Beto O'Rourke Calls for Guns to Be Confiscated from Law-Abiding Citizens

Neon Nettle  "Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O'Rourke is calling for guns to be confiscated from law-abiding American citizens.

"On Tuesday, Beto flipped on his stance regarding the Second Amendment by declaring
that Americans who already owned AR-15s and AK-47s should not “be able to keep them.”

"O'Rourke has been flip-flopping on the issue recently as public opinion has been shifting in the wake of mass shootings.

"He announced several months ago that he had abandoned his push for gun confiscation after it had been the centerpiece of his failed 2020 presidential bid.

"However, as his campaign for Texas governor is also failing, Beto is now desperate to capitalize on the public sentiment following the recent Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde.". . .

O’Rourke’s current position — apparently once again in favor of confiscation — matches the position he took on the campaign trail in 2019 when he told crowds, “Hell yes, we are going to take your AR-15, your AK-47!”

CNN personalities; shape up or ship out

 Townhall

The progressives who consume CNN won't tolerate fair coverage, and conservatives have been burned by CNN enough to never go back. The middle lane is pretty empty these days, but if CNN wants to make a play for the center, it'll be fun to watch who gets on the same page as CNN's new boss and who doesn't make the cut.  

"Three CNN sources tell Axios that new network boss Chris Licht is "evaluating" the channel's talent to gauge their ability to do...news...rather than the partisan hackery CNN hosts have become infamous for even as their ratings tank. "If talent cannot adjust to a less partisan tone and strategy, they could be ousted," the scoop reports. 

"Apparently, "Licht wants to give personalities that may appear polarizing a chance to prove they're willing to uphold the network's values so that they don't tarnish CNN's journalism brand," although CNN's "journalism" has not exactly been sterling, to put things kindly. 

" 'For on-air talent, that includes engaging in respectful interviews that don't feel like PR stunts," Axios' report explains — presumably that means no more Avenatti-level groveling. "For producers and bookers, that includes making programming decisions that are focused on nuance, not noise." Seems like CNN's employees have an uphill climb to make. 

"NN, which didn't respond to Axios' request for comment on the evaluation set to take place, is seemingly trying to find some steady ground again to start rebuilding its brand as a news organization rather than a resistance-to-Trump channel.". . .

Avenatti's Hundred-Plus Appearances on CNN Skipped in Report on His Sentencing . . ."Conveniently missing from the report is just how much CNN and other cable outlets such as MSNBC were in bed with Avenatti by hyping him as perhaps no other guest in the history of television. In fact, during a one year period, Avenatti made a grand total of 254 appearances, with CNN leading the pack at 122 guest spots. 

"The hosts continually fawned over him to the extent that they shoved renowned lawyer Alan Dershowitz out the door. So why would CNN ditch the highly respected Dershowitz for Avenatti? Dershowitz himself gave the best explanation:. . .

‘Defund the Police’ Narrative Crumbles as Big City Dems Make Fighting Crime Central to Election Campaigns

  Legal Insurrection  "For a good two years now, Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media have pushed a false narrative that defunding the police is something that is supported by a majority of the American people, even as poll after poll has shown that simply isn’t true, including among those whom woke activists suggested supported the idea the most: black and Hispanic voters.

"Even after some so-called “moderate Democrats” in swing districts blamed the party’s embrace of the Defund the Police movement for the double-digit seat losses House Democrats experienced in the 2020 elections, some – like members of “The Squad” – have still clung to the belief that defunding the police is a winning slogan.

"Although the 2022 midterm elections are expected to be brutal for Democrats, some of their candidates in reliably blue parts of the country are trying out what they hope will be a “winning” message on police and fighting crime, singing a much different tune than what we continue to hear from the AOCs of America:". . .

The BLM narrative has collapsed: New York City voters now believe that "crime" is a more urgent concern than "racial inequality" by a 12:1 margin.

h/t @Rafa_Mangual pic.twitter.com/MwrEsoztQL

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) June 3, 2022

Parody: Man who accidentally left 300,000 guns for Taliban gives lecture on gun control

Genesius Times

"The man who accidentally left 300,000 guns for the Taliban and is sending millions of dollars in weapons to the most corrupt country in Europe has given a lecture on gun control.

