Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

A former police officer challenging the federal government’s rule regulating so-called ghost guns that can be assembled at home urged the Supreme Court on Aug. 13 to strike down that rule.

The new filing previews the arguments that will be made when the Supreme Court hears the high-profile case, Garland v. VanDerStok, on Oct. 8.

The petitioner is U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. The lead respondent who brought the original lawsuit is Jennifer VanDerStok, a high school teacher and former police officer in Texas who wants to make her own firearms.

“Ghost gun” is a term used to describe a homemade firearm that lacks a serial number and therefore can’t be tracked by law enforcement.

Although some states regulate homemade guns, gun control organizations have been trying for years to ban or regulate homemade guns and gun-assembly kits at the federal level but have failed to persuade Congress to act.

President Joe Biden has claimed that privately made guns, which are often made with gun kits, are the “weapons of choice for many criminals.”

The regulation in dispute—the government’s “frame or receiver” rule—dates to April 2022. It requires individuals who assemble homemade firearms to add serial numbers to them. The rule also mandates background checks for consumers who buy gun kits from dealers.

Pieces of guns that are shipped are nonetheless guns and are subject to existing laws, the government argues.

In June 2023, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor disagreed. He blocked the rule and determined that the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), which is part of the Department of Justice (DOJ), went beyond its statutory authority in regulating “partially manufactured firearm components, related firearm products, and other tools and materials.”

In July 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sided with O’Connor. In September 2023, the judge narrowed his injunction, but the DOJ told the Fifth Circuit he was ignoring the Supreme Court’s October 2023 order that temporarily reinstated the rule.

Also in October 2023, the Fifth Circuit said it disagreed with the DOJ’s argument, but at the same time found O’Connor’s injunction “sweeps too broadly” because it affected persons who were not participating in the litigation.

The circuit court vacated the part of the injunction that applied to gun kit customers, saying it did so based on the federal government’s assurances that it “will not enforce the Final Rule against customers who purchase regulated ‘frames or receivers’ and who are otherwise lawfully entitled to purchase firearms.”

The federal government appealed the ruling, filing a petition with the Supreme Court on Feb. 7, which granted it on April 22.

In the new brief filed on Aug. 13, VanDerStok says that the federal Gun Control Act (GCA) of 1968 regulates firearms, which are defined as “any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive,” and “the frame or receiver of any such weapon.”

Around the same time, a regulation defined “frame or receiver” as “that part of a firearm which provides housing for the hammer, bolt or breechblock, and firing mechanism, and which is usually threaded at its forward position to receive the barrel.”

A breechblock closes the rear end of the barrel and blocks gases from escaping.

That definition “said nothing about precursors of frames or receivers or parts kits,” the brief says.

But in April 2022 the ATF created a rule that expanded the definition of “firearm.” The rule defined “frame or receiver” to encompass “precursors that ‘may readily be … converted to function as a frame or receiver.’”

The rule defined firearm “to include weapon parts kits that ‘may readily be … converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive.” The rule also modified the definition of “frame or receiver” to cover the “housing only of the breechblock (for receivers) or one component of the firing mechanism (for frames),” the brief says.

The changes included in the rule “are inconsistent with the GCA’s definition of firearm,” and parts kits are not “firearms” within the meaning of the statute, the brief says.

It is key that when Congress passed the statute it chose “to focus on the commercial firearm market rather than the private making of firearms for personal use.” This means the law does not cover “the items used in private firearm making that ATF attempts to regulate.”

Only Congress, not the ATF, gets to make the changes the ATF desires, the brief says.

In its petition, the DOJ previously argued that the rule should be upheld because it “makes clear that a weapon parts kit that allows a purchaser to readily assemble an operational weapon is a ‘firearm.’”

“Those provisions of the Rule reflect the plain meaning of the relevant provisions” of the GCA, which the Fifth Circuit “failed to meaningfully analyze.”

The circuit court’s interpretation “would frustrate the Act’s design and make it trivially easy to circumvent the central requirements of the federal firearms laws,” according to the petition.

The Epoch Times reached out to the DOJ for comment on the new brief but did not receive a reply by publication time.

The trend of legacy automakers ditching their plans and investments in EVs continues, with Ford reportedly the latest to cancel plans for a large three-row electric sport-utility vehicle, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

The company will take $1.9 billion in related special charges and write-downs as a result, the report said. 

Ford is canceling due to pricing pressures and increased competition, instead opting to focus on hybrid versions of its popular Explorer and Expedition models.

This decision reflects a broader trend among automakers that we have written about over the last year or two, especially since the UAW extorted negotiated their latest labor contracts from the Detroit automakers. 

Additionally, consumer demand has been weaker than anticipated, with concerns over cost and charging infrastructure. As a result of all of these factors, combined with increased competition out of China, legacy automakers are scaling back EV investments. VW also announced it was stepping back from EVs to focus on hybrids earlier this year, as we wrote in May.  

Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler commented: “Based on where the market is and where the customer is, we will pivot and adjust and make those tough decisions.”

The WSJ reported on Tuesday that Ford has also delayed the launch of a new electric pickup truck to 2027, marking the second postponement, and reduced its EV investment to 30% of its budget, down from 40%.

The company expects to lose $5 billion on its EV business this year, with a loss of about $44,000 per vehicle in the second quarter. Executives are focused on reducing losses and ensuring future EVs are profitable.

