Author: Phoenix

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‘We Will Hold the Line’: Freedom Convoy Organizers Say They’re Not Deterred by Emergencies Act

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OTTAWA—Freedom Convoy organizers say they will continue to protest on Parliament Hill despite the federal government’s declaration of a state of emergency.

“We are not afraid. In fact, every time the government decides to further suspend our civil liberties, our resolve strengthens and the importance of our mission becomes clearer,” organizer Tamara Lich said on Feb. 14 in anticipation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoking the Emergencies Act over the protests demanding an end to COVID-19 mandates.

“We will remain peaceful, but planted on Parliament Hill until the mandates are decisively ended. We recognize that there is a democratic process within which change occurs. We have never stepped outside of that process, nor do we intend to.”

Trudeau is the first prime minister to use the Emergencies Act. The act replaces the War Measures Act, which was last used by Trudeau’s father, then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau, in 1970 during the October Crisis when Quebec separatists kidnapped and killed Quebec cabinet minister Pierre Laporte.

The act gives the state additional powers to deal with the protests and blockades, such as providing legal tools to cut funding to protesters, as well as freezing the corporate accounts of companies whose trucks are used in any blockades and removing their insurance.

The province of Ontario and the city of Ottawa have also declared states of emergency over the protest.

Epoch Times Photo
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to reporters about the ongoing protest in Ottawa and blockades at various Canada-U.S. borders, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Feb. 11, 2022. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press)

The protest was initiated by truck drivers opposed to COVID-19 vaccination mandates for cross-border travel. As convoys of truckers made their to Ottawa, many supporters joined the movement, which turned into a large-scale protest against all COVID-19 mandates and restrictions. Many protesters who converged into Ottawa on Jan. 29 say they intend to stay in the capital until COVID-19 mandates are lifted.

Separately, protest convoys set up blockades at border crossings in Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, and British Columbia. The blockade at the Ambassador Bridge connecting Windsor to Detroit, which accounts for hundreds of millions of dollars in trade between Canada and the United States, was cleared over the past weekend. The protest at the Coutts border crossing in Alberta ended on Feb. 14, as did the protest at the Pacific Highway Border Crossing in Surrey, B.C.

“The Emergencies Act will be used to strengthen and support law enforcement agencies at all levels across the country. This is about keeping Canadians safe, protecting people’s jobs, and restoring confidence in our institutions,” Trudeau said.

“The police will be given more tools to restore order in places where public assemblies can constitute illegal and dangerous activities such as blockades and occupations as seen in Ottawa, Ambassador Bridge, and elsewhere.”

Lich said Canadians “should be surprised” that such “an extreme measure” is being used against peaceful protesters.

“We have countless vulnerable people in our crowd, including children, the elderly, and the disabled, who cannot be met with force by a genuine liberal democracy. The right to peaceful protest is sacrosanct to our nation. If that principle is abandoned, the government will reveal itself as a true tyranny and it will lose all of its credibility,” she said.

Epoch Times Photo
Children participate in the Freedom Convoy protest against COVID-19 mandates and restrictions in Ottawa on Feb. 9, 2022. (Jonathan Ren/The Epoch Times)

Lich said she realizes some people are opposed to the protests, but noted that a democratic society “will always have non-trivial disagreements and righteous dissidents.”

“There are many reasons for us opposing the mandates,” she said. “Some of us have been mistreated by our government, including many of our indigenous communities, who have personally experienced medical malpractice. Some of us simply want bodily autonomy and oppose the mandates on principled grounds. No matter our reasons and opinions, it is how the government responds to its citizens that determines the fate of the country.”

Addressing the prime minister, Lich said, “No matter what you do, we will hold the line.”

“There are no threats that will frighten us.”

 

 

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Back Door Power Grab Corruption Elections How sick is this? Opinion Politics

Biden’s ATF Sparks “Unforeseen” Backlash with Valentine’s Day Message

Views: 31

Only a diehard leftist could not foresee this reaction.

Joe just can’t cut a break.

This insane idea backfired pretty badly.

A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms plan to turn use Valentine’s Day as a hook to get jilted lovers to snitch on ex-significant others took a turn for the worse on Monday after the agency posted a public plea for information about “illegal gun activity.”

The response could not have been what the feds were looking for.

 

“Valentine’s Day can still be fun even if you broke up. Do you have information about a former (or current) partner involved in illegal gun activity?” the post asked.

“Let us know, and we will make sure it’s a Valentine’s Day to remember!”