"In a speech on Thursday, President* Joe Biden called for the ban of assault weapons in the United States following several recent false flag mass shootings, including those in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, N.Y.

“ 'Just do something. For God’s sake, do something. After Columbine, after Sandy Hook, after Charleston, after Orlando, after Las Vegas, after Parkland — nothing has been done,” Biden said. “How many kids do we have to kill in false flag attacks before you people give up your rights?“

"Biden left $80 billion in weaponry to the Taliban after abruptly leaving Afghanistan in 2021. Biden also presided over sending billions of dollars in unmarked weapons to Ukraine.

"Robert Hunter Biden,” the president’s son, who lied on ATF Form 4473, also known as a Firearms Transaction Record, about concealing his history of illegal drug use during a firearms purchase in 2018 and left it in a dumpster."

How's the Washington Post doing lately?

A week of disgrace for the Washington Post

. . .The WaPo also smeared the Covington Teen Nick Sandmann alleging that he displayed bigotry towards Native American elder Nathan Phillips’s path. Sandmann then filed a $250M defamation lawsuit against WaPo, which the disgraced paper was compelled to settle.

The WaPo isn’t always mean, they have displayed compassion on rare occasions. When ISIS leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed after President Trump issued an order. The WaPo described him as an “austere religious scholar” who “maintained a canny pragmatism” and that “acquaintances would remember him as a shy, near-sighted youth who liked soccer but preferred to spend his free time at the local mosque.”

Their record is disgraceful, yet do not expect any course correction on their part.

The self-righteous never see their own mistakes.. . .

 The WaPo trumpets its dysfunction to the world

With the spat entertaining the conservative blogosphere, Sally Buzbee, the executive editor, finally sent a memo around the office telling reporters to “treat each other with respect and kindness.” Respect and kindness, though, weren’t the things the enraged women wanted. Instead, on Monday, they got their scalp: The WaPo suspended Weigel without pay.

So the Washington Post's pooh-poohing of '2000 Mules' gets a little comeuppance in Arizona  . . ."The Washington Post ran this Associated Press story, not bothering, despite its stable of well paid reporters, to report the matter itself.  The AP, based on what I could tell from a Google search, was the only non-local news outlet that did.  A few outlets cribbed from the AP story, but nobody else on the national scene put the hours in to cover the actual story.

"Filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza felt a measure of vindication to see the story on the Washington Post's site:. . ."

But bad as this reporting was, the Washington Post's was worse.  Longtime national correspondent Philip Bump, who's known as the water-carrier for the WaPo's top management, pooh-poohed the whole thing in the post-2020 election scenarios as baseless and the work of "conspiracy theorists."  He focused on some inflammatory wording in his piece here instead of the substance of the charges and used that as the basis of his argument that there's no such thing as election fraud. 

The Fraud That Dare Not Speak Its Name | The Heritage Foundation

Why Donald Trump Should Not Run for President in 2024

 Steve McCann

Donald Trump and his family have already sacrificed and paid a massive price on behalf of the American people.  It is time for others, younger and unbowed, to come to the fore, to accept the shield and sword from Trump and follow in his footsteps.

"Donald Trump should not run for president in 2024.  His place in the pantheon of American presidents is secure as he was the right president at the right time and will go down in history as among the nation’s indispensable presidents.  In the upcoming no-holds-barred war for the soul and future of America, it is time for the mantle to be passed on to others he has effectively mentored and who have shown a resolute willingness to follow in his footsteps.

"Trump’s accomplishments are legion and among the most important are not only awakening the citizenry to the potentially irretrievable headfirst dash into a permanent one-party-socialist oligarchy, but doing so by doggedly battling these ideological elites and exposing their duplicity, extrajudicial procedures, megalomania, and premeditated election fraud and manipulation. 

"He showed a nation stuck in a 28-year morass of political mediocrity and collectivism that fearlessness, determination, an implacable devotion to the principles of the nation’s founding, together with a genuine empathy for the America people, would defeat a radical left-wing Democrat party and a feckless Republican establishment.