Despite recalibrating plans to include more hybrids, Ford is still moving forward with several full EVs, including an electric commercial van in 2026 and two new pickup trucks in 2027, according to the report. 

Farley said last month: “We believe that the fitness of the Chinese in EVs will eventually wash over our entire industry in all regions.”

We wrote back in June that nearly half of EV drivers in the U.S. were considering switching back to gas. Forty-six percent of EV owners surveyed in the United States say they will likely return to driving gas-powered vehicles.

Globally, the survey of 30,000 respondents in 15 countries found that more than one-quarter (29 percent) of EV owners are likely to go back to driving gas-powered cars.

Recall back in April we noted that Ford was “re-timing” its efforts to go all electric and back in February we wrote that GM was shifting to plug-in hybrids, too. 

CEO Mary Barra said on an earnings call back in February: “Let me be clear, GM remains committed to eliminating tailpipe emissions from our light-duty vehicles by 2035, but, in the interim, deploying plug-in technology in strategic segments will deliver some of the environment or environmental benefits of EVs as the nation continues to build this charging infrastructure.”

Authored by Alex Wu via The Epoch Times,

The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that new COVID-19 infections in the country of origin have increased to nearly 20 percent in the past few weeks, as two new Omicron subvariants spread across the country.

But while increases to China’s official COVID-19 test positivity rate mirrors that of the rest of the world, its number of reported COVID-19 deaths remains orders of magnitude lower than is expected for a country of its population, given the ongoing reports of COVID-19-related deaths in other countries.

According to its Aug. 8 report, China’s CDC reported that the COVID-19 test positivity rate in the country spiked to 18.7 percent in the last week of July, up from 8.9 percent at the start of the month. According to the official data, that rate has not exceeded 8 percent since the start of the year.

The trend of China’s official infection data parallels that reported in the United States. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S. CDC), in its Aug. 8 biweekly update, reported that the COVID-19 test positivity rate in the United States had increased in the past six months to 17.6 percent.

According to the World Health Organization’s monitoring data from 84 countries, the overall COVID-19 test positivity rate stands above 10 percent but varies by region. That percentage has been rising for weeks, it said. Europe also reported a 20 percent increase in its positive COVID-19 tests since the start of 2024.

But for the month of July, China’s CDC reported only two deaths from COVID. Meanwhile, the U.S. CDC data reflected significantly more provisional COVID-related deaths, with 1,920 U.S. deaths reported in July citing COVID-19 as an underlying or contributing cause. China also has a much larger population: 1.4 billion to the United States’ 335 million.

China’s ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has long been accused by the international community of downplaying and covering up the true scale of COVID-19 infections and deaths in the country since late 2019, when COVID-19 first broke out in Wuhan, in the country’s Hubei Province.

New Omicron Subvariants

China’s CDC named the XDV and JN.1 Omicron subvariants as the prevalent strains contributing to the 7,042 COVID-19 cases officially recorded in July.

The official Chinese reporting said that Omicron subvariant XDV and its descendants accounted for 38 percent to 43 percent of infections, while Omicron subvariant JN.1 and its descendants—including the subvariants JN.1.7, JN.1.18, KP.2, KP.3, and LB.1—accounted for 55 percent to 60 percent of infections.

U.S. CDC data showed that as of Aug. 8, XDV.1 subvariant of parent strain XDV accounted for only 0.3 percent of cases in the United States—a reduction from previous months. Meanwhile, the KP.3.1.1 variant is now the most common strain in the United States, followed by KP.3, LB.1, KP.2.3, and KP.2—all of which came from the JN.1 parent strain. The U.S. CDC said it saw no evidence that these new variants were causing more severe symptoms.

Dr. Dong Yuhong, an infectious disease specialist and senior medical columnist for The Epoch Times, said on Aug. 9 that the JN.1-derived subvariants “KP.3 and KP.2 have similar virological and epidemiological characteristics” but that their test positivity rate in China has increased.

She noted that the variants have a stronger ability to evade the antibodies that people have developed from past infections or vaccination.

China’s latest vaccine targeted the XBB.1.5 variant, she said, which belongs to a different sublineage of the shared parental BA.2 Omicron variant.

Dong said that while there are again signs of increased COVID-19 transmission, it remains unclear whether a deadly COVID-19 strain that could cause another pandemic could emerge. She added that COVID-19 “requires continuous monitoring and close observation.”

She said that the speed of vaccine development “can’t keep up” with the virus’s continuous mutation and that “simply depending on vaccines is unsafe and unreliable.”

“We have an innate multi-immune barrier in each of us,” she said. “As long as we pay attention to strengthening and protecting it, it will be effective.”

She advised everyone to avoid habits that damage immunity, such as smoking, drinking, and staying up late, and develop more good habits that enhance immunity, such as regular exercise, meditation, and improving our capacity to regulate our emotions.

“That’s a positive approach to dealing with epidemics,” she said.

No Transparency, Trust

After years of controlled releases of approved official data, censorship of whistleblowers, and mandating COVID-19 restrictions and prolonged lockdowns across China, the CCP suddenly reversed course and lifted all its restrictions, testing, and reporting about COVID-19 in 2022. But it continued with its lack of transparency, leaving many Chinese feeling that they are unable to trust their institutions and still in the dark about the true seriousness of the COVID-19 epidemic in the country.

