How Gun Control Became an Instrument of Tyranny in Venezuela

Is Venezuela paying the price for adopting gun control?

The shocking nature of Venezuela’s economic collapse has been covered ad nauseam. However, one aspect of the Venezuelan crisis that does not receive much coverage is the country’s gun control regime.

Fox News recently published an excellent article highlighting Venezuelan citizens’ regret over the gun control policies the Venezuelan government has implemented since 2012. Naturally, this regret is warranted. The Venezuelan government is among the most tyrannical in the world, with a proven track record of violating basic civil liberties such as free speech, debasing its national currency, confiscating private property, and creating economic controls that destroy the country’s productivity.

Elections have proven to be useless, as they’ve been mired with corruption and charges of government tampering. For many, taking up arms is the only option left for the country to shake off its tyrannical government. However, the Venezuelan government has done well to prevent an uprising by passing draconian gun control which will be detailed below.

Venezuela’s Lack of a Second Amendment Tradition

Historically speaking, Venezuela has never had a robust history of private gun ownership like that of the United States. The absence of a Second Amendment or check on the federal government’s monopoly on firearm usage is a vestige of its colonial legacy. Its Spanish colonial overlords did not possess a political culture of civilian firearms ownership. It was mostly the military and the landed nobility that held firearms throughout the colonial era. This tradition has persisted even after Latin American countries broke away from Spain in the 1820s.

Fast forward to the 20th century, Venezuela began its first attempts to modernize its gun policy. In 1939, the Venezuelan government enacted the Law on Arms and Explosives (Ley de Armas y Explosivos) which established the Venezuelan state’s monopoly on firearm usage. The state was the only entity that could possess “weapons of war” which include: canons, rifles, mortars, machine guns, sub-machine guns, carbines, pistols, and revolvers. Civilians could only possess .22 rifles and shotguns, and in certain circumstances could possess handguns provided that they obtained a license.

Progressive Ideas Role in Consolidating Venezuelan Statism

Ideas matter.

It’s no surprise that Venezuela embarked on this gun control escapade during the late 1930s. This was a period where statism was in vogue throughout the world as witnessed with the rise of Fascism and Communism in Europe. Even during the New Deal era, the US initiated its first foray into federal gun control with the passage of the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934. Despite its anti-gun policies, Venezuela at least maintained some semblance of limited government in economic affairs up until the 1970s.

However, the nationalization of its oil industry in the 1970s and the subsequent economic downturns of the 1980s and 1990s shook up Venezuela’s institutional foundations. The country was then ripe for a demagogic takeover.

Hugo Chavez’s Anti-Gun Agenda

When socialist strongman Hugo Chávez took power, not only was Venezuela’s previous gun control order kept intact, but it was also expanded upon. Article 324 of Venezuela’s current Constitution (the 26th in its history) maintained the State’s previous monopoly on firearms and placed the...

Mandatory Government Alerts On Smartphones, Civil Liberties, And The American Citizen As Enemy...

So I just got the below message on my iphone...

Apparently they have added Government alerts for Amber and Emergencies. I just wonder if there isn't just a little bit of NSA code embedded discretely in there somewhere. Our current administration seems much more interested in its own citizens than outside terror sources which we apparently cannot even now post on bus signs. 


So if the government can now "push" alerts out to you, can they now push a query out to your unique device id to gather data, such as your current location, recent phone calls, text messages and emails? 

There is a certain anonymity in big data, your data in a database of hundreds of millions maybe somewhat anonymous. However, given the current administration's propensity to target certain groups of individuals who least resemble sheep, their distrust of individuals who represent the most law abiding group in this country, their willingness to spy not on America's enemies, but citizens who disagree with their "vision" of change, how can we not be suspicious of government adding software to our smartphones? 

A smartphone is a powerful tool for both the individual and the government. The smartphone can be big brother; your location and usage can be known real time, they can listen in on your audio and even access your camera and watch you or perhaps just the inside of your pocket or purse.


We must set limits on what the government can do, they should not have access to this data, our civil rights and civil liberties are at stake, it is time that we just said "no" to this erosion of our privacy and rights.



More ways your civil liberties are eroding:

Public Buses Across Country Quietly Adding Microphones to Record Passenger Conversations

Government lawyers are trying to keep buried a classified court finding that a domestic spying program was unconstitutional government action.

With Obama's Approval, Congress Extends FISA Wireless Wiretapping Act To 2017

Big Brother: Feds Propose Tracking Black Boxes in All New Cars.

Latin Spring - First Brazil, now Chile turns red-hot with leftist redistributionist protest which turns violent (VIDEO)

See Video Here:

Union Activists, Students clash with riot police during a protest to demand Chilean President Sebastian Pinera's government to improve the public education quality, in Santiago, on June 26, 2013.(AFP Photo / Martin Bernetti)

Santiago police responded to hooded protesters in the Chilean capital with tear gas and water cannon, marring a largely peaceful demonstration by more than 100,000 students and union workers demanding fair distribution of wealth.

The violence began ahead of nationwide demonstrations on Wednesday when separate pocket of protesters hurled Molotov cocktails at a police station, prompting a police crackdown. The protesters also stormed a restaurant and used its chairs as barricades, tying up traffic along some of Santiago's busiest roads, AP reported.

Police arrested 102 people, while four officers were injured in the violence.

The Chilean government had strong words for the demonstrators.

