Each day at just after midnight Eastern, a post like this one is created for contributors and readers of this site to upload news links and video links on the issues that concern this site. Most notably, Islam and its effects on Classical Civilization, and various forms of leftism from Soviet era communism, to postmodernism and all the flavours of galloping statism and totalitarianism such as Nazism and Fascism which are increasingly snuffing out the classical liberalism which created our near, miraculous civilization the West has been building since the time of Socrates.
This document was written around the time this site was created, for those who wish to understand what this site is about. And while our understanding of the world and events has grown since then, the basic ideas remain sound and true to the purpose.
So please post all links, thoughts and ideas that you feel will benefit the readers of this site to the comments under this post each day. And thank you all for your contributions.
This is the new Samizdat. We must use it while we can.
For those interested, please check out https://vladtepesblog.substack.com/ as an another avenue of expression. The Substack is a different project in a sense. It is older videos that in the light of subsequent events, look different or of increased importance, Check it out now and again if you like.
Orban laments Europe’s economic suicide by Tard:
https://rmx.news/article/the-european-economy-will-die-but-before-that-it-will-fall-apart-due-to-migration-orban-warns/
Kirk on Kanada:
Canada told to prepare for war. I haven’t watched it all, but the intentional economic of every Western country seems to be a point lost:
Whistleblowers Blow the Lid on FEMA: Pre-Disaster Funds Allegedly Withheld and First Responders Left in Limbo Without Orders Before Hurricane Helene Strikes
thegatewaypundit.com/2024/10/whistleblowers-blow-lid-fema-pre-disaster-funds-allegedly/
Oct. 4, 2024 12:20 pm
Credit: DHS photo by Tia Dufour
Multiple whistleblowers have come forward to expose the mismanagement at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) just as Hurricane Helene devastates the southeastern U.S.
According to a letter from Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), whistleblowers allege that FEMA withheld critical pre-disaster funds and failed to issue deployment orders to first responders, leaving Americans stranded in the wake of the storm.
In a bombshell letter sent to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) outlined a litany of complaints from whistleblowers across federal, state, and local emergency management agencies.
According to these whistleblowers, FEMA’s failure to release necessary funds and provide clear orders has left “hundreds if not thousands” of service members and first responders in limbo, as they sit idle in hotels while the southeastern U.S. suffers the devastating effects of Helene, according to the Daily Mail.
The allegations come as FEMA’s credibility continues to crumble under mounting evidence of gross mismanagement. This follows Mayorkas’s admission that FEMA “does not have enough funds to make it through the hurricane season.”
How is this possible, given that Congress just approved a $20 billion emergency package for FEMA? The whistleblowers claim the agency is diverting resources to other priorities—specifically, providing aid to illegal immigrants and using taxpayer dollars to cover the costs of border enforcement failures.
The Gateway Pundit previously reported that over $1 billion, which should have been used for American disaster relief, has instead been redirected into resettling illegal immigrants through programs like the “Shelter and Services Program.”
Read more:
Biden-Kamala Regime Burns $1 BILLION in FEMA Funds to Resettle Illegal Immigrants — FEMA Now Lacks Resources for Disaster Response!
Gaetz did not mince words in his letter to Mayorkas:
“Yesterday, you stated that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which is a part of your department, “does not have enough funds to make it through the hurricane] season.”
This news comes after FEMA has spent hundreds of millions of raspayer dollars on migrants due to Border Czar Kamala Harris’ open border instead of prioritizing funding for Americans impacted by disasters.
My office has been in contact with whistleblowers in numerous emergency-management functions at the federal, state, and local levels, and they all point to the same critical mismanagement issues. FEMA has wasted taxpayer funds, misappropriated funds, and left orher federal, srate, and local responders withour deployment orders on the ground.
As reported and further confirmed by my office, hundreds, if not thousands of service members were deployed by the Department of Defense to North Carolina and have sat idle, waiting for FEMA.
We have confirmed FEMA employees deployed, on the clock, awaiting orders in hotels. FEMA pre-disaster aid was withheld, exacerbating the emergency. It is also public that NGOs have purchased airline tickets for migrants through the use of FEMA funds.
The aftermath of Hurricane Helene is a major disaster, and your waste and unpreparedness are leaving Americans in distress—unable to access food, water, or medicine—and expecting help, with none coming.
Please provide answers to the following questions to my office by October 11, 2024:
(1) What policies and regulations of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA prevent emergency funds from being wasted on illegal immigrants, including what conditions are placed on grantees of the agency?; and
(2) Of FEMA’s total budget for FY 2024, what portion of funds can be guaranteed to have been spent solely on American citizens, and what portion of funds was or may have been spent on noncitizens?; and
Trending: BREAKING: Former Mesa, CO Clerk and Gold Star Mother Tina Peters Sentenced to 9 Years in Latest Political Persecution
(3) In FY 2024, what portion of funds in the Disaster Relief Fund has been spent on non-disaster-relief programs, such as providing services to illegal aliens or providing routine training to FEMA employees?authorized our of general appropriations.”
BREAKING: FEMA whistleblowers have come forward alleging that the agency misappropriated funds in the wake of Helene, withheld pre-disaster aid, and that first responders and service members have been waiting in hotels without deployment orders. pic.twitter.com/uf0XrspRTz
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 4, 2024
The American public deserves to know how their hard-earned tax dollars are being spent, especially during times of crisis. As we face an unprecedented hurricane season, the failure of FEMA to prioritize American citizens over non-citizens is not just a misallocation of resources—it’s a national disgrace, it’s treason.
The time for accountability is now.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/10/whistleblowers-blow-lid-fema-pre-disaster-funds-allegedly/
David Axelrod Says the Quiet Part Out Loud as Biden Blocks Ongoing Rescue Efforts, Claims Hurricane Helene Victims in North Carolina Are Mainly Trump Voters Who Will Find it Hard to Vote
thegatewaypundit.com/2024/10/david-axelrod-says-hurricane-helene-victims-north-carolina/
Oct. 4, 2024 1:40 pm
David Axelrod
Obama-Harris whisperer David Axelrod, host of the “Axe Files” podcast, said the quiet part out loud as the Biden Regime blocks ongoing rescue operations in North Carolina.
Axelrod said Hurricane Helene victims in North Carolina are mainly Trump voters who will find it hard to vote in the 2024 election.
David Axelrod said affected Democrats from Asheville are “upscale liberal voters, and they’re probably going to figure out a way to vote. I’m not sure a bunch of these folks who had their homes and lives destroyed elsewhere, in western North Carolina, in the mountains, there are going to be as easy to wrangle for the Trump campaign.”
In between laughing at the false claim that JD Vance was wearing eyeliner at the VP debate, Obama-Harris whisperer David Axelrod said on his podcast that Hurricane Helene’s victims are mainly Trump voters who will find it hard to vote. Affected Democrats from Asheville are… https://t.co/yIqJWvuomh
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) October 4, 2024
Hundreds of people are still missing after Helene. Search and recovery efforts were delayed because Joe Biden was lounging at the beach last weekend and Kamala Harris was busy fundraising in California.
