Author: Phoenix

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Corruption Economy Elections Politics

‘The brand is so toxic’: Democrats fear extinction in rural Pennsylvania and across the country

“The hatred for Democrats is just unbelievable. I feel like we’re on the run.”

  • By Steve Peoples/The Associated Press

(Smethport) —  Some Democrats here in rural Pennsylvania are afraid to tell you they’re Democrats.

The party’s brand is so toxic in the small towns 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh that some liberals have removed bumper stickers and yard signs and refuse to acknowledge their party affiliation publicly. These Democrats are used to being outnumbered by the local Republican majority, but as their numbers continue to dwindle, the few that remain are feeling increasingly isolated and unwelcome in their own communities.

“The hatred for Democrats is just unbelievable,” said Tim Holohan, an accountant based in rural McKean County who recently encouraged his daughter to get rid of a pro-Joe Biden bumper sticker. “I feel like we’re on the run.”

The climate across rural Pennsylvania is symptomatic of a larger political problem threatening the Democratic Party ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. Beyond losing votes in virtually every election since 2008, Democrats have been effectively ostracized from many parts of rural America, leaving party leaders with few options to reverse a cultural trend that is redefining the nation’s political landscape.

The shifting climate helped Republicans limit Democratic gains in 2020 — the GOP actually gained House seats despite former President Donald Trump’s loss — and a year later, surging Republican rural support enabled Republicans to claim the Virginia governorship. A small but vocal group of party officials now fears the same trends will undermine Democratic candidates in Ohio, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, states that will help decide the Senate majority in November, and the White House two years after that.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party continues to devote the vast majority of its energy, messaging and resources to voters in more populated urban and suburban areas.

In Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a leading candidate in the state’s high-stakes Senate contest, insists his party can no longer afford to ignore rural voters. The former small-town mayor drove his black Dodge Ram pickup truck across five rural counties last weekend to face voters who almost never see statewide Democratic candidates.

Fetterman, wearing his signature hooded sweatshirt and gym shorts despite the freezing temperatures, described himself as a champion for “the forgotten, the marginalized and the left-behind places” as he addressed roughly 100 people inside a bingo hall in McKean County, a place Trump carried with 72% of the vote in 2020.

“These are the kind of places that matter just as much as any other place,” Fetterman said as the crowd cheered.

The Democratic Party’s struggle in rural America has been building for years. And it’s getting worse.

Barack Obama won 875 counties nationwide in his overwhelming 2008 victory. Twelve years later, Biden won only 527. The vast majority of those losses — 260 of the 348 counties — took place in rural counties, according to data compiled by The Associated Press.

The worst losses were concentrated in the Midwest: 21 rural counties in Michigan flipped from Obama in 2008 to Trump in 2020; Democrats lost 28 rural counties in Minnesota, 32 in Wisconsin and a whopping 45 in Iowa. At the same time, recent Republican voter registration gains in swing states like Florida and North Carolina were fueled disproportionately by rural voters.

Biden overcame rural losses to beat Trump in 2020 because of gains in more populous Democratic counties. Perhaps because of his victory, some Democratic officials worry that party leaders do not appreciate the severity of the threat.

Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee, who recently announced he would not seek reelection to Congress this fall, warns that the party is facing extinction in small-town America.

“It’s hard to sink lower than we are right now. You’re almost automatically a pariah in rural areas if you have a D after your name,” Cooper told The Associated Press.

Democratic candidate for the Pennsylvania U.S.senate seat in the 2022 primary election, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, center, talks with people during a campaign stop at the Mechanistic Brewery, in Clarion, Pa., Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022.

Keith Srakocic / AP Photo

Democratic candidate for the Pennsylvania U.S.senate seat in the 2022 primary election, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, center, talks with people during a campaign stop at the Mechanistic Brewery, in Clarion, Pa., Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022.

Even if Democrats continue to eke out victories by piling up urban and suburban votes, former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota fears her party will have “unstable majorities” if they cannot stop the bleeding in rural areas.

“Democrats have the House, they have the Senate, the presidency, but it’s an unstable majority. By that, I mean, the narrowest kind, making it difficult to advance ideas and build coalitions,” said Heitkamp, who now heads the One Country Project, which is focused on engaging rural voters.

She criticized her party’s go-to strategy for reaching rural voters: focusing on farmers and vowing to improve high-speed internet. At the same time, she said Democrats are hurting themselves by not speaking out more forcefully against far-left positions that alienate rural voters, such as the push to “defund the police.”

While only a handful of Democrats in Congress support stripping such money from police departments, for example, conservative media popular in rural communities — particularly Fox News — amplifies such positions.

“We’re letting Republicans use the language of the far left to define the Democratic Party, and we can’t do that,” Heitkamp said. “The trend lines in rural America are very, very bad. … Now, the brand is so toxic that people who are Democrats, the ones left, aren’t fighting for the party.”

To help win back rural voters, the Democratic National Committee has tapped Kylie Oversen, a former North Dakota state legislator, to work with rural organizers and state party rural caucuses as the chair of the national committee’s rural council. The DNC also says it’s sharing resources with people on the ground in rural areas to help improve training, recruiting and organizing.

So far, at least, those resources are not making life any easier for Democrats in northwestern Pennsylvania.

At one of Fetterman’s weekend stops in rural Clarion, a group of voters said they’ve been effectively ostracized by their community — and even family members, in some cases — for being Democrats. One woman brings her political signs inside at night so they aren’t vandalized or stolen.

Eugenia Barboza, 22, talks about being a college student and politics while living in a small town, Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022. in Clarion, Pa.

