Category Archives: Politics

Quote of the day—John R. Lott & Rujun Wang

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Three states that have detailed race and gender data for at least a decade show remarkably larger increases in permits for minorities compared to whites. In Texas, black females saw a 6.3 times greater percentage increase in permits than white males from 2002 to 2020. Oklahoma data from 2002 to 2020 indicated that the increase of licenses approved for Asians and American Indians was more than twice the rate for whites. North Carolina had black permits increase twice as fast as whites from 1996 till 2016.

From 2015 to 2020/2021, in the four states that provide data by race over that time period, the number of Asian people with permits increased 93.2% faster than the number of whites with permits. Blacks appear to be the group that has experienced the largest increase in permitted concealed carry, growing 135.7% faster than whites.

John R. Lott & Rujun Wang
Crime Prevention Research Center
October 6, 2021
Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States: 2021 (alternate link here)
[People demanding more restrictions on concealed carry permits, or the existence of such permits to begin with, are racist.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Daniel Bostic @debostic

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I’m still grappling with the fact that we live in a country where you can be banned, censored, and investigated for calling out irregularities and demanding audits of an election.

Truly terrifying.

Daniel Bostic @debostic
Tweeted on January 11, 2021
[Prepare and respond appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Kimberly McHale

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Not once does Abbott ever mention any actual gun policy change to help this from happening again. He especially doesn’t acknowledge the passing of his new permitless gun carry law that directly affects Texans’ ability to easily access guns more than ever.

Sen. Ted Cruz has also echoed similar sentiments and never touched on the actual issues that have led to the increase in school shootings throughout the state and country.

It is apparent that these politicians’ thoughts and prayers are not enough anymore. We must also hold our government to a higher standard. They must provide better laws, policy change, and gun regulations to our state and country. Our students, parents, and school faculties deserve better than just a familiar script of empty promises without any real changes ever being made.

Kimberly McHale
October 20, 2021
When Thoughts and Prayers Aren’t Enough
[Not once does McHale ever mention that gun control has never increased public safety. Not once does McHale ever mention that more government control is sometimes the wrong answer. Not once does McHale ever mention someone are willing to shoot innocent people is not going to be deterred by a legal requirement to get a permit to carry. Not once does McHale even mention that infringing specific enumerated rights is a felony punishable by death.—Joe]

You cannot comply

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Via Matthew Bracken:

ComplyYourWayOut

You can vote your way in but you have to shoot your way out.

Quote of the day—David Codrea

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The Patriots at Lexington and Concord who refused government arms confiscation orders were all criminals in the eyes of the law. Coincidentally, their firearms all qualified as “ghost guns.”

… there is no reason for the government to infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms unless it is going to be committing tyrannical offenses.

David Codrea
October 18, 2021
‘Ghost Gun’ Comments Show Sheriff Can’t Imagine Freedom
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Speaking of propaganda

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What the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority says about itself:

Metrorail provides safe, clean, reliable transit service for more than 600,000 customers a day throughout the Washington, DC area.

“Safe” and “reliable” they say…

Compare the above with what the National Transportation Safety Board says:

Metro officials have been aware since 2017 of equipment problems that appear to have caused the train derailment last week in Northern Virginia, a preliminary investigation by federal safety investigators showed.

Metro train 407, which derailed on the Blue Line on Oct. 12, had two other minor derailments the same day and was able to get back onto the tracks, Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said at a news conference Monday morning.

The train derailed and re-railed itself once near the Arlington Cemetery station at about 3:20 p.m. and again near the Largo Town Center station at about 4:15 p.m.

After the third and final derailment, the train with 187 people on board got stuck in a dark tunnel near the Arlington Cemetery station. Riders had to walk the equivalent of about six football fields to get to safety.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has known of problems with the wheel assemblies of 7000-series railcars for years, Homendy said.

“We were made aware that WMATA was aware of this situation with the wheel assemblies going back to 2017,” she said.

I wonder what the consequences will be to the government run Metro compared to a non government entity which did something similar.

A Boeing test pilot is being prosecuted over 737 Max crashes. I expect no prosecutions because of the Metro railcar issues and the probability of people being fired is low.

H/T to Paul K. for the email.

Quote of the day—Caitlin Johnstone

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It doesn’t matter what you’re allowed to say if it doesn’t matter what you say. It doesn’t matter if you’re allowed to call the oligarchic puppet put in office by the last fake election a dickhead. It doesn’t matter if you’re allowed to Google any information you want only to find whatever information Google wants you to find.

Caitlin Johnstone
October 10, 2021
The Science Of Propaganda Is Still Being Developed And Advanced
[True.

I’m at a loss for a solution as is Johnstone.

