINEYou brought up cord cutting. How do you soldier on through that?

ABBOTT: Well, the linear business is still in 70 million homes, even though there is undeniably a lot of cord cutting that is accelerating and is quite troubling. But it still delivers a number that is critical mass and from a brand point of view works for us, especially with a streaming service. Now we have the ability to promote our streaming service on our linear platform. And so the two together work really well. That’s why the Pure Flix merger was so important. Strategically, we wouldn’t want to be left with just the linear platform and no streaming outlet when you’re clearly in a declining business on the linear side. So you soldier on with a business that’s still working well on linear in terms of being profitable and having advertising revenue and in our case, ability to grow. But certainly you have an eye out for what’s happening in streaming.

DEADLINE: Do you have a set amount of Christmas movies that you’d like to make going forward? Do you see that number growing each year?

ABBOTT: We first and foremost want to do quality movies. We would rather not go for a volume play. We’d rather take a weekend off and not run an original movie than disappoint our viewers. So that’s a heavy lift. So I don’t know what the ceiling is on that, but I can tell you it’s hard finding really good concepts and when we see ’em, we want to produce ’em at the same time. But we’re realists, so you do need a volume of content, you do need to be prolific. So it’s really finding that proper balance.

DEADLINE: Is there a strategy you have for original series? Is there any old titles you’d love to dust off?

ABBOTT: We did a Christmas movie around When Hope Calls a couple of years ago. We think that there’s a lot of merit to continuing that as an original series. We have a couple of original series that are coming up on Pure Flix that are extremely well done. One is called County Rescue that is very different. It’s not something you would run necessarily on linear. It’s a little grittier and has faith element, but it also has some medical scenes and some uncomfortable moments of people in jeopardy. Those themes we might stay away from on the main channel. And so we look forward to doing more original series, certainly on the Pure Flix and then on Great American Family.

DEADLINE: How is your partnership going with Candace Cameron Bure?

ABBOTT: She’s so smart and such a good judge of talent. She’s brought us multiple people who we now work with and consider part of our family. And she knows music really well. She knows lifestyle content really well. Obviously, she knows the movie genre. She’s a brilliant businesswoman in her own right and certainly she knows the audience very well.

DEADLINE: Tell me about a Christmas movie pitch that you tried to get going, but everyone said no, Bill, that’s a lousy idea.

ABBOTT: Basically everything on the channel this year was not my idea. The reality of working with a really talented team is that they drive the bus and have come up with some wonderful concepts. I’m hesitant to mention any particular project because someone, somewhere will be able to identify what it was. But I have no shortage of bad ideas and the team here has no shortage of good ones, fortunately.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham Is Every Tyrant Throughout History


Back in the 1930s, a man named Adolf Hitler made the Jewish people out to be a net negative on the world and blamed them for Germany's woes. The amount of anti-Jewish sentiment that was already gaining traction within the country allowed Hitler to capitalize on the crisis, and paint himself as the man to fix the problem. He criticized those who didn't think the Jewish crisis was as big of a deal as he was making it out to be, making social pariahs out of those who disagreed with him. 

Not long after that, Jewish people would be rounded up and forced into concentration camps where they would be enslaved and tortured. Meanwhile, Hitler would utilize the crisis he took advantage of to become a dictator and would go on to be responsible for the deaths of millions around the globe. 

It's hardly the only time something like this has happened in history. In fact, while the "crisis" might take on a different name, the playbook is pretty much the same from dictator to dictator. Take a developing concern or prejudice, exacerbate it in public, promise to have the solution to amass support and loyalty, and use that support and loyalty to seize power. 

Once you've done that, there's really no end to what you can force on your own people. You can even convince them to begin a global conquest. 

The aforementioned playbook hasn't changed much. In fact, the people who use it have only gotten craftier. Authoritarians in the modern world still use concerning issues to scare people into loyalty, and if they don't have any and times are pretty good, they'll make some up. 

They have a motto that you've probably heard before: "Never let a crisis go to waste." 

(READ: The Leftist Culture of Fear and Loathing)

In modern-day America, there's no end to what you can claim is a crisis. The transgender murder rate can be a crisis even if there isn't one. The COVID-19 pandemic can be a crisis you can use to force people to lock down or inject themselves with vaccines even though it has a 98 percent survival rate and most people just get flu-like symptoms. 

