Category Archives: Politics

Voting out of big government

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Just a few days after being sworn into office President Trump signed an executive order which required federal agencies to cut two existing regulations for every new regulation they implement. A year later he made a big deal out of repealing 22 regulations for each new rule issued.

Since I don’t spend that much time in Idaho and I live in Washington state, which it is a bigger threat to me, I don’t pay much attention to Idaho politics. But Joel M. was paying attention and sent me an email with nothing but a link to how the Idaho state legislature opted to—in essence—repeal the entire state regulatory code. Wow!

Following a link I learned that even though the Governor is an advocate of reducing regulations he wasn’t a significant force being this regulation reset:

All of those rules expire on July 1 — except the ones Little chooses to keep on a temporary basis until the Legislature can consider them early next year.

“This is an unusual situation,” said Jaclyn Kettler, a Boise State University political scientist. “It does open up a pretty big opportunity for Gov. Little.”

The situation in Idaho contrasts with other states, like Wisconsin, where the GOP-controlled Legislature sought to limit the powers of the Democratic governor.

Little said residents can trust him to be fair.

“I’m not looking at this as an opportunity to do mischief,” Little said during a public appearance Tuesday. “I do not want to exacerbate this thing. This was not our deal. We did not do this.”

Little has made clear his desire to cut regulations in Idaho, issuing an executive order in January requiring state agencies cut two rules for every new one.

A lot of people have said things that amounted to “we can’t vote our way out of big government.” But there is now some evidence that assertion may be in error.

We live in interesting times.

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Quote of the day—Ilya Shapiro and Matthew Larosiere

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In 1986, Congress enacted the Firearm Owners Protection Act (“FOPA”), which includes a ban on the transfer or possession of a machinegun not lawfully possessed and registered by May 19, 1986. 18 U.S.C. § 922(o). But before § 992(o) came 26 U.S.C § 5861(d), which makes it unlawful “to receive or possess a firearm which is not registered” (emphasis added). After FOPA, the Bureau of Alcohol,

Tobacco and Firearms (“ATF”) no longer accepted the registration of and payment of taxes on new machineguns. In stripping § 5861(d) of all revenue-raising potential, § 922(o) mooted § 5861(d)’s constitutional warrant under Congress’s Taxing Power.

In addition, § 922(o) renders § 5861(d)’s application a violation of appellant’s right to due process. Because ATF will not accept the registration of new machineguns, compliance with § 5861(d) is impossible. Section 5861(d) is thus in irreconcilable conflict with § 922(o), and since Congress enacted the latter after the former, it controls.

Amici also caution against what we perceive to be a concerning departure from fundamental rights jurisprudence. By refusing to present an analysis of why the regulation of machineguns is beyond the scope of the Second Amendment, the courts are glazing over an important constitutional question. If a class of arms can be regulated nearly to the point of a categorical ban—which machineguns may well be—the American people deserve to at least know the constitutional justification.

Ilya Shapiro and Matthew Larosiere
June 20, 2019
BRIEF OF THE CATO INSTITUTE AND FIREARMS POLICY COALITION AS AMICI CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANT-APPELLANT’S PETITION FOR REHEARING AND REHEARING EN BANC
[My translation is as follows:

The original constitutional justification for the regulation of machine guns was that it was a transfer tax ($200) each time the gun changed ownership. Since congress had the constitutional power to tax they could require the registration of machine guns to enable them to collect the taxes.

In 1986 congress declared the ATF shall no longer accept registration and taxation of new machine guns. This removed the possibility of collecting taxes on new machine guns. This means that the original constitutional justification for the regulation of machine guns no longer exists.

Hence, we, the people, are entitled to either the ability to purchase new machine guns or a constitutional justification as to why not.

I did not expect a challenge to machine gun law for at least several more years. I hope it’s not too soon. I would have preferred it wait until Trump has appointed another SCOTUS justice or two and we had a ruling that said semiautomatic rifles were protected.

We live in interesting times.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jeff Williams

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Los Angeles and San Francisco usually control most of what we get in the state of California. We don’t appreciate them dictating to us like they’ve been doing.