Someone at the ATF probably thought it was pretty clever, as did someone at the Biden Justice Department, who retweeted it. (It might also have been cribbed from a similar Facebook post published Friday by the Nash County, North Carolina, Sheriff’s Office that wasn’t geared specifically toward firearms.)

Do you trust the Biden ATF?
Yes: <1% (17 Votes)
No: >99% (2092 Votes)
(Poll by The Western Journal  as of 5pm EDT, 2/15/22)

But a large part of the audience on social media used the opportunity to point out that the ATF hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory in recent years — along with other federal law enforcement agencies that sometimes appear a good deal more interested in casting a cloud of suspicion over law-abiding Americans than making a case against the politically connected.

Like, say, President Joe Biden’s notoriously wayward son, Hunter Biden. According to a report last March in Politico — not exactly a hotbed of conservative journalism — Biden lied on a 2018 form when he was buying a gun to hide his history of drug abuse.

 

And more than a few noted that the ATF and the Justice Department don’t exactly have clean hands when it comes to illegal weapons itself. The infamous “Fast and Furious” operation run during the Obama administration by then-Attorney General Eric Holder hasn’t been as forgotten as many liberals would like. (And the memory of the late Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.)

And, political hypocrisy aside, it’s important to note that what the ATF is looking for here is supposed evidence of illegal activity deliberately solicited from a segment of the population that would have a reason to lie about it.

Would any responsible government agency solicit — en masse — information to bring the might, and firepower, of the federal government down on any individual unfortunate enough to have a past paramour who wasn’t too picky about how to get revenge?

The answer is obvious, and it’s “no.”

Americans who care about the Second Amendment already have plenty of reasons not to trust the ATF. Bonehead moves like this Twitter post give them one more.

As one Twitter user put it:

The geniuses at the ATF who came up with this idea better hope not too many take them up on it — and turn armed federal agents into tools of romantic revenge.The popular Swat GIFs everyone's sharing

Bad as it’s backfired now, it could get a lot worse.

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Corruption Politics Reprints from others.

Thousands Pour Into Ottawa Amplifying the Voice of Protest Around the Capital

Views: 15

Thousands of protesters gathered on Ottawa’s Parliament Hill and sang “O Canada” on Feb. 12, 2022. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)

OTTAWA—The center of Canada’s capital city, Ottawa, was flooded by thousands of protesters on Feb. 12 demanding an end to COVID-19 mandates and restrictions.

Many more joined the ongoing trucker-led protest with the arrival of the weekend. Numbers grew from the night of Feb. 11 into the next morning as supporters seemingly poured into the city.

Greater masses of people were particularly noticeable on Parliament Hill and then later on the streets, where they spilled out from the immediate vicinity of the truck blockade.

Epoch Times Photo
An influx of newcomers swelled the ranks of anti-mandate protesters in the Canadian capital of Ottawa on Feb. 12, 2022. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)

Around 10 a.m., several thousand protesters were marshaled into groups to form the word “freedom.”

Then, they waved their red and white maple leaf flags and sang the national anthem “O Canada” with passion and rousing volume.

On finishing, they burst into loud cheering and the maple leaves waved again.

The effort helped rouse the spirits of the protesters on what was a very cold winter’s day, as the morning temperature was on its way down to -10 degrees Celsius (14 degrees Fahrenheit) and snow was being whipped around in the air by a gusty wind.

Epoch Times Photo
Protesters enjoying the music played during the blockade on Feb.12, 2022, in Ottawa, Canada. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)
Epoch Times Photo
Protesters on Wellington St near Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Feb. 12, 2022. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)
Epoch Times Photo
Children at the protest in Ottawa, Canada, on Feb. 12, 2022. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)

Denis Cadieux, a carpenter from Orleans, told The Epoch Times that he liked almost everything about the protests and the way people had behaved.

. . .

“We won’t win everybody, but honestly, I think this is great.”

He added that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and “the mainstream news had made it sound like we are disrupting the economy, but actually, it is their delays in not sitting down to speak with us that are disrupting the economy.”

Electrified Crowd

Epoch Times Photo
Protesters in Ottawa, Canada, on Feb. 12, 2022. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)

The mass gathering on Feb. 12 had a carnival atmosphere along Wellington St., near Parliament Hill, and spirits were sent soaring as people stood and sang along in unity with a very well received song list.

Speeches were made throughout the day, during which key words and phrases—such as freedom—earned cheers and whistles from the packed-in crowd.

Regular cries of “Freedom” were screamed out and answered in similar fashion, while vehicles with national emblems fluttering above their flatbeds honked their horns as they cruised the snow-covered streets.

