Texas Poised To Pass Law Allowing People To Carry A Handgun Without A License

May 6, 2021

The Texas Senate has advanced a bill that would allow Texans to carry a handgun without any form of license.

It could make Texas the largest state to allow permitless carry – what supporters refer to as “constitutional carry.”

The legislation passed the Senate by a vote of 18-13 along party lines and heads back to the House which already passed a similar bill, before heading to Governor Greg Abbott for his signature.

Abbott has already indicated he would sign the bill.

“I support it, and I believe it should reach my desk, and we should have ‘constitutional carry’ in Texas,” he said last week.

In essence, the legislation means people 21 and older would no longer be required to obtain a license to carry a handgun, take a safety course, or be subjected to a background check if they’re not prohibited by state or federal law from possessing a gun.

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OAN Obtains Letter From DOJ Trying To Stop Ariz. Audit

May 6, 2021

There’s breaking news out of Maricopa County, Arizona where Biden administration officials are attempting to insert themselves into the ongoing ballot audit despite lacking the authority to do so.

The Arizona election audit is no stranger to opposition and May 5 proved no exception. The civil rights division of the Department of Justice sent a letter to Arizona Senate President Karen Fann expressing concerns over the review.

The letter appears to be prompted by an April 30 letter from the Brennan Center, a far-left liberal group, to the Department of Justice asking them to intervene in the audit.

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DeSantis: Florida’s New Voting Law Adds ‘Strongest Election Integrity’

May 6, 2021

While signing the state’s new voting law during a television appearance early Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hailed the legislation’s focus on election security, saying the legislation adds the “strongest election integrity measures in the country.”

“We’re making sure we’re enforcing voter ID,” DeSantis commented during his Fox News appearance from West Palm Beach, where he signed the legislation in front of cheering supporters. “We’re also banning ballot harvesting. We’re not going to let political operatives go and get satchels of votes to dump them in some dropbox.”

Florida’s Senate Bill 90 also prohibits “mass mailing of balloting,” the governor said. “We’ve had absentee voting in Florida for a long time. You request the ballot, you get it, and you mail it in. But to just indiscriminately send them out is not a recipe for success.”

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Still No Evidence of Armed Insurrection on Jan. 6

May 6, 2021

Commentary

It almost seems like the narrative was created in advance.

As the nation’s capital descended into chaos on the afternoon of Jan. 6—including angry protests both inside and outside the Capitol building to object to Congress’s final certification of the 2020 election results—Democratic lawmakers were already spinning. “This is a violent insurrection,” Rep. Ted Deutsch (D-Fla.) wrote on Twitter at 3:40 p.m. as the mayhem escalated. “An attempted coup by Trump supporters at his encouragement.”

“This is how we make America great?” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), former chair of the Democratic National Committee, wrote at 3:09 p.m. ”Violence, storming the Capitol, attempting to block your duly elected successor by encouraging armed insurrection?” Lawmakers of both political parties echoed those sentiments throughout the day.

Less than 24 hours later, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) cemented the emerging storyline about the events of Jan. 6. “Yesterday, the President of the United States incited an armed insurrection against America, the gleeful desecration of the U.S. Capitol, which is the temple of our American democracy, and the violence targeting Congress are horrors that will forever stay in our nation’s history, instigated by the President of the United States,” Pelosi raged during a Jan. 7 press conference. “Justice will be done to those who carried out these acts, which were acts of sedition and acts of cowardice.”

The “armed insurrection” mantra was cited as key evidence in the Democrats’ second impeachment trial against former President Donald Trump.

But was it true? In February, I examined federal indictments filed against nearly 200 people charged in the Justice Department’s Capitol investigation, which top officials promised would be “unprecedented” in the agency’s history. At the time, only 14 people faced weapons violations. Items such as a helmet, riot shield, and pepper spray were described by government prosecutors as “dangerous or deadly weapons.”

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Trump Allies Launch Nonprofit Focused on Election Fraud

May 6, 2021

Allies of former President Donald Trump have launched a new initiative focused on election fraud, according to a news release.

Called the Election Integrity Alliance, the nonprofit will be focused on “ending election fraud and strengthening election safeguards by providing information, resources, endorsements of allies’ efforts, and solutions to secure free and fair elections,” the news release said.

Trump counsel Jenna Ellis, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, former Trump adviser Peter Navarro, former NYPD Commissioner Bernard Kerik, former White House adviser Sebastian Gorka, constitutional law professor Michael Donnelly, and former Trump lawyer Mirna Tarraf will be part of the group.

“The Election Integrity Alliance’s National Board is comprised of individuals who have fought for election integrity at great personal risk and who are champions for free and fair elections,” the organization said in a statement.

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Rep. Matt Gaetz: Forget Packages, USPS Is Tracking You

May 6, 2021

Should every federal agency be on surveillance duty? What if the mailman is the one looking through the peephole?

The United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) dates back to 1772, when Benjamin Franklin created the position of “Surveyor” to audit postal accounts and investigate mail theft.

Over time, the USPIS has become the law enforcement arm of the United States Postal Service, enforcing laws that protect USPS employees, postal buildings, customers, and other crimes involving postal mail.

Inspecting mail and investigating mail crimes, for a country as large as the United States, is an enormous task. This is especially difficult for an organization that originated in the 18th century with the responsibility to assist in delivering physical mail safely and effectively.

While it is true that the USPIS enjoys broad jurisdiction, it is disturbing that this institution has taken upon itself to expand beyond the scope of its mandate to implement what it calls the Internet Covert Operations Program, also known as iCOP.

This illegal and unconstitutional program combs through social media posts of Americans looking for politically charged or “inflammatory” material that it somehow may deem dangerous to its operations, then shares any such findings across government agencies.

However, according to USPIS’s own Chief Postal Inspector Gary Barksdale, there have been no actionable findings under iCOP’s social media trawling, evidencing its precarious nature and misplaced scope.

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