"They are not students, they are criminals and extremists," Interior and Security Minister Andres Chadwick told a press conference. "They've acted in a coordinated and planned way to provoke these acts of violence."

Teachers, dock workers and copper miners joined students in the national protest, which was described as an effort to highlight social problems ahead of Sunday's presidential primaries.




Students clash with riot police during a protest to demand Chilean President Sebastian Pinera's government to improve the public education quality, in Santiago, on June 26, 2013.(AFP Photo / Martin Bernetti)

Chile, thanks to the largest copper mines in the world, has witnessed a surge in economic growth and investment, which the demonstrators say is not being used for the betterment of society as a whole. The South American country of some 17 million people is afflicted by severe income inequality, as well as a pricey education system that many say prevents the lower classes from moving up the social ladder.

Others say the wealthy should have to carry more of the tax burden.

"This has to do with discontent that is deeply rooted in many sectors of society. But we're the first ones to sympathize with people who are innocent victims of this violence, because there's no way to justify these types of clashes," Andres Fielbaum, president of the University of Chile student federation told state television.

Protests over what has been described as “educational apartheid” have plagued Chile over the last two years as the perception grows that the country’s education system gives the children of wealthy people access to some of the best schooling in Latin America. Meanwhile, the children of poor and middle-income families are placed in dilapidated, under-funded state schools.

The dispute over education reform is set to be a key issue ahead of the presidential elections scheduled for November 17.

A riot police officer throws a tear gas canister at students during a demonstration against the government tohanges in the public state education system in Valparaiso city, about 121 km (75 miles) northwest of Santiago, June 26, 2013.(Reuters / Eliseo Fernandez)

Students clash with riot police during a demonstration against the government to demand changes in the public state education system in Valparaiso city, about 121 km (75 miles) northwest of Santiago, June 26,  / Eliseo Fernandez)

Students clash with riot police during a protest to demand Chilean President Sebastian Pinera's government  improve the public education quality, in Santiago, on June 26, 2013.(AFP Photo / Martin Bernetti)

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The Chinese Communist Party’s ‘Hostage Diplomacy’ Has Backfired

A Pew Research survey of 14 advanced economies — including Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom — shows the free world's opinion of China is souring.

The Wall Street Journal recently disclosed that Chinese government officials have repeatedly warned their U.S. government counterparts: “The U.S. should drop prosecutions of the Chinese scholars in American courts, or Americans in China might find themselves in violation of Chinese law.” No other foreign government has ever made such blunt threats against U.S. citizens in such a fashion.

Beijing’s warning came after the U.S. Department of Justice charged several Chinese scholars with visa fraud in connection with a scheme of hiding their affiliations with China’s People’s Liberation Army so they could study, conduct research, and sometimes collect valuable intelligence in the United States.

The DOJ and FBI also allege the Chinese government has actively used China’s embassy and consulates in the United States to facilitate these schemes and offer protection for those involved — one of the main reasons that led to the U.S. government shutdown of the Chinese consulate in Houston.

All the Chinese scholars who were charged have received legal representations and gone through due process just like Americans who may fall into a similar situation. Nevertheless, as the Trump administration made these charges public, Beijing feels deeply humiliated. In response, Beijing issued threats to punish innocent Americans in China unless the Trump administration drops its charges against those Chinese scholars.

While our country should never cave to the Chinese Communist Party’s blackmail, since the CCP has either threatened or imposed similar “hostage diplomacy” on America’s allies such as Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom, any Americans in China should take the CCP’s threat seriously.

The CCP has been punishing Canberra ever since the Australian government pushed the World Health Organization to conduct an independent inquiry into the origin and the spread of COVID-19. Beijing first imposed an 80 percent tariff on Australia’s barley exports and suspended beef imports from four major meat processing plants in Australia.

Then, in August, Cheng Lei, an Australian citizen of Chinese descent who worked for China’s state media, China Global Television Network, disappeared in China. The Chinese government waited until September to acknowledge that Cheng was detained without being formally charged, but refused to disclose her whereabouts. It is unclear if Cheng has received any legal representation. Her family and friends suspect her arrest is part of CCP’s “hostage diplomacy,” aiming to intimidate the Australian government into abandoning the coronavirus-related inquiry.

A month after Cheng’s arrest, two other Australian journalists, Bill Birtles and Mike Smith, barely escaped China after a five-day diplomatic stand-off between Australia and China. Currently, there are no Australian journalists in mainland China because no one feels safe working there any longer.

Canada has also been on the receiving end of the CCP’s “hostage diplomacy.” In June, China officially charged two Canadian citizens, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, with espionage after detaining the two men for more than 18 months — all part of Beijing’s retaliation against Canada for arresting Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of China’s telecom giant Huawei and daughter of...

Former Trump aide: I was offered Clinton emails from govt. organization … Mueller shrugged at that info

Former Trump campaign adviser Michael Caputo dropped explosive new revelations about how special investigators didn’t seem to care about that a “contractor of the government agency” tried to give him Hillary Clinton-related emails.

Caputo, whose bombshell on Monday that he was approached by a second government informant while he was on the campaign for President Trump, added stunning new details on Fox News’ “Your World” on Tuesday.

“So you’re convinced there was more than one individual?” host Neil Cavuto asked.

“Absolutely, mostly because I was approached as well. But this time, what’s remarkable here to my approach is it happened in the first week of May in 2016. Very far off the timeline that the Mueller investigation and others are trying to hold as to when the investigation into the Trump campaign actually began,” Caputo replied.

