Month: March 2021

The U.S. House of Representatives passed universal background check gun control Thursday, criminalizing private gun sales conducted apart from an FBI background check.

The legislation, H.R. 8, sponsored by Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA), passed by a vote of 227 to 203.

H.R. 8 would expand retail point-of-sale background checks so as to cover private points-of-sale. This will criminalize an individual who sells a 5-shot revolver to a lifelong neighbor, unless that neighbor first undergoes a National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) check, conducted by the FBI.

On Wednesday, bill sponsor Thompson claimed, without evidence, his bill is supported by “90 percent of the American [people].”

H.R. 8 was passed by the House in early 2019 as well, but never taken up by the Republican-controlled Senate. Democrat gains in the current Senate suggest the legislation will be discussed this time around.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

A significant gun control measure mandating universal background checks passed the Democrat-controlled House Thursday with the help of eight Republicans.

CNN reports the eight Republicans were:

• Vern Buchanan of Florida
• Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania
• Maria Salazar of Florida
• Andrew Garbarino of New York
• Chris Smith of New Jersey
• Fred Upton of Michigan
• Carlos Gimenez of Florida
• Adam Kinzinger of Illinois

Vox noted that Fitzpatrick (pictured), Smith, and Upton not only voted for the gun control measure but actually “co-sponsored it.”

Breitbart News observed the gun control measure, H.R. 8, passed the House by a vote of 227-203 Thursday morning. The bill expands point-of-sale background checks on retail firearm sales to cover private transactions as well.

Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) warned the universal checks will translate into a national gun registry.

The Wall Street Journal quoted Good saying, “This bill creates a de facto gun registry by involving the federal government in every gun transfer, including private transfers and gifts, or else how will we enforce these requirements?”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.

A Chinese retailer’s promotion of a Buddha statue crafted in the likeness of former U.S. President Donald Trump has gone viral on Chinese social media platforms, the Chinese state-run Global Times reported Tuesday.

“The statue, with Trump’s contemplative face lowered, and both hands resting in its lap, is labeled by the seller on Taobao as ‘Trump, who knows Buddhism better than anyone,’” according to the newspaper. Taobao is a Chinese online shopping site owned by the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.

A small, five-foot-tall version of the Trump Buddha statue is currently listed on Taobao for 999 Chinese yuan ($150). The large version, listed as 15 feet tall, is priced at 3,999 yuan ($610).

Trump is sculpted with his hands “folded in his laps, thumbs pointing outwards … [in] a pose from Buddhist art that signifies meditation and contemplation,” the Guardian noted Wednesday.

The statue’s Fujian province-based Taobao seller told the Global Times he adapted Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan “into something auspicious for Chinese companies: ‘make your company great again.’”

“Most people just bought it for fun,” the seller explained, noting his Chinese retailer made just 100 of the “Trump as Buddha” statues and has “already sold dozens.”

A buyer of the statue in Shanghai, China’s largest city and financial hub, told the Global Times he purchased the item after seeing it advertised on the Chinese social media platform WeChat.

“I bought it for fun and put it on my desk at home as a decoration,” he said.

“Trump can also be regarded as a representative of an era, and extreme egoism. Now the era has passed but I want the statue to remind me: Don’t be too Trump,” he added.

This is not the first time Trump Buddha statues have been spotted for sale on e-commerce platforms. The U.S.-based craft website Etsy currently sells a 3D-printed, bright orange Trump Buddha figurine for $8.99.

“The Trump Buddha is not intended to stir up anything political. In fact, this Laughing Buddha mashup is simply a reminder that, no matter where we fall in the political spectrum, we could all use a little more laughter and joy in our lives!” the seller wrote in a description of the item.

Trump remains a popular inspiration for merchandise sold on Taobao despite his leaving office on January 20 after the end of his first presidential term. Taobao continues to sell “Trump facemasks, models, little statues, hats, socks and more,” according to the Guardian.

CARACAS, Venezuela – Time and time again the “Bolivarian, Socialist, Anti-Imperialist, and Profoundly Chavista” Revolution has stylized itself as a champion of the elderly.