The Chinese regime’s experts estimated that 80 percent of China’s population was infected with COVID-19 at the end of 2022 when its restrictions were lifted.

Recent posts by Chinese doctors on Chinese social media heightened the populace’s fear, with a number saying that a more contagious COVID-19 variant is responsible for China’s new infections.

Hu Yang, a chief physician of the Department of Respiratory and Critical Care at Shanghai Pulmonary Hospital and associate professor at Tongji University, said in a video posted on Chinese social media that with the recent wave of COVID-19 infections, some young people have also been found to be suffering severe infections in their lungs and exhibiting white lung symptoms.

“With the virus causing COVID-19 still mutating, the dominant virus strain [in China] has become XDV, which is more contagious, and many people have been infected again,” Hu said. “At present, XDV mutant strains can still spread in high-temperature environments.”

Feng Ge, a member of the China Association for Research and Development of Traditional Chinese Medicine, wrote on Chinese social media on Aug. 4 that “currently, there are two new most poisonous subvariants spreading—XDV and KP.3.”

He warned that children have been more vulnerable to the new subvariants and that parents shouldn’t treat an illness caused by them like a simple cold.

Dr. Guo Kai, the deputy chief physician of the Department of Pediatrics at the Wangjing Hospital in Beijing, posted on Chinese Weibo on Aug. 2 that the new variant KP.3 has been “fierce” and that four types of pediatric medicines should be kept on hand.

Parents with children suffering from respiratory diseases line up at a children’s hospital in Chongqing, China, on Nov. 23, 2023. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Reports of Youth Infections, Deaths

Sean Lin, a microbiologist and assistant professor in the Biomedical Science Department at Fei Tian College in New York, says the Chinese regime continues to hide information about COVID-19 cases in China.

“The Chinese government has concealed the number of people who have died from COVID-19,” Lin told The Epoch Times in an interview on Aug. 9.

“I think many elderly people with poor immunity may have already died in the past multiple waves of COVID-19 in China. And now, it’s spreading rampantly among young people.”

Lin said that now, KP.3 in China has the momentum to replace some of the other JN.1 subvariants causing the rise in infections.

“However, I think the situation in China is not just a problem of virus mutation, because this variant also occurs in other parts of the world,” he said. “I think it is that the immune systems of so many ​​young Chinese people have been exhausted. I think China’s problem is a comprehensive health problem.”

Lin said of COVID-19 infections outside of China: “The hospitalization rate has not increased, and the death rate has not increased, although the transmission rate has increased. The entire society does not feel the impact of COVID that much, as most people can recover from it after about two weeks.”

“But the situation in China is different,” he said.

A resident of Huzhu County, in Qinghai Province in northwest China, who asked to be referred to only as Yang out of fear for his safety, told The Epoch Times in early August that there have been several families around him in which their children were infected with COVID-19.

“The outbreak is still very serious in some places,” he said.

Patients line up for an emergency pre-check at the new pediatric building of Xinhua Hospital in Shanghai on the evening of Sept. 25, 2023. The emergency and night care outpatient hall is crowded with children and family members waiting for treatment. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images

Yang also noted that there have been known incidents of “many people of all ages dying very suddenly.” This is despite that all of them have received COVID-19 vaccines for earlier variants, he noted.

Cao, a resident of Jingdezhen in Jiangxi Province who also asked to withhold his first name, told The Epoch Times that locals believe there have consistently been people infected with COVID-19 in recent years, despite the lack of testing and reporting.

“Unexplained sudden deaths also occur from time to time,” he said. Some of his relatives and friends have been among the casualties.

A citizen of Nanyang in Henan Province in central China, who also asked to be referred to as Yang, told The Epoch Times that local clinics have consistently been busy.

“But doctors don’t tell patients the truth,” he said. “They go around it and won’t tell you anything.”

He said that some locals are suspected to have died from COVID-19, including many young people.

“I went to the hospital and there were quite some people in their 20s and 30s who died,” he said. “There were more people who had myocardial infarction [a known side effect of COVID-19 vaccinations]. Many of us know that there is no way to solve it.”

In dealing with the ongoing infections and side effects, Lin suggested that Chinese people abandon the CCP’s materialism and atheism, which gives people no mental solace or moral support, and look for meaning and hope in China’s own rich spiritual traditions, “whether it’s Buddhism, Taoism, or Falun Gong.”

“There are too many examples of pandemics in history that show many people could handle it if they had faith and can maintain a kind heart. This is still very important,” he said. “After all, I think it gives people all over the world a chance to survive amid all kinds of hardships.”

It’s delightfully fitting that on the day the entire financial world was holding its breath for Biden’s highly politicized and grossly incompetent Bureau of Labor Statistics to admit it had massively fucked up the jobs data over the past year, that Biden’s highly politicized and grossly incompetent Bureau of Labor Statistics fucked up even more.

At exactly 10am ET this morning, the BLS was supposed to publish its annual CES Preliminary Benchmark Announcement revision, an update on how many jobs in the past year were, for lack of a better word, made up (as we reported earlier, it just so happened that the number was 818,000, which was the second biggest annual overestimation of job creation in US history… something that surely was pure coincidence in an election year).

However, 10:01am ET hit… and nothing happened: millions of traders, thousands of economists and countless macrotourists were furiously slamming the F5 key, refreshing the revisions page to see…. nothing change. This went on, and on, and on…. and even though the market actually reacted as if data had been published, it turned out that algos were merely responding to phantom triggers in hopes of triggering momentum ignition up or down. No actual data was reported.

