Category Archives: Politics

Quote of the day—Senator Charles Schumer

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We have foot soldiers everywhere answering the foot soldiers of the NRA and the gun owners of America, and I am telling you, we are going to win this fight a lot sooner than you think.

Senator Charles Schumer
April 20, 2013
Schumer Cheers On Gun Control Advocates In Midtown
[Dream on.

Our activists outnumber theirs 100 to 1. We have the facts on our side. We have the Bill of Rights on our side. And most importantly we have rational people on our side (compared to Joan Peterson and many others).—Joe]

Quote of the day—Paul Waldman

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The truth is that most of the people who threatened to filibuster the background check bill aren’t afraid of the NRA. They’re on its side. They don’t need to be intimidated or even persuaded.

Paul Waldman
April 19, 2013
Gun control fight just beginning
[I realize it is hard for the anti-gun people to comprehend but it’s the truth.

It’s not about the NRA making money from gun sales. It’s not about the NRA buying off politician. It’s not about the NRA threatening to oppose a politician that votes the wrong way. There is no Triangle of Death as they claim.

People actually believe that people have the inalienable right to keep and bear arms and that it must not be infringed. The Bill of Rights says this. The Supreme Court of the United States has confirmed this.

The facts actually support the claim that guns are used to save more innocent lives that they used to take innocent life.

These strongly held beliefs and facts are why there exist politicians on our side. This is why we are winning.

And, most importantly, this is why the anti-gun people are on the wrong side of history and will be swept aside as we push forward to reclaim our infringed rights.—Joe]

Tab clearing

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I have a bunch of open tabs in my browser and I only have a few minutes before I’m leaving for 10 days to put on Boomershoot. I’ll have some time to make a few blog posts but I want to clear these up before I go.

It’s rare but sometimes they really do say the incredibly stupid things that we accuse them of:

Rep. Jackson Lee: ‘Don’t Condemn the Gangbangers’ – We Need Gun Legislation

Jackson Lee took the House floor on April 9 to argue in favor of increased gun control legislation, “Don’t condemn the gangbangers, they’ve got guns that are trafficked — that are not enforced, that are straw purchased and they come into places even that have strong gun laws.”

“Why? Because we don’t have sensible gun legislation.”

Jackson Lee continued by saying that current gun laws need to be enforced,  “I’m going to agree with my friends on the other side of the isle. Our Republican friends, let’s enforce the gun laws that we have – – who would run away from that. That’s a sensible proposition. Put a resolution on the floor of the House – – let’s enforce gun laws that we have.”

Yes. She said that. Blame the gun not the criminals.

Yes. She said that. Put a resolution on the floor to enforce existing laws.

Her babblings should qualify her for dementia medicine trials.

I could only see four out of the ten weapons being in the category “you won’t believe are legal”. And then only if you don’t understand the 2nd Amendment. They had to be desperate for content:

10 Weapons You Won’t Believe Are Legal

  1. Flame Thrower
  2. Miniguns
  3. Katana
  4. Cannon
  5. Crossbow
  6. Grenade Launchers
  7. Nunchucks
  8. Umbrella Sword
  9. Speargun
  10. Chain Whip

There has to be more to this than what I have had time to dig into.

Judge: lawsuits can proceed against theater owner in Colorado massacre

A federal judge refused on Wednesday to dismiss wrongful death and personal injury claims brought against a movie theater chain on behalf of victims of last summer’s mass shooting at a suburban Denver screening of the Batman film “The Dark Knight Rises.”

U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson ruled that Cinemark
USA, owner of the theater where 12 people were shot
dead, could potentially be found liable for damages under a
Colorado law that holds landowners responsible for activities on their property.

What? The best I could come up with for a plausible grounds for claiming the theater was responsible was if the plaintiffs believed they were disarmed and unable to protect themselves. And I think that is only about 10% chance of being the case.

Yes. Some people blamed the 2nd Amendment for the Boston bombing:

I once had a boss suggest that I was making so much money at time and a half on weekends that I shouldn’t fly back to Idaho to visit my family. I should just hire a hooker to give me blow jobs under the desk while I continued to write code. I laughed and went home for the weekend.

