Category Archives: Politics

Pointless Red Flag Laws

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Via Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership:

“Red flag Laws”, which allow police to seize the firearms of people accused of being at risk to misuse them, have been passed in 19 states. Do they do what proponents say they do? A recent study by Veronica Pear, PhD and Garen Wintemute, MD, and co-authors says the answer is clearly, “No”

DRGO says the laws are pointless, but that assumes you believe the point was public safety. It’s not.

There has never been a valid “Yes” to my Just One Question:

Can you demonstrate one time or place, throughout all history, where the average person was made safer by restricting access to handheld weapons?

It has been over 17 years since I posed the question above and no exceptions to the premise have been found.

The point of such laws is clearly not public safety. The point is to enable the harassments and imprisonment of innocent people who wish to defend themselves from criminals (including those on the government payroll).

Quote of the day—Ethel Mertz @IloveEthal

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I’ve been sitting here safely in a Blue state not understanding why my elected officials are still playing nice. I want to see the most strictest gun laws ever; insurance, lockboxes, home visits, 98% tax on ammo, limit on magazines.
If red states can go nuts so can blue

Ethel Mertz @IloveEthal
Tweeted May 3, 2022
[It is nice of her to admit the motivation for restrictive gun laws is to abuse people rather than to improve public safety. It is too bad for her that won’t play well with the courts.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Angela Belcamino @AngelaBelcamino

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Can we ban all accounts who tweet “free speech?”

Angela Belcamino @AngelaBelcamino
Tweeted on April 27, 2022
[At first I thought it might be sarcasm. But upon close inspection I don’t think it is.

After reading many of her tweets, I’m still not sure how to classifier her. Is she merely ignorant of history or is she evil? Perhaps the correct answer is “Both!”—Joe]

Quote of the day—Anonymous

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And a dozen years after McDonald v. Chicago, the Second Amendment still doesn’t really exist in the 2nd, 4th, 9th circuits etc. I am all about fighting in the courts, but that’s hardly sufficient to secure liberty. You need to fight in the political arena.

Anonymous
April 24, 2022
[The author prefers some privacy. The link will only give you the source if you are one of those allowed access.

It’s not just the political arena, which is absolutely critical in some jurisdictions for court appointments, it’s the culture of the population. Gun owners need to “come out of the closet”, take non-shooters to the range, show them gun owners are safe, friendly, and good neighbors and friends.

Today is the long range event of Boomershoot. It features hundreds of highly reactive targets, a massive opening fireball that draws cheers and applause, and spectators from nearly 300 (and occasionally over 1000) miles away. Boomershoot is an mind blowing awakening for people who only know of guns through the lens of legacy media. Attend, share your Boomershoot stories with friends, neighbors, and family to help change the cultural view of gun ownership.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Chris Daniels

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New data, to be released officially on Tuesday, shows that 43 sworn-in police staff have left in 2022, while 13 have been hired, leaving the department with a net loss of 30 officers.

The trend is projected to continue. Data shows the SPD expects to hire 98 more officers in 2022 and lose 113.

The corner of Third Avenue and Pike Street has been a flashpoint for conversations about police presence and public safety this year.

Chris Daniels
April 25, 2022
Seattle Police Department losing more officers than it’s hiring
[The phrase go woke, go broke, applies to more than just the financial health of an organization. It applies to the physical and mental wellbeing of society as well.

It’s more than “this year” that location has been known as a bad place. Third and Pike is ground zero of “Mugme Street”.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alice Smith @TheAliceSmith

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“Woke” is commie speak for “Communist But Scared To Say So After What We Did In The Twentieth Century”.

Alice Smith @TheAliceSmith
Tweeted on April 27, 2022
[It is a little more nuanced than that but it is close enough.

These are people that crave power and control. They find rationalizations to exercise control and gain power over everyone they can. “Racism”, “sexism”, “inequality”, “racial justice”, “climate justice”, “algorithmic justice”*, ad nauseum, are just the levers that mostly work in our current society.

