Virginia Governor declares State of Emergency and bans guns before second amendment rally
I am somebody who does not feel sorry for the voters of Virginia because I believe they are getting what they deserve for electing radical anti-second amendment people to the legislature but today Governor Northam did something that could have ramifications for all of us somewhere down the line.
Today Governor Northam declared a State of Emergency and banned firearms from Capitol Square before a gun rights rally, here is more:
Fearing a repeat of the deadly violence that engulfed Charlottesville more than two years ago, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam declared a temporary emergency Wednesday banning all weapons, including guns, from Capitol Square ahead of a massive rally planned next week over gun rights.
The governor, a Democrat, announced the plans at a news conference Wednesday afternoon because of credible threats of potential violence and extremism, one official said.
Northam’s announcement comes days after Democratic leaders used a special rules committee to ban guns inside the Capitol and a legislative office building. That ban did not include Capitol grounds, which are under the governor’s control and are where a huge number of gun-rights advocates are expected to rally Monday.
One official said Northam decided to ban all guns from the grounds of Capitol Square after receiving reports for weeks about inflammatory online postings by out-of-state pro-gun and militia groups who are promising to attend Monday’s rally.
The official said the state does not have intelligence that the groups are planning a specific act of violence, but said Northam has grown increasingly concerned about numerous ominous-sounding postings on social media from forces outside Virginia. The official cited one posting that included a photo of an AR-15 and said there are “great sight angles from certain buildings” near Capitol Square.
It looks like the people who are planning on attending this gun rights rally have just seen one of their greatest fears come to fruition.
I have feared something like this happening ever since Donald Trump started to think about declaring a National Emergency to build the border wall after he could not get the Congress to give it to him. I predicted a Democratic President could use this precedent to declare a National Emergency to implement gun control and then Nancy Pelosi admitted this was a possibility.
This might only be on the State level and it might only be temporary but this makes for a good test run for a national event in the future…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Donald Trump to divert another $7.2 billion in military spending to build the border wall
Fresh off of a court victory–however temporary it might be–on border wall funding it is being reported that Donald Trump intends to divert another $7.2 billion in military funding to the construction of a border wall on the Southern border.
Here is more:
President Trump is preparing to divert an additional $7.2 billion in Pentagon funding for border wall construction this year, five times what Congress authorized him to spend on the project in the 2020 budget, according to internal planning figures obtained by The Washington Post.
The Pentagon funds would be extracted, for the second year in a row, from military construction projects and counternarcotics funding. According to the plans, the funding would give the government enough money to complete about 885 miles of new fencing by spring 2022, far more than the 509 miles the administration has slated for the U.S. border with Mexico.
Trump took $2.5 billion from military counterdrug programs for border barrier construction in 2019, but this year his administration is planning to take significantly more — $3.5 billion. Trump administration officials also are planning to take $3.7 billion in military construction funding, slightly more than the $3.6 billion diverted in 2019.
We know how this is going to go because this issue is still playing out in the courts from last year. This is going to be fought every step of the way as suddenly the Democrats–who were hawks when Donald Trump decided to pull some troops out of Syria only to become doves again when Donald Trump ordered the attack on Iran’s military leader– will become hawks once again on military spending.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Kevin McCarthy is floating the idea that there is an ulterior motive for Nancy Pelosi’s decision to delay sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate for a trial and it has nothing to do with Donald Trump but rather she did it to hurt Bernie Sanders’s chance to win the Democratic nomination for President. Here is more:
McCarthy suggested during an appearance on Sunday Morning Futures that the speaker’s decision to withhold the articles of impeachment from the Senate may have been more strategic than Democrats have indicated, involving the Democrat primary race.
If Pelosi releases the articles this week, as she has indicated to her caucus, the Senate trial’s kickoff would coincide with the upcoming Iowa caucus, which will compromise several senators’ ability to campaign in the Hawkeye State, thereby giving a clear advantage to more “moderate” candidates like Joe Biden (D) and Pete Buttigieg (D).
“The Iowa caucus is on February third,” he continued. “Bernie Sanders is in first place and what this does is benefit Joe Biden.”
