Is it just me, or does it strike you as Passing Strange that suddenly the leftists are arguing for states rights?
Well, looks. The idea that Obama holdovers should have been gone the moment Trump took the oath of office and on their way to prison 30 seconds later, this piece from Michelle Malkin apparently ignores the open question of who in their right mind would want to run the VA.
After observing its operation for many years I am firmly convinced the Veterans Administration should have been shut down 40 years ago, with the people dependent on its services put into the mainstream Healthcare systems with those costs being government covered.
Of of course had we done that, years ago, we probably would have all Healthcare being government-run and therefore just like the beleaguered VA is now… Because we wouldn’t have had a bad example to point at when Obama came along trying to push government-run Healthcare.
Even people without a medical degree understand that a body can only withstand so much poison in its system before it ceases to function.
So it is with cultures.
I think we can agree that this country and the West as a whole is culturally the foundation of freedom in this world. Nobody else on the planet sees freedom as we do as a culture.
The reason for that is our American roots in our judeo-christian ethic.
I asked in these spaces a few weeks ago if anyone could possibly see in America being created by Islam. The obvious answer is no.
The reason for this disparity goes back to the time of the Reformation. Concepts of individual freedom and individual value, that every person has value Trace their Roots back through Martin Luther and back to Mosaic law.
We are now faced, alas, with large groups of people wishing to Tear us away from that Foundation. We are also faced with large numbers of people who in the name of diversity are allowing large amounts of this poison into our society and our culture.
Like the body, it will not withstand so much poison for so long.
I believe as Ronald Reagan put it America is the bulwark of Freedom. The Shining City on the hill. If America fails in its duty to protect the vision of individual value the founders valued so highly, what will become of it? Not only here in these not so United States but around the world?
It’s as I said some years ago now…
“TRrouble is our culural values, our society is in fact the best hope for the rights you seek. In short, you’re attempting self-destruction.
Here it is; Rights are a cultural construct, and meaningless outside that construct. As I said in the article linked above: Rights are not universal.
When Jefferson wrote that “WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF-EVIDENT” he was not speaking a universal truth at all. The operative word in that phrase is “WE”.
Rather than talking about a universal point of view, a universal truth, if you will, he was instead talking about the point of view of WE the new American culture. With this angle, many of the long-held myths about rights tend to disappear.
Consider; if it was in fact a universal truth that all men were created equal, it wouldn’t have been such a radical idea, for the time, much less then to now. Last I checked, it is quite true that a vast majority still do not consider these as any kind of truth, universal or otherwise; they consider them to be anything BUT self-evident. Royalty still exists, as do class structures, and slavery, as well.
Again, I say…Jefferson was speaking of the point of view of OUR culture, not that of others.
The fact of the matter is that RIGHTS ARE A CULTURAL CONCEPT, and are nigh on meaningless outside that construct.
Once the culture is allowed to fall to cultures hostile to Western ideas and ideals including the concept of individual rights themselves… what happens to those rights?
They disappear. And frankly, I don’t see that is serving the cause of Freedom well. Or, at all.”
I will leave you with the word picture which I believe is an example of our problems. Perhaps you don’t know this but the vehicle that was being driven around Boston by the Marathon bombers had a coexist sticker on it.
Think about that.
Folks, those who tolerate everything stand for nothing. Will you not stand up for American culture and its unique position in the world?
One Derrick Johnson, President and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of [Liberal] Colored People is calling for a nation confiscation of guns, from Joe Simonson, Daily Caller:
“Given the disproportionate damage gun violence is having on our communities, the NAACP has advocated for sane, sensible laws, to help eliminate or at least to decrease the damage and death caused by gun violence. Requiring universal background checks on all gun sales and transfers, banning military-style, semi-automatic assault guns, enacting tough, new criminal penalties for straw purchasers and gun traffickers, and allowing the Center for Disease Control to research gun violence as a major public health issue are just a few of the reasonable steps lawmakers could take to stem the tide of gun-related deaths in neighborhoods across the nation,” Johnson wrote.
Mr. Johnson should note these statistics, from the Washington Post:
Oct 24, 2017 – The most recent data available from the FBI (which is for 2015) indicates that 89.3 percent of black murder victims that year were killed by black perpetrators.