Epoch Times Photo
Thousands of people joined the mandate protesters in Ottawa on Feb. 12, 2022. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)
Epoch Times Photo
A protester with a sign in Ottawa on Feb. 12, 2022. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)
Epoch Times Photo
Happy to be here. Flag waving Canadians in Ottawa on Feb. 12, 2022. (Richard Moore/The Epoch Times)

 

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Elections Back Door Power Grab Corruption Politics Reprints from others. The Courts

Biden Administration Urges Court Not to Allow Release of ‘Secret Report’ on Dominion Voting Machines

Views: 55

JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images

Top officials at a U.S. federal cybersecurity agency are urging a judge not to authorize at this time the release of a report that analyzes Dominion Voting Systems equipment in Georgia, arguing doing so could assist hackers trying to “undermine election security.”

WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 10: Jen Easterly, nominee to be the Director of the Homeland Security Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, testifies during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on June 10, 2021 in Washington, DC. Easterly will be responsible for overseeing the defense of national cyber attacks. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) was recently provided an unredacted copy of the report, which was prepared by J. Alex Halderman, director of the University of Michigan Center for Computer Security and Society.

The report discusses “potential vulnerabilities in Dominion ImageCast X ballot marking devices,” or electronic voting devices, according to the government.

While CISA supports public disclosure of any vulnerabilities and associated mitigation measures with election equipment, allowing the release of the report at this point “increases the risk that malicious actors may be able to exploit any vulnerabilities and threaten election security,” government lawyers said in a Feb. 10 filing in the case.

The case was brought in 2017 by good-government groups and voters who say the lack of paper ballots undermines the voting process.

U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg, an Obama nominee overseeing the case, was urged by CISA to reject attempts to release a redacted version of Halderman’s report for now.

CISA officials want to review the information in the report and help Dominion resolve the vulnerabilities identified before the report is released. They said they weren’t able to provide a date by which they’ll be finished.

Totenberg must weigh the request against the wishes of Georgia Secretary State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican and one of the defendants, who called in late January for the release to happen immediately.

John Poulos, Dominion’s CEO and president, said in a statement released by Raffensperger’s office that Halderman’s review lacked “a holistic approach,” adding that Dominion “supports all efforts to bring real facts and evidence forward to defend the integrity of our machines and the credibility of Georgia’s elections.”

Plaintiffs, including the Coalition for Good Governance, also support the release of the report, David Cross, one of their lawyers, confirmed to The Epoch Times.

The plaintiffs said in a filing before a copy was sent to CISA that the agency should get a copy and begin its evaluation process, but that the evaluation “should not unreasonably delay the public disclosure of the report, which must be promptly disclosed to Georgia state and county election officials, and filed on the public docket, so that public officials can secure the upcoming May primary elections.”

They asked Totenberg to order them to file a redacted version of the report on the docket, which would make it accessible to the public, no later than March 4. Original Here

In other words the “Biden” administration doesn’t want a computer savvy group to prove home the election was tampered with via compromised voting machines.

But they probably don’t need to worry. After all, the Fulton County people who were caught on their own CCTV pulling ballots from under a table and running ballots through the machines multiple times have yet to be prosecuted.

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Corruption Crime How sick is this? Politics The Courts

Law Licenses Suspended for McCloskeys, Who Held Off Protesters Outside Their Home

Views: 39

Mark and Patricia McCloskey leave following a court hearing in St. Louis on Oct. 14, 2020. (Jeff Roberson/AP Photo)Mark and Patricia McCloskey leave following a court hearing in St. Louis on Oct. 14, 2020.

By Matthew Vadum for EPOCH TIMES February 10, 2022

The Missouri Supreme Court has indefinitely suspended the law licenses of a Missouri couple convicted of misdemeanors for holding guns outside of their St. Louis home in 2020, when a group of protesters, including Black Lives Matter activists, demonstrated in their gated community.

Armed homeowners Mark T. and Patricia N. McCloskey stand in front their house as they confront protesters marching to St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson’s house on June 28, 2020. The protesters called for Krewson’s resignation for releasing the names and addresses of residents who suggested defunding the police department. (Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

At the same time, the court stayed the suspension, subject to a year of probation during which the two attorneys—who have become folk heroes among conservatives—must “not engage in conduct that violates the Rules of Professional Conduct.”

For defending their home, Mark and Patricia McCloskey were honored speakers at the 2020 Republican National Convention. Mark McCloskey is currently running for the U.S. Senate as a Republican.

Although the McCloskeys, who were pardoned after their convictions by Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, argued that they were justified in holding firearms outside of their home to dissuade the crowd, which they said meant them harm, local prosecutors disagreed.