“Actually I was approached by an intermediary who had been talking to a government official, a former government official who told him that they had Hillary Clinton related emails at that government organization,” he added, noting that the intermediary is a friend of his who willing to go on the record “at the right time.”

“He and I were both kind of amazed that we were getting this kind of a contact from a government organization,” Caputo said.

He explained that though he could not currently reveal the name the government agency, “actual staff members of the government agency” had the Clinton emails which he thought at the time may be the more than 30,000 emails that were...

Latest Development In Flynn Case Proves Special Counsel Was A Cover For Taking Down Trump

His former lawyer’s latest testimony establishes two facts, both of which benefit Michael Flynn and both of which the media has missed.

The special counsel’s investigation was a sham controlled by the intelligence community. Evidence has long suggested as much, but testimony earlier this week from Michael Flynn’s ex-lawyer—that Flynn’s former legal team had not seen recently revealed information purporting to implicate Flynn in a conspiracy with a Turkish agent—confirms it.

This testimony came on Tuesday when Flynn’s former Covington and Burling lawyer, Robert Kelner, took the stand at the trial of Flynn’s former partner at Flynn Intel Group (FIG), Bijan Rafiekian. Rafiekian, who co-founded FIG with Flynn, is on trial for conspiring with his co-defendant Kamil Ekim Alptekin and others (unnamed in the indictment) to act as an unregistered agent of the Turkish government and conspiring to file a material false Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) statement. (Alptekin is a fugitive believed to be in Turkey.)

The government had planned to call Flynn as a witness at Rafiekian’s trial, but at the last minute prosecutors informed the court that Flynn would not testify. Instead, prosecutors notified the court that they viewed Flynn as an unindicted co-conspirator and that they intended to present hearsay evidence against Rafiekian—something allowed if Flynn had conspired with Rafiekian and Alptekin to file the false FARA statements.

Last week, presiding Judge Anthony J. Trenga held that the government had not yet presented sufficient evidence of a conspiracy to admit prior statements made by Flynn and Alptekin. Until prosecutors made a preliminary showing of a conspiracy at trial, Trenga ruled, the hearsay evidence would not be admitted, and even then the government may be bound by its prior admission that Flynn was not a co-conspirator.

Then last Friday came the revelation that the government possessed previously undisclosed information supposedly implicating Flynn in a separate conspiracy with Alptekin. Rafiekian’s attorney disclosed this shocker at the close of a pre-trial hearing, telling the court that before the start of the proceedings, the government had handed him a one-sentence statement. “If I may read it for purposes of the record,” Rafiekian’s lawyer continued:

The United States government is in possession of multiple independent pieces of information relating to the Turkish government’s efforts to influence United States policy on Turkey and Fethullah Gulen, including information relating to communications, interactions, and a relationship between Ekim Alptekin and Michael Flynn and Ekim Alptekin’s engagement of Michael Flynn because of Michael Flynn’s relationship with...

South Africa begins seizing white-owned farms

How long until South Africa Starts Begging For Food?

SOUTH Africa has targeted the first two farms for unilateral seizure after the owners refused an offer of one-tenth of the land’s value.

THE South African government has begun the process of seizing land from white farmers.

Local newspaper City Press reports two game farms in the northern province of Limpopo are the first to be targeted for unilateral seizure after negotiations with the owners to purchase the properties stalled.

While the government says it intends to pay, owners Akkerland Boerdery wanted 200 million rand ($18.7 million) for the land — they’re being offered just 20 million rand ($1.87 million).

“Notice is hereby given that a terrain inspection will be held on the farms on April 5, 2018 at 10am in order to conduct an audit of the assets and a handover of the farm’s keys to the state,” a letter sent to the owners earlier this year said.

Akkerland Boerdery obtained an urgent injunction to prevent eviction until a court had ruled on the issue, but the Department of Rural Development and Land Affairs is opposing the application.

“What makes the Akkerland case unique is that they apparently were not given the opportunity to first dispute the claim in court, as the law requires,” AgriSA union spokeswoman Annelize Crosby told the paper.

Kallie Kriel@kalliekriel

These farms are on the goverment's #farmlist that ⁦@afriforum⁩ exposed. And yet government still denies that the list exists... but it is now clear that government is lying to the public. https://m.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/state-takes-first-farm-20180818 …

2:25 AM - Aug 19, 2018

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It comes as the South African government pushes ahead with plans to amend the country’s constitution to allow for the expropriation of land without compensation.

The seizures are intended to test the ability of the government to take land under existing laws, which the ruling African National Congress has previously stated is allowable if “in the public interest”.

Earlier this month, City Press reported the government had drawn up a list of 139 farms it planned to seize “to test out” section 25 of the constitution.

The newspaper said employees at the department had been ordered to press ahead with the process at the Land Claims Court.

If the seizures go ahead, it would be the first time the state refuses to pay market value for land. Since the end of apartheid in 1994, the ANC has followed a “willing seller, willing buyer” process to redistribute white-owned farms to blacks.

A 2017 government audit found white people owned 72 per cent of private farmland in South Africa. According to the 2011 census, there are about 4.6 million white people in South Africa, accounting for 8.9 per cent of the population.

ANC spokesman Zizi Kodwa would not reveal details of the farms targeted and attempted to play down investor fears, saying the proposed seizures were “tied to addressing the injustices of the past”.