In reality, being an elderly Venezuelan in times of socialist revolution means living a miserable retirement, on a pension so low that it’s all but a death sentence.

1,200,000 Venezuelan bolivars – that’s the amount of money a Venezuelan retiree receives from the government around the 20th of each month, an amount equal to our monthly minimum wage, which translates to roughly $0.63 using the Central Bank of Venezuela’s official exchange rate at the start of March 2021.

What can you buy with 1.2 million bolivars as of March 2021? Absolutely nothing. A dozen eggs hover around 2.7 million ($1.48). Milk varies by presentation, ranging from 2.5 million ($1.35) to upwards of 12 million ($6.85). A kilogram of rice goes for about 1.9 million ($1.05), and a pack of pasta goes for 3.1 million ($1.65).

The 1,200,000 monthly pension is not even enough to purchase a kilogram of white cornmeal — the main ingredient in one of Venezuela’s signature and most basic of dishes: the arepa.

For reference, in 2015, the World Bank set the global poverty line at $1.90 in income per day. It is impossible for an elderly person to sustain themselves with their pension here. $0.63 per month is not enough to feed themselves, pay for services, and let alone be able to afford even the most basic medications that they may require.

The socialist regime of Venezuela continues to triumphantly boast that it managed to grant pensions to 100 percent of Venezuela’s elderly population. What they don’t tell you is that the pensions themselves amount to nothing — to be cheeky, 100% of zero is zero, 100% of the elderly receive an equal share of the socialist misery.

Pensioners often receive additional money stipends distributed through the socialist regime’s Fatherland system, an Orwellian surveillance mechanism built in part by the Chinese government. While way higher than the pension itself, these bonuses hardly do anything against Venezuela’s hyperinflation — they’re akin to throwing a small bucket of water at a burning forest.

One of the most common stipends distributed to the elderly through the above-mentioned system is the “Economic War Bonus.” Recipients of the latest one were given 2,785,000 Venezuelan bolivars — or roughly $1.47 at the current official exchange rate. Since socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro assumed power in 2013, he has continued an “Economic War” narrative first coined by the late Hugo Chavez.

According to this narrative, America – together with the Venezuelan opposition, businessmen, and other internal and external factors – is actively conspiring to bring ruin to the socialist nation through “economic warfare.” The Revolution lays the blame of the shortages, hyperinflation, and all other symptoms of the collapse of socialist Venezuela on them while exempting Maduro and the Socialist Party of any blame with regards to the current state of this country. Twisting the truth so that the Revolution are the heroes in this tragedy and everyone else is the villain is a staple tactic that they constantly employ.

Even if an elderly person were to receive several monthly Fatherland bonuses on top of their regular pension, it still would fall severely short of being able to enjoy life with a modicum of normalcy. This forced life of poverty upon the elderly is not an accident. It is all by design, as the Socialist Party would prefer that the elderly, along with everyone else, depends on the regime and the Socialist Party as much as possible.

Many have no choice but to further rely on the regime’s CLAP system, a heavily subsidized monthly box that contains a handful of low-quality basic products that often come rotten — which, much like the rest of the socialist regime itself, is a system deeply entrenched in corruption whose ultimately goal is to enrich Maduro and his allies.

Deaths by malnutrition among the elderly have become more common with each passing day. The deaths of two elderly siblings in October of 2020 is one of the most horrifying cases in recent times.

If the hunger doesn’t kill them, then lack of healthcare might do the trick, as the elderly often require regular treatment for chronic conditions.

Access to adequate health care for an elderly person who survives through their pension in a country with a collapsed and obliterated healthcare system is even more uphill than for a regular person. The beyond absurd hyperinflation that we’ve lived with for the past years, coupled with the pseudo-dollarization that is holding what’s left of the country together, keeps an elderly person from being able to afford medicine.

To exemplify just how bad it is, I’m going to take one of the most common conditions as an example: high blood pressure. Valsartan is one of the most common medicines used to treat this condition. These days, it can be found for anywhere between 3.8 to 52 million bolivares.