It turns out there might actually be a market for that sort of service:

Silicon Valley’s other entrepreneurs: Sex workers

In a quiet cafe outside San Francisco, “Josephine” — a local prostitute — arranges a collection of t-shirts across the table. They’re emblazoned with phrases like “Winter is Coming” and “Geeks Make Better Lovers.” She wears them in her online ads to catch the eye of the area’s well-off engineers and programmers.

“I’m trying to communicate to them that I understand a little bit what it’s like to be techy, nerdy, geeky,” she says. There’s another thing Josephine and her clients have in common: Like many of the techies she caters to, Josephine views herself as an entrepreneur.

You knew it was coming

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Not one to let a crisis go to waste it is no surprise Frank Lautenberg is the first to come out with this:

As a result of Monday’s bombing in Boston, New Jersey senator Frank Lautenberg will introduce legislation requiring background checks for the sale of explosive powder. Lautenberg is also filing the bill as an amendment to the gun legislation currently being debated on the Senate floor.

I don’t suppose Lautenberg, Schumer, et. al. would care but some of the more sane politicians might be interested to know that flour, coffee creamer, and many other powders can be made to explode as well.

But the biggest loser will probably be consumers of Tannerite. The proposed law would require a permit to mix explosives.

And since black powder has been made since the 7th Century the recipe composed of potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal is well known and the processes are very low tech. Precursor materials to make the potassium nitrate can be as common as urine. It is also in some toothpastes. Sulfur is a common element, is found in many fertilizers, as well as occurring naturally. And of course charcoal is easy to come by. The government can’t seem to significantly reduce the availability of recreational drugs or firearms, and you can be sure black powder is going to be available in the black market they create.

Lautenberg and company do not have public safety in mind. They have control in mind. The more laws there are the more control exists over the people. In this case Ayn Rand certainly knew what she was talking about.

Quote of the day—President Barack Obama

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All in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington.

President Barack Obama
April 17, 2013
Senate Votes to Block Expanded Background Checks for Gun Sales
[Yes. It was shameful that so many people put so much effort into attempting to infringe upon a specific enumerated right. This forced millions of other people to put their own effort into stopping that attempt. The entire country, especially the politicians, had important other things to do and we had to take time out to fight the statist scum.

When they spend so much time, stealing our time and resources in the process, on such a destructive task It is hard to imagine that our political opponents want anything other than the destruction of our entire country.

Shameful doesn’t even begin to describe it. Criminal and treasonous come much closer.

But this just might have been their last stand.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Akatsukami

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If you consider all the things that lefties have at some time claimed were compensating for genital inadequacy, it becomes evident that all progress has been made by men with small penises.

Akatsukami
April 8, 2013
Comment to Compensating for Something.
[I might be persuaded there is a correlation but the lefties aren’t that obsessed with male genitalia.

I still found it funny.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Divemedic

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Here in America, we have passed the tipping point: There are more people on the government dole than there are working and paying the bills. There is no longer an escape. The slide towards financial collapse has begun. Once the powers that be see this, they will try to avoid the anarchy that happens when the free money machine stops, and there will be a massive crackdown.

It is mathematically certain.

Divemedic
March 26, 2013
A virus
[There are some outs. None of them particularly pleasant.

  1. Entitlements are drastically cut. The scale required to balance the budget will result in riots, starvation, inadequate shelter, inadequate health care, and large numbers of premature deaths.
  2. The deliberate killing of “undesirables”. In some scenarios this is just a more direct version of 1. above. Another scenario is that the “undesirables” are the moderately wealthy (the extremely wealthy can almost always escape) and the looters extend their “on the dole” careers until they have consumed all that is consumable including most of each other.
  3. Massive influx of productive people and wealth from other parts of the world. This wealth and productivity would be taxed to continue supporting paying out the “entitlements”. The addition of new people to the roles of the beneficiaries would have to be essentially stopped with productive people having to work, essentially, “until their dying day” to pay off the debt without adding to it.

The third option is the least unpleasant and had some hope of occurring. This is because other countries are ahead of the U.S. on the collapse timeline. The wealthy of those other countries will, and are, fleeing. If the U.S. can attract those people then it may become a viable option. The biggest problem is that those on the dole are also fleeing areas of economic collapse. As long as the U.S. has “free” food, shelter, education, health care, ad infinitum it will be just as impossible to keep them out as has in the past.

