There is hope so long as there is one man left living on earth. There is hope, but it will not be saved automatically. It depends on the free will and choice of every man who is able to think. Those who don’t want to think don’t matter in this issue. They’re merely social ballast.
Ayn Rand
1982 public lecture
[It seems we have a lot of social ballast these days.—Joe]
There is no doubt in my mind that President Trump was appointed by God to clean up all the corruption that we have endured throughout the United States of America for the past 40 to 50 years. President Trump offers hope for us all, so we, our children and grandchildren will live better lives once the corruption is cleaned up. We will then endure a more peaceful, loving and kind world.
Sherry Bodin
November 16, 2020
Comment to:
[Video link via brother Doug.
I have a strong interest in psychology. I took a bunch of psych classes in college and I think I got straight A’s on them. I find the whole Trump as president thing extremely interesting. We have such an extreme division in this country about his character. From “racist, fascist, criminal, and all supporters and enablers must be ‘dealt with’ so our country can heal” to “appointed by God”.
How can two sets of people, all working with access to the same dataset, arrive at such different conclusions? Some, perhaps even most, are living in an alternate universes.
Reality is really, really tough. I get that. But still, it’s such a wide range of reactions that I find it difficult to imagine that I could intentionally create a data set such that some group of people could examine the data and divide into such an extreme range of opinions on what the data means.
If it weren’t for the deadly seriousness of our situation I would stock up on popcorn. Then, every night I would sit down with a full bowl and have myself a good laugh at the absurdity of human nature.—Joe]
But the question I have now for our little blue, upper left corner of the U.S. is what are we going to do about the other half of the country that does not see the world the way we do? Are we going to wish them away, or curse them or berate them into acquiescence? Have any of those strategies worked in the past?
Naomi Ishisaka
Seattle Times columnist
Dear Seattle: You can dismiss Trumpism. But how’s that working for you?
November 15, 2020
[Via email from Chet.
I find it very telling that she considers people who voted for Trump to be a problem in need of a solution. It never seems to cross her mind that perhaps they have a point or two worthy of consideration as to why the progressive agenda is something to be avoided.
Condescension, dismissal, insults, and violence are yielding counterproductive results. Yet, I don’t think they will alter their behavior in a way that will improve their appeal to those who voted against them.
She advocates for “deep, structural changes … to our electoral system, to the control of the media and in many other arenas“. That will not go over well and I think she knows it. I have a nagging feeling she is foreshadowing a “final solution” but doesn’t want to openly say it — yet.
We live in interesting times.—Joe]
We currently have over a year’s worth of orders for ammunition in excess of $1 billion. With demand far outstripping supply and inventory levels in the channel at all-time lows, we see strong demand continuing, and this metric informs our viewpoint of what a recovery or normalization could look like.
Chris Metz
CEO of Vista Outdoor Inc.
November 5, 2020
Vista Outdoors reports ammunition backlog of over $1B
[We live in interesting times.—Joe]
The Establishment blew off Donald John Trump only to watch with jaw agape as he was sworn into office on January 20, 2017.
Let’s not blow off Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. You may not see her appeal, but millions of Democrats do. She is the soul of the soulless Democrat Party.
AOC’s danger is that unlike Obama, Manchin, and the rest of the 50 and older crowd in the Democrat Party, she does not seek power. She seeks a revolution.
…
She is playing with racist fire. Her message is clear. Black and brown people are superior to white people.
This is not the Democrat Party’s worst nightmare. Democrats believe this rhetoric and the ideas it stands for will propel them to power.
No, this is America’s worst nightmare.
Wake the heck up.
Don Surber
December 23, 2020
Don’t blow off AOC
[He makes some interesting points. Particularly interesting to me is that the long time democrats who are despicable in their politics like Schumer (69), Feinstein (80), Biden (77), Durbin (75) are moderate by comparison with AOC. And most importantly they are old and won’t long have a “moderating” effect on the party. AOC and the squad want a revolution and they have serious potential to pull it off even with crazy ideas like defunding the police. Calls to defunding the police shouldn’t elicit derision. It should be a call to immediate action. This is the path Lenin took.
Look at other socialist/communist revolutions. Most (all?) of those started with someone who was disregarded and “blown off” as crazy, irrelevant, etc. in their first years.—Joe]
From someone on Facebook:
In response to this, my first thought is what Henry David Thoreau had to say about this sort of thing:
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.