"Donald Trump’s inclusion on the list of indispensable presidents derives not only from his political, judicial and legislative accomplishments but the dramatically positive impact he had on the psyche of a hitherto despondent Middle America.  They are now keenly aware of who the ruling elites and their bedmates in the radical left are and that they are not invincible.

"By renewing and recasting many of the economic policies of Ronald Reagan and initiating an America First foreign policy, Trump not only reversed the downward trend of the nation but with these overwhelmingly effective policies showed the American people that there were viable alternatives that worked.". . .

D-Day, Normandy

 June 6, 1944; D-Day: German killing fire jammed our troops up on Omaha Beach as you can see by the vehicles stacked along the water's edge

REVIEW: Visiting the Normandy Invasion Beaches and Battlefields  

Visiting the Normandy Invasion Beaches and Battlefields: A Helpful Guide Book for Groups and Individuals delivers. The itineraries are thorough, but not overwhelming. The guide is beautifully illustrated with black and white photographs on almost every page, detailed endnotes after each itinerary, and eight military maps that highlight particular actions. The maps are located with the appropriate text rather than grouped together in a separate section of the book. This cuts down on unnecessary page turning. I highly recommend it to knowledgeable battlefield explorers and general tourists. It has something for everyone.

The Telegraph – The D Day Landings by author Philip Warner

Nicholas Sandmann’s Lawyer Joins Kyle Rittenhouse’s Legal Team To Help With Defamation Lawsuits

 Analyzing America

Not only does Kyle have to deal with that, but it is compounded with the overwhelming stress and trauma of the character assassination taking place against him,” Sandmann said.

. . ."McMurtry is the attorney of former Covington Catholic High School student Nicholas Sandmann who successfully sued CNN, NBC and others for an undisclosed amount.

McMurtry confirmed that he will lead the effort in deciding who Rittenhouse will file lawsuits against for publicly defaming him during his trial.

"McMurtry said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is at the “top” of the “list” because Facebook allegedly labeled the Kenosha shootings as a “mass murder” event, which McMurtry said is “factually false.” Rittenhouse was acquitted of murder charges because a jury found he acted in self-defense.

"“I’ve been hired to head the effort to determine whom to sue, when to sue, where to sue,” McMurtry said. “We’re going to look at everything that’s been said, determine which of those comments are legally actionable and proceed from there.”

"“Let’s just use for an example what Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg said about [Rittenhouse]. They said that he was involved in a mass murder incident,” McMurtry explained.

"“This was not a mass murder incident. It was clearly factually false. To call somebody a mass murderer is seriously defamatory,” McMurtry explained.

“ 'And then to use the power of social media to basically censor any views that would take opposition to that mass murderer statement is a serious effort to destroy his character. And it was seriously mistaken and seriously defamatory.”. . .

The Democrats' primetime drama: January 6 committee has hired a former ABC News executive who ran Nightline to produce Thursday's 8pm hearing as if it is a blockbuster documentary, report claims

  UK Daily Mail   "A former news executive has been recruited by the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol to produce the Democrat-led panel's upcoming primetime hearing, a Monday report claims.

"James Goldston is a former president of ABC News. Before that he ran the mammoth-sized operations at Good Morning America and Nightline as executive producer.

"And he's now an adviser to the group of lawmakers who are set to present their case that Donald Trump's efforts to undermine democracy culminated in the deadly events of January 6, according to Axios.

"The first of six hearings will be held on Thursday at 8pm ET, and will reportedly focus mainly on the day-to-day events of the riot and contextualize it in Trump and his allies' wider efforts to overturn the election.

"Goldston, a documentary filmmaker who now runs his own production company Aquitania Films, is shaping the explosive event to be 'a blockbuster investigative special,' Monday's report states.". . .

 "The panel, made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, is beginning the first in a series of six hearings at 8pm on Thursday"

Well...eight Democrats and one Republican; Adam Kinsinger is one of the Republicans. To Pelosi and Schiff's delight I'm sure.

The Inside Story of Joe Manchin's Break-up With Joe Biden Exposes a White House out of Control

 RedState

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that the president and his staff are imbeciles, but it’s still hard to imagine why they would participate in such an act of self-sabotage. All Manchin asked for was to not be singled out in a statement about the negotiations. That was understandable given the protests that were occurring, some of which RedState reported on at the time.