The case, which involved prosecutorial misconduct, received national media attention.

Kimberly Gardner, a Democrat and St. Louis’s first black chief prosecutor, who has accused local police of racism, was removed from the case in December 2020 by Circuit Judge Thomas Clark II for using the incident in inflammatory campaign fundraising emails that were sent out days before the McCloskeys were charged. Clark ruled that Gardner’s behavior raised “the appearance of impropriety” and jeopardized the defendants’ right to a fair trial, National Public Radio reported.

Leftist financier George Soros, whose philanthropy funded groups that were involved in the violent protests following the 2014 death of black teenager Michael Brown in nearby Ferguson, Missouri, also contributed to Gardner’s campaign through his political organizations as part of a “rogue prosecutors” campaign to elect soft-on-crime district attorneys, Capital Research Center found, according to the Washington Times. Critics say that these radical prosecutors have caused crime rates to escalate in communities across the country.

The Black Lives Matter activists who appeared outside of the McCloskeys’ home were marching to the home of the St. Louis mayor to protest the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, a black man whose death sparked violent protests nationwide. Nine protesters involved in the incident were charged with misdemeanor trespassing, but the charges were later dropped.

The McCloskeys said at the time that their actions “were borne solely of fear and apprehension” at the presence of the mob on a private street.

Under court rules, the fact that Mark and Patricia McCloskey were each convicted of a “misdemeanor offense involving moral turpitude” requires them to be disciplined, Chief Justice Paul C. Wilson wrote in twin orders on Feb. 8.

Moral turpitude is a legal term describing “wicked, deviant behavior constituting an immoral, unethical, or unjust departure from ordinary social standards such that it would shock a community,” according to the Legal Information Institute.

Mark McCloskey entered a guilty plea on June 17, 2021, to a “class A misdemeanor of harassment in the second degree,” Wilson wrote (pdf). He was fined $750. Patricia McCloskey entered a guilty plea on the same day to a “class C misdemeanor of assault in the fourth degree,” the chief justice wrote (pdf). She was fined $2,000.

The couple had originally been charged with felony-level unlawful use of a weapon, although prosecutors reached a plea deal with them to reduce the severity of the charges.

Alan Pratzel, the court’s chief disciplinary officer, previously moved to have their law licenses suspended. He said what the couple did showed “indifference to public safety” and involved “moral turpitude.”

Pratzel acknowledged that the governor’s pardons erased the McCloskeys’ convictions, but said in such cases “the person’s guilt remains,” as The Epoch Times previously reported.

Patricia McCloskey told local media that she was “disappointed the Supreme Court found it appropriate to discipline us.”

“I think what we did was certainly not an act of moral turpitude,” she said.

She noted that they’ll both comply with the probation conditions.

Katabella Roberts contributed to this article.

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Back Door Power Grab Corruption Elections How sick is this?

The Media (and McConnell and Romney) Are Distorting Republican Censure of Cheney, Kinzinger (A twofer)

Views: 30

 

Ronna McDaniel Posted: Feb 08, 2022 (RNC Chairman)

If corporate news media wants to know why Americans don’t trust it anymore, they should look no further than the shameful, outrageous, and patently false coverage of the resolution adopted by the RNC to censure Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger.

Let me be abundantly clear: as Chairman of the RNC, I have repeatedly condemned the violence that occurred at the Capitol on January 6th and do so again today. On January 6, 2021 , the members of the RNC released a statement that read, “These violent scenes we have witnessed do not represent acts of patriotism, but an attack on our country and its founding principles.” I tweeted that the violence was “shameful” and condemned it in the strongest possible terms.

The events of that day are deeply personal to me and our team as the FBI found a bomb outside of RNC headquarters that afternoon, and I will never forget what it felt like to know that my staff was in immediate danger. Violence has no place in our political discourse, period, and those who engaged in violence on January 6th and committed crimes should be held accountable with due process by the appropriate law enforcement authorities and prosecutors.

But the awful events of that day do not justify Cheney or Kinzinger enabling a partisan committee whose real purpose seems to be helping Democrats’ electoral prospects at the cost of potentially ruining innocent people’s lives. From the outset, the committee has lacked the legitimacy of past independent, bipartisan efforts investigating events of national importance. For starters, Republican leadership was not allowed to freely appoint a single Republican to the committee.  Instead, Cheney and Kinzinger were hand-picked by Nancy Pelosi. 

The January 6 Committee predictably has now vastly exceeded its original purpose and morphed into something else entirely, investigating Republicans who had nothing to do with January 6 for the apparent offense of being Republican. Under the Committee’s approach, almost anything related to the 2020 election is within the scope of its jurisdiction, to include harassing citizens who were not even in Washington, DC that day.

