Archive for the 'Donald Trump' Category

The Washington Times.

Former President Donald Trump will headline the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) Leadership Forum later this month.

Mr. Trump will deliver remarks at the annual gathering of Second Amendment activists on May 27. He will be joined by other Republican speakers, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Texas, North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.

This is the first NRA annual meeting since its cancellation last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and its 151st overall.

“It is truly an honor to have President Trump address NRA members for the sixth time at our 2022 NRA-ILA Leadership Forum in Houston,” said NRA Executive Vice President and CEO Wayne LaPierre in a statement.

He said, “President Trump delivered on his promises by appointing judges who respect and value the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and in doing so helped ensure the freedom of generations of Americans. NRA members are excited to hear him speak and thank him for his support for our right to keep and bear arms.”

Isn’t that special.  Trump loves the NRA and they love him.  He will get a hero’s welcome, no doubt.  The two are made for each other.

Neither one has done anything for firearms owners.  Trump supported red flag laws and the bump stock ban, and appointed nothing but deep staters to positions of power (e.g., William Barr who organized a gaggle of former AGs to defend Lon Horiuchi from charges of manslaughter after he shot Randy Weaver’s wife, Vicki Weaver, and his dog).  His appointment to head the DHS stated that white supremacy was the most dangerous threat that America faced.  He left Comey and McCabe in charge of the FBI, and he failed to drive to the bottom of “fast and furious.”  That’s a short list of his many failures, the successes involving mostly tweeting angry rebuttals at those whom he saw as personal enemies, or people who didn’t fall down and worship him.

The NRA supported (in order) the NFA (and Hughes Amendment), the GCA, the Clinton AWB, universal background checks, red flag laws, and the bump stock ban.

They go together very well, I should say.  Beyond that, LaPierre has taken such bad positions, thrown so much money away and caused such division in the NRA, and caused such ineffectiveness that the organization is now ruined and cannot be saved.  The NRA board of directors allowed one man to destroy the entire organization.  They should be proud, that is, if they are terrible people.

By the way, here is an update on the current status of the NRA museum.

After being closed for two years, supposedly due to Covid (in fact, state and country restrictions were lifted about a year ago), the main National Firearms Museum has reopened. We’d written about concerns that the museum’s collections were being looted and sold off, and how a former curator who’d loaned guns to the museum was told they could not be found.

At last it is open, but the report is not good.

“There are a lot of missing guns and artifacts that used to be on display. So many great pieces. Where did they go? Some empty spots have the usual “Object Temporarily Removed” marker placed, but others – nope.  In the last two years, maintenance of the galleries really didn’t happen and the dust on so many historic pieces is not good.  Labels have fallen and are in the process of falling in many cases. Lighting has not been adjusted in several galleries – so there are very bright and very dim sections – not good for paper and textile artifacts in the brightness. Even from outside the glass, there were many guns that really needed cleaning and perhaps some conservation – including the premier collection of Gatling guns.  Damn…”

“So how does the HQ building look?  Not good. The outer tiles on both sides of the entry driveway have flaked off in a very unsightly manner.  The underside of the overhang has many patched areas from leaks. Inside – I saw evidence of other leaks. Rust staining is seeping from window joints all over the building exterior.  For those that may want to buy a souvenir – well – forget it.  The NRA Store is not open.”

“Walking through the galleries, I found myself looking at a cannon – right in the middle of a junction of four pathways.  No warning ropes even. In addition to impacting on ADA standards for the museum, it turns out the reason the cannon has been placed so awkwardly was to free up the Revolutionary War Gallery.  Why? – so that food and drink can be served for special donor receptions, inside the museum.  Professional museum folks are cringing by now and believe it or not, my old sign prohibiting food and drink inside was still posted outside. Bugs are attracted by food residues and move on to munch on museum objects quickly.”

The story mentions that there is no museum registrar. From the comments: “For those who don’t know, the Registrar is the individual responsible for the collection.  They must at the stroke of the finger know where each piece is located (on display, on loan, in transit, in conservation).  No registrar means that objects can disappear and there is no accounting for it.  Be warned if you were considering donating any object to them.  I wouldn’t.”

You’re a fool if you donate firearms to the NRA museum.  And I wouldn’t attend the NRA meeting if the NRA sent me on an all-expenses paid vacation to go there.

WRSA.

“…Trump’s transgression in his words was that Trump was violating the foreign policy of the USA – read carefully here – as articulated and decided upon by the “interagency.” The interagency or NSC, is the alliance of State, CIA, NSA, DOD, DHS, etc., Treasury too, who decide foreign policy collectively. HUD probably does not have a rep on interagency. IRS probably not either. Commerce Dept probably no rep there. This group sets foreign policy- they run the USA. Trump tried to go outside that and this is the source of the complaint- the firsthand people like Vindman went to Ciaramella or whoever tf this clown is, and used him as a focus point given his contacts with Adam Shitt to fashion the complaint…

Doubtless true.  For me, the Trump mistakes run deeper.

Trump made a huge error in surrounding himself with bad people.  I think he is an awful judge of character because he essentially has no character himself.  He left Comey in charge for too long.  He left McCabe in place for too long.  He has had deep state hacks in charge of very important positions for too long, and didn’t empty the offices of the Department of State as soon as he walked in the door.  Reince Priebus was a big mistake, but I repeat myself.  General Kelly was an equally big mistake, but McMaster was nearly the biggest mistake of all, perhaps right after Comey.  No, correction.  The biggest mistake of all was the absolute zero, Jeff Sessions, who left the deep state active, and even defended it.

He could also have made progress on the wall on the Southern border if he had chosen to focus on it early on in his tenure.  Ironically, I think he wanted a delayed wall and to be surrounded by the deep state.  He wanted the drama of the deep state to penetrate his presidency, and he wanted both the deep state and the wall as issues to run on in 2020.  Also ironically, 2020 may be too late for him.

His big mistake for me is his love of big government and gun control.

David Codrea.

… noting that Mr. Trump now really needs to keep his supporters rallied, a tweet from the president came across as bizarrely counterproductive:

“The Democrats are so focused on hurting the Republican Party and the President that they are unable to get anything done because of it, including legislation on gun safety, lowering of prescription drug prices, infrastructure, etc. So bad for our Country!”

Really? Now’s the time to demotivate the gun owners who put him in office? Not coming up with new infringements is what’s “bad”?

While he is also saying this.

In a fresh effort to dismiss the impeachment inquiry as nothing but a partisan fight with no real merit, Trump characterized the effort as a move by the Democrats to take things away from the voters who elected him as well as an attack on democracy itself. “The Democrats want to take away your guns, they want to take away your health care, they want to take away your vote, they want to take away your freedom, they want to take away your judges,” Trump said in the video. “It’s all very simple: They’re trying to stop me, because I’m fighting for you.”

I’m afraid he is so tone deaf to common Americans that he doesn’t realize that he’s already in serious trouble with gun owners, perhaps never to regain their trust or their vote, with the nomination of Canterbury to head the ATF, the bump stock ban, support for red flag laws, and apparent support for universal background checks.

The Washington Times.

But the biggest question remained: Where does the president stand?

“That’s an important piece — if the president doesn’t support it, there’s no point. It’s not going to become law,” Mr. Hawley said.

It was not clear what Mr. Trump thought of the proposal, with lawmakers pointing out that he hasn’t signed off on it and Mr. Barr was taking a temperature check.

I told you so.

NYT:

When Mr. Manchin volunteered to take his name off the background checks bill, Mr. Murphy said, the three senators were huddled around a speakerphone, talking to Mr. Trump from Mr. Toomey’s Capitol hideaway office.

“The president is a guy who thinks about branding,” Mr. Toomey said. “I think we just want to make it clear to the president that if he was going to do this, that he should get credit for it.”

Oh, no one has to worry about that.  Whatever new gun control makes its way into law, Trump will own it.  Completely.

Via David Codrea, FPC has a brief analysis here.

The invocation of “chain of title” is also problematic, as it suggests a legitimate government interest in maintaining searchable records of all firearm transactions. In other words: a universal registry masquerading as a background check system.

It’s a bad idea for a whole host of reasons.  But I wanted to point out one thing on this that you may have overlooked.

There are so many articles out there where it’s claimed that the White House said “Trump hasn’t bought any of this yet” that I cannot cite them all.

Here’s what I think happened.  These are ideas collectively promulgated by both Trump (a gun controller from way back) and Barr (a gun controller from way back).  Don’t believe it when the articles hint that this is all Barr and Trump is waiting on the Congress to lead by interacting first with Barr.

Barr is his boy on this.  Trump wants plausible deniability, and this effort is him sticking his finger in the wind.  Whether he gets all of this or not, at least now you see where Trump’s hearts is: “chain of title.”  Or in other words, a national gun registry.

News from Chicagoland.

A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld a county-wide ban on assault weapons and limits on magazine capacity. The three-judge panel rendered a unanimous opinion for the court, including the assent of Trump appointee Judge Amy Joan St. Eve.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit found that two Cook County, Illinois residents who sought to challenge these restrictions came “forward with no reason — much less a compelling one,” to revisit the court’s own precedent establishing such rules as constitutional.

A U.S. District Court judge dismissed the lawsuit last year, and the three-judge panel upheld that ruling on Thursday.

[ … ]

“As the court recognized, states have broad authority to pass public safety laws to protect their citizens, including laws prohibiting assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines,” he said.

Thanks Amy.  What did you do – lie on the questionnaire, or did Trump fail to question you on your knowledge of the second amendment?  Who do we blame for this?