Jeff Williams
Mayor of Needles California
June 24, 2019
Needles declared itself a “2nd Amendment Sanctuary” city; wants exemption to some state gun laws
[You have to wonder what all the geniuses who thought of up the “sanctuary city/county/state” stuff for criminals think of sanctuary for people exercising their specific enumerated rights. I suspect we are soon going to find out.—Joe]

Eating their own

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It’s long been observed that the political left frequently eats its own when it gets enough power. Just look at what happened in the USSR. Tens of millions murdered by their own government or put in the gulags. Read The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Volume One) for a taste of what went on there. Large numbers of those people believed they were loyal supporters of the communist government.

The problem that once you have purity tests and people to maintain political purity the requirements get more and more strict. Just think of the “micro aggression”, “dog whistle”, and “code word” criteria being enforced in many instances in this country. It becomes a positive feedback loop with escalating standards of purity.

I review this as background for what is happening at Google (via an email from Chet who describes it as “Google’s civil war”):

San Francisco Pride organizers say they won’t ban Google from the annual Pride Parade on Sunday, despite receiving a letter signed by almost 100 Google employees concerned about how their company handles hate speech.

The employees asked for Google to be banned from the pride parade on June 30th. The company came under fire this month for refusing to remove homophobic videos targeting a journalist. Instead, YouTube banned hate speech and demonetized the channel. However, the company still offered a platform for the pundit, Steven Crowder, to direct his viewers to a site to purchase merchandise.

Google management will have some “interesting” choices to make if the DOJ and/or congress tells them they need to cut the crap on attempting to swing elections at the same time 10s of thousands of employees are demanding they adhere to more higher and higher levels of leftist politically purity.

Quote of the day—Nate McMurray @Nate_McMurray

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YEP. I’M COMING FOR YOUR AR15

You heard me. No apologies. The same reason you don’t need a lion to protect your home, is why you don’t need a rifle that shoots at 3X the speed of sound and splits concrete like ice. It’s an unreasonable risk.

Nate McMurray @Nate_McMurray
Tweeted on June 24, 2019
[McMurray is not some random troll bot. He is running for U.S. Congress.

It looks to me like he is confessing to the violation of 18 USC 241 and is trying for 18 USC 242 as well.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jen Gennai

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Elizabeth Warren is saying we should break up Google. And like, I love her but she’s very misguided, like that will not make it better it will make it worse, because all these smaller companies who don’t have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next Trump situation, it’s like a small company cannot do that.

Jen Gennai
Head of Responsible Innovation, Google
May 2019
Insider Blows Whistle & Exec Reveals Google Plan to Prevent “Trump situation” in 2020 on Hidden Cam
[Via a comment by Chet.

Watch the video. Genai explicitly says they are implementing “fairness” and that their definition of fairness is completely different from the definition of fairness used by the people who voted for Donald Trump. She says everyone got screwed over with the election of Trump and they can’t let that happen again in 2020.

Read her response to the video here.

Click to enlarge the images of the internal documents and read them. They are incredibly damning.

One of my first thoughts was, “It’s a good thing I’m not allowed to own a few tactical nukes at an affordable price. Otherwise Google would own radioactive craters instead office buildings and data centers.” I have since decided there are other, legal and moral, remedies available.—Joe]

Quote of the day—The Annoyed Man

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I think we are ultimately headed for some kind of violent showdown between the left and everyone else. They no longer know when to back off, and they lack the moral filters necessary to coexistence. We’re going to end up in an existential fight for our most fundamental rights, and literal self-preservation.

The Annoyed Man
June 22, 2019
Comment to MN: Self defense shooting trial built on gun control bumper sticker
[Certainly a case can be made for that. But it seems to me that they back off when they get some serious push back. I think at least some of them are more in touch with reality than we sometimes give them credit for. They may be crazy but they may not be stupid. They can “sober up” for short periods of time if they really need to.

Think about it. For a while there were marches with vandalism and sometimes riots nearly every week all over the country. And now how often do you see that?—Joe]

Gun cartoon of the day

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GunDidIt

It’s not just Chicago! One could make the case this is the conclusion reached in almost all political jurisdictions controlled by Democrats.

I’m certain that in many cases it’s not what they really believe. It just the rationalization they use to sell their victim disarmament agenda.

Meet Washington state legislators

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Via email from Boomershooter, and Venezuela refugee, Luis:

I’ll have as speakers Senator Phil Fortunato, representatives Matt Shea and representative Robert Sutherland.

They are strong legislators that have stand and defend the 2nd Amendment.