I propose a deal with Mr. Johnson. Given that the number of legal firearms greatly exceeds the number of young black males, instead of locking up law abiding guns, just lock up all young black males. So what if my plan shreds the Constitution, but no more so than yours.
Granting locking up all young black males greatly offends the Constitution, but no more so that Franklin Roosevelt’s internment of all Americans of Japanese decent.
Aside to Mr. Simonson, the NAA[L]CP is not the nation’s oldest civil rights organization. The National Rifle Association is.
Oh, of course:
.The Australian diplomat whose tip in 2016 prompted the Russia-Trump investigation previously arranged one of the largest foreign donations to Bill and Hillary Clinton’s charitable efforts, documents show.
..
This this Russian collusion business has the clintons fingerprints all over it.
There is only one way, one reason possible that Mueller could have missed all of these links that everybody else seems to be finding… Mueller and his team are missing these links intentionally. If Mueller and his team were actually doing their job Hillary Clinton would be in the vertical bar hotel right now.
Hey, guys…
Let me preface this comment by reminding you all that Trump was never my guy to begin with. I am down to backing him when he’s right and saying he’s wrong when he’s wrong… And being unsure when that happens
Let me also say that I am by Nature against tariffs.
All that said, I observe two things;
As Dale points out most of the time guns are used in self-defense simply by brandishing them not necessarily by firing them.
I also observe as you guys have already pointed out that Trump is wildly unpredictable and certainly doesn’t play by the pooitical rules that have been established for many years.
As a bonus, the Tariff or at least the threat of it is the only tool available to bring trading partners back into line.
I am by no means defending Trump on this nor am I arguing for tariffs. But with all of this together I can’t help but Wonder if what we are seeing here isn’t trying to get a point across by brandishing a weapon that he doesn’t intend to use…. Or at least hopes that he won’t have to.
This is why I haven’t reacted with anger on these threats from Trump.
Similarly, his comments as regards confiscating the gun first and then going through due process later can and should anger conservatives at the least.
But that said under what other possible conditions could we see the anti-gun left pushed into the position of defending the Second Amendment and due process?
I can only suggest out of all of this that the rules of the game have changed rather dramatically and the best policy out of all of this seems to be to sit back and wait developments before making pronouncements, particularly given the media that’s Trump and his comments get filtered through.
The New York Slimes has gone there and revealed what patriotic citizens of have long suspected. The Slimes definition of common-sense gun control is a ban on all semi-automatic weapons, from the New York Slimes:
What all of this means is that the Parkland gunman, in practical terms, had the same rifle firepower as an American grunt using a standard infantry rifle in the standard way.
Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, a Republican and an Army combat veteran, has called for a ban on the sale of AR-15-style rifles.
“The exact definition of assault weapon will need to be determined,” Mast said. “But we should all be able to agree that the civilian version of the very deadly weapon that the Army issued to me should certainly qualify.”
Joe Plenzler, a 20-year combat veteran of the Marine Corps, is part of a social media movement of military veterans, including those who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, calling for reforms on the sale or possession of modern military-style firearms.
The Slimes does not know what either an assault style or military style weapon is but she sure wants to ban them.
The Slimes has panties all knotted up over the thought of a fly-over country possessing a modern weapon. Flash the infamous AK-47 was developed in 1947. Is the flint lock rifle primitive for the Slimes or shall the Slimes permit to keep our matchlock muskets?
The AR-15 itself was developed in the 1950’s. When it militarized version the M-16 was adopted, it criticized for lack of firepower. In turn, the Army counted it was more effective to wound a soldier rather than to kill him. A wounded soldier requires scarce battlefield resources to treat and evacuate him.
Maybe Neanderthals like Slow Joe Biden would be willings to trust the defense of their home to a Nineteenth Century weapon like a double barrelled shotgun, but the Supreme Court and the Second Amendment say otherwise.
Lastly, if semi-automatic weapons are just too deadly for civilian use, let us first confiscate all the semi-automatic weapons which are used to guard Congress, courts, and the Slimes offices.
Jeff Goldstein tells the story;
The first mass produced AR-15 was called the Colt Sporter. It was a civilian rifle, no matter how the revisionists try to airbrush out its history.
More, it’s a single pull, single shot weapon, much like a pistol. Or a musket.