Market reacts to the BLS revision number which hasn’t been published yet

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 21, 2024

As the desperate wait continued, and as seconds turned to minutes, we joked – nearly 30 minutes after the report was originally due – by publishing the phone number for the BLS department responsible for today’s report.

pic.twitter.com/mdFRtZoIqY

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) August 21, 2024

As it turns out, at least some people had more luck than us in reaching said department (we repeatedly got voicemail with the promise that someone would get back to us in 24-48 hours), because as Bloomberg reports, “at least three banks managed to obtain key payroll numbers Wednesday while the rest of Wall Street was kept waiting for a half-hour by a government delay that whipsawed markets and sowed confusion on trading desks.”

That’s right: while the rest of the world was freaking out, paralyzed by the gross incompetence of the Biden Department of Labor (which, as a reminder, was merely informing us of just how incompetent it truly was by overestimating nearly 1 million jobs in 2024), banks such as Mizuho, BNP Paribas and Nomura all called into the phone number listed above… and got the answer, by some absolute BLS moron who was not aware that they are leaking material, non-public information to extremely sophisticated investors while the rest of the world was stuck in the dark courtesy of, well, other absolute BLS moron who had days if not weeks to prepare today’s report and yet still couldn’t get it out on time… or even 30 minutes after time.

And then, frustration turned to anger and outrage on Wall Street as word spread from trading desk to trading desk that the BLS was releasing the number to some firms over the phone!

When the data was finally released shortly after 10:30 am, it showed payrolls will likely be revised down by 818,000 for the 12 months through March, the biggest downward revision to the job numbers since 2009.

Stocks initially jumped and bonds gained because the report lent support to speculation that the Fed will start cutting interest rates next month, then quickly reversed as panic seemed to sweep over Wall Street at the thought that the BIden admin had been actively covering up a labor market recession. In the end, hopium won out and stocks closed near the highs of the day, because – well – Powell will always make sure stocks keeps rising.

“I don’t wonder that people are upset,” Nancy Tengler, the chief executive officer of Laffer Tengler Investments. “The whole thing reeks of incompetence.”

Well, yeah, but what makes it especially hilarious is that the incompetence came on the day the BLS was admitting 12 months of prior propaganda incompetence. Seriously, not even the USSR had fuck ups of this caliber.

The delay – and subsequent one-by-one disclosure – is the latest in a series of embarrassing mishaps to roil Labor Department data releases, which hilarious is who the markets have to rely on for “accurate” data on the state of the US labor market and the trajectory of inflation and the economy.

In a post on X, the agency said it was “looking into the reason for the delay”…

We are aware there was a delay to the CES preliminary benchmark announcement. We are looking into the reason for the delay. We have no additional information to share regarding the delay at this time. https://t.co/nXPlwtZZa7

— BLS-Labor Statistics (@BLS_gov) August 21, 2024

… to which we responded that when the idiots responsible for this latest fuck up are fired, the BLS should make sure to seasonally adjust it so it adds at least another 1 million government jobs.

As Bloomberg reminds us, the government’s economic data reports were once released under tightly controlled embargos to accredited news agencies, including Bloomberg. But the practice was abandoned during the pandemic, when departments across the government shifted to just releasing the data on the Internet to everyone at once. Officials said that method would better protect the security of market-moving data, but instead all it did was create groups of wealthy “super users” who had preferential and early access to government data from Biden’s corrupt agency.

When it didn’t come out on time, Yelena Shulyatyeva, senior US economist BNP Paribas, said she kept refreshing the web page, waiting for the numbers. Then “we called the public line a couple times and they gave us the number,” she said.

Steven Ricchiuto, chief US economist at Mizuho, did the same. “Knowing the data was delayed we had to call for the number before it showed up on their website,” he said.

ZeroHedge itself received the leaked data at 10:24am ET through our expert network, but not even we dared to publish it to our premium subscribers amid concerns that the BLS could not possibly be this stupid and incompetent to be releasing the number on a case by case basis instead of blasting it to the entire world at the same time.

In the end, it turned out the BLS was even more incompetent than we could possibly imagine.

“I am more than a little annoyed,” said Troy Ludtka, senior US economist at SMBC Nikko Securities Americas, who was among those who waited on the public release.

“To put it in the most generous terms: Government agencies absolutely cannot be selectively releasing critical, market-moving information to some agents and broker dealers first via telephone while keeping others in the dark,” he said. “This is anathema to the very idea of a balanced market built on fair, accessible information.”

Troy, but you ain’t seen nothing yet: if Kamala wins and if the US goes full Kam-unist, the very idea of a balanced market will be anathema, replaced by centrally planned… well, everything.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) launched an investigation on Wednesday into organizations that are allegedly registering non-citizens to vote.

Following undercover operations, the AG’s Election Integrity Unit found that multiple nonprofit organizations have opened booths outside of Texas Department of Public Safety Driver’s license offices in order to ‘assist’ with voter registration.

According to Paxton’s office, “Texans are deeply troubled by the possibility that organizations purporting to assist with voter registration are illegally registering noncitizens to vote in our elections.“

“The Biden-Harris Administration has intentionally flooded our country with illegal aliens, and without proper safeguards, foreign nationals can illegally influence elections at the local, state, and national level. It is a crime to vote—or to register to vote—if you are not a United States Citizen. Any wrongdoing will be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” Paxton continued.