“Over time I think the markets as well as investors will appreciate that what we are doing is creating policy certainty and creating the conditions for...

China’s Government Is Like Something Out of ‘1984’

By Victor Davis Hanson
The Chinese communist government increasingly poses an existential threat not just to its own 1.4 billion citizens but to the world at large.

China is currently in a dangerously chaotic state. And why not, when a premodern authoritarian society leaps wildly into the brave new world of high-tech science in a single generation?

The Chinese technological revolution is overseen by an Orwellian dictatorship. Predictably, the Chinese Communist Party has not developed the social, political, or cultural infrastructure to ensure that its sophisticated industrial and biological research does not go rogue and become destructive to itself and to the billions of people who are on the importing end of Chinese products and protocols.

Central party officials run the government, military, media, and universities collectively in a manner reminiscent of the science-fiction Borg organism of “Star Trek,” which was a horde of robot-like entities all under the control of a central mind.

Thirty years ago, American pundits began gushing over China’s sudden leap from horse-drawn power to solar, wind, and nuclear energy. The Chinese communist government wowed Westerners. It created from nothing high-speed rail, solar farms, shiny new airports, and gleaming new high-density apartment buildings.

Western-trained Chinese scientists soon were conducting sophisticated medical and scientific research. And they often did so rapidly, without the prying regulators, nosy elected officials, and bothersome citizen lawsuits that often burden American and European scientists.

To make China instantly rich and modern, the communist hierarchy—the same government that once caused the deaths of some 60 million innocents under Mao Zedong—ignored property rights. It crushed individual freedom. It embraced secrecy and bulldozed over any who stood in its way.

In much the same manner that silly American pundits once praised Benito Mussolini’s fascist efforts to modernize Depression-era Italy, many naifs in the West praised China only because they wished that their own countries could recalibrate so quickly and efficiently—especially in service to green agendas.

But the world is learning that China does not just move mountains for new dams or bulldoze ancient neighborhoods that stand in the path of high-speed rail. It also hid the outbreak and the mysterious origins of the deadly coronavirus from its own people and the rest of the planet as well—a more dangerous replay of its earlier effort to mask the spread of the SARS virus.

The result was that thousands of unknowing carriers spread the viral plague while the government covered up its epidemic proportions.

China, of course, does not wish to have either its products or citizens quarantined from other countries. But the Chinese government will not allow foreign scientists to enter its country to collaborate on containing the coronavirus and developing a vaccine.

No wonder internet conspiracies speculate that the virus was either a rogue product of the Chinese military’s bioengineering weapons lab or originated from bats, snakes, or pangolins and the open-air markets where they are sold as food.

It is hard to believe that in 2020, the world’s largest and second-wealthiest county, which boasts of high-tech consumer products and gleaming cities, has imprisoned in “re-education camps” more than 1 million Uighur Muslims in the manner that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao once relocated “undesirable” populations.

China seems confident that it will soon rule the world, given its huge population, massive trade surpluses, vast cash reserves, and industries that produce so many of the world’s electronic devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer goods.

For a year, the Chinese government has battled massive street demonstrations for democracy in Hong Kong. Beijing cynically assumes that Western nations don’t care. They are expected to drop their characteristic human rights advocacy because of how profitable their investments inside China have proven.

Beijing was right. Few Western companies complain that Chinese society is surveilled, regulated, and controlled in a nightmarish fashion that...

Joe's missing millions! Financial records reveal Biden had $5.2million in unexplained income - as emails show he paid Hunter's legal bills for one megabucks Chinese deal and was tapped as 'big guy' to get a 10% cut in another

• Emails from Hunter's laptop reveal Joe Biden agreed to pay his son's legal fees for his deal with a Chinese government-controlled company
• Joe was able to pay the bills after earning millions of dollars through his and his wife's companies after he left office as vice president
• But an analysis by DailyMail.com of the president's financial records shows $5.2million is unexplained
• The 'missing millions' and emails on Hunter's abandoned laptop suggest Joe would have a 10% share in Hunter's blockbuster deal with the Chinese
• The revelation ties the president even closer to Hunter's overseas business dealings, despite the White House's denials

Joe Biden agreed to pay son Hunter's legal fees for his deal with a Chinese government-controlled company, emails reveal.

The revelation ties the president even closer to Hunter's overseas business dealings – and makes his previous claims that he never discussed them with his son, even less plausible.

Joe was able to pay the bills after earning millions of dollars through his and his wife's companies after he left office as vice president.

Some of the wave of cash came from their book deals and speaking engagements.

But the president's financial filings reveal that he declared almost $7million more income on his tax returns than he did on his government transparency reports, an analysis by DailyMail.com of the president's financial records shows.

Some of that difference can be accounted for with salaries earned by First Lady Jill Biden and other sums not required on his reports – but still leaves $5.2million earned by Joe's company and not listed on his transparency reports.

The 'missing millions' – combined with emails on Hunter's abandoned laptop suggesting Joe would have a 10% share in Hunter's blockbuster deal with the Chinese – raise a troubling question: did Joe Biden receive money from the foreign venture?