I think the most likely scenario is that the government will not cut entitlements or stop adding people to the roles of those on the dole. The political reality will be that it is always easier to continue the looting tomorrow than it is to trigger the riots today. The end result of this is that the inevitable collapse is more complete and more people will die.—Joe]

Huckabee’s version of common sense

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He gets everything right:

Via email from Squirrel Hunter.

Quote of the day—Stuart Rothenberg

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But the devil is in the details. You don’t have a lot of people feeling particularly pressured to do anything.

In the end, however, gun control advocates need to get something, he says, and will have to cooperate with the NRA to do so.

The political reality is that the NRA, surprisingly, didn’t give an inch. Now the other side needs to figure out a way to negotiate.

Stuart Rothenberg
April 3, 2013
Gun Control Prospects Recede As Politics Swamp Momentum
[Why should it be surprising the NRA didn’t give an inch? If the propose laws were severe restrictions on the right to attend the church of your choice or the right to read the books you wanted do you think the ACLU would give an inch?

The right to keep and bear arms is no different. Over a hundred million people were murdered or killed in wars in the 20th Century by people who read and took to heart the works of Karl Marx. And I expect there will be millions more death in the conflict over communism in this century. Yet I have never once heard of anyone advocating for the banning of his books. 20 kids murdered by a nut case with a gun is a huge tragedy but millions of kids murdered by leftist monsters is just a number.

I want the people at large to own guns so the risk of genocide and mass murder due to advocates of communism or any other totalitarian government is pushed to near zero. Freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom to bear arms are a package deal. And there is nothing to negotiate.—Joe]

Quote of the day–Ed Pietruszka Jr.

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There is no crisis of rifle violence in this state, only a crisis of fear driven by opportunistic legislators.

Ed Pietruszka Jr.
March 31, 2013
Don’t be fooled by gun control lies
[Pietruszka was referring to Maryland but the statement is true in many other states and at the Federal level as well.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Andrew Rosenthal

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On Thursday, President Obama renewed his call for legislation, including a ban on some of the most lethal guns (so-called “military-style” assault weapons designed for the singular purpose of killing as many people as possible as quickly as possible.)

Andrew Rosenthal
March 29, 2013
What Now for Gun Control?
[Many millions of these “singular purpose” guns are in use all over the U.S. yet only a few hundred people are killed each year using a rifle of any type yet alone a “assault weapon”.

It’s long past time for the New York Times (Rosenthal works for the NYT) to openly state they are nothing more than a propaganda machine and have concern for, and perhaps no awareness of, facts.—Joe]

Random thought of the day

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Some other blogger, sorry but I can’t find the post, Robb recently said something about communists/socialists/liberals/progressives/whatever-they-call-themselves-these-days have as a basic premise that the people in general are so incompetent that they must have a strong, near all-powerful government/central-committee to govern their lives. But then they expect these same incompetent people to wisely elect, from within the general population, superior beings to govern them. That doesn’t exactly make sense.

That is all well and good as far as it goes but I think it can be further extended. In fact I suspect there are numerous examples of the following even though I don’t have direct evidence to support it.

Since the people doing the electing are so incompetent as to not be able to manage their own affairs then it must be completely beyond hope to for them to be able to distinguish who should be their rulers.

Hence one concludes that it is a logical necessity that those who would be rulers must assume their rightful role without concerning themselves with obtaining the consent of the governed.

It’s just common sense.

Quote of the day—Ted Cruz

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Statists invariably have talented people drawn to politics because they believe in power. And they’re very effective at defending government control of the economy in our lives.

Ted Cruz
(Then candidate for) U.S. Senator
October 17, 2011 Issue of National Review
[H/T to Kevin for the video from which I was alerted to this quote.

This is very similar to a message in The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek. Power abusing people are drawn to powerful government positions. These people work to increase that power.

This can also be related to the line, “Because that’s where the money is” falsely attributed to Willie Sutton when asked why he robbed banks.

Banks vaults are built strong because they are subject to repeated and determined attacks. The U.S. Constitution was intended to be analogous to a vault for liberty. By limiting government to specific enumerated power people who would abuse government power would be prohibited from doing so because government was not given power to abuse on a wide scale.