Nancy Pelosi’s committee – which the New York Times says “is employing techniques more common in criminal cases than in congressional inquiries” – has no authority to pursue criminal charges, is not respecting the rights of private citizens and has disregarded due process and checks and balances. Last month, reports showed that 90 percent of the committee’s subpoenas have been delivered to people who weren’t even at the Capitol on January 6th. That is political posturing, not pursuing justice. Even an individual on trial has the right to face a jury of his peers, but those being called in front of the committee are faced with a hostile kangaroo court that reached a conclusion long before even asking a question.

This includes individuals like one of the RNC’s members who was subpoenaed because, weeks before January 6th, she served as an alternate elector pending the outcome of ongoing lawsuits – an action with clear legal precedent which Democrats themselves have done in the past. Now she could face costly legal bills even though she was nowhere near the Capitol on January 6th and had nothing to do with the violence that occurred.

Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger are cheapening the events of January 6th by participating in Nancy Pelosi’s partisan committee. The Senate has already completed one investigation into January 6th, and there are multiple ongoing active law enforcement investigations into what happened that day. These are the correct avenues for investigation.

I firmly believe we are the big tent party, and that disagreement amongst Republicans is welcome and can make us stronger. But what Cheney and Kinzinger are engaged in goes much further than any policy disagreement. These two have permitted their party affiliation to be weaponized to allow the Democrats gross overreach and abuse of power. In short, they never should have agreed to be part of a committee where Republicans were denied representation.

As I have repeatedly stated, violence is not legitimate political discourse – whether in the U.S. Capitol or in Democrat-run cities across the country – and neither is abusing Congress’ investigatory powers for political gain. Media outlets pretending that the RNC believes otherwise are doing so in bad faith, and their lies should be called out for the cheap political stunts they are.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/02/mcconnell-calls-jan-6-violent-insurrection-says-rnc-shouldnt-censured-cheney-kinzinger-video/

Last week the RNC voted to censure RINO Reps Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for sitting on the January 6 panel.

The censure resolution alleged Cheney and Kinzinger were “participating in a Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse.”

Mitt Romney threw a fit last week after the RNC censured the two RINOs.

On Tuesday, McConnell joined Romney and said the RNC had no business “singling out members of our party who may have different views from the majority.”

McConnell also took issue with the RNC’s claim January 6 was “legitimate political discourse.”

“We all were here. We saw what happened,” McConnell said in response to a question from CNN’s Manu Raju. “It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election, from one administration to the next. That’s what it was.”

McConnell Calls Jan. 6 a “Violent Insurrection” and Says RNC Shouldn’t Have Censured Cheney, Kinzinger (VIDEO)

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Back Door Power Grab Corruption Crime How sick is this? Politics

Bill introduced to side step budgets, fund CDC to conduct anti-gun research

Celtic Diary Celts Stutter…and SFA Are At It Again-eTims.

Views: 24

By John Petrolino | Feb 08, 2022 

 

Ed. NOTE: I  am not a rabid gun-freak. For many years the only gun I owed was an heirloom .22 revolver that had belonged to my grandfather. That changed several years ago when a lunatic with a felony record, and who knew where I lived, threatened to kill me — and several others. I now have a 9mm. I generally don’t carry, although I do have a CCW.  This article drew my ire. And it should yours, too. TPR

One of the fun myths we keep getting fed is that the gun industry is the only industry that cannot be sued for damages. Those of us who are keenly aware of what the law is and how it reads, knows that’s not true. Firearm manufacturers can’t be sued for the misuse of their products, just as Ford can’t be sued if their vehicle was involved in a drunk driving incident (or Johnnie Walker for that matter). Another fantastic false fact that flies out of the mouths of the anti-freedom caucus members is that the CDC is cut off from funding on studying so-called “gun violence”. This is a little prestidigitation being  played with words, as the facts get shoved up the pinko sleeves’ of our “honest” congresscritters. A newly reintroduced bill seeks to address this “problem”. On February 2, 2022 H.R. 6575: Protecting Americans from Gun Violence Act of 2022 was reintroduced by Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez from New York.

What does the bill aim to do? In essence it will levy a one dollar fee for every NICS check completed, with the first $10,000,000 going directly to the CDC for the purposes of “…carrying out subsection (a), the Secretary shall conduct or support research described in such subsection relating to gun violence.”