The second thought is:
You won’t be judged by your intentions. You will be judged by your actions.
Your intentions will only be considered during the penalty phase of your trial.
This is about a principle. Donald Trump is the elected head of state, and he is being denied a platform to address the people he represents by the faceless servants of corporate media oligarchs.
This is a terrible, terrifyingly awful precedent to set.
The owners of Comcast or Warner Bros or Disney or Facebook or Twitter are not elected officials. They have no legal authority, and thus no accountability. Yet they are claiming the right to determine what elected officials can and cannot say to the people who elected them.
There is a strain of thought that this kind of censorship is justified. “Spreading disinformation puts lives at risk”, they say. “If the media stopped people lying we wouldn’t be in this mess” or “the news should only broadcast the truth!”.
The argument goes that “allowing Donald Trump to “publicly undermine our democratic institutions will erode the public trust and could lead to violence.”
But I would argue that empowering billionaires to hold a monopoly on “the truth” is far more dangerous to democracy than anything Trump could ever say.
To people inclined to disagree, I leave these five questions. Answer them, if you can:
Kit Knightly
November 8, 2020
Censoring Donald Trump is more “dangerous to democracy” than anything he could ever say
[The main stream media and social media platforms don’t seem to have a problem publishing things about gun ownership that’s fractally wrong. Hence, this isn’t about truth or falsity. This is about deliberate suppression of political opposition.—Joe]
You can’t heal or reform the GOP who are now an extremist party. They have to be broken, burned down and rebuilt. When Biden is in power treat them like the active threats to democracy they are. If those who committed crimes aren’t punished then they will be more emboldened.
Wajahat “Wears a Mask Because of a Pandemic” Ali @WajahatAli
Tweeted on November 9, 2020
[This isn’t some random troll. This is a “@nytimes Contributing Oped Writer” with a blue checkmark on Twitter.
This is what they think of you. This is what you need to prepare for.—Joe]
Via a Tweet from Chuck Petras:
Also from Chuck on the same topic:
And reassurance that it is, at least mostly, true from CNN:
Supreme Court is about to have 3 Bush v. Gore alumni sitting on the bench
Judge Amy Coney Barrett, once confirmed, will be one of three current Supreme Court justices who assisted the legal team of then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush in the Florida ballot-recount battle that came down to a single vote at the Supreme Court.
The court’s December 12, 2000, decision cutting off Florida recounts tore apart the justices and the nation, and the case hovers in the air today as America approaches the November 3 presidential election.
We live in interesting times.
In an earlier case both the State Department and several states involved in the action conceded there is nothing inherently illegal about the computer files at issue. We say so in the complaint. Yet, here we are again, arguing about the publication of digital firearms information, with Grewal in the center of things because of his continued censorship efforts against SAF and Defense Distributed. His conduct could irreparably harm both entities. This has got to stop.
Alan M. Gottlieb
SAF founder and Executive Vice President
November 11, 2020
SAF, DEFENSE DISTRIBUTED SUE STATE DEPT., NEW JERSEY AG OVER 3D ISSUE
[Yes. This has got to stop. Maybe a court ruling will do it. If not, I think they should be arrested and prosecuted.
I, and my employer through matching donations, donate thousands of dollars to SAF each year.—Joe]
The group below was at 100 yards with some old FMJ ammo found in a magazine using a red dot 1X scope on the cheapest AR upper I could buy:
This is with everything the same except the ammo:
This is the same ammo with a precision rifle using a 14.5 X scope. This is 10 rounds with the last two, and possibly three rounds flying to the right after the wind came up:
It is a handloaded 55 grain match grade bullet. In two rifles with 24” barrels it achieved 3,140 and 3,156 fps at the muzzle with standard deviations of 14.4 and 14.2 fps. With the cheap, short (18”?) barrel it came out of the muzzle at 2,943 fps with a standard deviation of 37.0 fps.
This is a load that works well in three very different rifles. I’m extremely pleased.
It was almost 13 years ago I said I wanted this:
A friend with a laser engraver made the above samples for me.
In some respects it would be better if the message were engraved on the ogive of the bullet rather than the base. You could then see the message after the bullet is loaded.