Emails reveal Joe Biden agreed to pay Hunter's legal fees for a deal with a Chinese government-controlled company

In January 2019, Hunter's assistant Katie Dodge wrote an email to book-keeper Linda Shapero and Biden aide Richard Ruffner, saying Joe had agreed to pay his hundreds of thousands of dollars of bills

One of the last items on a spreadsheet of Hunter's bills was $28,000 in legal fees for the 'restructuring' of Hunter's joint venture with the Chinese government-controlled Bank of China. The spreadsheet listed the bill as 'Faegre Baker Daniels: BHR Restructuring' costing $28,382 and due 'ASAP'.

In January 2019, Hunter's assistant Katie Dodge wrote an email to book-keeper Linda Shapero and Biden aide Richard Ruffner, saying Joe had agreed to pay his hundreds of thousands of dollars of bills.

The math behind Joe's missing $5.2million

The president's financial filings show that he declared almost $7million more income on his tax returns than he did on his government transparency reports, raising the question: where did the extra cash come from?

Joe Biden's Office of Government Ethics (OGE) filings:

• 2017 - May 2019 filing:Jill and Joe Biden income of $8,699,787
• Income attributable to Joe Biden’s company CelticCapri Corp: $7,451,727

May 2019 – 2020 filing:

• Income of $907,160
• CelticCapri Corp income: $613,737

Total: $9,606,947, including $8,065,464 from CelticCapri

Joe Biden’s federal tax returns:

• 2017 Income of $11,031,309CelticCapri Corp income: $9,636,690
• 2018 Income of $4,580,437CelticCapri Corp income: $3,030,667
• 2019 Income of $985,233CelticCapri Corp income: $578,178
• Total: $16,596,979, including $13,245,535 from CelticCapri
• Tax return versus OGE difference: $6,990,032

Unaccounted-for difference from CelticCapri: $5,180,071

'I spoke with Hunter today regarding his bills. It is my understanding that Hunt's dad will cover these bills in the short-term as Hunter transitions in his career,' Dodge said.

The assistant attached a spreadsheet of bills with the email, totaling $737,130.61.

One of the last items was $28,000 in legal fees for the 'restructuring' of Hunter's joint venture with the government-controlled Bank of China.

The spreadsheet listed the bill as 'Faegre Baker Daniels: BHR Restructuring' costing $28,382 and due 'ASAP'.

BHR ('Bohai Harvest RST') is a private equity firm and one of Hunter's two major Chinese business ventures. The joint venture was co-owned by the state-controlled Bank of China.

Hunter's personal attorney, George Mesires, is a partner at Faegre Baker Daniels, now called Faegre Drinker.

A separate October 2018 invoice from the law firm shows Hunter spent a total $68,933.41 on the 'restructuring' beginning in September 2016.

The same year Joe took on these bills from Hunter, he promised that 'No one in my family will have an office in the White House, will sit in on meetings as if they are a cabinet member, will, in fact, have any business relationship with anyone that relates to a foreign corporation or a foreign country.'

Yet not only did Hunter hold on to his 10% share of BHR through 2021, confirmed by White House press secretary Jen Psaki last February, the emails also indicate Joe knew about it, and even agreed to pay Hunter's legal fees for the...

Government Is Marketing Censorship Tools To Big Tech To Gag Conservatives

The State Department isn’t skirting the First Amendment. It is driving a stake through its heart.

The federal government peddled technology to Big Tech companies to assist them in censoring Americans’ speech on social media in the run-up to the 2020 election, according to emails Missouri and Louisiana uncovered in their First Amendment lawsuit against the Biden administration.

Specifically, the State Department marketed this censorship technology through its Global Engagement Center. In other words, our tax dollars not only funded the development of tools to silence speech that dissented from the regime’s narrative. They also paid for government employees to act as sales reps pitching the censorship products to Big Tech.

I’ve been “tasked with building relationships with technology companies,” Samaruddin Stewart, then a senior adviser for the State Department’s Global Engagement Center or “GEC,” wrote in an early-February 2020 introductory email to LinkedIn, allegedly requesting a meeting. According to the lawsuit, his email also suggested he would be reaching out to other social media companies interested in “countering disinformation.”

On March 9, 2020, Stewart again contacted LinkedIn, referencing an earlier verbal discussion and writing:

I’ll send information [to LinkedIn representatives] about gaining access to Disinfo Cloud — which is a GEC funded platform that offers stakeholders an opportunity to discover companies, technology, and tools that can assist with identifying, understanding, and addressing disinformation.

These two emails are explosive. Yet because they were revealed in two passing paragraphs of the 164-page complaint filed by Missouri, Louisiana, and a handful of other plaintiffs against the Biden administration, they — and their enormous significance — have been overlooked.

‘Cold-Calling’ Big Tech

The Stewart emails establish that in 2020, federal government actors contacted social media giants to promote GEC’s Disinfo Cloud. GEC represented that this government platform provided “companies, technology, and tools” to “assist with identifying, understanding, and addressing disinformation.” Then it gave private tech companies access to Disinfo Cloud.

Almost identical to how GEC described Disinfo Cloud in congressional testimony, the State Department’s webpage marketed it as a “one-stop shop” to “identify and then test tools that counter propaganda and disinformation.” “Fact checking” and “media authentication” are just a couple of the types of technologies available through the dashboard.

GEC didn’t just promote Disinfo Cloud or give Big Tech access to what GEC called “the U.S. government’s online repository.” Government employees at GEC also offered to help private companies identify tools to suit their specific needs. Just “write” to the GEC’s Technology Engagement Division about “what your office needs to counter propaganda and disinformation,” the State Department instructed on its webpage, and the government will “assist” in finding “a technological solution.”
‘Testbed’

Access to Disinfo Cloud, according to the State Department’s webpage, also provides “a gateway” to the GEC’s Technology Engagement Division’s “Testbed,” allowing users to review and test the technology against...