They will be speaking in my district about what happen in Olympia in the last legislative session.

clip_image001

I sometimes see Fortunato at pistol matches at Renton Fish & Game. I like to hang out near him and hear stories about legislative stupidity. It confirms my belief that government power should be limited as much as is practical.

Luis spoke for a few minutes this year at Boomershoot. He is very concerned about the path Washington State is going down. It reminds him of what happened in Venezuela and he is working hard to prevent that from happening here.

Quote of the day—Joe Biden

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If I get elected president of the United States of America with your help, if that happens, guns, we have the capacity now in a James Bond-style to make sure no one can pull a trigger unless their DNA and fingerprint is on it. We have that capacity to do it now. You know it.

Joe Biden
June 2019
Joe Biden: Build ‘James Bond-Style’ Guns That Don’t Fire Without DNA Match
[I suppose this technically true. It’s just that the DNA sample would have to taken to a lab, processed for a day or ten, then the results returned to the gun to give the gun the bang/no-bang decision. Unless, of course, Biden is mostly living in an alternate universe that has a different technology base than the universe the rest of are living in.

Even if the gun had technology for DNA matching built into the gun, at a reasonable price, and could process the result in a fraction of a second, the gun still wouldn’t protect against most of the scenarios the anti-gun people claim to want to protect against. We shed DNA all over the place. If some kid wants to shoot their parent’s gun a DNA sample is as available the parent’s hair brush. Some bad gun has grabbed a cop’s gun? If he whacks the cop along side the head with the butt of the gun and he has the grip dripping in cop DNA.

I’ve changed my mind. Biden doesn’t live in a alternate reality. He is just amazingly stupid. He has crap for brains and should be retired to an old folks home and encouraged to watch CSI reruns.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Rescued Goddaughter‏ @XianCorleone

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Americans, I’m watching the #GunControl protests from Italy. Take a European’s advice:

Last century our governments disarmed us. Now, in Germany & the UK they arrest you for Twitter & FB posts.

Lesson?

If the gov’t takes your 2nd Amendment, one day it’ll take your 1st.

Rescued Goddaughter‏ @XianCorleone
Tweeted on March 26, 2018
[My understanding is that term “Politically Correct” speech fully bloomed into usage during the Stalinist era in the USSR. You could be arrested and set to the gulag and/or executed if you were too careless in what you said. Read The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation (Volume One) for a taste of what went on there. They murdered millions of people because of “politically correctness” ran amok.

People are being arrested and prosecuted in Europe but we are not far behind. There are lots of people who have lost their jobs for not adhering to the politically correct rules of the day.

My model for what happens is that the power to punish people attracts a certain type of person. The type of person who should never be allowed to have such power. When groups of those people get together they convince themselves they are doing good and find more people to punish. They get themselves worked up into a feeding frenzy and justify their escalation of punishment and the decrease in the seriousness of the offense which satisfies their criteria for punishment. Left unchecked they will execute the majority of a town and a sizable percentage of an entire country.

Read The Gulag Archipelago to see how it happened in the USSR. Look in the news to see the beginnings of it happening all around us now.

Own firearms, get trained, and practice with them to nip genocide in the bud when it escalates to the lethal level.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Gottlieb

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This is an important case because it is testing state gun laws against Colorado’s strong right-to-keep-and-bear-arms state constitutional provision.

Our brief provides a historical examination of why the right was specifically protected by the state constitution, and applies that to today’s context.

Anti-gunners are constantly arguing that there is no historical support for protecting modern repeating firearms and our brief provides proof that repeating rifles capable of holding 15 or more cartridges were in existence long before Colorado became a state in 1876. The framers of Colorado’s constitution knew exactly what they were doing.

Alan Gottlieb
June 5, 2019
SAF JOINS IN AMICUS BRIEF SUPPORTING CHALLENGE TO COLORADO GUN CONTROL
[See also BREAKING: FPC, FPF Join Challenge to Colorado Gun Magazine Ban, File Colorado Supreme Court Brief.

SAF and friends don’t win them all but they win a lot of the lawsuits against the anti-gunners. And sometimes they get the antigun city and/or state to pay for the lawsuit.

I think this is the best bet, short of changing our culture, which I’m also working on, to reduce and perhaps eventually stop the infringement upon our rights. My employer and I donate thousands of dollars to SAF and FPF each year.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tam

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Only when these yahoos are getting reliably smoke-checked by their intended victims is this attention-seeking behavior going to stop.