From the bill text:

(1)When, pursuant to section 922(t) of this title, a licensee under this chapter is first required to contact the national instant criminal background check system established under section 103 of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act about a person with respect to a transaction involving one or more firearms, but before contacting the system, the licensee shall—

(A)charge and collect from the person a fee in an amount equal to $1, regardless of the number of firearms involved in the transaction;

(B)provide the person with a timestamped receipt acknowledging receipt of the fee from the person; and

(C)maintain a written or electronic record of the transaction and the timestamped receipt for 3 years.

(2)Not later than the end of the calendar quarter in which a licensee collects a fee under paragraph (1), the licensee shall transmit the amount of the fee to the Attorney General, who shall remit the amount to the Secretary of the Treasury.

 

[…]

 

(1)The first $10,000,000 shall be available, without further appropriation, to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to carry out section 391(c) of the Public Health Service Act, as added by section 3.

(2)The next $5,000,000 shall be available, without further appropriation, to the Attorney General, for the operation and maintenance of the national instant criminal background check system established under section 103 of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.

(3)The remainder shall be available, without further appropriation, to the Attorney General for such activities of the Office for Victim Assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as the Attorney General deems appropriate.

There’s also a section with further enhanced penalties involving lost or stolen firearms involved in interstate commerce etc. People will be subjected to the following penalty:

…shall be fined $10,000, imprisoned not more than 1 year, or both, with respect to each firearm involved in the violation.

There was not a whole lot of information on this bill being newly reintroduced. A prior version of it was introduced by Velázquez  on November 7, 2017. From that press release:

“The repeated lack of action on sensible gun control following mass shootings is unconscionable,” said Velázquez. “Last month, a deranged gunman in Las Vegas stole the lives from 59 innocent concert goers and injured hundreds of others. This weekend, 26 of our fellow citizens – ranging from children to seniors – lost their lives. Our collective outrage cannot be lost in the days following these shootings. Instead, we must take real, concrete action to crack down on illegal sales of guns. For this reason, I have introduced two new bills that take modest but meaningful steps to reduce the scourge of gun violence.”

Velázquez’s first bill, the Protecting Americans from Gun Violence Act of 2017, establishes a new fee on gun sales. The Act requires that a $1 fee be collected following every registered background check. In turn, revenue from this tax will help fund research to prevent gun violence and to preserve the operation of background checks. Specifically, the first $10 million collected through the tax would go to fund gun research at the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) is a vital part of preventing those that should not have access to guns from obtaining them. However, as seen in the recent Texas shooting, there are gaps in the system. In Texas, the gunman’s past criminal record should have prohibited him from passing a background check. To help address these gaps, the Act would provide $5 million to explore these deficiencies and strengthen the NICS system.

“For two decades, the NRA and their weapons manufacturing patrons have suppressed funding to study gun violence like the public health epidemic that it is,” said Velázquez. “While much more is needed beyond studies, closing the gap in data on gun violence will be an important step toward addressing the overarching problem. Equally important, under this bill, the research will be funded by the purchasers and sellers of firearms.  Those who buy and sell these instruments of death should pay for the research examining their impact.”

The press release is oozing with that quality bogeyman allegations casting the NRA as an enemy of the state. What Velázquez and the other lying ilk in her camp continually leave out is that the subject of so-called “gun violence” can be studied by the CDC, however that research is not to be used to enact any freedom squishing “gun control” laws. The progressives are kind of tipping their hand on this one. They’re basically saying “We don’t want the money unless we can use it to strip away peoples’ rights.” The NRA advocating for this would be like a turkey donating resources to someone finding the best Thanksgiving day recipe to use.

What will come of this bill? Probably not a whole lot. However, we can see the workarounds that those in power are willing to utilize in order to disarm Americans.

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Corruption How sick is this? Politics

Here we go again: Biden DHS Declares Heightened Terrorism Threat

Views: 33

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Department of Homeland Security emblem is pictured at the National Cybersecurity & Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) located just outside Washington in Arlington, Virginia September 24, 2010. REUTERS/Hyungwon Kang
By Jack Phillips for EPOCH TIMES  February 8, 2022

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Feb. 7 declared a heightened terrorism threat due to “false and misleading narratives,” misinformation, and “conspiracy theories.”

“The United States remains in a heightened threat environment fueled by several factors, including an online environment filled with false or misleading narratives and conspiracy theories, and other forms of mis- dis- and mal-information introduced and/or amplified by foreign and domestic threat actors,” the DHS bulletin said.

The agency did not say what foreign or domestic actors are responsible for the alleged proliferation of misinformation or disinformation.