Wall Street Journal Shouldn’t Apologize for Article Criticizing China’s Communist Party

The Wall Street Journal should stand firm in the face of China’s action last week to rescind the media credentials of three Journal reporters and order them to leave the country.

Chinese authorities said the expulsion was over the Journal’s publishing a commentary by academic Walter Russell Mead headlined “China Is the Real Sick Man of Asia,” which addresses the communist nation’s economic fragility and the worldwide effects of a possible Chinese collapse.

The Chinese government claimed that use of the term “Sick Man of Asia” in the headline of the Feb. 3 article was racist toward the Chinese people.

Next, 53 employees of the Journal signed a letter demanding that the newspaper paper apologize and retract the original headline. They did this even though it is widely known that the Chinese government manipulates the media credentialing process to influence American news outlets to avoid criticism of “sensitive” topics.

The Wall Street Journal should not apologize. This is a ploy by the Chinese government that attempts to exploit Americans’ fear of political incorrectness to stir up racial outrage and gain power over the U.S. media.

Yes, the “Sick Man of Asia” term could be interpreted as archaic as some Asian activists alleged. Nevertheless, it is much closer to a historical term than a racial slur.

Unlike clear and obvious slurs against Chinese people and other racial groups (which are well-known), “Sick Man of Asia” has been used in many nonracist historical contexts as well as in current affairs. In fact, the first recorded use of the phrase was in 1896, in a Chinese newspaper called the North China Daily News, to describe the country’s humiliation.

Since then, the phrase has made its way into many scholarly works and journals. A 2011 article written by Foreign Affairs correspondent Yanzhong Huang describes China’s health crisis with the headline “The Sick Man of Asia.” Scholars have used the same moniker to describe other Asian countries.

Although not a flattering term, it’s probably the rhetorical equivalent of calling an African country “screwed up” or calling Russia a “kleptocracy.”

Naturally, however, the Chinese government has weaponized criticism of the Journal article’s headline to attack the free press and whip up a nationalistic frenzy against the United States.

The forced expulsion of U.S. journalists, including one who currently resides in Wuhan to report on the deadly coronavirus, forebodes a strong push to restrict critical media coverage in China as many residents continue to seek out ways to get noncensored news, especially on the coronavirus and the Hong Kong protests.

This is Exhibit A of the Chinese Communist Party’s propagandistic media strategy: First, conflate criticism of the government with criticism of the entire Chinese race. Then, stir up nationalistic rage and gain leverage over the American media so they steer clear of reporting on the Communist Party’s systematic curtailment of the people’s rights.

It is apparent that Chinese government is desperate to distract the Chinese people from its own free speech issues and economic turmoil. As The Washington Post reports about the Feb. 19 expulsions: “The authorities also appeared to be attempting to stoke nationalist outrage in China at a time of extreme duress for the ruling Communist Party.”

Several weeks ago, a Chinese doctor named Li Wenliang tried to warn fellow citizens about the then-infant coronavirus, but he was suppressed and told off by Chinese police. Now Li is dead from that same coronavirus, and the Chinese people are not able to gain access to his potentially lifesaving information.

When Chinese citizens took to the social media site Weibo with the trending hashtag “We want freedom of speech” (#WeWantFreedomOfSpeech), the government quickly censored them.

As Mead argues in the “Sick Man of Asia’” article in the Journal, along with the Communist Party’s unprepared response to the coronavirus epidemic, China maintains a unitary power structure that may prove too brittle to handle unexpected “black swan” events such as viruses, terrorist attacks, and mass protests.

If the Communist Party fails, there indeed is little to stop China from going into a meltdown, with deleterious effects on the rest of the world.

Mead writes:

Given the accumulated costs of decades of state-driven lending, massive malfeasance by local officials in cahoots with local banks, a towering property bubble, and vast industrial overcapacity, China is as ripe as a country can be for a massive economic correction.

Americans should not buy the Chinese Communist Party’s line. We should be allowed to criticize an increasingly oppressive, fragile government of an unfree...

Arizona legislators join Florida in effort to virtually nullify all federal gun laws

(from 10th Amendment Center) The campaign to stop federal violations of the Second Amendment at the state and local level got two big boosts late last week with the introduction of the Second Amendment
Preservation Act in Arizona and an important endorsement for a similar bill pending in Florida.

Along with eight other sponsors, Arizona state Senator Kelli Ward introduced the Second Amendment Preservation Act in the Grand Canyon State. SB1294 prohibits the state from enforcing “any federal act, law, order, rule or regulation that relates to a personal firearm, firearm accessory or ammunition within the limits of this state.”

“We’ve sat back and allowed the federal government to trample the Constitution long enough,” Ward said. “We’re going to pass this bill and stop the state of Arizona from helping the feds violate your rights.”

The legislation rests on a well-established legal principle known as the anti-commandeering doctrine. Simply put, the federal government cannot “commandeer” or coerce states into implementing or enforcing federal acts or regulations – constitutional or not. The anti-commandeering doctrine rests primarily on four Supreme Court cases dating back to 1842. The 1997 case, Printz v. US, serves as the modern cornerstone.