Hundreds are still missing after Helene. See how people are stepping up to search for survivors in Asheville, North Carolina. pic.twitter.com/WME7n7ziNZ
— The Weather Channel (@weatherchannel) October 3, 2024
The Biden-Harris Regime is purposely slow-rolling recovery efforts in the battleground state of North Carolina with just weeks to go until Election Day.
Fox News host Jesse Watters blasted Joe Biden for blocking ongoing rescue operations in North Carolina.
“Over 200 Americans are dead after Hurricane Helene and the thousands of victims impacted have been disgracefully left behind. The Biden administration has blocked ongoing rescue operations and North Carolina is living in the dark ages because Joe Biden and Kamala Harris hate Elon Musk. FEMA is now out of money, because Joe Biden and Kamala spent over a billion dollars of FEMA cash on migrants. Illegals got luxury hotel rooms, but Kamala’s just tossing Helene victims $750 and heading back on the campaign trail. This must not meet her standard for giving extra resources- she only wants to do that based on equity,” Jesse Watters said.
WATCH:
Jesse Watters: “Over 200 Americans are dead after Hurricane Helene and the thousands of victims impacted have been disgracefully left behind. The Biden administration has blocked ongoing rescue operations and North Carolina is living in the dark ages because Joe Biden and Kamala… pic.twitter.com/MAfWqAy2Gq
— Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social (@TrumpDailyPosts) October 4, 2024
North Carolina’s Democrat Governor Roy Cooper also delayed deploying the 1,000 troops authorized to respond in the state’s FEMA region 4.
According to a source in North Carolina, despite 1,000 troops being ready and authorized to respond in NC, FEMA Region 4 and Democrat NC Gov. Roy Cooper haven’t yet written up the mission orders that the troops need in order to be deployed. So those troops are just sitting around…
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 3, 2024
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/10/david-axelrod-says-hurricane-helene-victims-north-carolina/
BREAKING: Wisconsin Team Challenges 11% of Milwaukee Addresses – DNC Quickly Intervenes, Wants Ballots Sent to These Dubious Locations
thegatewaypundit.com/2024/10/breaking-wisconsin-team-challenges-11-milwaukee-addresses-dnc/
Oct. 4, 2024 1:20 pm
A Wisconsin mail-in vote drop box
This week, a street fighting team of investigators and attorneys in Wisconsin challenged the City of Milwaukee’s voter rolls, which contained over 33,000 current active voters who moved to another location.
Almost immediately, the Democratic National Committee sought to intervene. They want the ineligible voters included in the voter rolls for some reason.
Using advanced technology, the Wisconsin team applied relentless pressure on the Milwaukee Election Commission to VERIFY THE ADDRESSES BEFORE MAILING BALLOTS TO THESE ADDRESSES.
In 2022, the same team challenged 153,000 such addresses, and in 2023, 73,000. In each case, the Wisconsin team demonstrated that a mail-in ballot is unlikely to reach these voters due to an address anomaly.
Each address had a fault – wrong street number, zip code, person moved – which could result in a flood of loose ballots collected by NGOs and other organizations – including political parties – to be illegally voted.
There are about 285,000 active voters in Milwaukee – challenging 33,000 or more results in a court challenge to over 11% of the voters in that city.
In 2020, the statewide election was determined by around 22,000 votes.
In 2022, the Ron Johnson Senate election was determined by around 29,000 votes
Nobody in this litigation is being denied a right to vote – rather, the clerks are being asked to verify mailing addresses before mailing ballots.
Sounds simple, right?
Check the address before mailing something as important as a ballot.
In Wisconsin, receiving a mail-in ballot is a privilege, not a right.
Any of these 33,000 voters can show up in person and vote but voting by mail is a privilege and clerks are mandated by statute to strictly comply with state law.
The issue is critical.
Continuing research demonstrates that mail-in ballots are being sent to addresses where citizens have moved – and are later collected by third parties, often NGOs run by religious charities, and voted.
In Wisconsin, the team has testimony from U.S. Postal employees that mail-in ballots to bad addresses are collected and given to organizations who later vote them illegally.
The current street value of a loose ballot in Milwaukee is $40.
Thus, for every loose ballot collected, the Wisconsin team has evidence third parties are paying $40.
Common Sense Elections currently tracks every NGO in Wisconsin, identifies its funding and to whom it is sending money for get-out-the-vote services.
StopBogusBallots.com publishes a SCOREBOARD of the swing states – showing hundreds of thousands of locations – like these in Milwaukee – where a mail-in ballot is likely to go in 2024 and possibly be intercepted by a nefarious third party.
Trending: BREAKING: Former Mesa, CO Clerk and Gold Star Mother Tina Peters Sentenced to 9 Years in Latest Political Persecution
StopBogusBallots is also collecting the information on cast ballots in key swing states.
Cast ballots from ineligible addresses are being reported—on an aggregating basis—to show citizens how many ballots are about to be counted in swing states, and one or more government sources certifies that the ballot came from an ineligible address.
Those government sources may be property tax rolls showing the “voter” resides at an address that is a vacant lot, casino or laundromat.
For the first time, one government roll—like a property tax roll—is being used to reconcile a voter roll and show the madness of industrial-scale mail-in ballots to hundreds of thousands of locations where ballots cannot be delivered.
It is very likely in 2024, elections in some swing states will be decided by 15,000 to 50,000 votes.
StopBogusBallots.com is publishing the number of ballots, from highly questionable addresses, in some of these swing states, to help thwart the NGO-led ballot harvesting of loose, undeliverable mail-in ballots, voted for their candidate.
The 2024 election is likely to be decided by mail-in ballots to undeliverable locations, intercepted by third parties, like NGOs. StopBogusBallots.com is making sure citizens know the score BEFORE election day – not afterward.
Here is the lawsuit filed today challenging the City of Wisconsin’s voter rolls.
View Fullscreen
Here is the Democrat Party’s response.
View Fullscreen
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/10/breaking-wisconsin-team-challenges-11-milwaukee-addresses-dnc/
FBI Whistleblower Alleges Plan to Deploy Plainclothes FBI Agents to Maricopa County Polling Stations to Monitor Trump Voters — FBI Responds
thegatewaypundit.com/2024/10/fbi-whistleblower-alleges-plan-deploy-plainclothes-fbi-agents/
Oct. 4, 2024 8:45 am
A bombshell report from a whistleblower has set off alarms among Arizona’s voters and political leaders, as new revelations have surfaced about an alleged plan by the FBI to deploy plainclothes agents to polling stations in Maricopa County.
According to a whistleblower who attended a recent security briefing, the FBI’s primary objective with this operation is to monitor Trump voters during the upcoming election—a disturbing indication of federal interference aimed at intimidating those who dare to support the 45th president.
Representative Alexander Kolodin (R-AZ) was quick to act, sending a forceful letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, warning that such actions would not be tolerated.
In the letter, Kolodin made it clear that the House is prepared to take immediate action against any attempts by federal agents to intimidate or censor voters in Arizona.
