A halfpinion looks at either the costs or benefits of a plan but not both.
Gaza residents were brainwashed to have a halfpinion about how to deal with Israel. October 7th was them getting the “benefit” too many of the residents wanted.
Now they are experiencing the “cost” side.
America has this same halfpinion disease. That’s why our national debt will turn us into Gaza fairly soon.
Kamala Harris says, if elected president, she’ll use executive action to confiscate guns if Congress doesn’t act within the first 100 days of her administration pic.twitter.com/nHa605TUy8
I don’t know how things will turn out. I see too many paths depending on too many variables to make any kind of prediction or to have a significant influence. I have resigned myself to giving whatever nudge I can in the direction of fair and just trials for the perpetrators. But mass psychology being what it is, and the thin veneer of rationality our species has means that is likely a low probability outcome.
Almost 30 years ago (I think it was the summer of 1996) Alan Gottlieb invited me to bring my family to dinner at his place with his family. It was a very special evening. Our kids were near the same age has his and I learned a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff from Alan and Julianne. One of the things that stuck with me was that Alan’s college major was nuclear engineering.
He told me of the history of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms and the Second Amendment Foundation. Also, it was a member of the Microsoft Gun Club (now, The Gun Club at Microsoft) who registered the domain names saf.org and ccrkba.org before most people knew the Internet existed. He gave the domain to Alan’s organizations when it was time to bring their message to the web.
Now, today, the Second Amendment Foundation is 50 years old.
Today, Monday, Aug. 26, marks 50 years of the Second Amendment Foundation’s (SAF) unwavering commitment to defend, secure and restore the Second Amendment rights vital to the defense of liberty.
From a landmark victory at the United States Supreme Court to triumphs in state courthouses, SAF has scored numerous successes in the past half century, including the all-too-important McDonald v. City of Chicago decision handed down by the Supreme Court in 2010. SAF’s win in McDonald has been critical to the fight against modern gun control, as it paved the way for legal action against states and municipalities for violations of the Second Amendment.
“The goal when I created SAF was to get a case all the way to the Supreme Court,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “We did that in 2010, and that momentum hasn’t stopped. SAF has been part of more than 260 lawsuits since our founding and we currently have more than 55 active cases across the nation. This includes one case – Garland v. Vanderstok – that will be argued before the Supreme Court in October.”
Although SAF has won numerous critical pro-Second Amendment cases since 1974, the organization has shown no signs of slowing down. In fact, in 2022 SAF brought on board a new Executive Director – practicing attorney Adam Kraut – to lead the organization into the next half-century.
“When Alan started SAF 50 years ago, he laid out a comprehensive vision to fight for our right to keep and bear arms,” Kraut said. “Over time, he and those who joined him built a solid organizational foundation that was effective in winning where it matters. I think we continued to build on that foundation and have a tremendous team to lead the organization into the next 50 years. I’m looking forward to the challenge of continuing to build on the work Alan started.”
Over the past 50 years, SAF has been at the forefront of numerous legal battles, challenging unconstitutional firearms regulations such as “assault weapon” bans, magazine capacity bans, young adult carry laws, “sensitive places” restrictions, red flag laws, prohibited person and many, many more. Through aggressive, strategic litigation, SAF has successfully challenged restrictive gun laws across the nation, dismantling barriers that impede the right to keep and bear arms for all Americans.
It always cracks me up when I come back from the farm to see that a whole bunch of twidiots who substitute guns for their penises have spent the whole day tweeting at me, thinking their comments upset me because they know that people like me will take their precious guns away. 😆
A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction in favor of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and its partners, challenging California’s prohibition on non-resident concealed carry permits. U.S. District Court Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022, partially granted the motion for preliminary injunction, setting the stage for further legal proceedings.
Even a Biden appointed judge admits we have the constitution on our side!
There is no legitimate basis for the Fourth Circuit to have concluded that the most widely owned semiautomatic rifles in the United States are not arms protected by the Second Amendment.
The Court must provide more guidance on which weapons the Second Amendment covers and they should do so in this case. This immoral and abusive gun control regime must end here.
The DNC Platform states that the Democrats are determined to establish national universal background checks and red flag laws to keep guns out of the hands of people deemed a danger to themselves and others. According to the platform, the party also wants a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, to require safe storage of guns and end the gun industry’s immunity from liability “so gunmakers can no longer escape accountability.