This got stopped by good guys with guns, but people got killed waiting for them to show up.

Anybody who mandates you be disarmed in a country full of guns does not have your best interests at heart.

Tam
June 3, 2019
Overheard In Front Of The Television…
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Social justice warrior charged with felony

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It looks like a social justice warrior is getting more justice than she bargained for:

Rachel Dolezal hit with felony theft charge in welfare fraud case

Rachel Dolezal, the former NAACP chapter leader who resigned after her parents revealed she’s not African-American, is facing a felony theft charge in Washington state after she allegedly made false statements to secure nearly $9,000 in food and childcare assistance.

The charges against Dolezal, who changed her name to Nkechi Diallo in October 2016, were first reported by KHQ-TV.

According to court documents, investigators with Washington state’s Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) started looking into Dolezal’s finances in March 2017 after the publication of her autobiography, “In Full Color: Finding My Place in a Black and White World.”

DSHS investigator Kyle Bunge said Dolezal had claimed that “her only source of income was $300.00 per month in gifts from friends.” However, the department found that she had deposited nearly $84,000 in her bank account between August 2015 and September 2017 without reporting it.

According to the investigation, the money came from sales of Dolezal’s autobiography as well as “the sale of her art, soaps, and handmade dolls.”

Authorities say Dolezal illegally received $8,747 in food assistance and $100 in child care assistance from August 2015 through November 2017.

See also my previous posts about her:

Gun cartoon of the day

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Via email from Brian Keith:

CongressStudentsEvilNRA

This is what they think of you. They think of you as an evil person who shoots innocent school children.

As I said yesterday, what congress is really “scared” of regarding the NRA is the votes and activists they can bring or take away from candidates.

Gun cartoon of the day

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Via email from Brian Keith:

CongressCourageNRA

This is what they think of you. They think of you as some misshapen, crazy, fat, tiny brained monster.

What congress is really “scared” of regarding the NRA is the votes and activists they can bring or take away from candidates.

Do I detect a hint of bias?

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From The Pasadena/San Gabriel Valley Journal (emphasis added):

This week, SB 61, SB 172, and SB 376 all authored by Senator Anthony J. Portantino (D–La Cañada Flintridge) passed the California State Senate. The three bills further establish Portantino’s leadership as one of California’s strongest sensible gun control advocates. His efforts over the past decade have significantly improved California’s gun control efforts and have enhance public safety in neighborhoods and main streets across our state.

Nothing indicates its an opinion piece. It’s categorized as a news brief. No data is given or suggested that would support the claims.

And some people wonder why traditional media is going bankrupt. I don’t. And I don’t have any sympathy for them. They brought it on themselves.

Markley’s Law response

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I got a chuckle out of this (via November Papa Charlie @rcst) as a potential response to someone exercising Markley’s Law:

ConservativeWomen

I’m not so thrilled about the statement in absolute terms. There are lot of other advantages I would rate just as high from associating with women who aren’t social justice warriors.

Quote of the day—Eric Raymond

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If your candidate fascist is ideologically pro-free-market, false match. Even if he merely displays an affection for large scale corporate capitalism, that ain’t fascist. For the very direct reason that big corporations are a power center, or collection of power centers, competing with the unitary state. Fascists never tolerate that well.

Something else fascists never tolerate well is unregistered civilian firearms, or registered ones in the hands of anyone not signed up in one of the leader’s thug militias. A fascist looks at these and sees a civilian insurrection waiting to happen, and generally has a pretty keen sense of how quickly said civilian insurrection can end up with him hung up dead in the town square someplace like Giulino di Mezzegra.

Eric Raymond
Spotting the wild Fascist
April 30, 2019
[Via email from Chris M.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Andrew Chesney

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…it should be concerning to ALL Illinoisans that proponents of these laws are after the shield (constitutional rights) and the spear (guns) against tyranny. We must not give up the legislative fight and must resort to the third co-equal branch when two branches have failed in their constitutional duties. Expect this all to end up in the courts if ever enacted into law in Illinois.

Andrew Chesney
Illinois State Representative
May 21, 2019
It’s not about your guns; it’s about your rights
[Sometimes it’s easy to get discouraged by the number of politicians who demand we give up our rights. It’s sometimes easy to believe we have few, if any, political allies in government.

It’s a relief to find that even in a repressive state like Illinois there are politicians who are fighting for our rights.—Joe]