Tag: democrats

Washington State Democrats: Using Ammo A ‘Privilege’ That Needs To Be Taxed

The first month of the Washington Legislature’s 2024 session is ending with a slew of Democrat-backed gun control proposals, including a new measure to tax people who have the “privilege” of using ammunition.

House Bill 2238, sponsored by Democratic state Reps. My-Linh Thai and Liz Berry, would create an 11 percent tax on the retail sale of ammunition across the state in addition to all existing federal, state, and local sale and use taxes, with the exception of sales to governments for the purposes of supplying law enforcement agencies.

Instead of recognizing the purchase of ammunition as an integral part of the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, the language of the bill classifies it as a “privilege.”

“A use tax is levied on every person in this state for the privilege of using ammunition as a consumer at the rate of 11 percent of the selling price,” the bill reads.

The stated reason behind the proposal is to help reduce “gun violence,” or deaths involving guns—most of which are suicides.

“Gun violence remains a persistent health and safety threat for people across our state,” the bill’s authors wrote, admitting that nearly seven out of every 10 gun deaths in Washington are suicides..

“Data from the Washington office of firearm safety and violence prevention show that, in 2021, 69 percent of all firearm-related deaths were suicides,” they wrote.

Revenue from the proposed tax would go to funding suicide prevention programs, as well as programs aimed to reduce “firearm-related domestic violence.”

Ms. Berry, a gun control advocate who previously worked for former Rep. Gabby Giffords as her legislative director when the Democrat congresswoman was shot in the head in Tucson in 2011, also co-sponsored at least five other measures targeting guns.

Those proposals include House Bill 1902, which would apply requirements similar to those for a licensed concealed handgun carrier to all potential gun buyers in Washington. In addition to live-fire training, it would make fingerprinting a mandatory prerequisite to all Washington residents who wish to obtain a gun permit.

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J6 Committee Admits Its Show Trials Were An Election-Year Publicity Stunt

Key members of the since-disbanded Select Committee on January 6th admit in a new PBS documentary that the entire operation was an election-year publicity stunt.

On Wednesday, Frontline PBS published a new documentary, “Democracy on Trial,” chronicling the House committee’s work. Pivotal players on the partisan probe conceded in the two-and-half-hour documentary that the panel’s public performances produced for prime-time television were orchestrated as entertainment media.

“The one thing that we knew was the information that we have is compelling,” said Illinois congressman-turned CNN commentator Adam Kinzinger. “The thing we needed to do was tell that to the American people in a compelling way.”

The Jan. 6 Committee turned to former ABC News President James Goldston to produce their hearings that occurred just months before the 2022 midterms. The panel also hired another producer whose résumé included stints at Bloomberg, ABC News “Nightline,” and “Good Morning America.”

“I got a call pretty much out of the blue from the January 6th committee,” Goldson told the documentary. “They wanted a storyteller.”

“While they were brilliant lawyers,” Goldston added, “storytelling for a mass audience is not what they do.”

“To bring in a guy like this who would think outside the box really did prove to be fruitful,” Robert Draper of New York Times Magazine tells the PBS documentarians. “It was Golston who really began to envision this as in a way a kind of miniseries that there would be sort of nine episodes and that these episodes would tackle particular themes.”

The first episode in the summer series ultimately pulled dismal ratings despite the committee’s biggest fans attempting to encourage viewership with free ice cream watch parties. Months before the season premier, House Democrats conceded the committee’s investigation was central to the party’s plans to maintain the majority in the November midterms.

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Our Democracy™: The Democratic Weaponization Of Government And The Need For Decentralization

Reading Matt Taibbi’s summary how the Democrats weaponized the government against Donald Trump, starting before the election of 2016 and proceeding right up to the present moment, I am reminded once again that the issue is not democracy but “Our Democracy™.”