Keith Srakocic / AP Photo

Eugenia Barboza, 22, talks about being a college student and politics while living in a small town, Saturday, Feb. 12, 2022. in Clarion, Pa. The Democratic Party’s brand is so toxic in some parts of rural America that liberals are removing bumper stickers and refusing to acknowledge their party affiliation publicly.

“You have to be careful around here,” said Barbara Speer, 68, a retired sixth grade teacher.

Nearby, Michelle’s Cafe on Clarion’s main street is one of the few gathering points for local Democrats. A sign on the door proclaims support for Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ rights and other progressive priorities.

But the cafe owner, 33-year-old Kaitlyn Nevel, isn’t comfortable sharing her political affiliation when asked.

“I would rather not say, just because it’s a small town,” she said.

One patron, 22-year-old college student Eugenia Barboza, said the cafe is one of the few places in town she feels safe as a Latina immigrant. Just down the road, she said, a caravan of Trump supporters met up to drive to the deadly protests in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.

Barboza said she’s grateful that Democrats like Fetterman are willing to come to rural areas, but she isn’t hopeful that it’ll change much.

“It would take a lot more than just him,” she said. “It would take years and years and years.”

Well gee, they brought it on themselves, didn’t they?

 

Categories
Just my own thoughts Uncategorized

“Gig-Speed WiFi” ? HA! False advertising.

For the past few months, Comcast — the major internet provider in my area — has been advertising “Gig-speed” WiFi connectivity.

They claim you can run multiple wireless devices at the same time without interfering or slowing things down.

Well, I have the necessary equipment, and I’m paying for it. But am I getting what I’m paying for?

When I test the ETHERNET speeds — using PC Magazine’s Speed tester https://pcm-intl.speedtestcustom.com/ — at all times of the day and night I can’t get above 650 MEG/s. And that is on Comcast’s own server located 100 miles away. Of the other three choices offered to test, the closest one to me (~15 miles) couldn’t even crack 500 Mb/sec!

So, if I can’t get “Gig-speed” over the cable, how can they claim I can get it over a wireless connection?

How they do it is with the old “your results may vary” trick. In this case it’s worded thusly: “Speed not guaranteed.”

Now, I can understand some throughput speed degradation during busy times, but ALL the time?

What’s interesting is that the UP load speeds for all tests remain remarkable similar, no matter which connection/provider I was testing.

Verdict: FALSE ADVERTISING.

Categories
Biden Pandemic Child Abuse Corruption COVID Drugs Politics

FDA Official Says US Government Plans to Push Annual COVID-19 Shots

In this still image from undercover video footage, Ryan Cole, an executive officer at the Food and Drug Administration, speaks about vaccines. (Courtesy of Project Veritas)

By Zachary Stieber for The Epoch Times February 17, 2022

An executive officer at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in a newly released video that President Joe Biden’s administration plans to push annual COVID-19 vaccine shots.

Christopher Cole, executive officer of the medical countermeasures initiative at the FDA, made the comments to the journalism group Project Veritas.

“Biden wants to inoculate as many people as possible,” Cole told an undercover reporter with the group. “You’ll have to get an annual shot. I mean, it hasn’t been formally announced yet because they don’t want to rile everyone up,” he said.

Right now, all Americans 5 and older are advised to get a two-dose primary regimen of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines. All Americans 12 or older are also advised to get at least one booster dose five months after their second shot.

Cole said that drug, food, and vaccine companies “pay us hundreds of millions of dollars a year to hire and keep the reviewers to approve their products.”

He also said that annual shots would become “a recurring fountain of revenue” for the vaccine makers, referring to them as Big Pharma.

“It might not be that much initially, but it’ll be recurring—if they can get every person requiring an annual vaccine, that is a recurring return of money going into their company,” he added.

Cole didn’t respond to requests for comment, including an email, a LinkedIn message, and a voicemail at his office.

An FDA spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email, “The person purportedly in the video does not work on vaccine matters and does not represent the views of the FDA.” The spokesperson didn’t respond to a followup question.

Cole later told Project Veritas that he is a manager in an office of the FDA that does not work on vaccines but that does help “oversee the approval of the COVID vaccines for emergency approval.”

Cole said his comments about having to get a COVID-19 vaccine annually was a comparison to how many Americans get a flu shot every year.

He also confirmed that he believes the FDA will ultimately grant emergency authorization for at least one vaccine for toddlers—the FDA delayed its decision on that front on Feb. 11—and that he is not in communication with the president, but “from what he’s said, he probably wants to inoculate more people than not.”

Cole said he was on a date when he made the remarks.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment and White House press secretary Jen Psaki didn’t address the matter during a briefing on Wednesday.

Biden and his administration have pushed virtually every American to get vaccinated, asserting its the best protection against COVID-19. They’ve also downplayed natural immunity, or protection enjoyed by people who recover from COVID-19, drawing criticism from some experts.

Dr. Robert Malone, who helped create the technology the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines are built on, described the Project Veritas video as a “smoking gun.”

“What we have is an agency that has been completely distorted by the huge amounts of capital that await all their employees once they leave their agency,” he said on Steve Bannon’s show. “They have a strong incentive to behave in these ways, to do whatever’s necessary to comport with the interests of Big Pharma, and now you’ve got a smoking gun, thanks to Project Veritas.”

Categories
Corruption Economy Politics

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

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.”

 

 

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

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

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.

Categories
Corruption Politics Reprints from others.

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

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)

 

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

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

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.

Categories
Corruption Crime How sick is this? Politics The Courts

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

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.

Categories
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)

 

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)

Categories
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.
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.