Ah, but for the last century or so, egalitarianism has always been a false front for elitism.
cspschofield
February 8, 2017
Comment to All Animals Are Equal
[Via email from Paul Koning.
He has a point there.—Joe]
Category Archives: Politics
Karma – A dish best served cold
Or is that mixing to many metaphors?
In 2013 Reid and the senate Democrats killed the filibuster for some sorts of things, like Federal appointments. People on the left raved about how brave it was, how the filibuster was dated, anti-democratic, etc.
Shoe, meet other foot. Two nominally R senators defected from the narrow majority to vote against Trump’s Sec of Ed choice, Betsy DeVoss, to make it a tie vote. The vote could be forced and cast because of the no-longer-applicable filibuster had been removed, so it only required a simple majority to call for a vote. VP Pence cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of DeVoss. In office only few weeks and he’s already breaking ties. First time it’s ever needed to be done in fact. Definitely a term in office that will need lots of popcorn.
Joe, is your brother planning on planting popping corn this next year? I think the market prices for it are likely to rise with this surge in demand, and saying I’m going to go eat pop-lentils gets me some strange looks.
Quote of the day—Scott Adams
One of the most underrated qualities of Republicans is that they police their own ranks. If you have a problem with a violent Republican racist, call some Republicans. They’ll solve it for you.
But don’t call a Republican if you are simply offended by another person’s opinion. In that situation you want to call some Democrats to ridicule and physically attack the person with the objectionable opinion.
Scott Adams
February 5, 2017
A Thought Experiment About Republicans
[Interesting observation.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Christiana Figueres
This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the industrial revolution.
Christiana Figueres
Executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change
February 3, 2015
Figueres: First time the world economy is transformed intentionally
[See also: Global Warming is About Destroying Capitalism? and U.N. Official Reveals Real Reason Behind Warming Scare.
They always have to use force don’t they? It’s always about control by whatever ruse they think might work.
Free markets and free minds are just not acceptable to them.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Robert Spitzer
A cluster of issues come together with gun rights zealots. They’re predominantly older white males who think the country is falling apart at the seams; they’re suspicious of outsiders, and quick to blame others for issues the country may face. The worldview typical of an NRA member is the same as that of a far-right conservative person. This is the group that has been very important for the Trump coalition.
Robert Spitzer
February 3, 2017
In Trump’s America, Nothing’s Off the Table for the NRA
[You just keep thinking that.
Reality may be a bit different. Barb and I went to the range last weekend and about half of the people there were women.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Charles Hugh Smith
To get anything done in a culture of entrenched interests, one must either have an overwhelming political mandate to dismantle the entire machine–Trump does not–or you need Insiders who know the pressure points of the system and its key players–in effect, Insiders who know how to slip a political stiletto into the kidneys of key players and twist the blade to get done what would otherwise be impossible.
Charles Hugh Smith
January 18, 2017
Why Outsiders Need Insiders To Get Anything Done
[It sounds plausible.
But I’m not entirely sure I understand why the legislature and president couldn’t just say, “The ATF no longer exists. The FBI will enforce any of the laws that need to be enforced. The FBI may hire up to 10% of those newly unemployed people if they pass the normal selection criteria. ATF Office space and equipment will be reallocated, rented and/or sold during the next 60 days.”
Why would there be a burning need for “insiders” in that sort of situation?—Joe]
Quote of the day—Mike “Mish” Shedlock
It’s not easy losing to the most unpopular candidate in history while outspending him nearly 3-1.
I propose Hillary deserves a lifetime achievement award. Her noteworthy performance may never be broken.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
January 18, 2017
Did Fake News Help Trump? New Study Says Ads More Important
[The one big take away I have from the spending reports is that money apparently isn’t as important as it was thought to be.
I like that.—Joe]
I’m good with Judge Gorsuch
David Hardy found a couple firearms cases with Judge Gorsuch contributions and doesn’t find much to directly indicate how he will rule on 2nd Amendment issues.
But from what I have been able to find out, such as here and here, he is an originalist and textualist. That is what I am looking for in a SCOTUS judge. And he is relatively young and should be around for many years. So, I’m good with Judge Gorsuch.
Now to see if the Republicans can get him past the obstructionist Democrats in the Senate.
Quote of the day—Roger Kimball
Now some of this is just adolescent play-acting, even if many of those involved, being professors, are far beyond the chronological limits of adolescence. Academia has an infantilizing effect. I understand that. Many professors dress and act like adolescents right up to the time they are ready to hand in their tenure and live off their generous pensions. The Peter-Pan aspect of academia is not entirely the professors’ fault. After all, the points at which the real world intrudes upon academia are so few and so tenuous that academics may be forgiven for some of their hyperbole and inadvertently comic displays of self-importance. They exist, like kept women of yore, entirely at the pleasure of an affluent society they despise. So in a way it is not surprising that they endeavor to transform their entire campus into a sort of existential boudoir, which is French for “room for pouting in.”
Roger Kimball
January 15, 2017
A Modest Disposal
[Interesting observation.—Joe]
Lead Ammo ban
As a parting gift to the shooting community, the Community Organizer in Chief, BHO, had the US Fish and Wildlife issue a new regulation banning lead ammo on most Federal lands. All federal lands administered by the F&W, parks and refuges. With less than a day left in the outgoing administration. Yeah, he’s just that kind and considerate. But at least it’s easily undone, and it’s (yet one more) thing that highlights the contemptuous attitude of the regulatory masters.
Drain the swamp.
CRA – not tired of winning
This popped up on a couple of different sources at about the same time, not sure who was first. Likely the WSJ, as this ZeroHedge post cites it. Short version: when congress passes a law and the president signs it, it will often have an outline of what’s to be done, and it directs the appropriate agencies involved to write up the implementing regulations and guidelines. A three page law might have hundreds of pages of legalese added to the Federal Register. Heck, the entire edifice built on “title IX” is standing on a single sentence! Anyway, a law passed in 1996 called the Congressional Review Act requires that after the regulations are written they have to send a report to congress, where they must be voted up or down by simple majority vote within 60 days. Congress was trying to keep an out-of-control agency from getting too hog wild on the details that were delegated to them.
The clock stars ticking when the regulations are published, or when the report gets sent to congress, whichever is later.
Well, it seems that the last administration was a tad sloppy on their paperwork. They rarely sent a report to congress. Trump can direct any agency under his command (effectively all of them) to send a report to congress if they have not done so already. If it gets voted down, the law is on hold until they can put together regs that are acceptable to congress, and the next attempt at reg-writing cannot be to simply re-submit essentially the same thing again. So a whole bunch of junk passed in the last 8 years might be, ah, revisited.
Suddenly Trump’s statements about reducing regulation hugely doesn’t sound so absurd.
Nope, not tired of winning yet.
Quote of the day—Maura Healey
My actions have never been about taking away guns from people. I respect the Second Amendment, but we have a law on the books, and it’s an important law. It says that civilians can’t walk around with or be in possession of military-style assault weapons…
Maura Healey
Massachusetts Attorney General
January 25, 2017
Gun rights group challenging state’s assault weapon ban
[No matter how many times it happens it always surprises me when someone contradicts themselves in sequential sentences. To me that is clear and convincing proof of insanity. But in the political world it appears that is the sign of a good politician. It allows the reader/listener to take away whichever fragment they want and ignore the rest.
It think it means they are evil and/or have crap for brains and hence are unfit for anything other than closely supervised menial labor.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Defens
Once the Trump death squads start patrolling and the cattle cars full of liberals start rolling to the concentration camps, I’m sure the panic-buying will kick in on the other side, initiating Gun Culture 3.0.
Defens
January 24, 2017
Comment to Quote of the day—Lawrence Keane
[It is, of course, a joke.
Nevertheless, as always, I’ll be glad to teach liberals how to shoot.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Lawrence Keane
We don’t expect a collapse, we expect organic growth that isn’t all fear-driven. We are likely to see the market normalize, which is better for the industry long term. It is hard to respond to constant spikes. Slow and steady wins the race.
Lawrence Keane
Senior vice president, government and public affairs
National Shooting Sports Foundation
January 20, 2017
Though champion of gun rights, President Trump could jam firearm sales
[I understand I’m not exactly normal but my purchases pretty much stopped after the election. I have lots of stockpiled ammunition and components that I’m going to “burn” through before I make many more purchases. Still, it’s good to hear a subject matter expert believes there won’t be an industry crash.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Mead Gruver
In grizzly country, comments by President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for education secretary that schools should have guns on campus to protect against the bears aren’t a punch line.
Mead Gruver
January 19, 2017
In Wyoming, DeVos gun remark more about safety than politics
[One year my (ex) sister-in-law taught school in Barrow Alaska. They would sometimes have polar bear warnings at her school. One day she took the usual short cut, rather than going through the main part of town, even though a polar bear had been spotted recently. Her students were extremely unhappy with her and scolded her about that. She was informed, in no uncertain terms, the polar bear warnings were extremely serious. She was more careful after that.
That people who scoffed at, and made fun of, Betsy DeVos suggestion that people at some schools may need a gun to defend against bears only show how out of touch with reality, not how smart, they are.—Joe]
He’s doing it wrong
Donald Trump, God Emperor, is vehemently opposed by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people worldwide. Both yesterday and today huge crowds marched and protested his coronation. They are concerned about their rights. That this new Hitler like dictator will cause them physical harm.
As one of his first acts as God Emperor he signed an executive order “giving federal agencies broad powers to unwind regulations … which might include enforcement of the penalty for people who fail to carry the health insurance that the law requires of most Americans.” This same article says:
Also late Friday, Reince Priebus, Trump’s chief of staff, issued an executive memorandum ordering a freeze on regulations for all government agencies.
He has also Wants to Allow Concealed Weapons Everywhere and opposes any new gun regulations and may be an advocate for repealing weapons laws nationwide and put judges in the federal courts which will turn back many of the gun safety laws in place in various states and cities.
What all this means is that our new “God Emperor”, “Hitler dictator” wannabe is doing it all wrong. Dictators need an abundances of laws and regulations. Remember what Ayn Rand said:
The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
And if the people protesting had any connection with reality they would realize that socialized medicine was a powerful tool for Nazi Germany:
No profession in Germany became so numerically attached to National Socialism in both its leadership and membership as was the medical profession. Because of their philosophical orientation toward finding a more scientific basis for medical research and practice, government funding for research, and the practical benefits of acquiring university positions and medical practices from the many banned and exiled German Jewish doctors, many physicians supported Nazi policies. One of the first Nazi laws, passed July 14, 1933, was the “Law for the Prevention of Progeny of Hereditary Disease,” intended to “consolidate” social and health policies in the German population and prohibit the right of reproduction for persons defined as “genetically inferior.” After 1933, the connection between the theory and practice of politicized medicine advocated by many in Weimar Germany became actual in Nazi Germany.
…
Following the sterilization laws, the National Socialists next implemented a strategy of euthanasia to solve the remaining problem of those whose conception and birth had preceded these laws. The pediatrician Ernst Wentzler, while developing plans to improve care in the German Children’s Hospitals in Berlin, personally decided (as consultant to Hitler’s Chancellery) on the deaths of thousands of handicapped children. Hans Nachtsheim placed delivery orders for handicapped children for his pressure chamber experiments on epilepsy. Joseph Mengele delivered genetic and anthropological “material” from Auschwitz to the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and conducted his infamous twin experiments on the child victims of the Holocaust.
And in another disconnect from reality they apparently don’t realize that all good dictators ban and confiscate weapons in the hands of ordinary people. Such as Nazi Germany’s, Weapons Control Act of 1938 and the policies of the USSR.
So, I must conclude that, the claims that President Donald Trump is “God Emperor”, “Hitler”, or a dictator of any sort, are premature at best. The actions taken and professed directions of his polices make a dictatorship and mass infringement upon the rights of ordinary people more difficult. I’m far from convinced that he going to usher in utopian Libertarian era, but there are significant indicator that he is going in the wrong direction to implement a dictatorship.
Hence, I have to conclude most of those millions of people protesting are suffering from some sort of mass delusion. Those which are not suffering a disconnect from reality are protesting because they have been distanced from the levers of power by the election.
Quote of the day—John Robb
In Trump’s post cold war world, US foreign policy will be dominated by trade policy. Even national security policy will be subservient to trade policy. If trade policy is dominant, we’ll see China, Mexico and the EU (Germany) become competitors. Russia, in contrast will become an ally since it doesn’t pose a trade threat.
National security under this regime will be used to reinforce and grow positive trade relationships. For example, military tension with China creates the opportunity for sanctions that simulate the function of tariffs (allowing the US to circumvent trade organizations and domestic resistance to tariffs). In a national security policy slaved to trade, any and all security guarantees extended to other nations will require a positive trade arrangement with the US. The US simply won’t protect or extent security guarantees to any nation that has a non-beneficial economic relationship with the US (i.e. runs a trade deficit).
John Robb
January 19, 2017
Will the World be Safer or More Dangerous Under a Trump Presidency?
[Interesting. Very, very interesting.—Joe]
Commemorative 45
Trump will, later today, become our 45th President. He’s a gun owner, and generally pro-gun as near as I can tell. I wonder how many variations of “Trump Commemorative 45” will be produced and offered if he starts living up to even a modest fraction of his hype / hope / potential? An ironically logo’ed 45 pistol suppressor after the Hear Protection Act is passed? All manner of revolvers and semi-autos, obviously. I’ve already seen a 1911 slide. What would you like to see, and be willing to pay a little extra for just to make it a little less PC, and a part of history? A .45-70 Govt? A .45 Colt? A 45 Trump Magnum? A 1911 long slide with “Trumpenator” on it? A slick-finished 45 ACP with “Teflon Don” on it?
The joy of another inauguration with Hillary Clinton watching someone else taking the oath.
Quote of the day—Mac McCauley
You worthless Democrats are in the civil rights crushing business. You make felons non-criminals and felons out of the law abiding.
Mac McCauley
January 19, 2017
Comment to For first time in history, California dealers sell more than a million guns in a single year
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]
Quote of the day—Jay Sekulow
This was a fake, false investigation from the outset.
Jay Sekulow
Chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice
Previously U.S. Treasury Department in the Office of Chief Counsel for the IRS
October 13, 2017
FBI, DOJ roiled by Comey, Lynch decision to let Clinton slide by on emails, says insider
[Read the whole thing. Take your blood pressure meds before you start. This is especially true if you have, or have had, a security clearance.
It is understandable though. Think of it from the point of view of FBI Director James Comey or Attorney General Loretta Lynch at that time. Even if you remove the possibility of Arkancide it was going to be difficult for them to charge Clinton without having extremely strong moral character.
It looked like Clinton was a shoe-in to win the election. If they charged her and she still won the country would have a complex, highly emotional, problem to solve. Riots would be likely and property and lives may have been lost. Or, quite likely, Obama would have just pardoned her and she became president anyway. Imagine the career options they would have had with President Clinton as their boss.
If, after being charged, Clinton lost the election Comey and Lynch would have been blamed for the loss. Then they, and probably their children, would have been in fear for their lives from the angry and violent left for a decade or more. The country would have been even more divided than it is now.
So, I can see why Comey might have just decided the best of all the bad options was to let the voters decide and risk letting a known criminal become president. I don’t think I would have chosen that option but it’s hard to say until you are forced to make the decision. And it is entirely possible Comey and/or Lynch could see Arkancide as a high probability event in their futures.—Joe]