“I sincerely hope that this disturbing allegation is false. Rest assured, however, that if your agents are here for any other purpose than ensuring that every lawful voter is able to cast a ballot, the House is prepared to take immediate action to secure all Arizonans the equal protection of the laws,” Kolodin wrote.
The letter expresses deep concern over the alleged deployment of FBI agents in Maricopa County polling stations, with the intent to monitor and intimidate Trump voters specifically.
The whistleblower claims that the agents were tasked with making sure Trump voters “don’t get out of line,” a vague but menacing directive that could lead to widespread voter suppression.
Kolodin cited the FBI’s recent track record of election interference and censorship of speech that is unfavorable to the Biden-Harris administration.
He referred to a court case in Arizona, American Encore v. Adrian Fontes et al., where a rule was blocked that allowed voters to be removed from polling places if they criticized election workers.
Kolodin’s letter goes on to remind Director Wray that, under U.S. Code § 1985(3), federal agents are prohibited from disguising themselves on the premises of others for the purpose of preventing or hindering local authorities from ensuring equal protection of the laws.
The letter also highlights that presidential elections are administered by state, not federal law, making any interference from federal agents a dangerous overreach.
The representative encouraged any Arizonans who experience violations of their civil rights at the polls to file complaints with the U.S. Attorney’s office and to report incidents to his office.
Kolodin expressed little faith that the Biden-Harris regime would take these complaints seriously but emphasized the importance of documenting any voter intimidation efforts in the event of post-election litigation.
Kolodin concluded his letter with a message to Arizona voters: “Do not be deterred from voting by these last, desperate acts of a dying regime about to be swept away by the winds of history. Rest assured, if the powers that be were confident of the outcome, they would not be trying so hard to keep you away from the polls.”
Today I informed FBI Director Wray that the House is prepared act if his agents attempt to intimidate or censor voters while deployed to Arizona. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/VrN4LkZk9b
— Rep. Alexander Kolodin (@realAlexKolodin) October 3, 2024
2/2 Not exactly what I wanted to be doing on my holiday. pic.twitter.com/X3aK69WKlD
— Rep. Alexander Kolodin (@realAlexKolodin) October 3, 2024
Election Integrity Investigator Bryan James Blehm reached out to the FBI.
The FBI allegedly denies the claim, stating that these allegations are false and clarifying that federal law prohibits armed federal personnel from being at polling places unless there’s an urgent, life-threatening situation.
Blehm wrote:
In response to should be Congressman Kolodin, the Department of Injustice has just stated:
“Thank you for reaching out. The following is attributable to the FBI:
Trending: BREAKING: Former Mesa, CO Clerk and Gold Star Mother Tina Peters Sentenced to 9 Years in Latest Political Persecution
The allegations stated in the letter are categorically false. Federal law prohibits the presence of armed federal personnel at polling places, absent exigent life-threatening emergencies.”
Is this an admission that they intend to have unarmed agents there and that we will be able to ask Ray Epps for an autograph at the polling centers?
In response to should be Congressman Kolodin, the Department of Injustice has just stated:
“Thank you for reaching out. The following is attributable to the FBI:
The allegations stated in the letter are categorically false. Federal law prohibits the presence of armed federal… https://t.co/3KbFH06f8Y
— Bryan James Blehm (@BlehmLawAZ) October 4, 2024
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/10/fbi-whistleblower-alleges-plan-deploy-plainclothes-fbi-agents/
FEMA Announces Non-Citizen Aliens Will be Granted Disaster Assistance
by Jim Hoft Oct. 4, 2024 11:20 am577 Comments
As Americans suffer through the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, and communities in North Carolina continue to search for over 200 missing loved ones lost in flooding, there is a glimmer of hope for non-citizens.
If you are one of the millions of non-citizens that the Biden-Harris regime granted asylum to, you may qualify for FEMA aid.
FEMA will grant illegals assistance including:
* Permanent Residents
* Non-citizens granted asylum
* Certain non-citizens of their spouses or kids
* More
Via Natalie Winters.As Americans suffer through the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, and communities in North Carolina continue to search for over 200 missing loved ones lost in flooding, there is a glimmer of hope for non-citizens.
If you are one of the millions of non-citizens that the Biden-Harris regime granted asylum to, you may qualify for FEMA aid.
FEMA will grant illegals assistance including:
* Permanent Residents
* Non-citizens granted asylum
* Certain non-citizens of their spouses or kids
* More
Via Natalie Winters.
Click through, there are a lot of X posts
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/10/fema-announces-non-citizen-aliens-will-be-granted/
Russia Elevates Nuclear Threat: Implications for Ukraine and the Global Power Balance
thegatewaypundit.com/2024/10/russia-elevates-nuclear-threat-implications-ukraine-global-power/
Oct. 4, 2024 7:15 am
President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Shoigu – Image courtesy of the President of Russia.
In what the Kremlin has labeled a warning to Western nations, Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced plans to lower the nuclear threshold, allowing for nuclear retaliation in response to large-scale air assaults and treating attacks by non-nuclear states, when supported by nuclear powers, as joint offensives.
Moscow aims to raise the stakes and discourage further support for Ukraine.
Meanwhile, both the Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation and the Kremlin’s 2024 National Threat Assessment call for displacing the U.S. and the West as global leaders, with the fall of Ukraine viewed as a crucial step in reshaping the international order under Moscow and Beijing.
As the cost of supporting Ukraine rises, the cost of allowing its collapse may be even greater.
Russia’s Defense Ministry is set to gain the power to assess whether conditions for deploying nuclear weapons are met, as part of upcoming changes to the country’s nuclear doctrine, according to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov.
The revisions are being made in response to increased involvement of nuclear powers in the war in Ukraine and NATO’s expanded presence near Russia.
President Vladimir Putin recently announced plans to expand Russia’s nuclear policy, allowing for nuclear responses to major air attacks and considering attacks by non-nuclear nations backed by nuclear powers as joint actions.
Peskov emphasized that these changes are a clear message to Western countries contemplating support for Ukrainian long-range missile strikes on Russian territory. The amendments will soon be formalized legally.
In a further statement, Peskov emphasized that the updated nuclear doctrine is intended as a direct warning to Western countries.
He noted that the changes signal potential consequences for nations participating in attacks on Russia, not necessarily with nuclear weapons, and stressed that the doctrine is being adjusted due to rising tensions near Russia’s borders.
While the changes do not involve increasing Russia’s nuclear arsenal, they come as Ukraine continues to seek approval from Western allies to use long-range precision weaponry to strike deep inside Russian territory, a move that has met with caution from the White House to prevent further escalation.
This reduction in the nuclear threshold comes amid ongoing debates in Russia over whether the country should consider a nuclear first strike. These discussions have reached the highest levels of leadership, including President Vladimir Putin.
The debate was sparked in June by Sergei Karaganov, honorary chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, who referred to nuclear arms as “God’s Weapons” arguing that the West must be forced into retreat by threatening, or even launching, a nuclear strike.
However, this radical stance has been largely rejected by Russian experts, who contend that nuclear war is a poor strategy with potentially catastrophic consequences.