And it is a thrill; it’s a high to them. There is no amount of power that will satiate their lust. They will crank the ratchet another click at every opportunity. This is why so many socialist and communist movements result in genocide.

Respond appropriately.—Joe]

* Via email from pkoning and various sources on twitter. See also:

Quote of the day—Ammal Hassan

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Because it was fun? Because it was for sale? Because he just had to have it? The truth is, no one really knows.

Ammal Hassan
April 26, 2022
What The Hell Does Elon Want With Twitter Anyway?
[Really? Musk has repeatedly said it’s because Twitter has been hostile to free speech. He has literally said:

Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate

April 26, 2022

By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law.

I am against censorship that goes far beyond the law.

If people want less free speech, they will ask government to pass laws to that effect.

Therefore, going beyond the law is contrary to the will of the people.

April 26, 2022

image
April 25, 2022

If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!

April 21, 2022

And authenticate all real humans

April 21, 2022

Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy.

What should be done?

March 26, 2022

Despite all that, this bozo Hassan can’t imagine free speech being the real reason.

From reading some the comments to various threads about the buyout it is very clear that many people are vehemently opposed to free speech. They come close to predicting the end of the world if people are allowed to spread “disinformation, conspiracy theories, and hate speech.”

This is incredibly willful ignorance or, more likely in many cases, deliberate evil.

The “end of the world” is much more likely to occur if we don’t have free speech. The suppression of free speech is the mark of authoritarianism. It enables corruption, gulags, and genocide. This is why we have the 2nd Amendment. It protects the 1st Amendment.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Elon Musk (@elonmusk)

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I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means

Elon Musk (@elonmusk)
Tweeted on April 25, 2022
[There are other things closely related that I thought I should point out at the same time.

Elon Musk’s buying Twitter is good for free speech. And a ‘nightmare’ for progressives:

despite warnings that censorship is necessary “for democracy to survive,” neither the Tesla CEO and billionaire nor ordinary citizens appear to be sufficiently terrified of free speech. Twitter confirmed Monday that Musk will acquire the company in a deal worth $44 billion. Once the deal is complete, Twitter will become a privately held company.

Progressives, in the meantime, have adopted a dangerous shift in their strategy of calling for corporations to censor speech.

…

Obama favors free speech only if it does not include disinformation, including what he considers to be “lies, conspiracy theories, junk science, quackery, racist tracts and misogynist screeds.”

…

He is talking about imposing “standards” on companies to force them to censor “lies” and “disinformation.”

…

As is often the case, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stripped away any niceties or nuance. Clinton called for the European Union to pass the Digital Services Act (DSA), a measure widely denounced by free speech advocates as a massive censorship measure. Clinton warned that governments need to act now because “for too long, tech platforms have amplified disinformation and extremism with no accountability. The EU is poised to do something about it.”

Clinton’s call for censoring disinformation was breathtakingly hypocritical. President Obama was briefed by his CIA Director John Brennan on “alleged approval by Hillary Clinton on July 26, 2016 of a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisors to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by Russian security services.” The intelligence suggested it was “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.”

I have to wonder how Obama, Clinton, and/or Biden would respond to being censored for trying to spread disinformation by talking about “the gun show loophole”, “gun manufactures cannot be sued”, or “private citizens could not own cannons during the revolutionary war era”.

Larry Correia (@monsterhunter45) tweeted on Mon, Apr 25, 2022:

Twitter, Disney, Netflix, CNN+ and more stuff every day.
I told you guys a few months ago that we’d hit Peak Woke. They pushed too hard. Regular people are sick of this shit.
The tides are changing in the culture war.

On Sunday I had this very conversation with Brother Doug. My perception is that many people have been thinking this crap was near the breaking point for years and finally some people started openly talking about it and the dam has now burst. And people who were afraid to say something are now openly saying they aren’t going to take it anymore and are going to do something about it.

Brother Doug said that he has noticed that friends and relatives on Facebook on the political left have been keeping quiet about political stuff for several months.