Of course the acquaintances of the bullet recipient would be less likely to get the message than if the message were on the base. It all depends on your end goal. Either is possible. And in production the message would be far better centered.
My friend is contemplating engraving messages on bullets as a service. Is there any interest out there?
Because of the number of bullet manufactures, styles, calibers, and weights you would select and purchase your bullets from your usual supplier, then pay for shipping in both directions as well as a fee for engraving.
A full-blown all-out civil war to extinction between ideologies is the last thing I want.
But it’s STILL on the list.
Aesop
November 5, 2020
Comment to No matter who wins this year’s election, we can’t go on living together like this
[We live in interesting times.—Joe]
I think it was Glenn Reynolds who said, paraphrasing, “We have Trump for president because they wouldn’t listen to us. If they don’t listen to us now they will like what comes next even less.”
Here’s a hint of what comes next:
A banded group of brothers and sisters to show America who runs the country
The Facebook group now has over 44K members.
I you don’t want to join the Facebook group you can find out more about the group here. The bottom line is:
President Trump has worked diligently for four long years to protect the rights and freedoms of all Americans, and very importantly the blue-collar workers of this country. The blue-collar workers are literally the ones that make the wheels turn! Without truck drivers this country could not survive for long.
…
We will STOP ALL TIRES for 24 hours on Veterans Day 11/11/20. If this is not effective and our leaders do not respect that blue-collar truck drivers are having to face domestic terrorism, primarily in democrat run cities all over the United States, and that we do not support the banning of fracking in any way, then we will have our second STOP OF TIRES for FOUR full days 11/26/20-11/29/20.
We are calling for all patriots to share this all over the country. We may not last long on Facebook, but please do not be deterred, and continue to share this on any social media or other outlets, that you have available to you.
I”m not sure how they will determine if they are effective in the reversal of the stated policy to ban fracking two months before a Biden/Harris administration takes office. Regardless, I support their sentiment and wish them success.
H/T to Chet for the email.
I have a couple of cubic yards of ammo, but I’d feel more comfortable with four.
Jim Harris
November 8, 2020
Comment to How’s everybody doing for ammunition? And what’s the full loadout for Pak36? Asking for a friend…
[Unless your stockpiling for your neighborhood, I think the money and time would be better spent on training and practice.
But, still, I rather like what he said.—Joe]
From Newsweek:
the man was serving as a safety officer in a United States Practical Shooting Association competition when he was struck by “accidental discharge from a competitor’s firearm.”
…
The shooting comes just two months after a separate incident involving firearms in New York State, which left two people dead and 14 others injured.
The September 19 incident, a mass shooting, took place in the city of Rochester and saw a man and a woman killed in what was described as a “tragedy of epic proportions” by then-acting police chief Mark Simmons.
I find it quite telling they conflate an accidental shooting with a criminal mass shooting.
There has been a massive and coordinated effort to steal this election from We The People of the United States of America to delegitimize and destroy votes for Donald Trump. To manufacture votes for Joe Biden. They’ve done it in every way imaginable, from having dead people vote in record numbers, to absolutely fraudulently creating ballots that exist only for voting for Biden. We’ve identified over 450,000 ballots that miraculously only have a vote for Joe Biden on them and no other candidate.
Sidney Powell
November 8, 2020
We’ve Identified 450,000 Ballots that Miraculously ONLY have a Vote for Joe Biden” – Sidney Powell Drops a BOMB on Sunday Morning Futures (Video)
[We live in interesting times.—Joe]
I have to wonder what happened to the active FBI investigation over Biden money laundering.
One would think that at least Kamala Harris would be interesting in seeing that case brought to fruition.
Benford’s Law seems sort of magical but it was first observed in 1881 and is frequently used by statisticians/accountants to detect anomalies.
As it applies to our current situation is explained here and reposted here.
Via James O’Keefe @JamesOKeefeIII:
BREAKING: Here is the signed affidavit from Erie, Pennsylvania
Whistleblower Richard Hopkins that is now in the hands of Sen. Lindsey Graham and the Senate Judiciary Committee. #ExposeUSPS
I find it very odd that this supposedly happened in Pennsylvania but the affidavit was signed in Texas. I was notarized online via audio-video communication, but still.