But unlike a bank vault those that attack and/or defeat the Constitutional “vault” through illegitimate means are almost never caught and punished for their crimes. I believe this to be the greatest failing of our form of government and I believe it will result in the collapse of our government.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Wraith

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The Constitution doesn’t matter.  The law doesn’t matter.  We live in de facto anarchy, where it all comes down to who’s got the biggest gang, the most guns and the most sociopathic outlook on life.

Seriously, folks–that’s how it is.  This country won’t even follow Iceland’s lead in prosecuting the plutocrat banksters.  It won’t hold any Proglodyte accountable for their actions, but will hold every one of us accountable for the actions of others.  It’s never been plainer that it’s Who You Are or Who You Know that determines whether you’re subject to the law of the land.

So if you expect even one politician to face any consequences at all for their treasonous actions, you’re dumber than Joe Biden.  Period.

Wraith
March 21, 2013
Comment to Quote of the day—Magpul Industries Corp.
[He’s got a point.

I’ve been recently thinking that even true anarchy with people contracting with private firms and individuals for dispute resolution, and construction and/or maintenance of common resources (roads, forests, lakes, rivers, etc.) might be a better “government” model than what we have now.

What we have now is that some subset of the people adhere to the rules simply because they are the rules and those people end up being at a severe disadvantage to those that don’t play by the rules with a very low risk of punishment.—Joe]

At first I cringed

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When I saw the title “The five minute NRA speech that would change the gun control debate forever” I cringed. I expected the article to be something along the lines of advocating the NRA saying, “We were wrong. Assault weapons are evil.” I was wrong:

The time for partisanship is over; now is the time for action. And that’s why the NRA is requesting the assistance of the ACLU.

The Sandy Hook tragedy, the Virginia Tech shooting, the Aurora “Batman” shooting, the Tucson shooting – all of the killers had something in common: They were all mentally unstable young men who were prescribed mind-altering psychiatric drugs.

The only thing I disagree with is that speech would change the gun control debate. For most politicians and many activists their gun control agenda isn’t about saving lives. That isn’t even debatable anymore. It’s about control, money, and security theater.

Addressing the extremely difficult problem of how to appropriately deal with mental illness isn’t something that lends itself to simple, even if false, answers and sound bites. Politicians don’t get elected by getting people to think about complex issues. They get elected by offering simplistic “solutions” to distressing emotional events and/or situations.

Don’t expect pigs to fly and don’t expect politicians to advocate people thinking.

It’s not over

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Via email from the CSGV:

Where We Stand on the Assault Weapons Ban

By now, many of you have heard about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s announcement yesterday regarding the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013. Speaking at a press conference on Capitol Hill, Senator Reid announced that the Assault Weapons Ban will not be part of the base gun violence prevention bill he brings to the Senate floor next month.

The reaction from gun violence prevention advocates was fierce and immediate; many felt betrayed. The press quickly reported that “the Assault Weapons Ban is dead in the Senate.”

The press is wrong.

There’s no doubt that Senator Reid’s statement could have been more sensitive and thoughtful. But it’s important to understand the procedural hurdles he is contemplating. If there is a filibuster by Republicans, Senator Reid will need 60 votes to bring a gun violence prevention bill to the Senate floor for a vote. He is weighing whether he can get those 60 votes in a package bill if the Assault Weapons Ban (AWB) is included. His estimation is that it is better to leave the AWB out of the bill he brings to the floor, so that he can break a filibuster and get it there in the first place. Once it’s on the floor, Senator Reid has been clear that he will allow Senator Feinstein to introduce the AWB as an amendment to the bill. This strategy would ensure that all the important pieces of the Senate Judiciary Committe’s package (universal background checks, anti-gun trafficking penalties, and the Assault Weapons Ban) actually get votes, as opposed to none of them.

And let’s remember what the sponsor of the Assault Weapons Ban of 2013, Senator Dianne Feinstein, said on January 27th of this year:
“There will be a package put together. If assault weapons is left out of the package…I’ve been assured by the majority leader I will be able to do it as an amendment on the floor, which is the way I did it in 1993. So, that doesn’t particularly bother me.”

And it shouldn’t bother us either.

Let’s all stay focused and get the up or down votes on the Senate floor that gun violence victims and survivors so richly deserve. Please continue to call your Senators at (202) 224-3121 and tell them to vote YES on universal background checks, the assault weapons ban, and tougher criminal penalties for straw buyers and gun traffickers.