It is NOT a “weapon of war” — unless it has the ability to switch to burst fire — at which point it’s an M16.
The .223 round is small. In fact,
“when you’re talking about rifles, the AR-15’s .223 / 5.56mm ammunition is considered so low powered that it is banned from hunting large game like deer and elk because it cannot humanely take them down in one shot like most other rifle calibers can.“In some states like Washington, all big game must be hunted with a minimum of .24 caliber ammunition – relegating the AR-15 to small game and varmint duty exactly because it is a low-powered rifle.”
As I’ve noted repeatedly here, most hunting rifles use .300 or .308 — a significantly larger round.
So. The anti-gun folks who demonize the AR-15 are demonizing a weapon that is not terribly “high powered”, is not an “assault rifle,” and uses smaller rounds than most game hunters.
Meaning, they object to the customizable nature of the platform and its cosmetics. That you can attach a laser or scope or flashlight to the rifle makes you more likely to hit what you’re aiming at, and so less likely to hit targets you don’t mean to hit. An adjustable stock allows women or smaller men to handle the weapon more comfortably and with better control, adding another aid to shooting.
To listen to the gun grabbers, therefore, you’d think their aim is to make sure Americans can only own higher powered weapons that offer less in the way of safety, control, and precision.
Facts are stubborn things. They are immutable and thus no subject to change by mere human whim, from Michael Welch, American Greatness:
Unable to come to terms with themselves, the SJWs demand that the world conform to them, and they are going to hold their breath until it does. Thus do girls “transitioning” to boys win state wrestling championships against fully female opposition. Thus are bathrooms mandated to be open to all. Thus is a foundational pillar of every society in human history kicked away by Critical Theory, and we are left to deal with the consequences.
Illustration, video:
Hat tip video, Mike LaChance, Legal Insurrection.
I’ve read the Democrat memo finally, having obtained a copy of it over the weekend. And I have to say that it ends up hurting the Democrats more than it hurts anybody else.
Andy McCarthy concurs, adding:
..Maybe Adam Schiff has more of a sense of humor than I’d have given him credit for. The House Intelligence Committee’s ranking Democrat begins his long-awaited memo — the minority response to the Nunes memo that was penned by staffers of the committee’s Republican majority — by slamming Chairman Devin Nunes’s unconscionable “risk of public exposure of sensitive sources and methods for no legitimate purpose.” The Schiff memo, which has been delayed for weeks because the FBI objected to its gratuitous effort to publicize highly classified intelligence, including methods and sources, then proceeds to tell its tale through what appear to be scores of blacked-out redactions of information Schiff pushed to expose.
In other words it changes nothing by virtue of being precisely what we anticipated… And illegitimate attempt to overthrow a legitimately elected government.
At this stage of the game, the Democrats are in a box. They are forced to double down on the lies they been telling all this time because there’s an election coming up. They know at this point that if they admit they screwed up, and they’ve been lying to the American people all this time they’ll take a bath even from their most Ardent supporters at The Ballot Box.
So ultimately what we are witness to in the end is a desperate attempt at damage control for the Democrats.
The desperation is the key to what we are going to see going forward.
This is somewhat worse than I thought.
The FBI relied heavily on the dubious Steele dossier, as well as a Yahoo! News article based on the salacious document, to obtain a surveillance warrant against a Trump campaign adviser prior to the 2016 election, according to an explosive but controversial memo approved for release by the White House on Friday.
. The Steele dossier is still very much the very basis of the so-called Trump collusion investigation. It has never been verified, cannot be verified, and is known to be written by somebody who was absolutely desperate in his own words to prevent Donald Trump from being president, with the help of two Russian operatives.
Both the FBI and the doj knew this but they continued with it for one simple reason…
Without the Steele dossier, the Democrats and the FBI had nothing. They wouldn’t have even been able to apply to spy on Trump and his people.
The thing is the Steele dossier has never been verified because it can’t be verified, the FBI knew it was a lie and not only went to the fisa court initially knowing it was a lie, they went back and renewed it several times… Without providing to the court that additional information.
And here’s the kicker: This unverified fantasy called the Steele dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton.
These are all established facts.
The only collusion going on here is between the Hillary Clinton campaign the Russians and the FBI and doj.