Sometimes I wonder if a major reset (economic collapse?) would improve things. But when I give it more than a moment’s thought I decide things will get worse under those sort of circumstances.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Alan Gottlieb

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Nothing more clearly illustrates gun control lack of success than the situation in King County. It is reflective of the national trend revealed in the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2020, showing murders up by 30 percent nationwide. If restricting the gun rights of law-abiding citizens worked, this should not be the case.

Alan Gottlieb
CCRKBA Chairman
October 13, 2021
KING COUNTY, WA MURDER SPIKE TYPIFIES NATIONAL GUN CONTROL FAILURE
[Gottlieb’s statement presumes facts not in evidence. Namely, that the goal of gun control advocates is a reduction in violent crime.

Gottlieb knows their goal has nothing to do with reduction of violent crime. He said so 25 years ago. But the useful idiots and the mainstream media (yes, I’m repeating myself) believe that is the reason for and the achievable result of gun control.

I think it’s long past time to make the useful idiots aware of the truth and have them confront the liars. It would be a good first step toward the trials.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Tom Ozimek

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he New York Fed’s August survey of consumer expectations showed that Americans anticipate food prices to rise by 7.9 percent in a year, higher than the overall inflation expectation of 5.2 percent.

Federal Reserve officials have repeatedly characterized the current bout of inflation as “transitory” though they have increasingly expressed concern about the risk of a de-anchoring of inflationary expectations. That’s where confidence in the “transitory” narrative falls and people start to believe and behave as if inflation will be far stickier than previously believed, impacting wage and price-setting behavior and potentially even sparking the kind of upward wage-price spiral that bedeviled the economy in the 1970s.

Tom Ozimek
October 9, 2021
Food Prices Hit Highest Level in a Decade
[See also Biden’s Inflation Now Costs Families $2.1K A Year And About To Get Worse.

One of the things about economics, the stock market, and retails sales that was difficult for me to accept was that significant components are emotion driven. It wasn’t that I rejected that it was true. It was that I wanted it to be false.

I wanted to believe that “everyone”, at least a sufficiently high percentage of people, would act rationally enough that most of the time shortages, crazy housing/tulip-bulb/Dot-Com/whatever bubbles and extreme economic cycles wouldn’t occur. I would think, “How many times must these lessons be taught in the school of hard knocks before people learn the lessons?” The answer I didn’t want to accept was that the majority of people will never learn the lesson.

I’ve become more cynical (realistic?) in my old age.

If people believe there is high inflation coming then they increase the odds that it will happen.

Prepare appropriately.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jesse Kelly @JesseKellyDC

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Rest assured, we ARE separating. It’s already in the works. Sane people are fleeing the blue areas as blue areas become East Germany. There is no reversing this trend. The country WILL come apart. It is only a matter of dates.

Jesse Kelly @JesseKellyDC
Tweeted on October 10, 2021
[While I can see the trend and understand the desire to be separate I’m not convinced that a separation will actually occur. There was an even stronger trend and desire for the North and South to separate in the early 1860’s and that separation wasn’t really completed and certainly wasn’t even semi-permanent.

There are a number of ways we could become unified again. An external threat could do it. A military coup quickly wiping out the leadership of one side and/or the other would be another roadblock to a separation. And that isn’t even considering things like an extinction class asteroid.

It’s really difficult to figure out what might happen. There are so many different ways things could go. Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future!—Joe]

Quote of the day—Memorandum of Understanding

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The ability of law enforcement agencies to share crime gun data across state lines will assist in their efforts to detect and deter gun crime, to investigate gun crime, and to identify and apprehend straw purchasers, suspect dealers, firearms traffickers, and other criminals.

Memorandum of Understanding
October 7, 2021
MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING AMONG THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY, THE STATE OF NEW YORK, THE COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA, AND THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT CONCERNING RECIPROCAL SHARING OF CRIME GUN DATA
[See also here.

Heavy sigh. There is so much fail (presuming good intention of the document writers) in this document. In just the short quote above it presumes several facts not in evidence:

  1. It presumes crime is a gun problem rather than a people problem. As Col. Jeff Cooper (IIRC) pointed out if you could eliminate all the guns you would still have a crime problem. If you locked up all the criminals you wouldn’t have a gun problem.
  2. It presumes some sort of magic happens when sharing data beyond criminal investigations (which is already possible without this MOU).
  3. It seems to presume there is some sort of advantage for criminal gangs to bring guns from out of state to sell in the individual states. But how can there be an advantage for a criminal in New York to obtain a gun from New Jersey and simultaneously there be an advantage for the criminal in New Jersey to obtain a gun from New York? Once the criminal commits a violent crime with (or without) a gun in either state they can be prosecuted for that crime regardless of where they obtained the gun.

But the presumption of good intentions is not justified.