Thank you as always for your support!

Sincerely,

Josh Horwitz
Executive Director

Barb S. and I used to say, “I’ll believe it when the check clears the bank.”

In regards to anti-gun legislation being dead: I’ll believe it when the perpetrators are convicted. Until then we need to be on guard because it isn’t and won’t be over for a long time.

Quote of the day—Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership

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The State of New York has resorted to a “turn in your neighbor” program, for enforcement. Knowing that people will not willingly comply, the state has resorted to a tried and true tactic of turning the citizens upon each other to aggrandize the power of the state.

Does this strike a responsive historical cord, in anyone???

Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
March 20, 2013
And so it begins
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Todd Vandermyde

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We think it’s a civil right that deserves a single uniform standard across the state. No matter whether you’re from Decatur, or from Chicago or from Moline to Lansing, it’s a fundamental right.

Todd Vandermyde
February 22, 2013
Heated testimony at hearing on state’s concealed carry law
See this and much, much more at Video Weekend, Part II: Todd Vandermyde.
[I found it enlightening that no matter how many times and how many ways Vandermyde explained this the legislators, most, if not all of them lawyers, questioning him couldn’t seem to get it. They would even say, “We respect the Second Amendment” then in the next breath say they had an obligation to deny that right to the people they were representing in the interests of protecting them.

Vandermyde would ask questions like, “Well then do you think you should let the police search people without a warrant? Or should the police be able to ignore their Fifth Amendment rights?” Apparently these people could not understand the point he was making.

These people are bigots and should be treated as such. They, as Federal judges have said, are thumbing their noses at the U.S. Constitution, the Federal judges, and the rights of the people they supposedly represent. This is no different that the people in the deep south that abused the rights of people of color 50 years ago and I would not feel the slightest bit of sympathy for them if the Feds used similar methods to enforce their rulings upon them. Send in the National Guard to protect a parade of individuals openly carrying guns down the main streets of Chicago and Federal Marshalls arresting any city or state government employee that attempted to interfere with people peaceably exercising their right to bear arms in public.—Joe]

Five year plan?

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From Tyler Durden:

Yesterday Senator Tom Harkin introduced S. 544, “a bill to require the President to develop a comprehensive national manufacturing strategy.”

In effect, Senator Harkin wants the President to centrally plan the economy. Never mind that the President has zero experience in business or manufacturing. But hey, this worked out so well for Stalinist Russia, it’s no wonder Mr. Harkin wants to copy that model.

If I were emperor of the U.S. I could come up with a plan that outperform anything the President could accomplish in five years and have it implemented in five days. It’s really simple:

Government shall make no law restricting the free association of people other than a tax on retail sales not to exceed 5% and to enforce contracts freely entered into by people and companies.

All waste products shall be safely contained or returned to the natural environment in such a manner that those people responsible for producer of said waste are willing to build their own homes on, eat, breath, or drink said waste products.

In five years there would so much wealth generated there would be private companies with terraforming Mars, robots bringing mining products back from the asteroid belt, and sex tourists going on vacations to the resorts in low earth orbit.

“The economic AND the personal sphere.”

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Those are Rand Paul’s words from CPAC, and as much as a like what I see in Rand Paul, that phraseology really bugs me. That’s like saying we must pay attention to the weather AND the temperature, humidity, pressure, precipitation, cloud cover and wind as though the term “weather” doesn’t already take those other things into account.

As a business owner, that attempt to separate the economic from the personal has never made any sense at all.

In fact, it is impossible to separate the economic from the personal. Name any “personal” subject or issue and tell me it has no economic implications whatsoever. Name any economic subject or issue and then tell me it has nothing whatsoever to do with personal choice.

Tax me, limit my business activities, my investments, get between me and my bank, and you are directly attacking my personal choices. Try to tell me who I must or must not associate with, how I must interact with others, or what I can do with my body, and that is a direct attack on my economic liberty. One equals the other. There is no moral or logical separation between them.

Yes yes, I know that we’re supposed to separate the personal from the economic, as though they’re different, for political reasons, but that’s a ruse. A trick. I will not step over the line into Crazyland just to make someone else’s politics easier, or to assuage their guilt. No, Young Grasshopper; there is just the one word that matters, the one that encompasses everything, and you’re either for it or against it – liberty.