Andy Ngô ️‍ (@MrAndyNgo) tweeted on Mon, Apr 25, 2022:

From my sources: Vocal Twitter employees on internal chats indicate their biggest fear is Donald Trump being unbanned. Many express strong hatred toward @elonmusk & say they’re sick of hearing about “free speech.” They’re concerned about their mental health. #ElonMuskBuyTwitter

Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) tweeted on Mon, Apr 25, 2022:

I fear Elon Musk could undermine the ideological diversity, equity and inclusion at Twitter which currently maintains a careful balance of 98.7% for one side.

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Just Asking (@WasJustAsking) tweeted on Mon, Apr 25, 2022:

Just seems odd…haven’t they spent years saying they don’t limit speech based on a partisan bent? If that is the key thing he states that will change, and they claim they haven’t been doing it, what is the freak out about? 😉

And my favorite, David Burge (@iowahawkblog) tweeted on Mon, Apr 25, 2022:

If you think you’re having a bad day, spare a thought for the Twitter person who decided it was a good idea to ban the Babylon Bee

In case you don’t know, I think I have this correct, let me know if I misstated something and am spreading disinformation, The Babylon Bee had their Twitter account blocked pending their deletion of a tweet linking to their article The Babylon Bee’s Man Of The Year Is Rachel Levine. The Babylon Bee refused to delete the tweet. Elon Musk took the side of The Babylon Bee and used $44 Billion of his pocket change to buy Twitter. He then informed them, “This is now a free speech platform. Enable The Babylon Bee account and, while your at it, there are a bunch of other accounts you need to enable before you go home for your free range tofu, gluten free, certified organic dinner and curl up with your copy of The Communist Manifesto. And tomorrow you are going to make your ‘unbiased’ algorithms open source. Sleep well.”

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey got the hint and not only his nose but his entire head down to his shoulders came out brown just before he said:

Elon’s goal of creating a platform that is “maximally trusted and broadly inclusive” is the right one. This is also [current Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal’s] goal, and why I chose him. Thank you both for getting the company out of an impossible situation. This is the right path…I believe it with all my heart

I hope Correia is right. But always remember, the political left believes violence is a legitimate tool for them to use. And they believed they were on the edge of extinguishing Republican influence at all levels of government. If they think they were that close and see it slipping away their response may be… impolite. Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Melissa Mackenzie @MelissaTweets

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After COVID, I no longer wonder how Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot happened.

Inside too many of our neighbors is a little tyrant who desires to tell you how to live your life, use violence to achiever their ends, and clothe themselves in righteousness while doing it.

Melissa Mackenzie @MelissaTweets
Tweeted on April 18, 2022
[At first I thought it rather sad it took this long for Mackenzie to realize how such things happen. Then, a chilling wave of fright swept over me as I realized that it is extremely likely that most people still don’t understand or deny the example she just gave.—Joe]

Quote of the day—David Burge @iowahawkblog

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I swear to god some people’s brains are wired with only two settings, mandatory and forbidden

David Burge (@iowahawkblog)
Tweeted on April 19, 2022
[This is not news. This has been known for quite some time.

While being wired this way does relieve the stress of decision making it also means they can, and probably should, be replaced by a simple robot.-Joe]

Quote of the day—Richard Curtin

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Adam Smith’s legendary invisible hand describes how individuals acting in their own self-interest can create unintended benefits for the entire society. Unfortunately, the country now faces the potential for an inflationary hand that can transform self-interested decisions into losses for the entire economy.

Richard Curtin
April 7, 2022
Inflationary Psychology Has Set In. Dislodging It Won’t Be Easy
[We live in interesting times. Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

Too much

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I can cook well enough to keep myself from going hungry. So it should come as no surprise I was only able to recognize the last item:

image

Via a tweet from Tanya Tay Posobiec @realTanyaTay. This has more impact when you discover Tanya was born in the USSR.