“And, because the gun violence epidemic is a public health crisis, we will fund gun violence research across the Centers for Disease Control [CDC] and National Institutes of Health [NIH] as well as community violence interventions,” the DNC platform states.
It is good they make this so clear. It makes it more difficult for them to get away with claiming they “support the Second Amendment”. Plus, should the occasion arise, it can be used as evidence at their trials.
Between 2017 and 2021, a total of 1,074,022 firearms were reported stolen in the U.S., averaging around 200,000 annually. However, these figures are estimates, as criminals typically do not report their illicit activities to law enforcement agencies for research purposes.
While this number seems exceptionally high, the truth is that less than a fraction (only 0.042%) of civilian-owned firearms in the United States are stolen each year. Therefore, it is safe to say that the vast majority of gun owners are, in fact, taking precautions to ensure thieves do not acquire their property.
Stolen guns in America are used in a significantly higher number of crimes than legally purchased firearms. However, many stolen guns are never used in crimes.
When a cable TV news actor cites some farcical statistic about guns or gun owners, it’s important to understand how that number made it onto the teleprompter. It starts with donor dollars sent to researchers at left-leaning colleges, universities or other groups, who publish reports that mirror their donors’ views, which are then regurgitated by the corporate media. It’s a factory-like process. We don’t have anything like that. We don’t need it. We simply rely upon the truth.
A new ruling from the the United States Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals now will prevent California’s law limiting gun purchases to one every 30 days from taking effect.
While a federal district court had issued an injunction against the law, California sought a stay against the injunction via the Ninth Circuit. The Ninth Circuit issued a stay, reversing its stay after hearing oral arguments on the case.
The earlier federal district court injunction against the law now goes into full effect, preventing the law from being enforced.
…
California cited gun restrictions and taxes, and licensing laws targeting Native Americans as evidence of historical precedent for its case, leading Hayes to write limits on Native American sales — and other “groups excluded from the political community” as a historical analogue is “dubious, at best,” and that the presented historical laws did not include a “limit on the quantity or frequency with which one could acquire firearms.
…
Hayes placed a 30 day stay on the ruling pending an appeal, which is now complete, meaning Hayes’ judgment takes effect.
They can be very creative in their efforts to infringe upon our rights, so it will be interesting to see how California attempts to create a new law to get around this ruling. With the Bruen decision they said, paraphrasing, okay, we have to give carry licenses, but every place in a city, outside of your own home, is a “sensitive place” and the carry license does not apply.
As an example of their creativity:
California cited gun restrictions and taxes, and licensing laws targeting Native Americans as evidence of historical precedent for its case, leading Hayes to write limits on Native American sales — and other “groups excluded from the political community” as a historical analogue is “dubious, at best,” and that the presented historical laws did not include a “limit on the quantity or frequency with which one could acquire firearms.
I’m surprised they didn’t include the laws put in place by the KKK prohibiting people with black skin from firearm ownership as justification. Democrats got away with that kind of crap 100+ years ago, so why not try it again?
The global reserves count of the U.S. dollar has now fallen to 59% in 2024, reported the Atlantic Council The U.S. dollar in reserves stood at 72% in 2002 and has been declining steadily in the last two decades. In 22 years, the USD declined 13% in the markets as developing countries are distancing the currency from their reserves. In no surprise, BRICS member China’s local currency, the yuan, rose 3% during the same period.
Muting this thread because you all are some of the stupidest MFers I’ve seen. You don’t need an assault rifle to protect yourself (and I’d bet you’ve never needed to protect yourself anyway) you’re just compensating for your small dicks.
Amid the alliance’s continued efforts to create a SWIFT alternative, the economic alliance has sought to create its very own BRICS payment system. It will play a major role in the alliance trade dealings. Specifically, allowing unilateral settlement to be done without the need for the US dollar.
The move is poised to be vital for the bloc and participating nations, and it appears there will be a lot of them. According to one Russian official, there are already 159 countries seeking to adopt the system currently. With a potential launch coming in October, it could have massive global market ramifications.
I’m not an economist, I have never even taken a class on economics. So maybe my concerns are imaginary, but I could see a large number of those dollars being used by other countries returned to the U.S. How many dollars?
As much as one-half of the value of U.S. currency is estimated to be circulating abroad.
…
As of December 31, 2020, there was $2,040.7 billion in circulation, totaling 50.3 billion notes in volume.