“This harms Sen. Sanders, who is in first place and could become their nominee because he will be stuck in a chair because Nancy Pelosi held the papers, different than what she said to the American public why she had to move so urgently,” he added.
I have no idea if this is true or not but we do know that the Democrats rigged the 2016 primary in order to screw Bernie Sanders out of the nomination when it looked like he is who the Democratic voters wanted so there is a history here. And that is not all, there have been reports in recent weeks that Barack Obama and his minions are worried Bernie Sanders will win the nomination and pull the party too far to the left to win.
Of course Kevin McCarthy knows all of this so it is quite possible he is trying to sew the seeds of doubt into the minds of Bernie supporters in an attempt to get them to stay home, or he could also want to motivate them to the polls believing Donald Trump would swat the Vermont socialist away easily in the general election.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, January 12th open thread: ‘Take on Me’
“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 KJV)
Here is this week’s open thread. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
You can subscribe to America’s Watchtower to receive email updates and you can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right.
Here is Weezer performing their version of the ’80’s classic “Take on Me.” Something seems to go horribly wrong between the guitar and keyboards at the 2:15 mark. Enjoy:
Nancy Pelosi to send articles of impeachment to the Senate next week
After telling us for weeks how important it was for the House to move quickly on impeachment in order to protect the sanctity of the 2020 election Nancy Pelosi decided not to send the articles to the Senate for a trial under the guise of trying to ensure a fair trial for the President.
This was an ill-advised move because the House has no right to dictate to the Senate the rules of the upper house’s proceedings and it backfired on the Speaker of the House when Democrats began to turn on her so yesterday she announced she was caving to Mitch McConnell and would send the articles to the Senate next week. Here is more:
Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Friday she will send the articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump to the Senate next week, ending a heated standoff with Republicans over the terms of the impeachment trial.
“I have asked Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler to be prepared to bring to the Floor next week a resolution to appoint managers and transmit articles of impeachment to the Senate,” Pelosi said in a letter to House Democrats.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — having already secured GOP votes for his preferred trial framework — could start the impeachment trial shortly after he receives the articles.
I disagree with the article trying to portray this move as a “heated standoff” between the two chamber leaders, this was no standoff. The Speaker of the House refused to send the articles to the Senate for a vote, instead holding them hostage for demands she had to right to make.
Laughingly enough Nancy Pelosi tried to blame Mitch McConnell for her decision to give in to him. Here is more:
“Yesterday, he showed his true colors and made his intentions to stonewall a fair trial even clearer by signing on to a resolution that would dismiss the charges,” Pelosi wrote in her letter.
What other option did Mitch McConnell have? If Nancy Pelosi would not send the articles of impeachment to the Senate for a vote he had no other alternative than to dismiss the charges rather than give in to her unprecedented power grab. Mitch McConnell called her bluff and Nancy Pelosi knew she did not have the Constitutional grounds to stand on and so she was forced to cave in.
From the very beginning of this process, with Nancy Pelosi not being able to control her caucus, right up until the end, with this misguided move to dictate the Senate proceedings, Nancy Pelosi has botched the impeachment proceedings and according to the polls it looks like the public tide has turned against impeaching the President because the people have been able to see what this is really all about.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Appeals Court hands Donald Trump a victory on the border wall
Back and forth we go on the issue of using some money allocated for military funding for the border wall. When last we left this little saga a court had ruled that Donald Trump could not reallocate defense funds to build the border wall and issued what was being called a “permanent injunction” even though the Trump administration was preparing to appeal the decision.
Well, yesterday that appeal came through and it turns out the “permanent injunction” was not so permanent at all because a court has ruled that the groups that are suing to stop the border wall this time around also probably do not have standing and issued a stay until a decision has been made. (You might remember a previous case made it to the Supreme Court, which ruled those groups also did not have standing to sue over this issue.) Here is more:
A U.S. federal appeals court on Wednesday put on hold a lower court ruling that blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from using $3.6 billion in military construction funds to build a wall on the country’s border with Mexico.
The New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay pending the Trump administration’s appeal of a Dec. 10 decision by a federal judge that barred the funding transfer.
