SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI

For over a thousand years, Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of a triumph — a tumultuous parade.
In the procession came trumpeters and musicians and strange animals from the conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him.
Sometimes his children, robed in white, stood with him in the chariot, or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror, holding a golden crown, and whispering in his ear a warning — that all glory is fleeting.

– General George S. Patton

Fatal shooting in rural Missouri believed to be self-defense

BENTON CO., Mo. (KCTV) – Self-defense is believed to play a role in the fatal shooting of a man assaulting multiple individuals with a dagger near a rural Missouri amphitheater.

[Really?] 

The Benton County, Missouri, Sheriff’s Office says that around 3:50 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 13, emergency crews were called to the 3100 block of Highway MM, near the Grand Stage Amphitheater, with reports of a disturbance that involved a knife and firearms.

As law enforcement officials responded, they said additional information was received that an individual had been shot. When they arrived, they found Mark S. Lomax, 59, with a gunshot wound to his chest. He was airlifted to the University of Kansas Medical Center where he later succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead.

The Sheriff’s Office said video footage reviewed on Friday revealed Lomax had been armed with an edged dagger as he assaulted multiple individuals. He confronted a vehicle that attempted to leave and tried to assault the driver as he stabbed the vehicle multiple times.

As the altercation continued, law enforcement officials said a woman emerged from Lomax’s home and screamed for help as she ran to a neighbor’s house. The neighbors came out as the altercation escalated and Lomax was shot.

A knife was used to stab a vehicle by a man who was fatally shot on Feb. 13, 2025.
A knife was used to stab a vehicle by a man who was fatally shot on Feb. 13, 2025.(Benton County, Missouri, Sheriff’s Office)

The investigation revealed two individuals fired shots during the incident, however, only one is believed to have fired the fatal shot. Four individuals were detained for questioning.

After interviews, law enforcement officials said three individuals were released while a fourth was held on an outstanding warrant not connected to the case. Based on preliminary findings, the shooting will be evaluated under the state’s self-defense statute.

The Sheriff’s Office indicated that the investigation remains ongoing and further details will be made available as soon as they are made clear. At the completion of the investigation, all findings will be forwarded to the Benton County Prosecutor’s Office for consideration of charges.

No further information has been released.

A knife was used to stab a vehicle by a man who was fatally shot on Feb. 13, 2025.
A knife was used to stab a vehicle by a man who was fatally shot on Feb. 13, 2025.(Benton County, Missouri, Sheriff’s Office)

Democrats Learn the Hard Way That David Hogg Is a Shameless Grifter

It’s been less than two weeks since conservatives cheered when the Democratic National Committee was dumb enough to elect David Hogg as the token white male vice chair. Well, we got the first laugh, and it looks like we’re going to get the last laugh because Hogg is already causing headaches for the Democratic National Committee, with insiders accusing him of exploiting his new role for personal gain.

Just two weeks into his tenure as a DNC vice chair, Hogg has been using the party’s contact lists to send out donation requests for his own political action committee, Leaders We Deserve PAC, which pays him over $100,000 a year, according to Federal Election Commission records.

“David Hogg — talk about living up to your name. A trough of DNC dollars all for him and he doesn’t seem to give an oink,” a top Democrat told The New York Post.

Many of us predicted disaster for the Democrats for electing Hogg, but who knew he was basically running to grift for his organization?

But alas, that’s just what he’s done.

“David Hogg here: I was just elected DNC Vice Chair! This is a huge win for our movement to make the Democratic Party more reflective of our base: youthful, energetic, and ready to win,” reads one of at least eight texts he blasted out to the DNC’s vast database of phone numbers.

Hogg co-founded “Leaders We Deserve” in August 2023 with the stated goal of electing young progressives to Congress and state legislatures across the country. It also provided him a six-figure income job right out of college.

Since the PAC was founded, Hogg has pocketed more than $175,000, records show, with more than $20,000 in salary payments coming in December alone, the most recent month for which public data is available.

While it’s not officially against the rules, personal PAC fundraising — instead of fundraising for the DNC — has rubbed some party brass the wrong way.

“It’s especially important for all Democratic national officials to focus on raising support for the party and not using their position to raise money for themselves or their personal political PACS,” groused a second senior Democratic Party official. “It’s a stunning lack of judgment that is concerning to many people.”

The 24-year-old came to public prominence as a survivor of the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, which left 17 people dead.