One has to conclude, once again, that this isn’t about crime. It’s about demonizing gun ownership and terrorizing gun owners. If a gun is stolen from an innocent person this may assist the political criminals in the respective states to harass the victim of the property theft. They can and almost certainly will, be accused of selling the gun to criminals. I’ve known people who have had a dozen or more guns stolen. If a half dozen or more guns sold to a single person show up at crime scenes then law enforcement from these states are likely to be to making a very unpleasant visit to the innocent gun owner.

It’s clear these politicians view innocent gunowners as their enemy and it takes little imagination to believe they view the real criminals as their allies in their war against private gun ownership.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Victor Davis Hanson

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Our other elite wokists navigating around the revolution are even more cynical. The corporate and Wall Street capitalists feel that a little virtue signaling, showy diversity coordinators, and woke advertising will more or less buy off the latest version of Al-Sharpton-like shake-down artists.


Then there are the trimmers and enablers. These are the wealthy, rich, and the professional classes. They feel–in abstract–absolutely terrible about inequality, but hardly enough in the concrete to mix with the unwashed.


For them, wokism is like party membership in the late ethically bankrupt Soviet Union. It is necessary for peace of mind and good income, but otherwise not an obstacle for the continuance of the privileged, comfortable life.

Victor Davis Hanson
October 1, 2021
Orwell And The Woke
[Emphasis in the original.

Listening to some of the corporate leaders at work I sometimes get cynical. I just don’t think they are really buying into some of this crap. Yet, they push it anyway. I presume it is just to pay off the shake-down artists. The alternative, they are too stupid and/or ignorant see the truth, is too discouraging to believe.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Rob Schneider (@RobSchneider)

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Many Americans are waking up from their slumber and discovering the hangover of tyranny in the guise of safety.

Rob Schneider (@RobSchneider)
Tweeted on October 2, 2021
[I have nothing to add.—Joe]

Dominos?

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There are a number of indicators of interest to me around the world.

What You Need to Know About Evergrande

the company scrambles to find funds, construction has stalled on its projects, putting the future of the 1.4 million properties that it has committed to building in doubt. The situation has sparked protests at Evergrande headquarters in Shenzhen, China. Protestors included contractors owed money by Evergrande and those who have paid for a home that may now never be built.

One of World’s Largest Port Operators Warns Global Supply Chain ‘Crisis’ Will Last Longer Than Expected

“Regardless if it is a port, vessel, or warehouse, when one becomes impacted, it quickly results in a downward spiral as delays accumulate,” Maersk’s update reads. “We see pockets of improvements, only to get setbacks when our operations encounter new COVID-19 outbreaks and lockdowns.”

Households Brace for Higher Winter Heating Costs as Natural Gas Prices Vault

The relentless rise in natural gas prices continued on Oct. 6, highlighting the looming threat to U.S. households bracing for higher heating costs in the event of a harsh winter.

U.S. natural gas futures were up 1.11 percent at $6.312 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) in early trading on Oct. 6 after jumping around 9 percent a day earlier to settle at $6.312 per mmBtu, their highest level since 2008.

While gas prices in Europe and Asia have more than tripled this year, the United States has largely been shielded from the global crunch because of plentiful supplies. While U.S. natural gas is trading around the $6 per mmBTu mark, it’s at around $30-plus in Europe and Asia.

But experts warn the global natural gas crunch could have ripple effects, with possible impacts on households in the United States.

Those are just a sample.

Housing material is expensive and difficult to find. Labor is in short supply too.

The U.S. government is going to increase the debt even though everyone knows they can’t possibly pay off the existing debt. The situation of other governments, world wide, is not much different.

Closer to home is the drought this summer blew away the previous all time record in terms of total rainfall in Clearwater County Idaho. The yields were 1/3 to 1/2 of normal with very low quality. The drought wasn’t just local either.

It is not difficult to envision a domino effect and things go completely bonkers

Prepare appropriately. I want an underground bunker in Idaho.

Quote of the day—Andrew Yang

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I’m confident that no longer being a Democrat is the right thing.

Andrew Yang
October 4, 2021
BREAKING UP WITH THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
[That thought will get a lot of support in my circle of gunnies!

Before you even think he might be inclined to side with Libertarians or Republicans (from the same post):

I donated to Bernie Sanders’ campaign – everything he said struck me as true

…

When Trump won, I was surprised and took it as a red flag and call to action. Having spent six years working in the Midwest and the South I believed I had some insight as to what had driven Trump’s victory. I spent several years making the case for what I believed was the major policy that could address it – Universal Basic Income.

I saw nothing in his blog post that indicates he has changed these beliefs. As recently as September 27, 2021 he was still enthusiastic for UBI.

That said, Yang resonated with a lot of people. And having that pull someplace outside the Democrat party is probably a good thing. It helps split the political left.—Joe]

Ugly behavior

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Via email from Chet who says, “The crack down/revolt is just beginning”:

Education leaders decry ‘ugly’ behavior by attendees at Washington state school board meetings

It wasn’t their mask mandate to make, but school officials are getting the heat all the same.