While figures such as former president Dmitry Medvedev and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov have hinted at nuclear use, Karaganov’s advocacy for a first strike has gained little traction. Ultimately, the decision rests with Putin and his inner circle.
TASS, Russian News Agency, published an article by Igor Korotchenko, Editor-in-Chief of the National Defense Journal, outlining key updates to Russia’s nuclear doctrine.
According to Korotchenko, the revised policy allows Russia to engage nuclear weapons if NATO collectively or a single non-nuclear country takes military action against Russia.
For example, the deployment of Polish troops in Ukraine or Romanian and Polish efforts to down Russian aircraft would be viewed as aggression, justifying a nuclear response.
Trending: BREAKING: Former Mesa, CO Clerk and Gold Star Mother Tina Peters Sentenced to 9 Years in Latest Political Persecution
Additionally, any U.S. strike with air or seaborne cruise missiles would be considered a casus belli, leading to potential nuclear retaliation against the U.S.
Korotchenko emphasized that these changes represent a significant departure from previous doctrine, now identifying the U.S., UK, and France as nuclear adversaries if conventional military actions against Russia are detected.
The revised nuclear doctrine has also expanded the scope of Russia’s protective umbrella to include its allies. Russia Today (RT) reported, “Deep strikes by Ukraine and an attack on Belarus would now trigger an atomic response.”
The Kremlin offered a tongue-in-cheek explanation for revising the nuclear doctrine, with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov criticizing the existing policy as “too general” and arguing that warning had to be made clearer.
Since May, Kiev has called on the U.S. and its allies to remove all restrictions on the use of their weapons against Russia, which Moscow sees as direct Western involvement.
While Putin reiterated that nuclear weapons remain a last resort to protect Russian sovereignty, he also recognized the rapidly changing military-political landscape and the new threats facing Russia and its allies.
A significant percentage of Americans are growing weary of funding the Ukraine war, with the looming threat of nuclear conflict fueling calls to end U.S. and NATO support for Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia’s ambition to reshape the global order, with Beijing and Moscow at the helm, is clear.
In his letter advocating for the use of nuclear weapons in the context of the Ukraine conflict, Sergei Karaganov, honorary chairman of Russia’s Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, wrote, “failure (of the West) is accompanied by rapid changes, unprecedented in history, in the global balance of power in favor of the Global Majority, with China and partly India acting as its economic drivers, and Russia chosen by history to be its military-strategic pillar.
This weakening infuriates not only the imperial-cosmopolitan elites (Biden and Co.), but also the imperial-national ones (Trump).”
By lowering the nuclear threshold, Putin aims to deter Western support for Ukraine.
While this might seem like a lifesaving move in the short term, it would also advance the Moscow-Beijing axis’s goal of displacing the U.S. and positioning themselves as leaders of a new international order. In the long run, allowing Ukraine to collapse could prove more costly for the West than continuing to fund its defense.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/10/russia-elevates-nuclear-threat-implications-ukraine-global-power/
Trump Endorsed by Hundreds of National Security Experts, Former Military Members, and Gold Star Families
thegatewaypundit.com/2024/10/trump-endorsed-hundreds-national-security-experts-former-military/
Oct. 3, 2024 10:00 pm
Then-President Donald Trump holds two thumbs up at a campaign rally for incumbent Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue ahead of Senate runoff in Dalton, Georgia on Jan. 4, 2021.
Then-President Donald Trump holds two thumbs up at a campaign rally for incumbent Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue ahead of Senate runoff in Dalton, Georgia on Jan. 4, 2021. (Mandel Ngan – AFP / Getty Images)
Democrats and the Kamala Harris campaign have been quick to brag about the endorsements she has received from people like Liz and Dick Cheney, as well as former members of the Bush administration.
Trump has gotten a much more important endorsement this week.
Hundreds of national security experts, foreign policy specialists, former military members and Gold Star families have just endorsed Trump and it’s easy to see why.
FOX News reports:
Hundreds of national security officials, ex-Cabinet members, Gold Star families endorse Trump
More than 400 national security and foreign policy officials, ex-Cabinet members, retired military officers and Gold Star families endorsed former President Trump on Thursday.
In an open letter organized by former National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien and former NSC Chief of Staff Alex Gray, the signatories condemn the “repeated failures” of the Biden-Harris administration’s foreign policy and urged Americans to re-elect Trump.
“From a world at peace under President Trump, we are closer to a third world war than ever before under the Biden-Harris Administration,” the letter states. “With multiple escalating wars around the world, an open border that allows terrorists to flood into the American homeland, and malign actors like China operating unabated, U.S. national security has been profoundly damaged by the failed policies of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden.”…
Eleven family members of the 13 American troops killed at Abbey Gate at Kabul’s airport during the 2021 U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan also signed the letter, which praised Trump’s foreign policy record in contrast to Biden’s controversial actions…
Additionally, 40 retired U.S. ambassadors, 75 retired senior military officers and several hundred officials from previous Republican administrations signed the letter, praising Trump’s diplomatic efforts on cease-fire agreements between Turkey and Kurdish fighters in Syria and the Abraham Accords. The letter refers to Trump as a “peacemaker.”
The United States, and the world, enjoyed an unprecedented period of relative peace during Trump’s first term. Democrats and the media think people have forgotten that but no one has.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/10/trump-endorsed-hundreds-national-security-experts-former-military/
Satellite imagery shows Iranian oil tankers at country’s major terminal disappearing amid fears of Israeli counterattack
Published Fri, Oct 4 20245:18 AM EDTUpdated 3 Hours Ago
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Natasha Turak
@NatashaTurak
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“The National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) appears to be fearing an imminent attack by Israel,” one tanker tracking firm wrote.
Fifteen miles off Iran’s northwestern coast, the Kharg Island terminal handles more than 90% of the country’s crude exports.
Oil prices jumped 5% on Thursday and are headed for their best week in over a year following comments from U.S. President Joe Biden.
Satellite imagery captured by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission on Sept. 25 shows a number of VLCC supertankers in the waters around Kharg Island, Iran’s principal oil export terminal.
Satellite imagery captured by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission on Sept. 25 shows a number of VLCC supertankers in the waters around Kharg Island, Iran’s principal oil export terminal.
This image contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2024 processed by Sentinel Hub
Satellite imagery revealed a number of oil tankers vacating the waters around Iran’s key Kharg Island oil loading terminal, amid fears of an Israeli counterattack on Tehran’s energy infrastructure.
“The National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) appears to be fearing an imminent attack by Israel. Their empty VLCC supertankers vacated the country’s largest oil terminal, Kharg Island, yesterday,” tracking firm TankerTrackers.com wrote in a post on the X social media platform on Thursday evening.
Markets have been on edge over the possibility of Israeli retaliation, after Iran launched a missile attack against the Jewish state earlier this week.
Satellite imagery captured by the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission on Sept. 25 shows a number of VLCC (very large crude carrier) supertankers in the waters around Kharg Island, Iran’s principal oil export terminal. VLCC tankers are specifically designed to transport large volumes of crude oil.