In a 2-1 ruling, the panel noted that the U.S. Supreme Court had stayed an injunction in a similar border wall case from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The court also said there was a “substantial likelihood” that the parties challenging the funding transfer – the county of El Paso, Texas, and the Border Network for Human Rights – lacked standing to sue the Trump administration.
And so the beat goes on as these groups try to run out the clock waiting for Donald Trump to be voted out of office.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Seven Senate Democrats want Nancy Pelosi to send the articles of impeachment to the Senate
House Democrats were in a hurry to impeach Donald Trump because of the threat they claimed he posed to the 2020 election and our democracy, and yet since passing the articles of impeachment the Speaker of the House has declined to transmit the articles to the Senate for a trial. So much for urgency…
Now some Senate Democrats are getting fed up with the delay and are asking calling for Nancy Pelosi to end her stonewalling and to let the Senate do its job and hold a trial. The count is now up to seven disgruntled Senate Democrats, here is more:
A growing number of Senate Democrats are breaking with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over her handling of articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump.
Seven Democrats — Sens. Dianne Feinstein, Doug Jones, Chris Murphy, Joe Manchin, Richard Blumenthal, Jon Tester, and Chris Coons — told various news outlets Wednesday that they are ready for Pelosi to transmit the articles so that the Senate can move forward with Trump’s trial.
“If we’re going to do it, she should send them over. I don’t see what good delay does,” Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Bloomberg.
“I think the time has past. She should send the articles over,” Murphy told The Washington Post.
“We were ready on the day the articles were voted, to conduct the trial,” Blumenthal told Politico.
“At some point it’s appropriate to send them and in effect pass the baton to senators who are going to continue to insist on witnesses and documents.”
Considering the urgency of the matter–according to the Democrats–this hardly seems like the time for Nancy Pelosi to be playing games, especially when Article I, Section 5, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution specifically gives each House the right to determine the rules for its proceedings.
Nancy Pelosi has no right to hold the Senate hostage to her whims and now some Democrats are beginning to turn against her, it seems to me as if the Democrats have totally mishandled this whole affair and in the end it could come back to haunt them.
The Democrats were not lying when they claimed this was about the 2020 election, but they lied about the reason: this was not about protecting the 2020 election from foreign interference but rather in using this as a political football during the 2020 election cycle.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
There is an old adage that goes along the lines of this, the definition of a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells you the truth, and that is exactly what Joe Biden did yesterday on the campaign trail in Iowa when asked about Obamacare.
A man asked the former Vice-President about the now-infamous if you like your doctor lie as well as the line we were fed about Obamacare making healthcare more affordable for the average American. Here is how it went down:
“During the run-up to the passage of Obamacare, President Obama promised my father that if he liked his plan he could keep his plan, and that his insurance would be cheaper. After passage, his plan was no longer allowed and his insurance cost double. Since you supported the plan, were you lying to my dad? Or did you not understand the bill you supported?”
The man was most likely a plant but it does not matter because this is a legitimate question. You would think that because he is running for President that Joe Biden would be expecting questions about things which happened while he was in the Obama administration but the not so quick on his feet any more Joe Biden had no answer prepared and so he was relegated to letting the truth slip out. He was not lying about the Obamacare bill he just had no idea what was in the bill.
Biden replies: “There’s two ways people know when something is important. One, when it’s so clear when it’s passed, that everybody understands it.”
Biden continues: “No one did understand Obamacare. Including the way it was rolled out, and the gentleman’s right, it said you could keep your doctor if you wanted to, but you couldn’t keep your doctor if you wanted to necessarily. He’s dead right about that.”
Not only did Joe Biden admit nobody understood the bill they were voting on but he also admitted the you can keep your doctor lie was just that. I think this is the first time any politician who supported Obamacare has admitted the legislation was built on a lie.
Of course none of this is news to any of us but Joe Biden was caught off-guard and reaffirmed that when Nancy Pelosi said they had to pass the bill to see what was in it that was not a gaffe but a rare glimpse at the truth.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
It looks like Hunter Biden is not the only Biden with some legal issues. What a family this is which longs to be the First Family. If this story is true Joe Biden was not the only family member influence peddling off of his position as Vice-President, his brother was also in on the action.