"President Joe Biden’s tenuous relationship with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is making news again after an inside report has exposed just how out of control the White House is.

"Back in December of 2021, negotiations over a massive reconciliation bill between Biden and Manchin were nearing completion. According to The Washington Post, Manchin had already agreed to a $1.8 trillion topline, which is notably a lot more than the spending cap he was committed to publicly. In the grand scheme of things, Biden and his progressive allies were on course to get most of what they wanted.

"Then an act of defiance set everything on fire.

And then, incredibly, it all fell apart.

The statement drafted by White House aides two days later named Manchin as the focus of negotiations. White House aides sent a draft of the statement to Manchin’s office ahead of its release. Manchin’s chief of staff responded by asking the White House legislative director either to remove the senator’s name, or to add Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).

The White House issued the statement anyway. The president had personally signed off on it. But Manchin exploded, texting a senior Biden aide that the decision was “unconscionable and extremely dangerous” at a time when liberal activists were targeting Manchin’s family with protests.

Three days later, Manchin declared his opposition to the legislation on Fox News. The negotiations never recovered, and Build Back Better — encompassing years of Democratic policy aspirations to reduce child poverty, transform the nation’s housing system, enact new early education programs, tax the rich, and more — was effectively dead.

. . . 

Joe Biden's image; get the lipstick out.

 RedState

They may as well have reached out to Michael Moore. Kimmel isn’t the play given the fact that Kimmel has made every attempt possible at alienating himself from half of America. His very open contempt for those who lean right borders on the obsessive and gets him to produce “jokes” that are just mean-spirited comments with applause prompts for the audience.

  . . ."Attempts are being made to raise his popularity level. It started with an attempt at diverting the blame for the issues he and his administration caused to others. From oil companies to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Biden has attempted to deflect in order to take the heat off of him to no avail. There have even been attempts at distracting the public with events such as the leaked draft decision on Roe v. Wade from the Supreme Court, but it didn’t save him either.

"Putting paint on rust doesn’t take away the rust.

"Now Biden’s handlers are reaching out to their Hollywood friends to help “Weekend at Bernie’s” Biden’s popularity. They think that if they can get him in with people others find entertaining, then they can certainly make Biden seem a bit more likable. After all, more people vote based on their emotions than anything else. Especially since it did so well for then-President Barack Obama. It’s a smart move.

"Or it would be if Biden was actually meeting up with someone that was capable of convincing centrists and independents to like him. In their desperation, Biden’s handlers reached out to late-night show host Jimmy Kimmel.". . .

. . ."He’s repeatedly proven himself to be a hypocrite, abandoning his “noble” leftist beliefs if it means he can use them to attack people on the right with as much malice and bile as he can.

(READ: Jimmy Kimmel Accidentally Tells Us Who the Left Really Are Again With Sexist Rant Against Marsha Blackburn)

"Sending Biden to Kimmel is not the play if they’re attempting to help with the former’s approval rating. In reality, it will just confirm to many in America that Biden isn’t the “uniter” that he likes to say he is, but that he’s willing to be around those who are divisive and hateful toward those who don’t believe as they do.

"His handlers could, at this point, understand that Kimmel isn’t someone who will convince moderates to like Biden but to shore up his current base of voters. The issue is that any funny and personable moments Kimmel can gift to Biden in his studio will be wildly overshadowed by the hardships being endured by American families in the home.". . .

As primary approaches, California mulls return to mask mandates?

Except in French restaurants? 

 Hot Air

 

"Hey, nothing says normalcy like more government marketplace interventions, right? California voters will finish going to the polls tomorrow in the state’s open primaries. Will a new push for mask mandates in the pandemic force those voters to choose between yet another season of pointless performative acts or more rational leadership?

"Yeah, yeah, yeah … it’s California, I know. But still:

Suddenly, California officials are moving toward new indoor mask rules as coronavirus cases enter the danger zone in many parts of the state.

The virus has been spreading rapidly across California after a spring of big declines. That is setting up an anxious summer in which officials are now talking about a return to mask wearing to prevent wider spread.

So far, the biggest concerns have been in Northern California. But Los Angeles County officials say mask mandates are possible by the end of the month if conditions continue to deteriorate.. . .