From that same source we find that in 2022 there was $2,259.3 trillion in circulation. Using a bit of extrapolation and rounding we end up with about $1.2 trillion outside the U.S. in 2024. So, what happens if a substantial number of those dollars come back to the U.S.? It would seem to me that just one or two percent ($12 to $24 billion) would cause noticeable inflation. And then what? More people/countries would want to get rid of their dollars before they lose value due to inflation. It is a run on U.S. goods and property (land) to get something for those dollars. It is the dump of $1.2 trillion dollars all wanting something for their rapidly decreasing in value dollars. The GDP of the U.S. in 2023 was over $27 trillion. But GDP:
aggregates all private and public consumption, investment, government outlays and net exports.
The export portion of our GDP is about 10% of our total GDP, or $2.7 trillion. Not all of that $1.2 trillion would go into exporting of goods, but half or more into the export market would make for “interesting times.” And it would happen, as Ernest Hemingway famously said about bankruptcy, “Gradually, then suddenly.”
In what may be the most poorly conceived and horribly researched study ever published by TheJournal of the American Medical Association during its entire 141-year history, a trio of anti-gun researchers now claims deer hunting is associated with a substantial increase in firearm violence.
To arrive at their laughable conclusion, the authors used data from the infamous Gun Violence Archive, which has been debunked dozens of times and is well known for its shoddy research and biased statistics.
Even the authors admitted there were problems with the GVA data. “Our study relies on shooting data from a single source, the GVA. Data from GVA have been shown to have a bias toward incidents that receive more media attention and do not include comprehensive counts of firearm suicides,” the report states.
Despite these inherent biases, the researchers used the GVA data anyway. They didn’t allow the facts to interfere with their preconceived and biased narrative.
Growing up on the farm one of the things I did in the summer was work the summer fallow. I started at a young age. I know I started driving tractor about a month before my eighth birthday. And I remember driving the tractor in from the field working summer fallow at lunch time one summer, walked into the house and found my Aunt Mardelle and family had arrived from California. She greeted me and asked where Dad was. I said he would be in soon. She was a bit confused and asked, “But I heard the tractor come in.” I told her that was correct, I had brought it in, and Dad was working a different field and would drive the pickup home for lunch. She was shocked, “But you’re just a kid! They let you drive a tractor.” I straighten her out with, “I’m ten years old.” That didn’t satisfy her, and she said, “Yes. I know!” When Dad came home there was a short discussion between Aunt Mardelle and Dad with him mostly convincing her that I could handle the tractor just fine.
I remember the tremendous amount of dirt and heat you had to endure. None of the tractors had cabs and the top layer of the field was dry and created a lot of dust. I remember the dust piling up so deep on my watch I would have to turn my wrist over to dump the dust off so I could read it. I remember blowing my nose and having mud come out for a day or so after finishing. You could not see the bottom of the wash basin after washing your head, hands, and arms. The water in the basin looked like a mud puddle.
Probably five or ten years after I left the farm, they stopped using summer fallow as a cycle in the crop rotation. There were new chemicals that could be used to control the weeds and by planting a crop every year the risk of an unusually heavy rain causing excessive erosion was eliminated.
I expected I would never work summer fallow again and my children would never see it or experience it either. That changed this summer.
Daughter Jaime purchased five acres of Idaho farmland to build a house on in a few years. Last year the weeds grew up and it was a mess. I discussed it with her. Ultimately, she wants grass and trees and certainly not weeds. So, this spring we rented a small tractor from Brother Doug with a rototiller on the three-point hitch and took turns driving it. The It was cold, damp, and it took us two days to grind up the weeds and hard soil. That was not the summer fallow I remembered.
It should have been done sooner, but due to our schedules we could not get out there to work it again until July 13th. Jaime rented the tractor and rototiller again and worked for about 1.5 hours before she got a flat tire. She got it repaired but it was so old it went flat again within a very short time. Doug knew the tires were failing. They were over 25 years old and were no longer made. They had been patching them for years and now they were so rotten they wouldn’t hold a patch.
Jaime took it back to the farm and after some research by me, Doug, and others had a solution. There were tires that would fit but were slightly smaller than the original tires. As it is a four-wheel drive tractor there would be some “issues” if we didn’t take it out of four-wheel drive on hard surfaces, but it should be fine in the fields.