“We held in New York that Congress cannot compel the States to enact or enforce a federal regulatory program. Today we hold that Congress cannot circumvent that prohibition by conscripting the States’ officers directly. The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States’ officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program. It matters not whether policy making is involved, and no case by case weighing of the burdens or benefits is necessary; such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty.”

Such a tactic is an extremely effective way to stop a federal government busting at the seams. Even the National Governors Association admitted this recently when it sent out a press release noting that “States are partners with the federal government in implementing most federal programs.” That means states can create impediments to enforcing and implementing “most federal programs,” including those which impose upon the right to keep and bear arms.

James Madison, the “Father of the Constitution,” advised this very tactic. Madison supplied the blueprint for resisting federal power in Federalist 46. He outlined several steps that states can take to effective stop “an unwarrantable measure,” or “even a warrantable measure” of the federal government. Anticipating the anti-commandeering doctrine, Madison called for “refusal to cooperate with officers of the Union” as a method of resistance.

Judge Andrew Napolitano last year urged states to introduce and pass this type of legislation specifically, saying that a single state passing such a law would make federal gun laws “nearly impossible to enforce.”

It’s quite simple; you cannot say you support the Second Amendment and oppose this bill.

Arizona Tenth Amendment state chapter coordinator Adam Henriksen agreed.

“Guns and Ammo magazine ranked Arizona number one for gun rights, giving our state a score of 49 out of a possible 50 points. Our legislators know that we won’t let our rights be trampled on,” he said.

Last week, Rep. Dane Eagle (R-Cape Coral) introduced HB733 in the Florida House. Similar to the Arizona bill, it would also bar the state from assisting federal agents in the enforcement of federal firearms laws and from providing material support of any kind to federal agents in the enforcement of these laws.

On Friday, HB733 picked up the endorsement of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association. Sheriff Richard Mack founded CSPOA, and he was one of the plaintiffs in the Printz case.

Mack said his organization supports the Florida Second Amendment Preservation Act, and would like to see every state take this path.

“This bill is one more needed action in the growing movement to return the powers not expressly given to the federal government back to the States and the People, according to the Constitution. We are in league with this legislation, and we encourage every state to enact similar laws,” Mack said.

According to CSPOA legislative liaison Rick Dalton, the organization is in the process of communicating it’s support to legislatures around the country,

“Our members are on the front lines and this kind of law will aid us in standing firm in defense of the rights of the people we serve,” Mack said.

CSPOA just held a conference last week where all those present signed a resolution putting the federal government on notice that lawless and unconstitutional federal activities will not be tolerated where its members have jurisdiction, and such activities will be treated as criminal acts.

Florida Tenth Amendment Center state coordinator Andrew Nappi said he considered this a major step forward.

“This is a substantial attempt to push back against federal actions violating the Second Amendment. Representative Eagle has set an example for others who say they support the Second Amendment, but stop short of taking action.” said Nappi. “But as the CSPOA resolution makes clear, the time for inaction is over.”

ACTION ITEMS

If you live in Arizona: take action to support SB1294 HERE.

If you live in Florida: take action to support HB733 HERE.

All other other states: take action to get your state on board, and protect the 2nd Amendment HERE.

Tucker Carlson’s Critique Of Paul Singer Is Part Of The Reckoning Underway In America

The Fox News host’s exposé on “vulture capitalism” goes to the heart of a debate on the Right about the role of government.
Tucker Carlson is perhaps the only major media figure in America willing to attack across party lines to make his point. On Tuesday night he went after Republican mega-donor Paul Singer in a withering 10-minute special segment on how Singer destroyed a small town in Nebraska in a hostile takeover of the sporting goods retailer Cabela’s.

For those who don’t know, Singer is a New York hedge fund manager who has made billions as a so-called “vulture capitalist,” buying up the sovereign debt of financially distressed countries at a discount and then cashing in later, using lawsuits to pressure governments to pay up. He’s done something similar with U.S. firms—buying up debt, shipping jobs overseas, firing American workers and cashing out—in some cases at taxpayer expense.

In addition to donating to the GOP and running his hedge fund, Elliott Capital, Singer also funds a lot of conservative media, which is why you won’t hear much criticism of him from right-leaning outlets or Republican politicians. That of course makes Carlson’s segment on Tuesday all the more remarkable.

Carlson’s report focused on the town of Sidney, Nebraska, population 6,282. Sidney was the longtime home of Cabela’s and once employed thousands of local residents. It was the economic anchor of the town. But Singer’s firm took an ownership stake in the company in 2015, when the Cabela’s was making nearly $2 billion in annual profits, and pressured the board to sell. A year later Bass Pro Shops purchased Cabela’s, the company’s stock price surged, and Singer cashed out for at least $90 million.

But Sidney was destroyed. As Carlson explained, “The town lost nearly 2,000 jobs. A heartbreakingly familiar cascade began: people left, property values collapsed, and then people couldn’t leave. They were trapped there. One of the last thriving small towns in America went under.”
What Role Should Government Play In Our Civic Life?

The point of highlighting the fate of this one town and the role of Singer in its demise isn’t to vilify capitalism or the free market in general, but to point out how the system is engineered to benefit the rich and powerful at the expense of everyone else. As Willis Krumholtz explains nearby in greater detail, the story of Cabela’s and the people of Sidney is an example of “financial engineering that paid a select few off, while the whole suffered.”