🚨Breaking: I am launching an investigation into reports that organizations in Texas are illegally registering non-citizens to vote.

Texans are deeply troubled by the possibility that organizations purporting to assist with voter registration are illegally registering… pic.twitter.com/ayXqy3eogG

— Attorney General Ken Paxton (@KenPaxtonTX) August 21, 2024

As American Greatness notes further, 

On Sunday, Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo revealed on X that, according to a friend, Democrats had set up voter registration drives outside of three DMVs in Weatherford and Fort Worth.

“Friend of mine’s wife had to take her 16 yr old son to the DMV this week for a new license,” Bartiromo began.

Couldn’t get an online appointment (all full) so went in person and had to go to 3 DMV’s to get something done. First DMV was in Weatherford. Had a massive line of immigrants getting licenses and had a tent and table outside the front door of the DMV registering them to vote! Second one was in Fort Worth with same lines and same Dems out front. Third one was in North Fort Worth had no lines but had same voter registration drive.

Brady Gray, Chairman of the Parker County Republican Party in Weatherford, reacted to the report on X, saying he would look into it.

“Under Kamala’s watch the border has been overrun, now MY county is being overrun,” Gray wrote. “I’m done listening to those who claim ‘replacement theory’ is racist and conspiratorial. Democrats are intentionally trying to circumvent law to steal elections. That’s not hyperbole, it’s a fact.”

The Republican chairman added that since Bartiromo’s disturbing post went out, he had been inundated with messages from concerned residents asking if the Parker County GOP was aware of the report.

“We are, and I will be fully investigating the claims in our community,” Gray said.

Bo French, chairman of the Tarrant County GOP also reacted to the story on X: “This is beyond troubling. It’s time we not only shut down the border, we need to immediately implement e-verify, proof of citizenship to vote and deport every illegal alien in America,” he said.  “As for this election, we need intervention from @GovAbbo @DanPatrick @KenPaxtonTX to prevent illegals from voting. We are on the cusp of losing Texas forever.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton reposted Bartiromo’s post on Sunday without comment, signaling that the shocking report was also on his radar.

American Greatness has reached out to the Texas AG’s office, the Parker County GOP, and the Tarrant County GOP for further comment.

Another X account, Hollywood Resistance, reported a similar voter-registration drive was happening in McKinney, Texas.

“On either side of the [DMV]doors were voter registration tables, & all the signs were in Spanish. Not one word of English. No asking for ID, just for an address,” Hollywood Resistance wrote.

The Biden regime has allowed and in many cases, facilitated the entrance of 12 to 18 million migrants into the United States in the past three and a half years, leading many Republicans to fear that a “perfect storm” of election-changing voter fraud is imminent.

Election Integrity Network founder Cleta Mitchell told RealClearInvestigation’s Ben Weingarten that two factors are about to produce that perfect storm: “the invasion of our country by millions of illegals” and new Democrat-driven policies that ease voter registration and participation limits.

A new study estimates that 10–27 percent of noncitizen adults are registered to vote illegally, and 5–13 percent expected to cast illegal ballots in 2024.

According to Mitchell and other election integrity experts, significant numbers of these noncitizens will wind up on voter rolls thanks to Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14019, which directs every federal agency to register and mobilize voters.

Officials in Alabama and Mississippi say that under the executive order, which RCI has previously examined, authorities are already attempting to register noncitizens to vote. The Biden Administration initiative calls on federal agencies to coordinate with third-party groups in pursuit of its objectives as well.

In testimony before the House Administration Committee in May,  J. Christian Adams, a fellow former DOJ official and president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, affirmed that “most often noncitizens are getting on the rolls through the motor voter registration process or third-party registration drives.”

During the congressional election integrity hearing in May, New York University Brennan Center for Justice President Michael Waldman repeated the Democrat mantra that “under current law, noncitizen voting in federal elections is illegal four times over: it is both a state and federal crime to register to vote, and it is both a state and federal crime to vote in federal elections.”

While its arguable that these laws are sufficient to curb noncitizen registration and voting, voter integrity experts claim that the ultimate goal of illegal voter registrations is to generate ballots for Democrat groups to harvest.

According to Adams,  there is “almost nothing the public or political parties can do on the back end to identify, challenge, and invalidate noncitizen votes prior to election certification.”

Authored by Roger Kimball via American Greatness,

Don’t cry for me, Argentina.

Cry for Kamala the Kamunist.

It took them a while, it’s true, but at least Argentina has someone with a rudimentary knowledge of economics in charge.

Indeed, Javier Milei, one of my favorite leaders on the world stage today (along with Viktor Orbán, Benjamin Netanyahu, Georgia Meloni, and Nayib Bukele) is a Trump-like dynamo.  If I had a more developed entrepreneurial bent, I would try marketing a line of Milei chainsaws in the United States.  Just as he took a chainsaw (sometimes literally) to excessive spending, regulation, and bureaucracy in Argentina, so my Milei Chainsaws could be employed against waste, fraud, and abuse here across the fruited plain. Milei’s robust policies have put Argentina on the runway to economic success. They have slashed inflation—some 200% when he took office—and his abolition of rent control—surprise, surprise—has sparked a 195% rise in available housing stock.