July 20th it was more convenient for me to work the summer fallow. It was going to be hot. It was going to be dusty. There was no cab on the tractor. It was going to be like what I remembered. I was glad I was doing this rather than my daughter.
The next-door neighbor, a retired farmer, came out spoke with me briefly and even though I had a cooler full of water bottles, twice filled up my thermos with cold water for me. I chugged them.
Around 4:00 PM I noticed something I had not remembered. My arms sweated so profusely the dust on my arms turned to mud:
By 6:00 or so the dirt on my arms was dried out again. That was a bit odd, I thought.
It took 12 hours. I finished up just before dark and the neighbor came out again and chatted with me as I tied the tractor down on the trailer. He told me it got up to 103 degrees that day. He thought I didn’t need to know that as I was in the field. That explains the muddy arms. I don’t think I had ever worked summer fallow when it was that hot before.
By the time I got back to my little camping trailer it was nearly 10:00 PM and I was more than ready for a shower and bed. But first I had to send Barb a message and a picture.
I asked her, “Should I take a shower before coming home? Or do you love me just the way I am?”
She didn’t really answer the questions:
Oh my. I’m laughing so hard I have tears in my eyes.
Here is another picture of my arm back in the camping trailer:
August 11th, Jaime did it all on her own. It was much cooler. I don’t think it got hotter than the mid 80’s. Good. I would rather she didn’t have to deal with some of the worst conditions I had ever experienced.
I arrived just after she had returned the tractor and rototiller:
This picture is after she changed out of her dirty clothes. She wore a long sleeve shirt that blocked the sun, a mask over her mouth and nose, and a large hat.
I never imagined any of my children would work summer fallow. She rented a trailer, loaded and tied down the tractor, drove with a trailer behind her car, drove the tractor, refueled it multiple times, and did a great job on the field work. I am very proud of her.
Increased gun regulation is something that Arizona Democrats have long been fighting for, only to be shut down by Republican legislators. With a chance of winning the majority in November, policymakers are brainstorming gun control bills they would like to see on Gov. Katie Hobbs’ desk.
Only two seats away from having a Democratic majority in Arizona’s legislative chambers for the first time in six decades, the Democratic Caucus has established a plan they say would allow them to hit the ground running in 2025 should they take control of the Legislature. This story is part of a series of what a Democratic trifecta would look like for Arizona taxpayers.
“In the event that we flip, we want to be ready to govern,” Sen. Christine Marsh, D-Phoenix, told The Center Square.
As vice president, a senator and California’s attorney general, Harris backed policies that imposed restrictions on speech, including by defending a law eventually struck down by the Supreme Court, which forced pro-life pregnancy centers to advertise abortions. On the campaign trail, Harris has indicated support for holding social media platforms “accountable” for “hate speech” and misinformation online.
New Civil Liberties Alliance litigation counsel Jenin Younes told the DCNF she is “extremely concerned about both Harris and Walz’s records on free speech.”
“Both have evinced either a disregard for or misunderstanding of the First Amendment, which protects ‘misinformation’ and ‘hate speech’— contrary to various statements the two have made,” Younes said. “The First Amendment recognizes that the government does not have a monopoly on the truth, as it has demonstrated throughout the COVID era during which it was one of the worst purveyors of misinformation in the country.”
During a 2019 campaign speech before the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Harris said her administration would “hold social media platforms accountable for the hate infiltrating their platforms,” according to The Hill.
Among the economic policies Harris is set to announce is a plan to provide up to $25,000 in down-payment support for first-time homeowners, according to a campaign official.
The campaign is vowing that during her first term, the Harris-Walz administration would provide working families who have paid their rent on time for two years and are buying their first home up to $25,000 in down-payment assistance, with more generous support for first-generation homeowners.
She will also call for the construction of 3 million new housing units to end the housing supply shortage, her campaign said.
…
Among the economic policies Harris is set to announce is a plan to provide up to $25,000 in down-payment support for first-time homeowners, according to a campaign official.
The campaign is vowing that during her first term, the Harris-Walz administration would provide working families who have paid their rent on time for two years and are buying their first home up to $25,000 in down-payment assistance, with more generous support for first-generation homeowners.
She will also call for the construction of 3 million new housing units to end the housing supply shortage, her campaign said.
This is total disregard for specific enumerated rights and powers. The constitution? We don’t need any stinking constitution!