Quote of the day—Old Jarhead

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New laws won’t prevent anything, but that doesn’t matter one bit. Logic, statistics, history, or critical thinking have nothing to do with the positions of the anti- gun zealots. You might as well debate religious doctrine with the Westboro Baptist Church or Saudi Religious Police. Lying, manufacturing evidence, and malicious prosecution are all justified as part of the catechism. Responsibility for bad and/or unintended consequences? Fat chance.

Old Jarhead
April 12, 2022
Comment to Sacramento mass killing
[We have evidence of the correctness of the assertion that the lying, manufacturing evidence, and malicious prosecution is true.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Brandon Smith

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I want to give a warning – It’s very easy in this situation to assume that Pelosi and even Biden are making these arguments because they are too stupid to grasp the fundamentals of debt creation, money velocity and fiat. That said, never mistake evil for mere ignorance.

Brandon Smith
March 17, 2022
The Stagflation Trap Will Lead To Universal Basic Income And Food Rationing
[Emphasis added.—Joe]

Quote of the day—David Hardy

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That the one gun found at the scene was both stolen and converted to full auto, and the event is more like a demonstration of why California’s gun laws, indeed their entire approach to crime, is completely moronic.

David Hardy
April 10, 2022
Sacramento mass killing
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Savi @SavionWinter

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Oh and for the record, every gun worshipper who shows up in my notifications will be banned. Take note, gun worshippers are too stupid to even try to talk to. They don’t even realize how unhinged and uneducated they are. BORING.

Savi @SavionWinter
Tweeted on April 9, 2022
[Oh, and for the record, this person doesn’t have an account anymore.

BORING.

I wonder if this tweet from March 29th had something to do with it:

My daughter just said we should sacrifice the richest person and redistribute their wealth.  Every year, whoever has the most money will die.  That would see a lot of rich people giving money away wouldn’t it?  LOL

Just remember, this is what they think of you. They want you dead and they will laugh about it.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Henrik Impola

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We have a saying in my office. Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Henrik Impola
FBI Special Agent
As told to a confidential informant after the kidnapping suspects were arrested in 2020
FBI’s tactics doomed case against men charged in kidnapping plot of Michigan governor
[It looks to me as if the facts should be used at Henrik’s, and others in that office, trials  It would make a good story. And with convictions it would even have a happy ending.—Joe]

Quote of the day—ℕ𝔼𝕆ℕ ℝ𝔼𝕍𝕆𝕃𝕋 @NeonRevolt

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They know what they’re trying to engineer. I don’t believe they will succeed on this front at all, but they definitely have their goals, which is to engineer a food crisis.

There’s more than enough supplies for everyone. We have an abundance of goods and resources. But they’ve been trying to hide them, destroy them, and suppress them in order to cause this food crisis.

It’s why The Mad Pedo extended the Ethanol rule today. He wants corn being burned in fuel, instead of being used as calories to feed humans. He’d literally rather it be lost in a gunky petrochemical slurry he can hyperinflate beyond the means of the average American, instead of it going into food.

There’s nothing more that The Mad Pedo (and the Shadow President) behind him would like better than to pin gas at 10 dollars a gallon or more, and have bare shelves for the masses.

ℕ𝔼𝕆ℕ ℝ𝔼𝕍𝕆𝕃𝕋 @NeonRevolt
April 12, 2022
Posted on Gab
[Heavy sigh… This is probably not true.

On the farm we never raised any corn other than a little bit in the garden for our own use. Yet, I knew there was only a very minor chance of the expressed hypothesis being correct. A few seconds with a search engine confirmed my suspicion.

The variety of corn used to produce ethanol is not going to be something humans normally eat directly. According to this “Yellow Dent Corn (Field Corn)” is used for ethanol and livestock feed. The Field Corn will remain in the field until the kernels are dry and hard (think popcorn dry and hard). Before being feed to livestock it is rolled or cracked. Field corn is  also used for corn meal, corn oil, and corn syrup.