Here we go:
Michael and Natalie Frey filed a federal lawsuit against Jim Biden, Joe Biden’s brother, alleging that he had convinced them to turn over a business plan to turn around struggling rural hospitals and then stole it. The Freys say the Biden brother convinced them that Joe Biden’s star power would open many doors for their company. After giving it to him, the Freys and their partner, Dr. Mohannad Azzam, say that Jim Biden pitched their plan to Turkish investors using the names “His and Her Excellency Jim and Sarah Biden,” and omitting the Freys and Azzam.
That wasn’t all. Over the months Jim Biden and his partner Michael Lewitt, a hedge fund manager, allegedly pushed the Freys to take out huge loans to buy failing hospitals on the premise that Turkish money was on the way. That money never materialized, leaving the Freys with loans they could not pay. Lewitt has already settled with the Freys out of court in a sealed agreement.
As you can see the Freys have already settled with the hedge fund manager who promised them foreign money was on the way due to Joe Biden’s influence but the story does not end there because the Freys are receiving death threats.
The threat came in August in a plain white envelope to the McMinnville home of Michael Frey and his wife, Natalie Frey, just days after Knox News publicly revealed their claims of fraud and deception against Biden’s brother, Jim Biden, in a federal lawsuit.
Inside the envelope was what appeared to be blood-stained currency from a Middle Eastern country commonly known as a haven for terror groups and a “torture ticket” — a voucher for the infliction of torture.
The FBI has confirmed they are investigating the threats, which just happened to be made when the story broke about Jim Biden’s corruption. Notice the threats happened back in August and we are just learning about this story now, just another reminder of how in the bag with the Democrats the media is.
We have good ole Uncle Joe’s son using his father’s position in Ukraine and now we have his brother doing much the same in Turkey and yet the Democrats are going after Donald Trump for trying to expose what this obviously corrupt family was up to.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Senator prepares measure to dismiss impeachment charges
The Democrats told us they had to move fast on impeachment (once they made the inquiry official because in reality they have been working on impeachment since before Donald Trump was inaugurated) because Donald Trump was a huge threat to our democracy, time was of the essence if we wanted to keep the President from becoming a dictator.
Time was so valuable that once the Democrats actually impeached Donald Trump Nancy Pelosi decided to sit on the articles rather than send them over to the Senate where he could be tried and potentially removed from office for the threat we were told he is. I agree, if Donald Trump is the threat the left claims he is we must remove him from office, however this does not make Donald Trump to be the dictator-in-waiting we were told he is, it makes this whole thing look like a sham.
With the exception of the alt-left sky-screamers who actually woke up the day after the House impeached him thinking Donald Trump was no longer the President, most people understand what this was all about and now at least one Republican Senator is prepared to introduce a measure to dismiss the impeachment charges if they are not sent to the Senate by Sunday at 12:00. Here is more:
Senator Hawley, the former Attorney General in Missouri, tweeted this warning out on Thursday.
Senator Josh Hawley: Dems said impeachment was URGENT. Now they don’t want to have a trial, because they have no evidence. In real world, if prosecution doesn’t proceed with case, it gets dismissed. So on Monday, I will introduce measure to dismiss this bogus impeachment for lack of prosecution. This will expose Dems’ circus for what it is: a fake impeachment, abuse of the Constitution, based on no evidence. If Dems won’t proceed with trial, bogus articles should be dismissed and @realDonaldTrump fully cleared.
It is fairly obvious what the Democrats are up to, they know there is no chance Donald Trump is going to be removed from office but they want impeachment on the table through the 2020 election season. This never had anything to do with removing the President from office and had everything to do with policy differences. The Democrats have no evidence to bring to a Senate trial so they are sitting on the articles hoping that either some evidence shows up someday or in a worse case scenario to have the threat hanging over the election.
It sounds like some Republicans are beginning to break ranks so it will be interesting to see what happens if Josh Hawley does in fact introduce this measure on Monday.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
America's Watchtower 