Meanwhile, the socialists funneling ideas to Harris have put together an economic plan redolent of Venezuela or, indeed, the Soviet Union.  Its centerpiece revolves around centrally promulgated and enforced wage and price controls—a recipe for shortages and inflation.

The plan itself has been ridiculed across the ideological spectrum, from CNN to The Wall Street Journal.  “Harris’ plan to stop price gouging,” quoth CNN in a masterpiece of understatement,  “could create more problems than it solves.”

The WSJ was a bit franker. For one thing, there is “no evidence that supermarkets or other food retailers are gouging anyone. Food prices are higher than they were before the Biden Presidency, but that is because of inflation.”

And who caused that inflation, Kemo Sabe? The man with the keys to the money duplicating machine, Joe Biden or his handlers.

Moreover, “fixing prices is a recipe for shortages, as controls would discourage grocery suppliers. Voilà, empty store shelves. Price controls have led to shortages everywhere they’ve been tried, from Moscow to Caracas.”

Some of the propaganda press—The New York Times, MSNBC, etc—have been working overtime to keep up a brave face. The low hum you hear is the hydrogen pumps shooting gas into the leaky balloon of the Democrat consortium.  As I have noted ever since Kamala was plucked out of the bin marked “ridiculous” and dusted off as the mannequin’s understudy, the intoxicating paroxysms of glee that convulsed the left-leaning media pundits was but a sugar-high. It induced feelings of giddiness but could not last.  I thought it would probably linger through the DNC convention next week, but the manic phase is already passing the stupor consequent on the sudden drop in energy has set in.

The depressive funk is not helped by the Harris campaign’s strategy of “out-of-sight-out-of-mind.” They concluded that it worked with Joe Biden in 2020, and so they thought they would try it again.  But there is no COVID emergency to shut the country down this time around and it is pretty clear that the Dems’ basement strategy cannot be successfully dusted off and applied to Kamala.  True, she is nearly as inarticulate as Biden, but the public will not put up with the Wizard of Oz gambit a second time.

Besides, Team Trump is wheeling out all sorts of embarrassing things that will destroy Harris if they are not effectively answered. 

For example, a clip of Harris discussing her support of the government taking over private patents by fiat has surfaced and is being industriously circulated.

I will snatch their patents, so that we [the American government] will take over.

Yes we can do that!

The question is: ‘Do you have the will to do it’!?

I have the will to do it.

Noted.

I almost feel sorry for Harris, emphasis on the adverb.  Reports are that 100,000 protestors are set to converge on Chicago next week to torch the city and torment Democrat convention-goers. Will it be a bigger, badder version of what happened in Chicago in 1968?  That time, golden boy Hubert Humphrey*  went in on a cloud of fairy dust and came out of the convention 20 points behind Nixon.

Efforts to paint Trump and JD as “weird” have failed miserably, as have the embarrassing efforts to gild the Harris-Walz socialist platform and history of failure by stealing various Trump ideas like exempting tips from federal income tax.

Even more damaging have been the mounting attacks by conservatives on the whole Harris-Walz concession.  Governor Walz has turned out to be a special kind of liability, a sick freak who orders schools to put tampons in boys’ bathrooms while sitting back and watching Minneapolis burn as the BLM rioters rampaged through the city. His patina of plaid, dad-like folksiness is completely belied by his sympathy for Communist China not to mention his personal inclinations.

Why was Walz picked as Harris’s running mate in the first place?  One midwestern friend might have hit upon the answer.  Tim Walz, he said, was what the coastal elites of this country believe a midwesterner looks and acts like.  He has all the “progressive” attitudes of the left, but he articulates them accoutered in a more string-tie, aw-shucks manner

I expected a certain amount of small-caliber fire by now, but it turns out that Trump supporters are already pounding Harris-Walz with heavy artillery.  For example, speaking on “The Five” just a few days ago, Greg Gutfeld utterly vaporized Harris’s record on the border, inflation, and other issues.

What’s coming will not be pretty. But I predict that it will be cathartic.  It’s hard to know just how much of a hose Trump’s victory will be for the rank Augean stables of Democrat incumbency. Doubtless, many clumps of ordure will remain.  Many, however, will be flushed into the impatient, rushing currents of change.  I am looking forward to it.

The past several days have seen a significant uptick in rare Israeli airstrikes deep into Lebanese territory, with multiple airstrikes having hit the Bekaa Valley in the country’s east.

Most of the strikes were late Monday into Tuesday, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) describing that fighter jets attacked a “Hezbollah weapons storage facilities in the area of Bekaa Valley in Lebanon” – resulting in massive fireballs lighting up the night sky.

“Following the strikes, secondary explosions were identified, indicating the presence of large amounts of weapons in the facilities struck,” the Israeli army said.

These strikes occurred more than 40 miles from the Israeli border, and Israeli typically launches such rare long-range operations in response to deadly Hezbollah rocket attacks. This latest escalation came after a Hezbollah attack killed a 45-year old IDF Warrant Officer in the Western Galilee.

As for the latest IDF attacks on Bekaa, Lebanon’s health ministry said in the aftermath that eight people total, including two Syrian children, were wounded. Hezbollah then retaliated with some 200 rockets fired at Israel on Tuesday.

“Hezbollah said the attack was in response to an Israeli strike deep into Lebanon on Tuesday night that killed one and injured 19,” AP reports. “On Tuesday, Hezbollah launched more than 200 projectiles toward Israel, after Israel targeted a Hezbollah weapons depot some 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the border, a significant increase in the daily skirmishes.”