That is, the Democrats and their deep-state allies in the media and the myriad bureaucracies that actually run the country believe that democracy means “rule by Democrats.”  As Taibbi puts it, “To ‘protect democracy,’ democracy is already being canceled. We just haven’t admitted the implications of this to ourselves yet.”

This is true. Hence the plethora of handwringing articles warning that Donald Trump is a “dictator”-in-waiting, a new Hitler, a refurbished Mussolini who, should he be reelected, will mobilize the military to impose his will on a hapless American populace. Taibbi quotes from a December 2023 “strategy memo” in which Biden’s puppeteers describe Trump as “an existential threat to democracy.”

It sounds absurd.  It is absurd.  But, as I and many others have pointed out, that is the story we are being asked to swallow. This is the logic:

Trump is a “threat to democracy.”

Ergo, we must use “any means necessary” to keep him off the ballot.

Otherwise, people might vote for him, and that would be “bad for democracy.”

The arrogance of this gambit is breathtaking. It assumes, with Liz Cheneyesque smugness, that ordinary people cannot be entrusted with so important a task as electing their leaders. Only anointed saviors like Liz Cheney can do that. But alongside the arrogance of the we-have-to-destroy-democracy-in-order-to-save-it mindset is the chilling revelation of the extremes to which the people in power are willing to go in order to preserve their prerogatives. They will, for example, censor any opinion they do not like as “malinformation,” i.e., an opinion that might be true but is not consistent with The Narrative. It all adds up to what I have called “the Sovietization of America.”

What, as Lenin famously asked, is to be done?

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Democrats urge Biden administration to deschedule marijuana

Senate Democrats are putting new pressure on the Biden administration to ease federal restrictions on marijuana in a new letter to the Drug Enforcement Administration on Tuesday as it considers rescheduling cannabis after it was federally classified more than five decades ago.

The Department of Health and Human Services formally recommended in August that the DEA move the drug from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, or CSA, prompting a monthslong review, which continues.

The letter, from 12 senators led by Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and John Fetterman, D-Pa., and signed by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., goes further.

“The case for removing marijuana from Schedule I is overwhelming. The DEA should do so by removing cannabis from the CSA altogether, rather than simply placing it in a lower schedule,” the senators wrote in the letter, first obtained by NBC News.

Rescheduling the drug or removing it entirely would have significant implications for the marijuana industry and for cannabis users, some of whom consume it for medical purposes.

Since 1971, cannabis has been under Schedule I, the highest classification of the CSA, along with drugs like heroin and LSD, which the government formally considers to have high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use.

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Democrat Cori Bush under DOJ investigation for misuse of security funds

The Justice Department is investigating Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) for possible misuse of funds surrounding her personal security.

Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman released the news Tuesday, citing six sources familiar with the investigation. Thus far, the DOJ has subpoenaed the House Sergeant at Arms for records about the funds being spent, Sherman reported.

The allegations date back to 2021 when Bush was accused of hypocrisy after making defund the police demands while spending nearly $70,000 on private security in the wake of the Jan. 6 attacks.

“You would rather me die? Is that what you want to see? You want to see me die? You know, because that could be the alternative,” she responded.

CNN reported a ruling from the Federal Elections Commission in March 2021, which said that campaign funds could be spent on such services. There were approximately two dozen lawmakers who spent more than $1,000 on personal security after the attacks on the Capitol.

But Bush spent more than any other lawmaker, the FEC reports cited by CBS News showed. She was also accused of hiring her then-boyfriend, now husband, to provide the security, raising ethical concerns.

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‘Dangerous’: Pelosi calls for FBI to investigate cease-fire supporters

As The New York Times reported Sunday that more than 1,000 Black American pastors have joined the widespread call for a cease-fire in Gaza, U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi suggested the demand was “Putin’s message” and said the FBI should investigate groups that are speaking out about Biden’s pro-Israel policies.

On CNN, the former House speaker, a California Democrat, told Dana Bash that the “call for a cease-fire is [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s message,” and said she thinks some of the protests that have erupted across the U.S. since October to demand the U.S. push for an end to Israel’s killing of civilians in Gaza “are connected to Russia.”

“I think some financing should be investigated and I want to ask the FBI to investigate that,” Pelosi said.

A number of progressives pointed out that the demand for a cease-fire is hardly coming from the fringes of American society, but rather from more than two-thirds of Americans in a November poll by Reuters/Ipsos. Three-quarters of Democrats in the survey backed a cease-fire, along with half of Republicans.

The Times detailed calls from more than 1,000 Black pastors who represent hundreds of thousands of congregants across the U.S. and who have written open letters and spoken to White House officials at sit-down meetings in support of a cease-fire, warning that “it’s going to be very hard to persuade our people to go back to the polls and vote for Biden.”

The Intercept reporter Prem Thakker pointed to other groups supportive of the call, including the Democratic parties of Arizona and Texas; the United Auto Workers, which endorsed Biden last week; and Doctors Without Borders.

Writer and researcher Abdullah Shihipar denounced Pelosi’s comments as “stupid,” but was among those who cautioned against dismissing her plan to ask the FBI to “investigate” certain pro-Palestinian rights protesters and groups.

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Democrats Urge Joe Biden to Seize Control Over Texas National Guard Amid Border Dispute

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is steadfast in asserting the state’s right to defend its borders against invasion.

This stance has led to a growing dispute with the Biden regime and prompted some Democrats to call for Joe Biden to federalize Texas National Guard as the debate over border security intensifies.

On Wednesday, Abbott released a comprehensive declaration condemning the Biden administration for neglecting federal immigration laws and compromising the contractual agreement between the federal government and individual states.

“President Biden has instructed his agencies to ignore federal statutes that mandate the detention of illegal immigrants. The failure of the Biden Administration to fulfill the duties imposed by Article IV, § 4 has triggered Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which reserves to this State the right of self-defense,” said Abbott.

“For these reasons, I have already declared an invasion under Article I, § 10, Clause 3 to invoke Texas’s constitutional authority to defend and protect itself. That authority is the supreme law of the land and supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary,” he added.

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Bridgeport Democrat Mayor Wins Race After His Associate Is Caught Stuffing the Local Ballot Drop Boxes with Bags of Ballots

Mayor Joe Ganim won another victory on Tuesday in the Bridgeport, Connecticut special election for the Democratic primary for mayor. Ganim quickly claimed victory after winning the in-person tally by 274 votes.

In November a local judge overturned the initial primary election after Wanda Geter-Pataky, the Vice Chairwoman of the Democratic Town Clerk and a vocal supporter of incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim,  was caught on video stuffing the ballot drop boxes with dozens if not hundreds of absentee ballots.

So Mayor Ganim won again on Tuesday against John Gomes in the Democrat primary.

Superior Court Judge William Clark ordered a new election to be held, citing bombshell video evidence of election fraud as the basis for his decision. The ruling has far-reaching implications, not just for Bridgeport but for the entire country, as it sets a precedent for ongoing and future cases involving mail-in ballot fraud.

The Gateway Pundit reported in September that mayoral candidate John Gomes’ campaign released a damning video showing evidence of election fraud in the Bridgeport Democratic primary. The video has prompted an investigation by the Bridgeport Police Department for “possible misconduct.”

The video on the Gomes campaign’s Facebook page shows a woman dropping stacks of ‘illegal’ ballots into an absentee ballot box outside the Bridgeport government center, where the city’s Registrar of Voters office is located.

The Gomes campaign was able to identify the woman in the footage as Wanda Geter-Pataky, the Vice Chairwoman of the Democratic Town Clerk and a vocal supporter of incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim, who is seeking reelection. Gomes’ campaign claims that the video shows Geter-Pataky dropping off stacks of absentee ballots ahead of the September 12th primary.

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Chuck Schumer Attacks Lifesaving Zyn Nicotine Pouches

Less than three months after launching an attack on energy drinks, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) has a new target: Zyn nicotine pouches.

In a press release Sunday, Schumer labeled Zyn a “quiet and dangerous” alternative to vaping, claiming that with the decline in smoking, tobacco companies are adapting by focusing on new products like oral nicotine. Zyns are small pouches of nicotine meant to be placed between the lips and gums. Two strengths of the product are available at three and six milligrams of nicotine, and they come in several flavors.

Schumer’s ire appears to have been raised by the rapid growth in sales of nicotine pouches and so-called “Zynfluecers” on TikTok promoting the product. Schumer fears nicotine pouches could become a teen trend, as vaping did in 2019 before rapidly declining as the tobacco age was raised to 21 and schools became more aware of the problem. To head off a potential increase in youth nicotine addiction, Schumer wants the Federal Trade Commission and the Food and Drug Administration to investigate the marketing of Zyn and potentially restrict their flavors.

But Schumer’s framing has the story backward. Zyn is not a dangerous alternative to vaping but a dramatically safer alternative to smoking. One of the reasons smoking has declined substantially over the last decade is because safer nicotine alternatives like vapes and Zyn are switching smokers away from cigarettes. The closest equivalent for which we have decades of data is an oral smokeless tobacco called snus. Snus is most prevalent in Sweden, and not coincidentally, Sweden has the lowest smoking and lung cancer rates in Europe because those interested in using nicotine do so in a much safer form.

Schumer is right that nicotine pouches are enjoying enormous sales, but he would be wrong to assume nicotine-naive youth are driving these sales. According to the National Youth Tobacco Survey, only 1.5 percent of middle and high schoolers use nicotine pouches, and just 2.3 percent have ever tried a nicotine pouch. Even among the minority of young people who use products like Zyn, most are not nicotine newbies. A study of adolescents and adults aged 15-24 who used nicotine pouches found the vast majority were smokers or had smoked cigarettes in the past at 73 percent and 81 percent, respectively. Just like with e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches disproportionately appeal to people who are already using nicotine most often in its most dangerous form, which is cigarettes.

Schumer’s concern that Zyn comes in several flavors like cinnamon and citrus is also misguided. For one, Zyn has already applied to the FDA to be authorized for sale, and the agency will determine whether it presents a net benefit to public health. But suppose flavors in nicotine products are inherently youth-appealing, as Schumer suggests. In that case, he should be just as outraged that nicotine gums, which have been around for decades, are sold in flavors like “cinnamon surge,” “fruit chill,” and “spearmint burst.” Nicotine flavor bans have a poor track record in improving public health, with bans on flavored vapes associated with an increase in cigarette sales.

Schumer’s intervention drew mockery on X (formerly known as Twitter), including from Republican lawmakers and conservative commentators defending Zyn. The reaction is perhaps unsurprising, given that Tucker Carlson is the most famous Zyn consumer.

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Pelosi, AOC, Other House Dems Hit with Ethics Complaint – Accused of ‘Repeatedly’ Misusing Funds

An ethics watchdog has filed an ethics complaint against 10 Democratic lawmakers, claiming that they are using public resources for partisan political purposes.

The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust said the Democrats “repeatedly” used official resources for political gain, according to a news release on its website, naming Democratic Reps. Nancy Pelosi of California, Cori Bush of Missouri, Jamaal Bowman of New York, Sean Casten of Illinois, Greg Casar of Texas, Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida, Ted Lieu of California, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, and Ritchie Torres of New York.

Although Democratic Rep. Ayanna Presley of Massachusetts was not mentioned in the release, exhibits of her allegedly using official resources for political gain were included in the examples filed with the complaint.

“The law at issue is simple,” the release said, noting that government resources cannot be used for “campaign or political purposes.”

The release said that “official House photographs and video, government buildings, a Member’s official website and social media accounts, and anything created by government employees” are considered off-limits.

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