It would take 3 months of pension payments to even be able to afford one of the cheapest offerings — and that’s if and only if hyperinflation doesn’t further push the price.

For reasons like this, Venezuela is often referred to as the worst place to grow old, something that should not come as a surprise if you’ve kept an eye on our ongoing socialism-sponsored catastrophe.

The elderly have actively participated in protests against Maduro and his regime over the inhumane conditions that they’re being subject to. Not even the Chinese coronavirus lockdowns have deterred these men and women from organizing protests that ultimately get repressed by the Bolivarian National Guard and other armed components at the service of Maduro.

It would be remiss of me to omit the fact that pensioners have never had it easy in this country, even before the rise of Hugo Chávez and his socialist revolution. I grew up with tales of my grandmother and her woes regarding her pension in the 1990s, when banking and bureaucracy did not have the luxury of today’s technologies and the internet. While it wasn’t perfect, her pension at least allowed her, a nurse that was not rich by any measure, to live a decent retirement.

Venezuela celebrates the “Day of the Elderly” every May 29. While Maduro and the Socialist Party of Venezuela will definitely use their media apparatus to post self-congratulating events and broadcasts, post images on their myriad social media accounts, and push hashtags in celebration like they usually do, the elderly will once again have little to nothing to celebrate, as they continue to further fall into ever-worsening misery. There is no respite nor peaceful retirement for them within these borders.

We live a complicated reality that, while rather stagnant due to the coronavirus lockdowns, keeps you constantly moving and twisting around so you survive the socialist collapse through your own means — an unwinnable game that keeps you distracted of just how worse all of this is for the elderly that reside in these borders.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.

A British dad is facing charges for forcing his daughter to sign a life-long contract promising to never get fat.

Fitness-crazed dad Rachid Khadla, 56, has been hit with child abuse charges for forcing his children to engage in a strict fitness regime, including forcing his daughter to sign a contract vow never to get fat, according to the New York Post.

Court documents show that in 2012, Khadla’s daughter, Amira, signed a pledge reading, “I, Amira Khadla, will never let myself get fat. I will do lots of exercise to make sure I will never get fat, even until I die.”

Officials say that the man also beat and abused his kids. It is alleged that he hit his daughter with a spoon, punched her, and even threw a chair at her. He also controlled the girl’s life, determining who she could see, what she could wear, and what she could watch on TV.

It was also alleged that Khadla abused his sons as well. Khadla is also said to have beaten his youngest son, Hicham, who has a learning disability.

“He punched Hicham to the chest a number of times and then pushed him onto his sister’s bed,” prosecutor Alex Krikler alleged.

“He then placed both hands around his neck and strangled him for quite some time — five to 10 seconds — before pulling him up, punching him to the chest, and walking away,” Krikler added. “Hicham had tried to say ‘stop’ but had been unable to speak.

“He could not breathe, and although the marks left by the strangulation were relatively minor, the incident was extremely frightening,” Krikler exclaimed.

Hicham apparently had enough of the abuse and told his mother and friends at school. The boy’s admissions eventually led to his father’s troubles with the courts.

Krikler went on to describe more of the abuse that Hicham reportedly suffered.

“His father would make him put his hands out and would smack the palms of his hands with a wooden spoon. He also described how his father would push and punch him and on occasion throw things at him,” the prosecutor said.

“The abuse was not just physical. The defendant would also threaten extreme violence, that he would ‘splatter his brains across the ceiling and kill him.’ His father would tell him that he was weak,” he said.

The man’s eldest son, Karim, also testified to his father’s actions, “the control, the temper and the violence.”

Khadla’s wife said she agrees with her husband’s prosecution and noted he has always had a “quick temper.”

For his part, Khadla claimed that he struck out at his youngest son “in self-defense.” He also denied any abusive behavior and said he only engaged in typical parental actions such as spankings. Khadla denied all the charges against him.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Facebook at: facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston.