Category Archives: Politics

Spending Less Triggers Collapse

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The dynamic that leads to collapse is as invisible as the extremes. Once the organization–household, institution, corporation or nation-state, the dynamic is scale-invariant–has hardened into a brittle state of stasis, it’s impossible to shrink the budget without collapsing the entire structure.

I call this the Rising Wedge Model of Breakdown: as expenses, self-interest and debt all expand, it becomes increasingly difficult to slash expenses without triggering the implosion of the organization.

Under the guise of cutting the fat to save the muscle, what actually happens is the muscle is cut to save the fat. This is a complex process, but in summary, the most competent realize the organization is dysfunctional and cannot be salvaged in its current bloated state of denial, and so they immediately jump ship.

The naive who believe they can turn the situation around give it their best effort but the resistance to any meaningful sacrifices is so tenacious that they burn out and quit.

That leaves the delusionally incompetent who reckon they’re finally getting the power they long deserved. This leads to the substitution of PR and artifice for actually reducing the organization to a sustainable level, for what’s required is not just a revised spreadsheet but an entirely new culture and value system.

…

The story of the next decade is the playing out of the Rising Wedge Model of Breakdown / The Ratchet Effect throughout the entire status quo: households, institutions, corporations and nation-states will all hasten to cut muscle to save the fat and then wonder why everything is imploding under the weight of delusion and denial.

As noted previously, what’s required is not just a revised spreadsheet but an entirely new culture and value system. Without that, we get zip, zero, nada in meaningful adaptation to new realities.

charles hugh smith
June 5, 2025
oftwominds-Charles Hugh Smith: The Ratchet Effect: Easy to Spend More, Spending Less Triggers Collapse

The key takeaway is that spending less triggers collapse.

Prepare appropriately.

Prosecute the Swamp Rats

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In the National Instant background Check System (NICS) data, it appears most of the denials are false positives. Hard data on the errors found in the NICS system are not available.  John has pointed out there are very few prosecutions of people who have been denied by the NICS system compared to the number of those denied. John stated  NICS denials are often based on the phonetic spelling of the last name. The denials are not done with high levels of certainty. Because many people in the same ethnic group have similar sounding names, and because Blacks and Hispanics have much higher rates of felony convictions than Whites or Asians, it is likely Black and Hispanic people are denied from purchasing firearms in the NICS system at a much higher rates than people who are not Black or Hispanic.

In October of 2020, John Lott was appointed as a senior adviser for research and statistics at the Office of Justice Programs. This was the second time he had worked for the government in D.C. When John got to DC, John went to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and proposed a study of the NICS denials including data on race and sex. The BJS thought it was a great idea.

The the BJS sent the request for data to the FBI. went through the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The BJS thought the idea of analyzing the NICS data was very good. When the Bureau of Justice Statistics contacted the FBI, The FBI responded, claiming there was no way we can get this done before January 20th. In any case, we are sure the Biden Administration will not be interested. After more emails and calls, the FBI response was: we just can’t think of any reason why anyone would want to break down this data by race and sex.

John responded: You guys break down everything by race and sex. What’s the big deal with this?

The BJS tells the FBI, it is not your decision to make. We decide what to look at and study. Your job is to collect and give us the data.  The FBI refuses and the BJS persists. Finally, the FBI says the BJS will have to submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

…

The AG, Bill Barr, orders the FBI to stop mucking around and send the data to the BJS.

…

The FBI dithers and delays. After a couple of weeks, the BJS receives the data, but something is wrong with it. It does not make any sense. The BJS complains, and the FBI apologizes, says they do not understand what went wrong.  There are more delays, then the FBI sends another batch of data, which still doesn’t make an sense. This sequence happens a couple more times. The last time the FBI sends data which does not make sense is on January 19, 2021. Then the Biden administration takes power.

Dean Weingarten
June 22, 2025
GUN WATCH: John Lott Expounds on FBI Politicized Resistance to Data Sharing (corruption?)

End NICS. Drain the swamp. Prosecute the swamp rats.

Via JPFO.

Socialism is Like Polio

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Via The Atlas Society @TheAtlasSociety:

If only there were a vaccine that did not have such a high lead content and a corresponding high rate of serious side effects.

The Sprint Towards Communism

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The Left sprints towards Communism.

The Right jogs behind tut-tutting and muttering about the lesser evil.

Alice Smith @TheAliceSmith
Posted on X, June 4, 2025

She is not wrong.

Prepare appropriately.

On Obedience

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Via The Atlas Society @TheAtlasSociety:

[sarcasm] Give up your guns. It is for the safety of everyone. [/sarcasm]

Her Vote Counts as Much as Yours

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Amazing.

Liberalism is a mental disorder.

Read When Prophecy Fails for what to expect next.

Economic Forecasts

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We have a lot of dollars sloshing around the world thanks to years and years of artificially low interest rates and quantitative easing, and more of those dollars are going to be coming home as foreigners get out of U.S. financial asset.

You’re seeing a global exodus out of U.S. stocks, out of U.S. bonds, and all that cash is going to come back home, bidding up prices.

The solution involves much higher interest rates. Now, I understand that’s going to be very painful, given the economy that we’ve created, built on a foundation of cheap money.

It means stock prices come down, real estate prices go down, companies fail. There’s going to be bankruptcies. There’s going to be defaults. There’s going to be a protracted recession, probably a much worse financial crisis than 2008, but all that has to happen because the alternative to that is even worse.

The U.S. is on the path to “runaway inflation” that could become “hyperinflation.”

Peter Schiff
Euro Pacific Asset Management Chief Economist
June 18, 2025
Peter Schiff warns of stagflation for US economy | Fox Business

Is this true? It does resonate with me. Hyperinflation is one of my big concerns in life. And because of this I have socked away $100 Trillion for a rainy day. But I have never even taken a class in economics. Perhaps I should invest/prepare differently.

For me the big wildcard in all this is that economists can’t really accurately model the economy. The math does not exist to account for the emotional reactions of what people do with their money and other assets. It could be a one sentence post on social media by the U.S. President or Elon Musk changes the entire dynamic.

One could argue that short term blips are unpredictable, but the long-term averages adhere to some math model(s). But then, how do you explain economic Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman having such an uncanny knack for getting nearly everything wrong? Economically blinded by TDS?

If so, then how do we know most other economists are not also economically impaired by the same or similar syndromes?

Oh, by the way, I ran out of Markley’s Law posts. The sources dried up early this year.

Another 20 Year War?

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The U.S. dropped a bunch of bombs on Iran and:

In his remarks, the president described the strikes on Iranian nuclear sites as a “spectacular military success.” He warned of “far greater” attacks if Iran does not “make peace.”

I am far from an expert in the psychology of the political leadership of Iran. But my model of their behavior is that punching them in the nose and giving them a command is not going to result in them following the order given.

I really do not want them to have a nuclear bomb. And when the enrichment of typical reactor fuel is 3% to 5% of U-235, while Iran has enriched their uranium to 60%… well. I think one can make a great case for putting an end to their nuclear capabilities.

It seems to me the U.S. was in the position of having to choose the least bad of only a few options.

What are the consequences of holding the position of “make peace or else”? Will it be another 20-year war? And instead of goat herder technology we are up against an almost nuclear and ICBM capable society?

What was the alternative? Waiting a few years and definitely being in a hot war with a country possessing nukes and ICBMs?

I want my underground bunker in Idaho.

Crazy Talk or Deliberate Misdirection?

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Reference material:

This is a summary created by Copilot:

The letter exists and was addressed to the FBI, reportedly intended for Director Kash Patel. It was found in a Buick Boelter abandoned near his home2.

The contents are described as rambling, conspiratorial, and incoherent, spanning about one and a half pages. Boelter allegedly claimed that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz instructed him to assassinate Senator Amy Klobuchar so Walz could take her Senate seat3.

The letter also includes references to other political figures, including Senator Tina Smith, and claims Boelter was trained by the U.S. military “off the books”.

Authorities have found no evidence supporting the claims in the letter. A spokesperson for the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office emphasized that the allegations against Walz are unsubstantiated3.

Boelter is charged with multiple counts of murder and attempted murder, including the killings of Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, and the shootings of Sen. John Hoffman and his wife1.

Investigators recovered additional materials, including a hit list and notebooks naming dozens of Democratic lawmakers and abortion rights advocates2.

The letter appears to be part confession, part delusion, and part political provocation. It’s unclear whether it reflects genuine belief or an attempt at misdirection.

My assessment is that I think the chances of Walz having any contribution is extremely close to zero. I would like to know if it was deliberate misdirection or delusional. But that will be tough to determine and perhaps we will never know.

Copilot elaborates on my assessment:

That’s a sharp analysis, Joe—and you’re right, disentangling delusion from calculated misdirection is notoriously difficult in cases like this. When someone mixes fantasy, ideology, and violent action, it creates a kind of narrative smokescreen. And unless the person is rigorously interrogated by trained professionals—or leaves behind clearer motives—it’s often impossible to pin down intent.

It might help to think about it in terms of probabilities and cognitive patterns. If Boelter was mentally ill or under extreme cognitive strain, then the conspiracy narrative could be symptomatic—a way to rationalize his actions through a grand, distorted frame. On the other hand, if he was more lucid and consciously attempting misdirection, invoking a powerful figure like Walz could be a strategic move to muddy public discourse and inject partisan chaos.

But here’s the kicker: in either case, the claim acts like a rhetorical grenade. It’s out there now, and even if completely disproven, it gets repeated and distorted online. That’s part of the real damage—manufacturing ambiguity to destabilize trust.

What fascinates me is how these tactics mirror propaganda techniques from information warfare: blending the unbelievable with the politically inflammatory so that people argue about truth instead of confronting violence directly. And that phenomenon, unfortunately, doesn’t require the original author to be fully rational to be effective.

If we could get access to forensic psychiatric evaluations or trial testimony (if it comes to that), they might offer clues. But as you said—odds are high this stays in the realm of “we’ll never quite know.”

Let the conspiracy theories begin.

Is it a Crime Against Humanity or is it Cancer?

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Quote of the Day

Collectivism is cancer.

Firearms Policy Coalition @gunpolicy
Posted on X, June 19, 2025

MTHead frequently asserts communism and/or socialism and/or gun control are crimes against humanity. He is not wrong. But the cancer metaphor resonates more with me. Collectivism, in all its forms, starts out small but grows and metastasizes. It is more than just its nature. It creates societal problems, and it always demands more control to fix the problems it directly or indirectly created.

Almost as a side note… I asked Copilot to explain the difference between an analogy and a metaphor to make sure I was using the correct word here. That resulting in a short chat and Copilot offered to contribute to this blog post. Here is its suggestion:

Quote of the Day – Saturday

> “Collectivism is cancer.” > —Firearms Policy Coalition via X

This is not an analogy. It’s a metaphor—brutal, condensed, and surgical. Cancer isn’t merely unpleasant; it hijacks the healthy systems of the body and redirects them toward uncontrolled destruction. That’s precisely the charge being leveled here: that collectivism corrodes the moral immune system of individual rights.

Ayn Rand’s words, featured in the image, drive the point deeper: “The smallest minority on earth is the individual.” The meme unpacks the metaphor into a worldview—one where individual autonomy is not just precious, but sacred, and any system that subsumes it becomes existentially malignant.

Whether you find that view compelling or inflammatory, it’s a vivid reminder: how we frame ideas matters. A well-placed metaphor can do more in five words than a dissertation in fifty pages.

I found that to be rather insightful.

Screaming in their Collapsing Reality

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The facts don’t lie. But antigun politicians do. And they’re doing so more loudly now than ever.

Larry Keane
June 16, 2025
Antigun Lawmakers’ Lie Loudly Over Suppressors • NSSF

Their alternate reality is collapsing in on them. And since lies are all they have, they are screaming in a hopeless effort to avoid facing reality.

Anthropogenic Climate Change is Utter Fiction.

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I’ve commented repeatedly that the term “climate change” was adopted (replacing “global warming”) because it isn’t falsifiable. Climate change has existed since the Earth acquired an atmosphere, and will continue to exist so long as that atmosphere exists. Ask any dinosaur.

Apart from that, paleoclimate data (readily available on-line) is very clear: temperatures have varied dramatically throughout the entire time of record. For example, for Greenland we can refer to the GISP-2 data, which is temperature data of the past 50k years obtained from ice cores drilled out of the central Greenland ice sheet. The first 38k years or so of that are ice age, but then about 12k years ago you see a dramatic warmup leading to the current interglacial era. Within that period, temperatures vary up and down by 4 C or so. And looking at the past 10k years, we see that (a) current temperatures are at least 1 C below the average of that period, (b) in the days of Leif Eriksson’s journeys to Greenland it was about average, i.e., 1 C warmer than now, (c) in the days of C. Julius Caesar it was 1 C warmer still, (e) the “pre-industrial” reference point used by the warming cult (including the UN) was — most likely intentionally — taken to be 1850, which is within a fraction of a degree of the coldest of the past 8000 years.

Or to put it in one sentence: science shows very clearly that anthropogenic climate change is utter fiction.

pkoning
June 18, 2025
Comment to Ignoring the Obvious

Yesterday, pkoning sent me the image via email.

A picture is worth a thousand words.

Never a Free Market or a Free Mind

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“We are entering moments that we have never experienced before,” Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., told constituents at a town hall in Pittsburgh last week. “The country as we know it may never exist the way that it had. And the reality is that the way that the country had existed was never its best form anyway.”

“The moment is here to build what comes next. My argument is that we should be fighting harder than they are to be the author of what is next,” she said of progressives. “Because if we are not the ones who build it, then they are building it, but it’s getting built one way or another.”

Emilia Rowland, a progressive strategist, said Democrats need to better deal with the consequences of rapid tech advancement that is continuing to reshape society and further concentrate power as the government and other institutions struggle to keep up.

Progressive Strategists
April 26, 2025
Democrats want a great new society post-Trump. They just can’t agree on what it would look like.

I read the entire article twice, just to make sure. There is not even a glimmer of liberty in their thoughts. It is all about what government programs and institutions they can “be author of.” It is about the ways and means for them to ascend to power. They never consider a free market or a free mind.

And, of course, it included “combating gun violence.”

I view their activities being analogous to the Trump administration is attempting to extinguish a forest fire. The progressives are brainstorming about what to replace the forest fire with.

Prepare and respond appropriately.

Moving the Overton Window

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President Donald J. Trump has instructed his Administration to “protect the Second Amendment rights of all Americans.” Executive Order No. 14,206, Protecting Second Amendment Rights, 90 Fed. Reg. 9503 (Feb. 7, 2025). Attorney General Pamela Bondi has likewise instructed the Department of Justice “to use its full might to protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.” Memo. from the U.S. Att’y Gen., Second Amendment Enforcement Task Force (Apr. 8, 2025).

This case poses important questions about the scope of the Second Amendment’s protections. The United States has strong interests in ensuring that these important questions are correctly resolved; that the Second Amendment is not treated as a second-class right; and that law-abiding Americans in this Circuit are not deprived of the full opportunity to enjoy the exercise of their Second Amendment rights.

U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division
June 13, 2025
BRIEF FOR THE UNITED STATES AS AMICUS CURIAE IN SUPPORT OF PLAINTIFFS-APPELLEES AND SUPPORTING AFFIRMANCE

Pam Bondi doubters of her support of the 2nd Amendment should consider reevaluating their opinions.

Via:

Mark W. Smith:

AAGHarmeetDhillon @AAGDhillon:

Chad Mizelle @ChadMizelle47:

And others.

This is a big deal. I see it as moving the Overton Window in the direction of prosecutions under 18-USC-241 and 242.

Rules of Engagement

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If you throw a brick, a firebomb, or point a gun at one of our deputies, we will be notifying your family where to collect your remains at. Because we will KLL you, graveyard DAD. We’re NOT gonna play.

If you spit on us, you’re going to the hospital, then jail.

If you hit one of us, you’re going to the hospital, and jail – and most likely get bitten by one of our big, beautiful dogs we have here.

If you try to mob rule a car in Brevard County – gather around it, refusing to let the driver leave? In our county, you’re most likely gonna get RUN OVER, and dragged across the street.

Wayne Ivey
Brevard County Sheriff
June 12, 2025

Those rules of engagement sound reasonable.

The Wheels of Justice are Slow

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Considering the current political climate and how vigorously the Trump administration has championed the right to keep and bear arms, the Second Amendment community has reason to be optimistic we will ultimately prevail on the AR-15 issue before the end of President Donald Trump’s second term.

I think the Supreme Court will ultimately rule that “semi-automatic rifles,” including the AR-15, are protected under the Second Amendment—and it wouldn’t surprise me if Kavanaugh authors that opinion.

Mark Smith
June 11, 2025
Kavanaugh Hints Supreme Court on Track to Strike Down AR-15 Bans

The Heller decision was just short of 17 years ago. I knew it would not settle things. A year or two after the Heller decision, Alan Gura said we would be fighting these battles twenty years later.

The wheels of justice move incredibly slow. But they are moving, and they are moving in the right direction.

Idaho Underground Bunker Time

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This may not end well:

Israel strike live updates: Israel launches dozens of strikes in Iran, IDF says

Early Friday morning, local time, Israel launched dozens of strikes against Iran and declared a state of emergency, according to Defense Minister Israel Katz.

“Following the State of Israel’s preemptive strike against Iran, a missile and drone attack against the State of Israel and its civilian population is expected in the immediate future,” Katz said in a statement.

See also: US says it was not involved in Israel’s military strikes in Iran and Iran doubles down as US signals Israel could strike during nuclear talks.

President Trump says U.S. forces were not in involved in the strike and Iran has no reason to attack U.S. bases in the area. I have my doubts that Iran will give the U.S. a pass when they retaliate.

My biggest concern is that perhaps Iran has multiple nukes complete, or close enough to completion, and Israel was unable to destroy them on Iranian soil. Then there is the possibility of Russia providing some nuclear aid.

The next few days and weeks are going to be “interesting.”

I wish my underground bunker in Idaho were complete and Barb and I were in it.

A Lesson in How to Waste Vast Amounts of Money

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In all, the energy from the plant costs too much money. It produced around 70% of what it was projected to produce annually. The sea of mirrors that the plant relied on to produce the energy led to the plant catching on fire in 2016, after mirrors were wrongly positioned in relation to the sun. The plant struggled with energy production due to weather, clouds, and jet streams, and was also pretty bad for the environment, what with the whole burning-birds-to-death thing. The plant also used natural gas to keep itself running, around six times the limit allowed by the California Energy Commission.

What is most shocking is the scope and scale of this project compared to the icky nuclear energy California has tried to rid itself of over the same time period. In 2020, Ivanpah produced 856 gigawatt-hours of energy. This represented a “substantial increase in efficiency and output,” and 91% of the plant’s production goals. The plant takes up 3,500 acres of land.

…

Meanwhile, the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant is the last nuclear plant in California. It takes up around 750 acres and produces over 17,700 gigawatt-hours of energy. That is around 20 times more than Ivanpah and accounted for over 8% of California’s in-state energy production in 2023. 

…

Also, Diablo Canyon doesn’t have massive mirrors that work as bird death rays. Not bad for the only form of clean energy that environmentalists despise.

You would think California would be eager to recreate those numbers if a zero-carbon future were truly the state’s goal, but you would be wrong. Instead, the state bets its future on grand projects such as Ivanpah, which are more inefficient in energy production and land use. Sure, massive solar plants may not keep the lights on without natural gas, oil, and nuclear propping up the state’s grid, but at least it makes environmentalists feel good about themselves (so long as we don’t talk about the dead birds).

To say something positive about Ivanpah as it prepares for the end, at least it was actually constructed. Take that, California High-Speed Rail Authority.

Zachary Faria
June 6, 2025
The sun sets on California’s massive solar plant

The solar energy plant is being shut down. Some portion, the exact amount is unknown, of the 1.6 billion dollars loan from the U.S. Department of Energy will be refunded. I asked Copilot to find the numbers for me. Nope. That number is not available:

I did a more targeted search, and it turns out that the refund amount for the $1.6 billion in DOE loans remains officially undisclosed. Multiple sources—such as the Washington Examiner article reporting on the Ivanpah solar project—reiterate that taxpayers are to receive a refund for these loans, but none reveal a specific figure beyond noting the total loan value. Even the Department of Energy’s official pages on its Loan Programs Office do not provide further details on the refund amount.

Draw your own conclusions.

My conclusion is if you want to waste billions of dollars and enable corruption on a massive scale you should have a collection of politicians and government bureaucrats design and implement whatever project feels good to people unable to think rationally.

Incomprehensively Clueless

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Now we’re seeing it in Colorado, but we’ve seen it across the country. We are still in the midst of a gun violence epidemic. So we need to be acting with due concern for human life. I mean, this is why, of course, we have been fighting for universal, violent criminal background checks. We are for a ban on military-style assault weapons in the country. You know, our lax gun laws are a danger to everybody in America.

Jamie Raskin
US Representative, (D-MD)
June 2, 2025
Raskin uses Boulder attack to push stricter gun control – Washington Examiner

A group of innocent, unarmed (this is Colorado), people were attacked by someone with Molotov Cocktails, and a makeshift flame thrower. And this guy thinks this is justification for banning guns? This is further justification for concealed carry. Can you imagine the change in the outcome if, after the first confirmation of attack, someone had popped the attacker, a few of his Molotov Cocktails, and/or the gas tank on his flamethrower?

Is Raskin nuts? Mind bogglingly evil?

Oh. Yeah. Never mind we should have already known he was nuts and/or evil. His party is polling in the toilet at slightly better than used car salesmen. This is in part because of their gun control agenda, and he is doubling down at a completely inappropriate time. This is further confirmation of his abysmal mental health and/or evil intent.

Sheriff Civil Disobedience

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As the elected sheriff of Pierce County, I am committed to addressing serious criminal activity to ensure the safety of our community and uphold the constitutional rights of all citizens. Recent state firearm regulations affecting licensed firearms dealers and introducing additional permit requirements for firearm purchases—beyond the state’s existing enhanced background checks—raise concerns regarding their alignment with constitutional rights.

…

To be clear: the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office will not engage in enforcing politically motivated mandates. Instead, we will continue to prioritize enforcement efforts on criminal activities that pose significant threats to public safety. The PCSO is dedicated to serving our community with integrity, ensuring that our actions reflect both the letter and spirit of our laws and Constitution.

Keith Swank
Pierce County Sheriff
May 2025
Pierce County Sheriff won’t enforce new gun permit law

Pierce County is the second most populous county. It has over 900,000 residents. This is over 11% of the entire population of the state. I expect there will soon be many other sheriffs and police departments making similar statements.

Civil disobedience, especially by a large population county sheriff, has to be scary to control freaks like gun owner hating Governor Ferguson. I hope to see Ferguson getting asked why he should not be prosecuted for violation of civil rights under the color of law. That would really make him sweat.

We live in interesting times.