Imagery of the same location on Thursday — two days after Iran launched a volley of around 180 missiles at Israel for the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah — shows an empty sea around Kharg Island, with no ships in sight.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/04/iran-oil-tankers-disappear-from-local-port-amid-israel-attack-fears-satellite-images-show.html
Trump’s ground game relies on untraditional strategies to draw out battleground voters
By Steve Contorno and Fredreka Schouten, CNN
Updated: 9:19 AM EDT, Fri October 4, 2024
Source: CNN
When absentee ballots first landed on doorsteps in Michigan last month, so did Paul Hudson, a Grand Rapids lawyer and a Republican running to represent the area in Congress. Armed with an app that told him where likely voters lived and which houses might be swayed, he spent that morning walking a densely populated purple community where single-story ranches with Trump flags neighbor homes with “Harris Walz” signs on their lush, well-manicured lawns.
It’s a conventional strategy to compete in close races, one battle-tested by campaigns big and small every election. And it’s a playbook that former President Donald Trump’s campaign has tossed aside.
Targeting irregular voters, teaching supporters to surveil polling places and bombarding states with voting-related lawsuits – this is the machine the Trump campaign has built for an election that many expect to hinge on just tens of thousands of ballots cast across seven battleground states. It’s a gamble, Trump’s campaign internally acknowledges, but one that they insist is built on data they have collected over nearly a decade and tested for the past six months.
That, and tens of millions of dollars injected lately by a super PAC aligned with tech billionaire Elon Musk, one of Trump’s most vocal and influential supporters.
The campaign’s untraditional strategy was on display when conservative commentator Tucker Carlson came to Grand Rapids last month. He urged his audience to download an app – 10xVotes – that promises to help them find the non-voting conservatives among their family and friends. Days later, the Michigan state party chairman also plugged 10xVotes when he rolled into Traverse City, Michigan, alongside Trump running mate JD Vance.
Elsewhere in the state, the Trump campaign is holding “election integrity” training, teaching conservatives to be poll watchers, including in areas where Republicans normally win by wide margins. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign and Republican Party are suing the state of Michigan to keep local Veteran Affairs offices and other federal outposts from offering voter registration.
The approach marks a stark contrast to how Trump won the Grand Rapids metro area and other battlegrounds eight years ago, when voter outreach efforts were coordinated by the Republican Party and organized out of regional field offices. And it’s one that has attracted plenty of detractors among GOP strategists, who say they see little evidence of the sophisticated political apparatus the Trump campaign claims is in motion. They worry too much emphasis has been placed on people who are disengaged from politics and on appeasing Trump’s fixation with relitigating the 2020 election.
“It’s political malpractice,” said Dennis Lennox, a veteran Republican operative in Michigan. “It’s a Hail Mary.”
Trump’s campaign believes the approach is reflective of the candidate they are trying to get across the finish line in a narrow race against Vice President Kamala Harris – one whose celebrity and brash style grants him unique appeal among those who don’t often vote but whose first turn in the White House turned off many swing voters that candidates traditionally fight for.
That work is taking place in parts of the country that the Trump campaign never set foot in four years ago, Trump’s political director James Blair said. In Michigan, for example, Trump’s 2020 campaign concentrated their outreach efforts in the Detroit suburbs and around Grand Rapids, according to an internal data mapping where the campaign spoke to voters. This time, the map, reviewed by CNN, shows much more intense activity throughout less populated central Michigan as well as more activity in Detroit, where the campaign says it is making a coordinated push for Black men.
Blair said voters who turned against Trump won’t change their mind because someone knocked on their door.
“We have a narrower view than others who is effectively persuadable at a door,” Blair said. “But what a door is very good at is turnout, particularly for low and mid propensity voters who don’t regularly get contacted by campaigns and may need an explanation of what their voting options are.”
Few places swung harder away from the former president than the Grand Rapids metro area.
Across a revitalizing downtown and in the surrounding neighborhoods nestled against apple orchards and farm fields, swing voters are plentiful. So are moderate Republicans – a vestige of the region’s early Dutch settlers and the lasting influence of its most famous son, former President Gerald Ford, who once represented this western expanse Michigan in Congress. They showed up in force in the GOP presidential primary – one-third of Republicans in surrounding Kent County cast ballots for former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley over Trump.
But rather than courting those voters, Trump’s campaign is in search of new ones.
Hudson, who is challenging freshman Rep. Hillary Scholten, the first Democrat to represent Grand Rapids in three decades, acknowledged Trump’s singularity could provide him a different path to winning his district. Still, he made clear his focus is on winning the middle.
“That strategy would be crazy for anyone else,” Hudson said. “They’re low propensity votes for a reason. But I get the sense they’re committed to it.”
‘How do we make sure this all works together’
For much of the year, the Trump campaign has relied on untested outside groups to carry out more traditional groundwork, like registering voters and teaching people how to vote.
Assisting the campaign are Turning Point Action, a conservative group focused on younger voters led by Trump’s close ally Charlie Kirk, and America PAC, an organization affiliated with Musk, which has plowed nearly $46 million into canvassing work alone to benefit Trump, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.
The unproven approach, made possible by a decision this year by the FEC granting campaigns the ability to coordinate with outside political action committees on paid canvassing effort, has freed up the campaign’s money to underwrite advertising and the political rallies that Trump headlines.
Musk has provided a critical lift to the Trump campaign, which has struggled to keep pace with the Harris campaign’s fundraising and its spending on staff and field operations. His America PAC has also spent nearly $12 million on printing and postage for the presidential race, running direct mail campaigns aimed at voters outside of traditional media channels, and more than $9 million on digital advertising, as well as $1.4 million on texting campaigns and phone banking.
But Musk has little experience running a political operation and it’s unclear what his eight-figure investment has yielded in new support for Trump. Musk, who said on X that he will attend Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, did not respond to inquiries from CNN.
Meanwhile, Turning Point Action has yet to demonstrate it knows how to turn Kirk’s large online following into a successful political operation. Its previous efforts mostly came during the 2022 midterms in Arizona, where the group worked aggressively – and unsuccessfully – to elect Republicans Kari Lake as governor and Blake Masters to the US Senate.
For this election, the group has hired full-time staff trained to form relationships in the communities where they are being deployed. Each has a list of 400 to 600 names they’re responsible for getting to cast ballots. Like the Trump campaign, they are targeting right-leaning low-propensity voters, a term for people who are the least likely to show up in November.
After announcing ambitious goals to grow Trump’s base of support in Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan, the group scaled back its efforts to one district in the Wolverine State while maintaining its presence in the other two battleground states.
Turning Point is now merging efforts with Musk’s group in Wisconsin as Republicans became increasingly concerned about Trump’s chances there against Harris. The joint operation is expected to be spearheaded by America PAC, who will pay for the staff and use its resources to continue hiring through Turning Point.