Hogg’s appointment to the party’s vice chair job at just 24 makes him arguably the most powerful Zoomer in the United States, but at least some members of the party were alarmed by his lack of experience and a long history of social media posts supporting far-left positions like defund the police and abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

“I mean it’s just very frustrating to be in a party in desperate need of increased accountability for our struggling leadership, and watch someone who is never held accountable ascend to leadership,” Cameron Kasky, a fellow Stoneman Douglas survivor, told the New York Post.

How stupid do Democrats feel now?

Krugman is a perfect reverse economic barometer. He’s always been wrong


Smug Krugman Says Trump Won Because Low-Income Voters Lack ‘Sophisticated Views’ on Economics

So here’s the thing. If PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) is serious about combatting widespread public opinion that the tax-supported “news service” is a haven for elitist leftists (which is exactly what it is), trotting out the ever-smug economist, Paul Krugman isn’t the best way to go about showing it.

During a taped interview with PBS economics reporter Paul Solman, which the outlet aired on Thursday, Krugman was his usual pathetic, self-centered self throughout.

Incidentally, the former New York Time columnist has been on a years’-long crusade to find a social media app that would take down Elon Musk’s X (formerly, Twitter), and has insisted for years that President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election win over Democrat Hillary Clinton was “rigged.”

Solman kicked off the festivities.

For just short of 25 years, Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman was a New York Times columnist. He began the column in the Clinton years. Krugman left The Times just before Donald Trump was inaugurated. I asked him what has changed in 25 years.

Krugman said that back in the day, he was “extremely optimistic.” But today? (emphasis, mine)

When I began writing the column, people were extremely optimistic. I was hired basically to talk about all the good news and maybe funny stuff that was happening in this glorious late 1990s economic boom. And it’s been a very troubled world since then.

[…]

Most voters have very little idea of policy. I mean, you look at the polling, ask people, do you approve of Obamacare, and it’s still pretty negative. And you ask, do you approve of the Affordable Care Act, and it’s very positive. So that’s telling you something about what voters understand about policy.

I’m unaware that most voters see the Affordable Care Act very positively, but let’s move on—with Krugman continuing to, let’s call it, “twist the truth”:

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Let’s Understand What Maryland, Baltimore’s Lawsuit Against Glock is Really About

Glocks are among the most popular handguns in the country. They’re priced decently, run reliably, and just plain work. Police trust them as do numerous armed citizens. They’re everywhere.

And that bothers a lot of people. Now, though, Glock is being sued by the city of Baltimore and the State of Maryland, with the help of Everytown for Gun Safety, and let’s talk a bit about what’s really going on here.

First, let’s get into the official word.

In an attempt to keep fully automatic guns off the streets, Baltimore and Maryland authorities Wednesday sued Glock, the maker of some of the best-selling handguns in America. The lawsuit demands Glock take steps to prevent its guns from being modified into machine-gun-like weapons capable of firing 120 rounds in one minute.

Small, easily installed devices known as “auto sears” or “switches” that are growing more common have terrified law enforcement because they enable high-powered violence not seen since 1934, when Congress banned machine guns after their prominent use by mobsters.

But police statistics show the number of “modified Glock” shootings is on the rise, including an incident near a Baltimore YMCA in March in which a woman’s car was hit 18 times, and police found 41 shell casings nearby. In Philadelphia last year, eight high school students were shot in one spray, including a 16-year-old who was hit nine times. In Memphis in April, a police officer was killed and two other officers wounded in a firefight with two teenagers, one armed with a modified gun.

The lawsuit, filed in Baltimore City Circuit Court, is the first to test Maryland’s new Gun Industry Accountability Act, passed by the General Assembly last year to create liability for gun manufacturers and possibly circumvent an earlier related law. The Maryland lawsuit mirrors others filed in Chicago, Minnesota and New Jersey in recent months.

But here’s the problem: Glock doesn’t make the switches. They didn’t design them. They didn’t have anything to do with them.

Further, they’re illegal to make or possess–at least if you’re not one of the handful that has a transferable switch that was made before 1986 and is registered with the ATF. People are getting them left and right, but they’re not doing it lawfully.

What at least some are claiming is that Glock hasn’t redesigned its reliable handgun so it can’t accept a switch.

Yet they don’t punish Toyota because someone might modify one of their cars and circumvent emissions controls or something. Why would they?

But this isn’t really about full-auto switches or even Glock.

No, this is about making it as expensive as possible to be in the firearm industry and to offer products to the civilian market. Right now, this is the angle of attack they’re taking, but it will not end there.

The federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was created specifically to stop these kinds of nuisance lawsuits aimed at the gun industry, particularly when they’re being attacked for the actions of a third party. That’s what’s happening here. They’re trying to pretend it’s Glock’s fault and to get them to stop selling their guns in Maryland, but does anyone really think that would do any good?

It’s not like the people putting switches on their guns are going to suddenly decide they don’t want Glocks because they’re not sold there.

They’ll just get them from somewhere else.

But if enough states do it and enough companies get sued, they’ll either go out of business or just stop selling to private citizens.

You don’t need to control guns if there are no guns for anyone to buy, after all. That’s what this is really about. That’s the long game at work with anti-gunners, and they’re using anti-gun states to try and do it.

Make no mistake. Glock has done nothing wrong.

These two governments just don’t like the right to keep and bear arms.

DOGE, Audits, and Eko

OGE is currently conducting what amount to audits of every single bureaucratic office, department, and budget in the extremely tangled web of the U.S. government bureaucracy. The substack “Eko Loves You” is an interesting and insightful read. There’s a lot of speculation that this is Elon Musk writing his thoughts on the work and discoveries of DOGE. Whether it’s Musk or not, the posts are well worth reading. The posts lay out in clear language what’s been discovered, connections, Constitutional issues… the whole shebang.

Now, some of you and some of your friends may be the ones screaming about the actions of DOGE. I have one question for you: Why are you so virulently against an audit of the bureaucracy? Ah, ah, ah. I don’t want to hear about how your research grant got frozen, nor do I want to hear about those poor federal workers who got laid off… with, for the most part, hefty compensation packages. I want to know why you’re so focused on those things and apparently don’t give a rat’s ass about all the evidence of fraud, waste, mis-management, sheer incompetence, and outright bribery currently coming to light. Why is all of that not a concern for you?

If you try to tell me you haven’t seen any evidence of that, I would point you to the White House Press Secretary, the White House, any media OTHER THAN MSNBC, CNN, or any of the legacy media. Branch out. Read sites like Red StateRantburgWashington TimesEpoch TimesInstapunditReal Clear Politics. What are you afraid of? Cooties from unapproved news sites?

Every anti-DOGE rant I’ve seen so far has focused on the alleged lack of constitutional authority for DOGE and Musk. Nope, sorry, all the necessary constitutional authority is there. The anti-DOGE rants which don’t focus on constitutional authority are absolutely filled with nothing but emotional pleas. “Think about the chillllldrennnnn!” “What about the water projects in Africa?” “How can we abandon all of that?” “You’re a monster if you don’t care about the less fortunate in the world!”

One of the things the DOGE audits have revealed (and really they’re not even at the actual audit part yet, they’re just revealing money trails), is that the vast majority of money sent out by USAID and its associated agencies is not going to its intended recipients. When well over half the money is going to “overhead” or simply disappearing, that should be a HUGE red flag. Yet, none of the overly emotional, heartstring pulling posts even mentions that.

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What Trump’s Gun Executive Order Could Do

President Donald Trump has made his first move on gun policy.

Last Friday, he issued an executive order directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to undertake a 30-day review of executive branch gun actions and positions to ensure they don’t violate the Second Amendment. The order itself doesn’t tell Bondi what specific actions to take. However, it does outline a number of areas to focus her review on.

So, what might come at the end of those 30 days? Let’s break it down section by section.

First, it’s important to note that the president is fairly limited in what he can do unilaterally on federal gun policy. Without Congress, he can’t implement some of the top priorities of the gun-rights movement or undo some of the successes the gun-control movement had under former President Joe Biden–such as the reforms included in the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

There are seven areas the executive order tells Bondi to look at, but the first one basically just encompasses the other ones. It simply directs her to review “all Presidential and agencies’ actions” during the Biden Administration that “may have impinged on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens.” From there, it gets a bit more specific.

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Man who was being followed at gas station in NW Harris County shoots, kills other man

HOUSTON — A man was shot to death at a gas station in northwest Harris County Tuesday evening, according to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.

It happened at an Exxon gas station off the Northwest Freeway and Spring Cypress Road.

Gonzalez said a man approached another man for unknown reasons. The initial man kept following the other around the parking lot.

The man being followed took a gun out and fired at the other, striking him, according to Gonzalez.

He was pronounced dead at the scene. The alleged shooter stayed at the scene.