NRA

Trump’s pardon team is quietly working to restore gun rights to thousands of felons

President Donald Trump’s pardoning blitz has dominated the headlines with reality-TV stars, a rapper and political allies all walking free from prison after he granted them clemency. But quietly in the office of the Justice Department’s pardon attorney – where all of the above appeals were processed – a much more significant and wide-reaching process of forgiveness is taking shape. Ed Martin, Trump loyalist and new pardon attorney, is preparing his team to review applications from people – a lot of people – with criminal convictions to have their gun rights restored. “The pardon staff has already been working at it, because we anticipate hundreds and hundreds of thousands of applicants,” Martin told the Wall Street Journal.

gun rights

Trump rails against ‘rigged’ trial

Former president Donald Trump railed against the “rigged” trial that saw him convicted on thirty-four felony charges during a forty-minute press conference at Trump Tower in New York on Friday. In addition to speaking about the case and the individuals he believed to be responsible for corrupting it — DA Alvin Bragg, Judge Juan Merchan and his former lawyer Michael Cohen, among others — Trump went on offense against the Biden campaign and administration and tied this latest trial to the years-long investigation into alleged Russian collusion and the three other cases pending against him. He claimed the United States is now officially a “fascist” country, flipping the term that Democrats have long used to describe him and and his plans for a second term.

The LaPierre legacy

Everything from the flintlock rifle to the dialogue was planned — somehow people often don’t realize that, even when there’s a Hollywood actor on stage. When Charlton Heston raised the prop above his head at the 2000 NRA convention and bellowed, “from my cold dead hands,” those gathered in Charlotte reacted just as the ghostwriters thought they would. It didn’t matter that the line in question had been a bumper sticker for decades, or that the septuagenarian Oscar-winner was reciting a phrase Vincent D’Onofrio had parodied just three years earlier in the blockbuster Men in Black. Viewers of the film today won’t realize the cart is pulling the satire horse until they check IMDb.

LaPierre

Trump goes through the motions for the NRA

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Having lingered a little too long at a Scottish outfitter’s booth learning about the art of falconry, I assumed I’d be relegated to the overflow arena of the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex, where Donald Trump was addressing attendees of the NRA’s Great American Outdoor Show last night. I was surprised to learn from a friendly security guard, however, that there were said to be some seats still available in the nosebleeds of the main arena. I tried my luck at the handiest entrance, and a kind man with a cane and his three companions all stood up and made way for me to sit in a prime seat.

trump nra harrisburg

Hunter Biden is the dream NRA spokesman

It’s going to be an awkward Fourth of July cookout chez Biden, as Hunter’s legal team is reportedly planning to invoke a Supreme Court ruling dad Joe said “contradicts both common sense and the Constitution.” But hey, Hunter seems to be thinking, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, right? Especially when doing so could keep you out of prison. The SCTOUS opinion that new Second Amendment rights poster-boy Hunter Biden is embracing was handed down in June 2022. New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen challenged a New York law requiring residents applying for concealed carry weapons permits to show “proper cause” for carrying a gun.

hunter biden