The Washington Post:

The White House has been briefed on a proposal to develop a way to identify early signs of changes in people with mental illness that could lead to violent behavior.

[ … ]

The proposal is part of a larger initiative to establish a new agency called the Health Advanced Research Projects Agency or HARPA, which would sit inside the Health and Human Services Department. Its director would be appointed by the president, and the agency would have a separate budget, according to three people with knowledge of conversations around the plan.

HARPA would be modeled on DARPA, the highly successful Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that serves as the research arm of the Pentagon and collaborates with other federal agencies, the private sector and academia.

The attempt to use volunteer data to identify “neurobehavioral signs” of “someone headed toward a violent explosive act” would be a four-year project costing an estimated $40 million to $60 million, according to Geoffrey Ling, the lead scientific adviser on HARPA and a founding director of DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office.

“Everybody would be a volunteer,” Ling said in an interview. “We’re not inventing new science here. We’re analyzing it so we can develop new approaches.

“This is going to have to be done using scientific rigor,” he said.

But there are plenty of researchers and mental health experts who believe that mental health and gun violence aren’t necessarily linked.

Mental illness can sometimes be a factor in such violent acts, experts say, but it is rarely a predictor — most studies show that no more than a quarter of mass shooters have a diagnosed mental illness. More commonly shared attributes of mass shooters include a strong sense of resentment, desire for notoriety, obsession with other shooters, a history of domestic violence, narcissism and access to firearms.

[ … ]

Wright sees Ivanka Trump as the most effective champion of the proposal and has previously briefed her on HARPA himself, Wright said.

“It would be perfect for her to do it — we need someone with some horsepower — someone like her driving it. … It could get done,” said one official familiar with the conversations. “We’d be able to put every resource of federal government, from the highest levels of the scientific community to say: ‘This is how people with these problems should be treated and have limited access to firearms.’ ”

The document goes on to list a number of widely used technologies it suggests could be employed to help collect data, including Apple Watches, Fitbits, Amazon Echo and Google Home. The document also mentions “powerful tools” collected by health-care provides like fMRIs, tractography and image analysis.

“Advanced analytical tools based on artificial intelligence and machine learning are rapidly improving and must be applied to the data,” states the document.

Big brother is watching you.  And listening.  And profiling.  And trying to predict your behavior.

I must remind readers that trying to predict the future is called divination in the Holy Writ, and it is considered wicked because only God ordains and knows the future.  Such actions attempt to place man in the position of God, usurping His authority and knowledge.  It is high-handed sin, shaking your fist at the Almighty.  God will not bless it, and it won’t be used for anything good.

Furthermore, we’ve discussed how “mental illness” bears no correlation to propensity to violence, and it’s bigoted and prejudiced to think that way of people who have been diagnosed as mentally ill.

Finally, turning to something like this might be called Orwellian by some, but I tend to lean more towards witchcraft and sorcery.  Trump has stated unequivocally that people who do this are mentally ill.  He doesn’t know this, and he’s in no position to decide.

But he’s turning to witchcraft for help, really no different than turning to palm readers.  The legacy Trump will leave behind will be bump stock bans, universal background checks, appointment of a controller to head the ATF, and now HARPA.  The communists are watching with jealousy, wishing they could have done this.

Time.com.

An aide tracked down LaPierre, and soon LaPierre’s voice was coming through the gray speaker phone on the Resolute Desk. Trump and aides ran down the list of actions the White House is considering. The White House tried to impress upon LaPierre that Trump was “in a good place” and had staff working on the proposals who were concerned about the Second Amendment, mental health, and solving the problem of mass shootings, the senior White House official said.

“What we are talking about is meaningful background checks that would actually go to prevent [shootings like] Sandy Hook or El Paso or Parkland. Those are things we can work on that have cause and effect,” a second White House official told TIME. “This wasn’t Wayne LaPierre dictating to us. We were telling him, ‘Here are the things we are looking at, how big of a fight are you going to put up?’ For most of them, he was like, ‘Whatever you say.’ For a couple, he said, ‘I don’t know about that, I haven’t seen that one yet.’”

[ … ]

But by Wednesday, Trump’s tune had changed. “I have an appetite for background checks,” he said.

Sounds like Wayne didn’t put up much of a fight.

Yahoo.com.

Trump confirmed that he discussed background checks with Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Association, but he disputed news reports that he told LaPierre that background checks were off the table.

“I have an appetite for background checks,” Trump said from the White House South Lawn as he departed for an event in Louisville, Kentucky. “We’re going to be doing background checks. … We’re going to be filling in some of the loopholes.”

Hmm .. “loopholes.”  Sounds like he’s adopted the gun controllers’ lingo.

Very well.  One term president.  Can you sense that excitement to go out and vote among the people three years ago ebbing away?