Meanwhile, Trump continues to push supporters at rallies to sign up for Trump Force 47, an “army” of volunteers committed to turning out the vote on Election Day. It’s the general election version of a strategy first deployed during the former president’s successful performance in the Iowa caucuses earlier this year. There, the campaign recruited and trained around 2,000 volunteer caucus captains across the state and each agreed to get commitments from 10 first-time voters in the Iowa caucuses from a list of 25 prospective supporters the campaign had identified in their neighborhoods.
The escalating and overlapping efforts of groups, though, has at times caused confusion on the ground.
At a gathering hosted this summer in Detroit by Turning Point Action, attendees at a Trump Force 47 information session were told in detail about the operation to target low-propensity voters.
One woman flummoxed by the presentation asked if she was allowed to volunteer for Turning Point and the campaign. A man who came from Ohio noted all the organizing groups and apps.
He then probed the organizers: “How do we make sure this all works together?”
Low-propensity voters
Trump’s battleground strategy is one his Florida operatives first piloted four years ago en route to a 3.4-point victory in their state.
His team on the ground there carved up the Sunshine State into dozens of subgroups and picked out the communities where they believed targeted messaging could drive irregular voters and some traditional Democrats to their side. Not all of them – not even most of them – but enough to cobble together a statewide win.
They launched an outreach program for African-American men in the majority Black city of Miami Gardens, put fliers featuring outspoken Democratic opponents of Israel on the doorstep of every Jewish household in south Florida, advertised extensively on Spanish-language radio and bombarded Cuban and Venezuelan voters with messages tying then-Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to the socialism found in their native countries.
The results were undeniable. Trump won nearly 4 in 10 Jewish votes, the best performance by a Republican in two decades, and he fared better in counties with large Puerto Rican populations. Cubans, meanwhile, helped fuel Trump’s 23-point improvement in voter rich Miami-Dade County.
The architect of his Florida win, Susie Wiles, is now co-piloting his entire operation while one of her top lieutenants in the Sunshine State, Blair, is helping deploy their successful strategy across the electoral map.
“A lot of campaigns on both sides of the aisle historically spent extraordinary time and money doubling and tripling down on the part of the cake that is already baked and immovable,” Blair told CNN. “And all the time, money and manpower spent there are resources not spent on using a scalpel at the edges to nip-tuck the electorate in your favor – which is really what an election at this level is.”
He added: “We look at every state like a jigsaw puzzle. It’s a state-by-state, area-by-area, demographic-by-demographic math problem to figure out where you can maximize marginal gains from a raw vote perspective to achieve the number of votes you need to win under any turnout scenario.”
Some of those efforts are targeting people Trump has lamented don’t show up to vote in greater numbers, like gun owners and Evangelicals. Others were born out of a longstanding desire by Trump to drive a wedge between Democrats and union households as well as Black and Hispanic men. His campaign has also reached out to Libertarians and Bitcoin enthusiasts, believing Trump’s promises to upend traditional institutions is appealing in those communities.
Trump’s campaign has also tried to seize on discord within the Democratic coalition. The campaign didn’t plan to target Arab American citizens in Michigan or Catholic voters in Pennsylvania, two historically Democratic leaning groups. But his campaign targeted Michigan’s Arab communities not long after war broke out between Israel and Hamas last year. And in the months after Democrats replaced Biden, a Catholic, with Harris, a Baptist with a Jewish husband, Trump has posted on social media about the Virgin Mary and the archangel Michael, two figures central to the Catholic faith.
One person with knowledge of Trump’s strategy put it this way: “You figure out how to inject adrenaline into a situation that benefits you, and then you push gravity in that direction.”
Many Republican operatives remain skeptical. A GOP strategist in Arizona said Trump’s allies are focusing their efforts on turning out diehard voters in the state and are making no real effort to be “competitive in swing areas.”
He thinks that’s a mistake.
“It didn’t work in 2020. It didn’t work in 2022,” he said, referring to losses by Trump-aligned Republicans in the midterms in Arizona. “Why do we think it will suddenly work in 2024?
“The challenge in trying to run up the score in the margins is that there’s not a lot of juice left in that orange,” he said.
Lennox, the Michigan operative, said he doesn’t see the signs of a healthy campaign. No one in his family that is registered to vote absentee received outreach from Trump’s team or the state party when ballots went out, and he doesn’t see organizers in each county.
But he has been asked to be a poll watcher in Cheboygan County, Michigan, where elections are run by a Republican and Trump won in 2020 by a 2-to-1 margin.
“The idea that you’re going to have a Republican in a Republican County with a Republican clerk serve as a poll watcher instead of knock on doors or passing out yard signs is why you’re not going to run up the score where you need to,” Lennox said.
Working the refs
In its messaging around November’s election, the Republican National Committee has emphasized its “election integrity” work – highlighting litigation and efforts to recruit poll workers, lawyers and partisan poll watchers willing to monitor voting and ballot counting.
RNC co-chairs Michael Whatley and Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, recently announced that the party has recruited 200,000 volunteers, double their original goal.
In North Carolina, the RNC and the state Republican Party last month successfully blocked students at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from using their digital school ID when voting. In Georgia, another key presidential battleground, Trump allies have taken over the majority of seats on the state elections board and recently approved controversial rules that critics say could inject delays and chaos into certifying the presidential election in a state Trump lost by fewer than 12,000 votes in 2020. The election rules are being challenged in court.
In other battlegrounds – including Nevada and Michigan – the RNC has filed lawsuits alleging that election officials have failed to remove ineligible voters from the rolls.
In some key places, working the referees has replaced a traditional campaign altogether. In Nebraska, where the state awards electoral votes based on congressional district, Trump’s campaign hardly has a presence in the Omaha district President Joe Biden won in 2020, nor has it reserved any airtime for the final month of the race. Democrats, meanwhile, have spent $7 million on commercials there with another $5 million planned for the closing weeks.
Instead, Trump and his allies spent months pressuring the state’s Republican Gov. Jim Pillen to change the law in a special session and potentially block Harris from what could be a critical electoral college vote. Even if Harris won the “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania and carried no other key battlegrounds, she would still need the electoral vote from Nebraska’s 2nd District to secure the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.
The push stalled – at least for now – when a Democrat-turned-Republican state senator from Omaha said he wouldn’t go along with Trump’s demands to change the rules this late in an election cycle.
Democrats view these efforts – coupled with Trump’s unusual approach to deploying a ground game – as evidence that he isn’t campaigning as hard to win as he is to challenge the outcome if he loses.
“Republicans are saying, ‘If we can’t get above 50% of the vote, let’s figure out how to disrupt the system,’” Danielle Butterfield, the executive director of Democratic-aligned Priorities USA, said of the Republicans’ focus on litigation that challenges election procedures. “Democrats are saying, ‘If it looks like we aren’t getting above 50%, let’s convince more voters to be part of our team.’”