“Mass casualty attacks and other acts of targeted violence conducted by lone offenders and small groups acting in furtherance of ideological beliefs and/or personal grievances pose an ongoing threat to the nation,” the DHS continued, adding that some individuals are seeking to “sow discord or undermine public trust in U.S. government institutions.”

Some individuals, the bulletin alleged, are calling for violence against critical infrastructure, faith-based institutions like churches or synagogues, colleges, government personnel or facilities, and other targets.

As an example of key factors that allegedly contribute to the heightened threat environment, the DHS said there are misleading narratives surrounding COVID-19 and claimed that some individuals have used COVID-19 mandates or vaccines to carry out attacks since 2020. The agency did not elaborate or provide additional evidence for its allegations. The DHS also listed online claims of election fraud as a contributor, and it also did not provide additional details or evidence.

The agency said that “foreign terrorist organizations and domestic threat actors continue to amplify pre-existing false or misleading narratives online to sow discord and undermine public trust in government institutions. It said violent extremists, including the individual who recently launched an attack against the synagogue in Texas, highlight “the continuing threat of violence based upon racial or religious motivations, as well as threats against faith-based organizations.”

The ISIS terrorist group and its affiliates “may issue public calls for retaliation due to the strike that recently killed ISIS leader Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi,” the bulletin said. The Biden administration announced last week that al-Qurayshi was killed during a raid in northern Syria.

The bulletin also made note of alleged recent threats to black colleges and universities across the United States.

“Domestic violent extremists have also viewed attacks against U.S. critical infrastructure as a means to create chaos and advance ideological goals, and have recently aspired to disrupt U.S. electric and communications critical infrastructure, including by spreading false or misleading narratives about 5G cellular technology,” the bulletin continued.

The DHS said the heightened threat alert will expire on June 7, 2022.

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Categories
Corruption Drugs How sick is this? Science

More Outrage: Congress Investigating Claims of NIH Funding Cruel Experiments Injecting Puppies with Cocaine

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The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is facing a congressional probe after reports emerged alleging the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) spent millions of taxpayer dollars on a cruel experiment, injecting beagle puppies with cocaine.

The non-profit watchdog organization White Coat Waste Project (WCW) reported on another cruel experiment allegedly funded by taxpayers. According to WCW’s findings, via a Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] request, “seven 6-month-old beagle puppies were trained to wear a jacket” which “served a cruel purpose: to inject the animal wearing it with drugs.” Puppies were then dosed with cocaine repeatedly “for months” with what WCW described as an “‘experimental compound,’ to see how the two drugs interacted”:

The experiment, which ran from September 2020 to September 2021 (with a report due May 2022), was filmed, so experimenters could see if the puppies had any “adverse reactions” to the drugs. Prior to being drugged, the dogs were also forced to undergo surgery, where they were implanted with a “telemetry unit” to monitor their vital signs throughout the experiment.

That was not the only experiment, either:

A second experiment, which ran from March 2020 until March 2021, also used special jackets to inject beagles with cocaine. Six puppies were used in these experiments.

Why do the same experiment twice? Why even do it once? We don’t know — but what we do know is that you’re footing the bill. These two experiments cost taxpayers over $2.3 million dollars.

According to WCW, researchers either killed the “coke hounds” after the experiment or shipped them away to be used for other experiments:

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is now leading the investigation into these allegations, sending a letter to Nora D. Volkow, director of NIDA, informing her of their concerns.

“The documents state that the supposed purpose of these cocaine experiments on puppies was to generate a report that ‘may be submitted by NIDA to the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration].’ However, the FDA itself has recently indicated that it ‘does not mandate that human drugs be studied in dogs,’” they wrote, citing the reporting from WCW as well as the revelations made by the FOIA requests.

“Nevertheless, despite the FDA’s assertion, these NIDA documents state that, ‘this study is required by a relevant government regulatory agency,’” the lawmakers, led by Reps. Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Brendan Boyle (D-PA), continued.

“We are concerned that NIDA is spending tax dollars on dog testing that is cruel, costly, outdated and that the FDA has claimed is unnecessary,” they wrote, requesting her answers to the following questions by February 16, 2022:

  • How much taxpayer money has been spent on dog testing under contract number HHSN271201800019I to date?
  • Has all dog testing being conducted under contract HHSN271201800019I been completed? If so, on what date? If not, what dog tests are still ongoing or scheduled?
  • Since the FDA has stated that it does not require dog testing for new drugs, why did NIDA commission testing on puppies specifically?
  • What, if anything, did NIDA do to work with the FDA to explore non-animal alternatives to meet data requirements? Please describe in detail.