Wednesday has seen at least 50 Hezbollah rockets fired on northern Israel, reportedly in response to the IDF assassinating a top Palestinian official from the West Bank who was in southern Lebanon when his vehicle was struck. The targeted killing happened outside the southern Lebanese port city of Sidon. Al Jazeera’s correspondent details:

The strike targeted Khalil al-Maqdah, a commander in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a loose coalition of Palestinian groups that believe in armed resistance. The Martyrs Brigades issued a statement, calling [al-Maqdah] a commander who played a key role in supporting the Palestinian people and supporting Palestinian resistance in the West Bank.

A short while ago, we saw the Lebanese army take away the car that [al-Maqdah] was targeted in.

Israel has been escalating its attacks as of late, expanding the scope of its attacks. And clearly there’s no front line any longer.

Al Jazeera concludes after this latest that “Targeted killings are becoming a near-daily occurrence.”

Below: Hezbollah arms depot struck, far away from Israeli border…

بالفيديو: أول لحظات الغارات على #البقاع pic.twitter.com/LqrqEPUcxX

— كواليس بيروت – Kawalis Beirut (@KawalisBeirut) August 19, 2024

As both sides slide closer to potential all-out war, which could eventually witness an Israeli military invasion of southern Lebanon, the AP tallies that “The exchanges have killed more than 500 people in Lebanon — mostly militants but also including around 100 civilians and non-combatants — and 23 soldiers and 26 civilians in Israel.”

Authored by Mark Jeftovic via The Daily Bell,

In George Orwell’s prophetic and seminal work, 1984, the Two Minutes of Hate was a daily ritual of operant conditioning, in which a video reel depicting enemies of the state was broadcast throughout society with the express aim of whipping the masses into a frenetic state of loathing towards any who opposed Big Brother.

Since the appearance of the “Dark Brandon” entity, the non-brainwashed have been wary of the nasty turn politics has taken in the United States, and elsewhere.

If four years of unhinged Trump Derangement Syndrome from the MSM wasn’t enough, now the President and incumbent party was channeling unrestrained animus at roughly half the U.S. population.

While constantly professing to be the party for “preserving democracy” and “inclusivity”, the US Democratic Party is channeling ominous and blatant overtones of repression, dare I say, even hatred toward their fellow citizens who may not be so like-minded.

So far the Democratic National Convention has been a dumpster fire of cringe, disrespect and hypocrisy but one takeaway, posted on twitter (I originally saw it here) takes the cake:

Grotesque and somewhat s*xualized images of @laurenboebert, @JDVance, @mtgreenee, @mattgaetz, and @elonmusk are projected by the entrance to the @DemConvention in Chicago. Watch the whole video. @EpochTimes pic.twitter.com/wZYQFMjQKn

— Arjun Singh (@arjunswritings) August 21, 2024

The profanity laden video depicts political opponents as cockroaches (could you imagine the reaction if a conservative made that comparison?), and sprinkles in sexualized images, including Elon Musk deep throating a phallic object labeled “MAGAsickle”.

If there was any doubt that the Democratic Party has been captured by far-left lunatics, the big takeaways were:

• America is evil (MAGA literally stands for restoring the country to its former grandeur)

• Wealth is evil (“F*CK BILLIONAIRES”), and

• Literal communism (“REDISTRIBUTE THAT SHIT”)

This is the core takeaway from the DNC platform 👇 pic.twitter.com/Rc7koxy3py

— The Daily Bell: Far Right Dumpster Fire Of Freedom (@TheBell_News) August 21, 2024

In case you were wondering what you’re really voting for if you tick the box for the Dems this November – it’s looks like some kind of deranged mutation of Orwell’s 1984 and Ayn Rand’s “We The Living”, replete with wealth redistribution and re-education camps.

Remember – it’s always relatively easy to vote your way into communism – but you have to fight your way out.

A recent Biden-Harris administration Department of Energy high level hire is attracting controversy, as well as appropriate widespread mockery, for publishing formal articles calling for the “queering of nuclear weapons”. This is almost word-for-word an actual title of one of her papers.

Sneha Nair was named special assistant in the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) less than a year ago, and since then several of her recent academic papers have been unearthed, focusing on “the relationship between queerness and nuclear policy” as a “substantive” issue. Bellow is one such paper co-authored by Nair, featured at the prominent publication Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists…

The article, which is one of several such examples authored by her, claims that “discrimination against queer people can undermine nuclear security and increase nuclear risk.”

“Equity and inclusion for queer people is not just a box-ticking exercise in ethics and social justice; it is also essential for creating effective nuclear policy,” Nair continues. 

And supposedly the US homeland faces greater nuclear risk if there is “exclusion” and “unfair” treatment under the aegis of the supposed white male patriarchy. Below are some actual segments taken from this top Biden official’s work, which includes interesting buzzwords like a “male-dominated” “nuclear priesthood” [emphasis ZH]: 

Exclusion and unfair treatment of queer individuals and other minorities by a homogenous, cis-heteronormative community of practitioners also creates vulnerabilities in nuclear decision making.

* * *

Including a wider range of perspectives in nuclear decision making creates a more comprehensive definition of who or what constitutes a “threat” to nuclear security. An example of this is the threat posed by some white supremacist groups with plans to acquire nuclear weapons or material, which can go undetected when a white-majority workforce does not perceive these groups and their ideological motivation as a relevant threat to their nuclear security mission.