The Fox Butterfield Award for the Day, well I suppose that Shannon Valladolid has never been in a bar at last call, from WTSP:
TAMPA, Fla. — Thousands of gun enthusiasts — more so than ever — flocked to the Florida State Fairgrounds for the Florida Gun Show event.
Organizers say they had a record number of people attend the event on Saturday, Feb. 24, almost 7,000, and expected more Sunday.
The manager for the Florida Gun Show, George Fernandez, says they’ve never seen such a big crowd.
[…]
With the heated debate over gun control staying front and center, Fernandez expressed concerns over proposed gun laws possibly restricting gun owners.
Other suggested readings for Ms Valladolid: Black Friday, bachelor(ette) parties, Boxing Day, and lastly clues.
Unlike the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Broward County Sheriffs Department, the Rochester, NY Police Department seems competent, from WHEC-TV:
February 23, 2018 11:48 PM
Rochester police arrested a woman who threatened a shooting attack at Rochester’s East High School, city officials said Friday.
Police said Abigail Hernandez, 21, was taken into custody on Tuesday following threats posted on the East High Facebook page last week.
[…]
According to police, on February 15, Hernandez posted a message on East High’s Facebook page expressing sympathy for the shooter behind the rampage that killed 17 people in Parkland High School in Florida.
Woman arrested, accused of threatening a shooting at East High School
Notes:
- Alexander was an illegal alien, a so-called Dreams. Dreams of mass murder.
- She posted using a alias. Yet the Rochester Police Department still tracked her down and took action. See what a competent police department can do, as opposed Sheriff Israel’s clown posse in Broward County.
- Alexander weapon of choice was a shotgun So much for the CNN idea that confiscating all AR-15 style weapons would magically eliminate school shootings.
- At twenty-one, what was Alexander doing in this country and in high school?
So, let me see if I understand all of this.
Less than a year ago liberals in America were complaining that the police were a bunch of murdering Thugs and shouldn’t be trusted.
So now, because the police weren’t doing their job in Broward County and a mass shooting took place we’re told that the only people that should have guns are the police.
Of course we’re being told this by recently proclaimed constitutional experts who are 17 years old and who last week were eating laundry detergent pods.
Despite their dietary choices they’ve managed to put together a bus tour, a CNN town hall, and a large number of protests across the country all on their own.
The weapon that the shooter used is an AR-15, roundly criticized by the gun grabbing leftists as a weapon of War… But yet is rifle that is used by no military in the world.
And then we find out that the police… You know, the ones that these teenagers were saying or supposed to be the ones to have guns because they will protect us and that carrying a personal firearm is an act of cowardice, were hiding in safety while the students they were supposed to be protecting were being shot.
We find out that the sheriff of Broward County which by the way is the Florida county which leans most to the left in the entire state has been hobnobbing with Infamous left us for quite some time now. We also find out that his Sheriff’s Department was called to the scene of the shooters house dozens of times that both the sheriff’s department and the top law enforcement agency in the country have had many warnings about this idiot and did nothing.
And the only solution to all of this is to give up our firearms and turn more power over to the federal government.
And of course the whole thing is the fault of Republicans, and the NRA.
So is this all clear, so far?
Ben Shapiro makes some serious points in his most recent article…
..On Thursday night, the American public learned two bombshell pieces of information regarding the Parkland, Florida mass shooting. First, we learned that the Broward County Sheriff’s Office was told in November that the Parkland shooter “could be a school shooter in the making” but deputies didn’t bother to write up a report; that report “came just weeks after a relative called urging BSO to seize his weapons.” Then, in even more shocking news, we learned that an armed school resource officer at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School sat outside and waited for four minutes during the six minute attack that ended in the deaths of 17 human beings..
Sadly, this is just the beginning.
As I stated earlier today let’s remember the Broward county is the county that had its own version of electile dysfunction… Recount after recount after recount trying to allow Al Gore to steal the election back in the day.
It appears that things haven’t changed much down there.
I’ll take the opportunity also to make the point that Hillary Clinton told us a while ago that government’s primary role was raising children. Apparently the most recent election is the result of Americans looking at the product of government raising children…. Which in turn is now scrambling to find a way to control the little monsters that they’ve created.