The corn you find on your dining room table, fresh on the cob, creamed corn, or on the salad bar is “Sweet Corn”.

Sweet Corn is harvested when the kernels are soft and not ripe in the sense that the kernels are not mature enough to germinate (the kernels are in the “milk stage”) if they were planted.

Beyond the above, the equipment for harvesting and processing sweet corn is completely different from that used to process field corn. Sweet corn producers are not going to switch to field corn on a whim for a one year chance of selling into the expanded ethanol market. The return on investment for the new equipment for a single crop year would negate the potential for increased prices of field corn.

Ethanol producers may not have excess capacity to utilize the increased market size. Does anyone know? I suspect the unexpected increase in the market size cannot be fully exploited. This will reduce the impact to the food uses of field corn.

The gasoline producers have to purchase the corn on the open market. If the food usage of field corn is in short supply people will pay higher prices to compete with the ethanol producers. The market will balance the tradeoff between higher gasoline prices/shortages and higher food prices/shortages.

Another point to be made is that at this point the farmers and seed provides have already committed themselves for this year’s crops. I would guess than many already have the crop in the ground. And if not, they couldn’t switch to an ethanol crop in any game changing way because there wasn’t enough seed prepared for such a change.

Bottom line, I’m very skeptical that allowing industry to purchase field corn for ethanol production this summer can make a material difference in the U.S. food supply.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Peter Leyden

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The entire Republican Party, and the entire conservative movement that has controlled it for the past four decades, is fully positioned for the final takedown that will cast them out for a long period of time in the political wilderness. They deserve it.

Let’s just say what needs to be said: The Republican Party over the past 40 years has maneuvered itself into a position where they are the bad guys on the wrong side of history.

Peter Leyden
January 19, 2018
The Great Lesson of California in America’s New Civil War
Why there’s no bipartisan way forward at this juncture in our history — one side must win
[“One side must win”? The 2022 election is shaping up to meet Leyden’s assertion. But I expect there will be a surprising, to him, twist in the plot he expected back in 2018 :

The solution for the people of California was to reconfigure the political landscape and shift a supermajority of citizens — and by extension their elected officials — under the Democratic Party’s big tent.

Communists get violent when they don’t get their way. Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Danny Westneat

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On Friday, 10 days after five people were shot in an apparent drug deal gone bad, city officials and various nonprofit groups met at City Hall to talk about what to do about the city’s homelessness emergency. They seemed bizarrely put off at the idea of shutting The Jungle to homeless access.

One talked of The Jungle’s “sense of community.” Another said some Jungle inhabitants would be worse off if they were uprooted. Others said it was stigmatizing to even call it The Jungle, preferring “Beacon Hill greenbelt.”

Instead, ideas for aiding The Jungle ranged from putting lockers under the freeway so the homeless could store their belongings, to providing encampments with bins for used hypodermic needles.

It was at this mention of needle bins that Dustin Davies and Angel Johnson couldn’t take it anymore. They burst into incredulous laughter and left the council chambers.

Davies was an alcoholic and meth addict who was homeless until 19 months ago. Johnson was a drug addict and prostitute who has been sober 12 years. In recovery, both have been helping the homeless through charity groups.

They came to the meeting to say that the very worst thing you could do for the denizens of The Jungle is keep it open. That the idea was even discussed seemed crazy to them.

Danny Westneat
February 5, 2016
Keeping Jungle open is the opposite of compassion
[“The Jungle” was a Seattle homeless encamping area over six years ago. This is the same author on last Saturday:

I’ve argued in this space for more than a decade now that allowing these makeshift encampments is a humanitarian catastrophe — back to the days of The Jungle, which itself was only closed after a mass shooting. The shantytowns are an embarrassment to both Seattle and the liberal project.

The “city officials’ have been told their ideas are crazy for many years and the data is there to back up those claims. Yet they insist the world should change to match their beliefs rather than their beliefs change to match reality. This, by some definitions, is insanity. A diagnosis of evil also fits the available data.

Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]