This critique goes to the heart of what the political right has been grappling with in the age of Trump. What is the proper role of the government and public policy in American society? Whose interests should it serve?

Much of what’s behind Trump-era populism, not just in America but across the West, is the dawning realization that the post-Cold War global capitalist system doesn’t necessarily benefit working- and middle-class Americans—or at least that free trade and global capitalism aren’t unmitigated goods. They have costs, and those costs are borne disproportionately by ordinary people, the kind of people who get laid off from Cabela’s for no good reason other than it made Singer a pile of money.

This isn’t just an economic question. The role of government is also at the center of the ongoing Sohrab Amari-David French debate on the right about whether the public sphere can really ever be neutral and what, if anything, conservatives should do to advance what they see as the good. Libertarian-minded conservatives like French look at drag queen story hour and conclude, hey, this is just the price of liberty. We can no more use government power to prohibit drag queens in public libraries than we can use it to prohibit any other kind of free speech

Ahmari and others have challenged this way of thinking, positing that liberty has an object, which is the good, and that government’s role is not just to protect liberty but also to promote and defend the good. Things like stable and intact families, prosperous communities, and vibrant churches and schools aren’t merely what we hope might spring forth from unfettered liberty secured by a neutral and indifferent government; they’re the entire purpose of securing liberty in the first place.

In the same way, champions of global capitalism might look at the desolation of a town like Sidney and conclude, hey, this is just the price of free markets. Carlson argues that no, this is the price of maintaining a system designed to benefit people like Singer at the expense of middle-class Americans.

All of this is part of a reckoning now underway in America about what our government is for and whose interests it should serve. The status quo of recent decades, in which both major political parties crafted policies that served the interest of an established donor class, is coming to...

Unindicted Co-Conspirators in Jan 6th Cases Raise Disturbing Questions of Federal Foreknowledge

Of all the questions asked, words spoken, and ink spilled on the so-called “Capitol Siege” of January 6, 2021, none hold the key to the entire event quite like what Sen. Amy Klobuchar asked of Christopher Wray.

The Democrat from Minnesota asked the Trump-appointed FBI Director: Did the federal government infiltrate any of the so-called “militia” organizations claimed to be responsible for planning and executing the Capitol Siege?

The full segment is available on YouTube.

Christopher Wray is able to uncomfortably weasel his way out of answering the question directly, partially because Klobuchar does him the courtesy of not asking him the question directly. Klobuchar instead asks the FBI director if he wishes he had infiltrated the militia organizations allegedly involved in 1/6 — assuming from the outset that there was in fact no infiltration, thereby providing the FBI director an easy way to avoid addressing the question one way or another.

Revolver News is willing to address the matter directly in the following three questions:

• In the year leading up to 1/6 and during 1/6 itself, to what extent were the three primary militia groups (the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, and the Three Percenters) that the FBI, DOJ, Pentagon and network news have labeled most responsible for planning and executing a Capitol attack on 1/6 infiltrated by agencies of the federal government, or informants of said agencies?
• Exactly how many federal undercover agents or confidential informants were present at the Capitol or in the Capitol during the infamous “siege” and what roles did they play (merely passive informants or active instigators)?
• Finally, of all of the unindicted co-conspirators referenced in the charging documents of those indicted for crimes on 1/6, how many worked as a confidential informant or as an undercover operative for the federal government (FBI, Army Counterintelligence, etc.)?

From now on, all discussion of 1/6 must give way to a laser-like focus on the questions above, with an unwavering persistence at obtaining the answers.

If the narrative about 1/6 does not conform to the questions above, the American people will never learn the most important truth about what 1/6 is, and what kind of country they’re really living in.

If it turns out the federal government did in fact have undercover agents or confidential informants embedded within the so-called militia groups indicted for conspiring to obstruct the Senate certification on 1/6, the implications would be nothing short of seismic. Especially if such agents or informants enjoyed extremely senior-level positions within such groups.

One of the key consensus points among the FBI-DOJ and the regime media is the idea that, while 1/6 is primarily the fault of Trump-supporting QAnon-infused “domestic terrorists,” it is secondarily the fault of so-called “intelligence failures.”

Klobuchar’s own question at the March 2, 2021 FBI hearing (above) reinforces this “intelligence failure” narrative, but she is not alone. A five-month “bipartisan” Senate investigation recently arrived at the very same “intelligence failure” narrative to explain the breach of the Capitol and associated events on 1/6:

A bipartisan Senate investigation of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection found security and intelligence failures at every level of government that led to the breach of the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob as lawmakers in a joint session were certifying the 2020 election.

The 95-page report, a product of a roughly five-month, joint probe by the Senate Homeland Security and Rules Committees, found significant breakdowns ranging “from federal intelligence agencies failing to warn of a potential for violence to a lack of planning and preparation by (U.S. Capitol Police) and law enforcement leadership.” There was no overall operational or staffing plan for that fateful day, a total failure of leadership, according to the committees. [ABC News]

If it turns out that the federal government (FBI, Army Counterintelligence, or a similar agency) had undercover agents or confidential informants embedded in any of the groups involved in 1/6, the “federal intelligence agencies failing to warn of a potential for violence” looks less like an innocent mistake and more like something sinister.

Indeed, if the federal government knew of a potential for violence in or around the Capitol on 1/6 and failed to call for heightened security, the agencies responsible may in fact be legally liable for the damages incurred during that day.

It is unsettling to entertain the possibility that the federal government knew of a..