This is far from the first time the NIH has come under scrutiny for cruel puppy experiments. In October, reports surfaced accusing Dr. Anthony Fauci’s division of the NIH, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), of partially funding an experiment allowing hungry, diseased sandflies to eat beagle puppies alive. However, the Washington Post later stated that researchers “mistakenly listed NIAID as a funder when they published a paper in a scientific journal in late July,” prompting the journal to issue a correction October 26. WCW spokesman Justin Goodman, however, referred to the explanation as all “too convenient.”

WCW also obtained FOIA documents which found the NIAID funding an experiment “which involved injecting puppies with a mutant bacteria and allowing hundreds of ticks to feast upon them,” as Breitbart News detailed.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/02/07/congress-investigating-claims-nih-funding-cruel-experiments-injecting-puppies-cocaine/

 

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California State Lawmaker Proposes Universal Basic Income Test Program for Poor College Students

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California state Democrat senator Dave Cortese. (California State Senate)
By Matthew Vadum for Epoch Times  February 6, 2022

A California state lawmaker wants the government to give $500 a month to impoverished college students as a test for a controversial kind of social program known as universal basic income (UBI).

Legislation that would create the program may be introduced later this month by Democrat Dave Cortese, a state senator who represents part of Silicon Valley.

The measure would “establish a UBI pilot program at 3-5 [California State University campuses],” according to a summary Cortese provided to reporters.

The pilot program would cover about “9,500-14,000 eligible student participants,” and “the total cost for the proposal would range between $57 million and $84 million, excluding minimal administrative costs.”

“College students are couch surfing and sleeping in their cars. This could be enough money to rent a room, and if you don’t need a room, by all means, use it for what you do need it for,” Cortese told The Los Angeles Times.

“It’s like a booster shot. It could help get them off of this treadmill and stop them from dropping out, being on the streets, and becoming homeless long term.”

Cortese could not be reached over the weekend to elaborate on his proposal.

George Kamel, of Ramsey Solutions, a financial consultancy, told The College Fix that Cortese’s proposal was “not a solution to the actual problem.”

“Giving up to 14,000 students $500 a month is not going to change what caused the problem. In fact, costing the state $57-84 million over 3-5 years will add to the problem,” he said, adding that UBI “only works when the people receiving the money actually use the income to lift themselves out of poverty.”

“All students, not just low-income students, should avoid the traps of student loans and the outrageous cost of higher education,” he said.

Support for UBI programs, in which a simple cash payment is made to every citizen without other requirements or restrictions, surfaces periodically in the United States, a country that is traditionally more hostile to government-funded welfare programs than European nations.

Liberals have been pushing the idea of giving people money for doing nothing for years and the idea has popped up recently on the campaign trail as Democratic candidates compete for their party’s 2020 presidential nomination. Republican President Richard Nixon flirted with the idea in 1969, supporting legislation that would have paid $1,600 annually to a family of four, but the bill never made it out of Congress. In the 1960s and early 1970s, New Jersey and Pennsylvania experimented with such income maintenance programs.

Last year Oakland, Calif., launched Oakland Resilient Families, which it described as one of the largest guaranteed income pilot programs in the United States. The pilot, a collaborative effort between Oakland-based nonprofit UpTogether and the national organization, Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, will provide 600 low-income families with $500 per month for an 18-month period.

“Poverty is not a personal failure, it is a policy failure,” Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, a Democrat, said at the time. “Guaranteed income presents one of the most promising tools for systems change, racial equity, and economic mobility we’ve seen in decades,” she said, adding evidence is growing to justify a federally guaranteed income program.

According to the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income Research, various UBI programs have been tested or are currently being tested or planned in: New Orleans; Ulster County and New York City, N.Y.; Stockton and Los Angeles, Calif.; St. Paul, Minn.; Richmond, Va.; Columbia, S.C.; Gary, Ind.; Paterson, N.J.; and Cambridge, Mass. The center is participating in creating some of the programs.

UBI programs don’t work well in the real world, according to a 2019 study by a left-wing global trade union federation that The Epoch Times previously reported on.

The report by the France-based global trade union federation Public Services International and U.K.-based New Economics Foundation think tank, concluded “making cash payments to individuals to increase their purchasing power in a free-market economy is not a viable route to solving problems caused or exacerbated by neoliberal market economics.”

Pressing for UBI, which some claim is a “silver bullet,” wastes political energies that could be better used on “more important causes,” stated the report, which also found there was no evidence that UBI has achieved durable improvements in well-being anywhere it has been tried. There is no evidence that such programs “can be affordable, inclusive, sufficient and sustainable at the same time.”

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