…

To reduce the chances for these types of conflicts, some school districts have resorted to calling the police preemptively to monitor meetings, Aune said, or moved their meetings online. The Seattle School Board, seeing cases arise across the state and country, brought on extra security to monitor in-person meetings and escort staff back to their cars over the summer, said Chandra Hampson, the board’s president. To make sure there was enough security at schools when the year began, the board briefly returned to remote sessions. Meetings will resume in person later this month.

Across the country, there have been similar displays, prompting the National Association of School Boards to call for the involvement of the FBI, the Department of Justice and other law enforcement authorities.

While I think a lot of the “facts” quoted by the anti-vax and anti-mask people are taken out of context and/or distorted the politicians believing they have the legitimate power to shut down the economy and force people to accept injections get zero support from me. In fact, I’m sometimes cheering on those opposing the politicians even though I think the opposition is for the wrong reasons.

We live in interesting times. The “ugly behavior” is likely to get uglier on all sides. Prepare appropriately.

Temporary safety versus essential liberty

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Via brother Doug on Facebook:

SecurityLiberty

Mr. Franklin would have approved this meme.

Quote of the day—Per Bylund

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Government’s track record in creating public goods that are of actual value to people and that do not waste resources is nothing short of dismal. Then add the public choice aspect to the whole thing, that politicians have their own interests and therefore may not pursue the public good even if they know it. The assumption that government will fix the economy and increase our standard of living beyond what entrepreneurs can do is unbearably naïve.

I do not think these problems matter much to proponents of MMT, however. Because it is not a theory of how the economy works and so does not concern itself with worldly things like production, innovation, entrepreneurship, scarcity (other than as potentially causing inflation), or time. It is a pseudoreligious conviction that anything is possible and that the one and only solution is always Glorious Government.

Per Bylund
September 14, 2021
The Political Alchemy Called Modern Monetary Theory
[This article is the best explanation I have read on why MMT cannot work.

Some of big takeaways not outlined in the quote above:

  • Government creation of currency is not the same as creating money.
  • Government spending diverts resources from meeting the demands of the public markets.
  • Reducing the production of goods and services in the market result in inflation.
  • Idle/unused resources are sometime idle/unused for a good reason and are best left that way for now.

Previous critiques have left me somewhat unconvinced. I was certain MMT was fatally flawed, but I couldn’t find the clear flaws and conclusively prove to myself it was a terrible disaster in the making I was certain it had to be. This article was a huge help to me.—Joe]

Quote of the day—Jim Bovard

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The FBI’s power and federal legitimacy are far more tenuous than Washington recognizes. Beyond the nation’s big cities and the coastlines, federal authority hinges largely on the consent of local citizens. Once that consent vanishes, FBI agents are left to sit in their cars eating their lunches all by themselves. But plenty of pundits and congressmen still clamor for the government to confiscate everyone’s guns or forcibly inject their children. If the feds came in and started shooting mountain men who refused to surrender their firearms, they would likely quickly find themselves in a worse plight than Custer at the Little Big Horn.

Jim Bovard
September 27, 2021
He Thought I Was an Undercover Fed
[Consent of the governed is a concept in our country’s founding documents. With a nearly $30 Trillion debt, incredible overreach of the U.S. Constitution’s limits, and blatant violation of our specific enumerated rights, it is long past time to revoke consent.—Joe]

$1 trillion platinum coins

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This reminds me of something:

There’s a loophole in the law that prescribes the types of coins that can legally be minted in the US, and it would allow the Treasury Department to mint a $1 trillion platinum coin, deposit it at the Federal Reserve, and then continue paying its bills as normal. This simple solution would let Congress sidestep what Rep. Bill Foster of Illinois told Insider was a “silly rule that we make up for ourselves,” which requires Congress to vote on raising the debt ceiling every time the US reaches the borrowing limit.

It’s an idea New York Rep. Jerry Nadler has long promoted. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Tuesday that Nadler raised the possibility of minting the coin in a meeting with Democrats to bypass the partisan fights on raising the debt limit. In 2013, when Republicans were refusing to raise the limit under President Barack Obama, Nadler told Insider that he was disappointed the Obama administration would rule out “one of the very few bargaining chips it has,” referring to minting the coin.

.Oh, yeah, now I remember:

I’m sure it will turn out different this time. After all, this is just a few coins distributed only to the Federal Reserve. That makes it totally different, right?

It would be more honest if they made the coins out of lead. But honesty is not their strong suit.

These people can’t be so ignorant and/or stupid so as to believe this is anything other than a means to destroying the nation. This must be a deliberate plan of destruction.

I hope they enjoy their trials.