And, of course, there's the gun crime "crisis." It's this issue that brings us to the latest tyrant, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham

If you've been keeping track of RedState's coverage, you'll know that the governor decided that it was time to just ignore the Constitution and issue a gun ban in Bernalillo County with other areas of the state to likely follow. Naturally, this caused quite a backlash, with citizens protesting with their guns out and legal challenges from various groups. 

As Jeff Charles reported on Tuesday, it's now gotten to a point where the Bernalillo County Sherriff has openly refused to enforce the ban on the grounds that it will be counterproductive to his job to keep people safe, and that it only punishes the law-abiding citizens of his jurisdiction. He also mentioned that this ban falls outside the realm of constitutionality. 

Lujan Grisham's response was, in my opinion, chock-full of red flags. I'll emphasize the problem areas myself. 

I don’t need a lecture on constitutionality from Sheriff Allen: what I need is action. What we need is for leaders to stand up for the victims of violent crime. We need law enforcement, district attorneys, public officials, school leaders and state agencies to use every single tool at their disposal to stop this violence. Period.

This is an administration that has treated the gun violence epidemic as the crisis that it is. We’ve passed common-sense gun legislation, including red flag laws, domestic violence protections, a ban on straw purchases, and safe storage laws; dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars to a fund specifically to help law enforcement hire and retain officers; increased penalties for violent offenders and provided massive support to intervention programs.

We've given you the tools, Sheriff Allen— now stop being squeamish about using them. I will not back down from doing what’s right and I will always put the safety of the people of New Mexico first.”

While this was addressed to the sheriff, it wasn't a letter to the sheriff; this was a letter to the people of New Mexico. This was meant to make Lujan Grisham's detractor look like a do-nothing, cowardly, and even ungrateful person standing between the people and safety. 

This little retort is filthy with alarmism, painting gun violence as a massive issue throughout the state that has gotten wholly out of control and needs intervention now. I could have highlighted the entire second paragraph as it paints Lujan Grisham as the person who has the answers and is doing something. She paints herself as a brave, righteous warrior doing what's right for the people. 

Do you see the pattern emerging here?

She's preying on the concerns of the people and blowing an issue way out of proportion so that she can paint herself as the hero to save everyone from it, and using said crisis as an excuse to seize power. She's even using the sheriff as a way to define cowardice and enablement of the crisis. 

Lujan Grisham isn't doing anything bold or original. She's using the same playbook to seize control that Hitler and every other tyrant in history did.

At this point, it's pretty clear what happens to the people who buy into the lie; untold numbers suffer. 

Lujan Grisham's actions will undoubtedly have a horrific effect on the populace over time. As the sheriff said, this will only affect the law-abiding, meaning the unlawful will be free to commit crimes without too much worry about someone fighting back. This will only encourage more crime, including theft, assaults, rape, and murder. 

If the people of New Mexico are smart, they'll stop this wannabe dictator in her tracks. 



NM AG Tells Governor He Will Not Defend Her Unconstitutional Gun Ban in Court



The Attorney General for New Mexico has informed Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham his office will not be appearing in court to defend her against the unconstitutional gun ban she has decreed by fiat in Alburquerque.

New Mexico – Democratic New Mexico Attorney General Raul Torrez announced he will not defend the state in pending lawsuits against the governor’s public health emergency order suspending open and concealed carry of firearms in Albuquerque and surrounding counties.

In a letter to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM) regarding four impending lawsuit cases, Torrez shared the same sentiments from Democratic and Republican lawmakers and law enforcement, saying the ban violates the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.

“Though I recognize my statutory obligation as New Mexico’s chief legal officer to defend state officials when they are sued in their official capacity, my duty to uphold and defend the constitutional rights of every citizen takes precedence,” Torrez wrote. “Simply put, I do not believe that the Emergency Order will have any meaningful impact on public safety but, more importantly, I do not believe it passes constitutional muster.” (more)

Using a “public health emergency” as a method to ban firearms is purely an ideological effort from the school of Soros.