Priorities USA operates both a super PAC that is spending heavily on digital advertising to drive turnout for Harris and other Democrats and a nonprofit arm that has a $20 million budget in this election cycle for litigation and voter-protection work.
https://lite.cnn.com/2024/10/04/politics/trump-campaign-ground-game/index.html
Supreme Court Will Decide Fate of Mexico’s Lawsuit Against U.S. Gunmakers
By Cam Edwards | 11:40 AM | October 04, 2024
AP Photo/Susan Walsh
We’re still a few weeks away from learning what the Supreme Court will do with the challenge to Maryland’s ban on so-called assault weapons, but the Court has accepted another case that could have major implications for our right to keep and bear arms. On Friday, SCOTUS granted cert to Smith & Wesson Brands, et al. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, accepting a request by gunmakers to decide whether Mexico’s $10 billion lawsuit against multiple gun makers can proceed or if it should be tossed out of court based on the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.
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The Mexican government (with the help of gun control veteran Jonathan Lowy) sued Smith & Wesson, Beretta, Century International Arms, Colt, Glock, and Interstate Arms alleging that the companies are aiding and abetting drug cartels in Mexico by manufacturing and selling guns like AR-15s, magazines that can hold more than ten rounds, and for refusing to adopt standards that go far beyond what U.S. law already requires for the production and sale of their products.
A U.S. District Court judge originally dismissed the case, but the First Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the lawsuit earlier this year, ruling that Mexico’s lawsuit qualified for an exception to Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that authorizes suits alleging knowing violations of firearms laws that proximately cause a plaintiff’s injuries. As the gunmakers informed SCOTUS in their cert petition:
To fit within that exception, the First Circuit held that Mexico plausibly alleged America’s firearms companies have violated the federal law against aiding and abetting firearms trafficking—and that their regular business practices are the proximate cause of the many diffuse harms and costs that Mexico incurs from cartel violence.
In August, U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor once again threw out the case against six of the seven gun makers sued by the Mexican government, ruling that the plaintiff has been “unable to muster sufficient proof to establish a sufficient relationship between the claimed injuries and the business transactions of any of the six defendants in Massachusetts.” Though Mexico’s government has appealed Saylor’s decision to the First Circuit, the Supreme Court’s decision to grant cert to the case could put an end to the lawsuit once and for all.
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While SCOTUS has been reluctant to grant cert to Second Amendment-related cases before they’re fully decided on the merits by lower courts, the gun makers argued that the First Circuit’s decision to reinstate the lawsuit created a split between the First and Third Circuits; one that can only be resolved by the justices.
The courts on the other side of the split have it right. Applying long-settled principles of proximate cause, those courts have dismissed multiple suits raising similar claims filed by domestic governments.This suit is even more clearly foreclosed, as it was filed by a foreign government, resting on an even more attenuated causal chain, punctuated by multiple independent criminal acts, including third-party smuggling across an international border. The First Circuit’s contrary holding eviscerates PLCAA’s express statutory requirement of proximate cause. Indeed, if proximate cause tolerates this suit—which rests on an eight-step Rube Goldberg, starting with the lawful production and sale of firearms in the United States, and ending with the harms that drug cartels inflict on the Mexican government—then it is hard to imagine what it would not allow.
The firearms companies pointed out in the cert request that the Court held just last term that “aiding and abetting criminal activity must involve something more than making products generally available while knowing that criminals may misuse some of them downstream.”
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But Mexico’s complaint alleges nothing more than that. It fails to identify any product, policy, or action by the American firearms industry that is deliberately designed to facilitate the unlawful activities of Mexican drug cartels. Instead,the theory of the complaint is that the defendants make firearms available knowing that some will be unlawfully smuggled abroad and put to criminal use, and that they could be doing more to stop the problem.
… The stakes of this case underscore why review is needed. Absent this Court’s intervention, Mexico’s multi-billion-dollar suit will hang over the American firearms industry for years, inflicting costly and intrusive discovery at the hands of a foreign sovereign that is trying to bully the industry into adopting a host of gun-control measures that have been repeatedly rejected by American voters. Worse, so long as the decision below remains good law, scores of similar suits are destined to follow from other governments, both foreign and domestic—all seeking to distract from their own political failings by laying the blame for criminal violence at the feet of the American firearms industry. Even if ultimately unsuccessful, the costs of that litigation will be devastating—not only for defendants, but more importantly for the millions of law-abiding Americans who rely on the firearms industry to effectively exercise their Second Amendment rights. This type of lawfare is exactly what Congress enacted PLCAA to avoid.
At bottom, this case reduces to a clash of national values: Mexico makes no secret that it abhors this country’s approach to firearms, and that it wants to use the American court system to impose domestic gun controls on the United States that the American people themselves would never accept through the ordinary political process. But even though that grievance is placed under the lettering of a complaint, and was filed on a docket, it has no basis in law. This Court’s review is badly needed.
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And soon the gun makers will get it, hopefully putting an end to Mexico’s junk lawsuit against the U.S. firearms industry.
The cartel violence in Mexico has been enabled by the “hugs, not bullets” strategy of appeasing the drug cartels adopted by the Mexican government, which has allowed the cartels to become the de-facto government in some parts of the country. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who was recently replaced as Mexico’s president by Claudia Sheinbaum, has repeatedly scapegoated U.S. gun makers and U.S. gun laws for cartel violence, while the Biden administration quietly dropped multiple investigations into Obrador’s own alleged ties to cartels.
While the Supreme Court can’t change the policies of the Mexican government, it now has the opportunity to at least curb Mexico’s attempt to litigate the Second Amendment out of existence, and today’s decision is good news for both the firearms industry and tens of millions of American gun owners.
https://bearingarms.com/camedwards/2024/10/04/supreme-court-will-decide-fate-of-mexicos-lawsuit-against-us-gunmakers-n1226460
Stop Giving Secret Service a Pass While Trying to Punish Rest of Us
By Tom Knighton | 8:29 AM | October 04, 2024
AP Photo/Stephanie Matat
Two assassination attempts on Donald Trump in recent months. That’s…that’s something I can’t recall ever happening in my lifetime. I suppose it’s a good sign none of them were time travelers, at least.
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Either way, it’s stirred up the gun debate in this country.
Which is insane to me. After all, none of these should have gotten as close as they did and the Secret Service needs to shoulder at least some of the blame for that.
But some want to not just give them a pass, but punish the rest of us for their failures.
The recent findings of a man positioned at former President Donald Trump’s golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, raised questions nationwide on the effectiveness of our current Secret Service. While these questions may be important, they take away from the greater question of the entire situation: why are we allowing people with these motivations to own guns?
While it is true that Trump receives significantly less security detail now that he isn’t the incumbent president, whether he needs more detail is the answer to a small portion of the bigger problem. Gun control needs to be a top priority. This situation, while not mismanaged, could have been avoided, or even eradicated, had the United States had stricter gun laws. Instead, officials and citizens alike intend to keep finding a different part of the problem to blame; this time, it was the Secret Service.
The problem is not the Secret Service. While it’s old news that the Secret Service has been struggling with staffing for a decade now, it came to light recently following the second assassination attempt. Gun violence has been rampant for years. We have lost children, teens and adults to different gun-related incidents. Yet, every time this happens, citizens wonder why it happened again. This past event happened because we didn’t have the laws and restrictions needed to prevent it. America doesn’t care. While the Second Amendment is an important amendment to uphold, there are ways to honor it and still have policies in place that keep Americans safe from gun violence.