* * *

Nuclear deterrence is associated with “rationality” and “security,” while disarmament and justice for nuclear weapon victims are coded as “emotion” and a lack of understanding of the “real” mechanics of security.

* * *

Queer theory is also about rejecting binary choices and zero-sum thinking, such as the tenet that nuclear deterrence creates security and disarmament creates vulnerability.

* * *

Diversity and inclusion are especially important for the policy community dealing with arsenal development and nuclear posture. Women familiar with this “nuclear priesthood” describe it as “male-dominated and unwelcoming.”

Meet Sneha Nair, who Biden appointed as special assistant at the Department of Energy.

Nair wrote that “queer theory” is essential for deterring threats to nuclear energy facilities in the U.S.

Can someone explain how “queer theory” has anything to do with managing our nuclear… pic.twitter.com/YtqXcJA0CU

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 21, 2024

And considering one more rather interesting quote, perhaps Russia’s Putin or China’s Xi is open to hearing about the “hidden stories” of “trauma” among those personnel overseeing America’s nuclear arsenal?…

“Finally, queer theory informs the struggle for nuclear justice and disarmament,” Nair wrote. “Queer theory helps to shift the perception of nuclear weapons as instruments for security by telling the hidden stories of displacement, illness, and trauma caused by their production and testing.” 

Nair appears to have risen to her position on a DEI wave of new hires. She has recently vowed to focus her efforts on implementing ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ values at the highest levels of US national security. “By understanding DEI as a set of values critical to security, and therefore as an element of an effective nuclear security culture, stakeholders can explore how DEI can contribute to stronger security at nuclear facilities,” she has written. 

Meanwhile, Fox News has also noted her pre-administration position and funding:

Before she joined the administration, she worked for the Stimson Institute, which has received hundreds of thousands from Soros’ Open Society Foundations and millions from “The Embassy of the State of Qatar” over the years, Fox News Digital’s review of their funding sources revealed. 

This is all coming to light quite dangerously at a moment the Ukraine war is escalating by the day, given especially that the ongoing Kursk incursion risks deeper NATO involvement, and amid the recent infusion of more Western weapons into the conflict, especially US-made F-16 fighter jets.

Additionally, just this week The NY Times revealed that President Biden last March made changes to US strategic doctrine. “In a classified document approved in March, the president ordered U.S. forces to prepare for possible coordinated nuclear confrontations with Russia, China and North Korea,” the Times wrote. Alongside, Putin and Xi, North Korea’s Kim is surely not going to be ‘scared’ or impressed by our new DEI nuke officials.

The Republic of Panama on Tuesday initiated a new program by which illegal immigrants transiting the country are flown back to their native nations — with the cost borne by US taxpayers.

The repatriation flight program is one of multiple avenues by which new Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino is following through on his campaign pledge to end his country’s role as a major funnel of illegal immigrants bound for the United States. Last year saw a new record, with more than a half-million migrants crossing the infamous Darien Gap jungle wilderness that spans the Panama-Colombia border region. 

Tuesday’s first repatriation flight was loaded with 29 Colombians, all of whom have criminal records in their home country, with one alleged to be a member of the powerful Clan del Golfo gang, aka the Gaitanistas. Each was caught after they’d made it through the Darien Gap, and were in handcuffs and ankle-irons as they were guided onto an Air Panama plane. Panama’s senior migration-management officer, Roger Mojica, told reporters that flights to other destinations are in the works — including India and Ecuador — with the next flight happening as soon as Friday. 

Critically, the deportation of Venezuelans — who represent the largest subset of the illegal migrant flow — could be delayed, thanks to Panama’s suspension of diplomacy with Venezuela following July’s contested presidential election. Pre-election polls indicated many Venezuelans intended to leave their country if President Nicolas Maduro won. His declared victory is in dispute, and the Biden administration wants him to regime change himself. Supporting Washington’s agenda, Panama’s Mulino offered Maduro “safe passage” en route to a third country; Maduro warned Mulino not to “mess” with Venezuela. 

In accordance with a deal announced on the same July day on which Mulino was sworn into office, the United States government will cover Panama’s expenses for deporting people who enter Panama illegally, in addition to helping with “equipment, transportation and logistics.” The initial commitment has America on the hook for $6 million. 

The famed Pan-American Highway has a 66-mile gap that starts just inside Colombia — forcing migrants to make a treacherous journey on foot through a mountainous, marshy region called the Darien Gap. They not only have to survive dangerous natural conditions, but robberies, kidnappings, rapes and murders perpetrated by criminal gangs lurking in the hot jungle. 

Earlier this month, Panamanian border police arrested 15 people linked to an illicit “VIP” migrant-smuggling operation that caters to Chinese clients. Using boats, canoes, ATVs and horses, the top-tier service promised a faster, easier and safer passage into Panama — at a higher price. Migrants pay about $500 for a standard escort through the gap, but fees for the expedited trip range from $2,600 to $8,000. 

Referring to Tuesday’s flight taking Colombians back home, the US Department of Homeland Security’s Marlen Pineiro told reporters, “The message we’re sending is very clear: Darien is no longer a route.” Considering she was referring to a few dozen Colombians against an estimated 8,000 people who crossed the gap in just the first few weeks of August, that’s some pretty big talk.