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So the author admits that the Secret Service is struggling and that Trump lacked the detail he once had, but no, they’re not at fault for allowing a would-be assassin to get on top of a roof with a clear line of sight within easy gun-shot range in Butler, Pennsylvania. Nor are they at fault for not securing the perimeter of a golf course the former president would be on just weeks after an assassination attempt against him. Further, the would-be killer in that case was exploiting a known vulnerability that they never bothered to shore up.
But we shouldn’t blame them, really.
Instead, what we should do is punish every law-abiding American who wants to protect themselves.
Never you mind that the would-be killer in Butler could have carried out the exact same attack with a bolt-action rifle–like what Lee Harvey Oswald owned, for the record–and he had absolutely nothing in his history that would have barred him from owning a gun in the first place. So just what gun control laws would have stopped him?
In Florida, the would-be assassin was a convicted felon who had a semi-automatic gun that was exempted from the 1994 Assault Weapon Ban. The serial numbers had been destroyed, meaning it was obtained illegally.
On two different extremes, we see how little gun control would actually accomplish.
Especially if you somehow think that you can uphold the Second Amendment and still infringe on the right to keep and bear arms. Tell me you’ve never read the Second Amendment without saying you’ve never read the Second Amendment.
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The truth of the matter is that the Secret Service has been dropping the ball. For the most part, it hasn’t mattered all that much because most attacks never get to the point of having a weapon in that kind of proximity to the protected individual. This time it did. Twice.
So now we know how bad the Secret Service is at their job. Either that or they’re only assigning agents who want Trump dead, too.
Neither is comforting.
https://bearingarms.com/tomknighton/2024/10/04/please-stop-giving-secret-service-a-pass-while-trying-to-punish-rest-of-us-n1226454
Self-Defense in a Wildlife Attack: No Gun? Use This
By
Doug Howlett –
October 4, 2024 4
It wasn’t with a gun, and it wasn’t against a predator of the two-legged kind, but it is one heck of a self-defense tale—or at the very least, a story of defense of man’s best friend.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) is investigating a remarkable incident near Cañon City, where a man reportedly killed a mountain lion with nothing more than a shovel to protect himself and his dog. According to a report from Fox 31 News, the encounter took place late on the night of Thursday, September 26, when a CPW officer responded to a campground west of Cañon City. Upon arrival, the officer was met by a man who had the carcass of a dead mountain lion sprawled across the hood of his Jeep.
The man explained that he was sitting outside his car with his husky when they noticed a mountain lion approaching. His dog, a husky, quickly sensed the danger and began barking and growling at the predator, which continued to close in, eventually coming within about 10 feet of the pair. It was at this point that the husky, unwilling to back down, engaged the mountain lion.
Fearing for both his life and the life of his dog, the man grabbed the only weapon within reach—a shovel—and struck the mountain lion in the head. The blow proved fatal. While mountain lion attacks on humans are rare in Colorado, the man felt he had no other option, saying the lion had acted “unusual and extremely aggressive.”
Remarkably, neither the man nor his dog was seriously injured during the encounter, but that mountain lion sure was, and Colorado Parks and Wildlife is treating the incident as an act of self-defense. Though CPW does not classify the event as an official “attack”—since the lion didn’t physically touch the man—the department’s preliminary findings support the idea that he acted out of fear for his life and in defense of his dog.
The mountain lion, a female weighing around 95 pounds, showed signs of an injured paw and scratches on her back. CPW sent the animal’s body to a lab for a necropsy to determine if the lion’s behavior may have been affected by health or environmental factors.
Mountain lion encounters like this are rare but underscore the reality of living near wildlife in Colorado. Since 1990, there have been only 25 documented mountain lion attacks on humans in the state. However, for this man and his loyal husky, the situation was a stark reminder that the wilderness can still hold dangers—and sometimes, defense comes down to the simplest of tools and the strongest of instincts.
Fox 31 shared these CPW recommendations when mountain lions are near or on your property or when traveling in lion country:
Make a lot of noise if you come and go during dusk and dawn, the times most lions are active.
Install outside lighting so you can see a lion if it were present.
Closely supervise children whenever they play outside.
Landscape and remove vegetation to decrease hiding places for lions.
Planting non-native shrubs and plants that deer often prefer to eat encourages wildlife to come onto your property.
Keep your pet under control. Pets are easy prey and they attract lions.
Place livestock in enclosed sheds or barns.
TTAG might add a couple more recommendation:
Carry a large caliber sidearm and be ready to use it. Doesn’t have to be too crazy, something, say like a Colt Classic Python in .357 Mag. or a Ruger GP100 in the same caliber will do just fine when loaded with 158-grain or 180-grain loads. Like to look more Western where you’re allowed to tote one, a lever-action rifle with open sights such as the Henry Steel Lever Action .30-30 or Marlin Model 1894 in .44 Mag. look cool and handle great. The open sights are excellent for making shots at charging or leaping animals such as large mountain lions. The smooth, natural operation of working the lever allows you to make fast follow-up shots when your first one doesn’t square on the hard-to-hit target, and your attention is being split by the realization that you just soiled your pants.
No firearm handy and an attack is imminent or charge commenced, as our camper in Colorado showed us, use a shovel. An axe, hatchet or tomahawk would probably work well also though it could be a little messier.
Good use of a tomahawk as an alternate self-defense tool in the wilderness.
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/self-defense-in-a-wildlife-attack-no-gun-use-this/
Another church is burning in Canada: This time, the historic Notre Dame des Sept Allégresses Church in Trois-Rivières, Canada.
Since 2021, over 100 churches in Canada have been burned or vandalized.
Amir Tsarfati – October 4, 2024
https://t.me/beholdisraelchannel/41479
Historic Notre Dame Church in Trois-Rivières, Canada
Destroyed by Massive Fire
Hit News Latest – October 4, 2024
Video:
This will make your blood boil.
Democrat Colorado Judge Matthew Barrett condemns Tina Peters for her “privilege,” arguing she deserves a worse punishment than his usual defendants who have criminal records, drug/alcohol abuse, etc.
Then brings up her dead Navy Seal son
Julie Kelly – October 3, 2024
https://x.com/julie_kelly2/status/1841995684045639743
Democrat Colorado Judge Matthew Barrett’s Diatribe
begins @ 2:02:03 – 2:26:12
https://rumble.com/v5hbpmc-tina-peters-sentencing-hearing.html
6:58 minute Video: Colorado Judge Matthew Barrett just sentenced Tina Peters to nine years in prison. Nine years.
Tina Peters is a 69-year-old woman, with no prior criminal record, who was found guilty of “attempting to influence a public servant in violation of duty” among other election-related charges.
Listen to Judge Barrett’s unhinged admonishment of Tina prior to sentencing her to multiple sentences of years, which the judge ordered to be served consecutively.
This is Orwellian madness. Absolute communism. Add it to the list.
Stay the hell out of Colorado, people.
Viva Frei – October 3, 2024
https://x.com/thevivafrei/status/1841914524665831935