Category: Goobermint

Clear Thinking About Taxing Guns

We are strange creatures. We see the world and build mental models of how the world works. Soon, those models become more significant to us than reality itself. That is dangerous when so much of our “experience” is from the news and entertainment media. We think our tiny screens show us what is really happening. We want to be carful about what we put into our heads.

Here in the USA, there are over a million violent crimes a year. The vast majority of them do not involve the criminal using a gun. At the same time, honest citizens like us defend ourselves with a firearm over a million times. Each year criminals also kill a few thousand people with a firearm. Mass murderers kill a few hundred of us. That isn’t what we see on our small screens.

The media inverts those proportions. We might think that mass murder is common and armed defense is rare. That lets special interests with a political agenda play on our distorted view of reality. That distortion is dangerous for all of us.

Three states recently passed constitutional carry legislation. That means that people who legally own a gun are allowed to carry their gun in public without asking for a permit and paying a tax. The new law won’t change how armed criminals behave since criminals who were not allowed to own a gun were already carrying their guns illegally. Breaking the law is what criminals do every day. Our gun laws disarmed the people who obey the law, and now we’ve reduced those infringements on honest people in three more states.

Now that constitutional carry passed, more law-abiding citizens will carry a legally owned firearm in public and at home. That makes life harder for criminals since the thugs don’t know if their intended victims are armed. The criminal’s uncertainty makes all of us safer. We are safer if we choose to carry a personal firearm and if we choose to go unarmed.

I studied the effects of concealed carry licensing across the United States. As you’d expect, fewer of us get our license to carry as that license becomes more expensive and more time consuming. What surprised and pleased me was that more of us take firearms training when the costs of a license go down.

That sounds counter intuitive from one point of view. If we drop the state mandate to take a firearms training class then more of us will take a class? I see why you could be skeptical.

Now consider another perspective. The state not only required a class, but they taxed us if we wanted to have a carry permit. No one would be surprised if more of us got firearms training if the state gave us a few hundred dollars. That is what happens when licensing fees decrease. We were able to spend our safety budget on firearms training rather than on paying state taxes and fees. We’re wealthier because the state isn’t taxing us as much, and now we can afford to take more firearms safety training.

That isn’t what the anti-gun Democrat politicians told us would happen. They said that blood would flow in the streets. They say the same thing each time a state considers removing the taxes and regulations on honest people who want to defend themselves with a personal firearm.

Whether we believe the politicians or not depends on the models of human behavior we carry in our heads.

Ask yourself if these anti-gun politicians were right. Did disarming the law-abiding victims make us safer? We already have over 23 thousand firearms regulations. In contrast, there were 21 states that already allowed ordinary citizens to carry a firearm in public without a permit. When you listen to the news and hear stories of violent crime, are those stories from states where honest citizens are armed or from states where honest citizens have been disarmed? Does the disarmament model actually make us safer?

It is nearly impossible to get a carry permit in parts of California, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and in Maryland. Cities like Los Angeles, New York City, Springfield, Camden, and Baltimore are some of our most violent cities. If disarming honest citizens made us safer then we should see the results on the nightly news. What do you see?

We all want to stop violent criminals. Some people decided that guns were bad so they passed laws that disarmed the people who obey the law. I think that model of human behavior is incomplete. I like it when the good guys can defend themselves. That happens over a million times a year. I think that model of human behavior gives us better results than disarming the victims.

There is a bit of good news that we don’t see reported yet. We are not all the same. Some of us were able to pay the thousand-dollar tax in order to protect our families with a firearm. Many of us couldn’t afford that much. Removing some of the fees and regulations on armed defense means that more of us can now afford a gun and self-defense training. More of us will be armed at home and in public. Fewer of us will be unarmed victims. More poor people can defend themselves from violent criminals.

That helps the people who need help the most. I like that, and so do most of you.

Flashback:
Biden warns of ‘winter of severe illness and death’ for the unvaccinated.

You don’t hear anyone trying to attribute this crap-for-brains jabber to a speech impediment anymore, do ya?

BIDEN WARNS OF FOOD SHORTAGES IN WAKE OF RUSSIA–UKRAINE WAR: ‘It’s Going to Be Real.’

President Biden warned that the Russian invasion of Ukraine will likely cause food shortages in some parts of the world because both countries are major exporters of wheat, in remarks to reporters in Brussels on Wednesday.

“It’s going to be real. The price of these sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia; it’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well,” Biden said. “Both Russia and Ukraine have been the breadbasket of Europe in terms of wheat, for example — just to give you one example.”

Biden added that the heads of the G-7 nations discussed potential food shortages and ways to alleviate them, raising the possibility that the U.S. and Canada could increase exports.

“We had a long discussion in the G-7 with both the United States, which has a significant — the third largest producer of wheat in the world, as well as Canada, which is also a major, major producer. And we both talked about how we could increase and disseminate more rapidly food shortages,” Biden said.

Ukraine and Russia combined export over a quarter of the global supply of wheat and one-fifth of the world’s corn supply, Bloomberg noted earlier this month. Several Mediterranean nations could face a major supply crunch. Over 80 percent of Lebanon’s wheat imports come from Ukraine, while over 60 percent of Turkey’s wheat imports come from Russia, according to U.N. Comtrade data cited by the Financial Times.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a press conference earlier this week that the U.S. is itself not expecting a food shortage for Americans.

“While we’re not expecting a food shortage here at home, we do anticipate that higher energy, fertilizer, wheat, and corn prices could impact the price of growing and purchasing critical . . . food supplies for countries around the world,” Psaki told reporters.

Senility strikes again, and wars have started from crap-for-brains blather like this.

If people try to say; ‘he means when they’ll see this when they’re in Poland’ They are ALREADY IN POLAND.

Biden Just Stuck His Foot Straight in His Mouth in a Way That Could Set off WWIII

Joe Biden arrived in Poland on Friday to meet with the Polish president. While there, he also met with the U.S. military members who are stationed there as part of the NATO defense of Poland. He met with some of the 82nd Airborne. Some of what he said during the visit was very concerning and is likely to excite all kinds of comments. Biden frequently says embarrassing things and it’s bad. But this time, what he said is even worse and could blow back on us big time………………..

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extraneous, not on point, preliminary stuff. read the article if you want
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But here’s the bad thing he said that could blow back on us big time and he needs to explain what the heck he is talking about here. He appeared to tell the members of the 82nd Airborne what they could expect when they arrived in Ukraine. What?

“You’re going to see when you’re there — some of you have been there — you’re going to see women, young people standing in the middle, in the front of a damn tank saying ‘I’m not leaving,’” Biden declared.

So they’re going to Ukraine and some have already been there? Or where else is he talking where they would be sent with people standing in front of tanks? Big problem. Biden has previously said he would not be sending any troops to Ukraine because it could set off World War III.

Andrew Feinberg of the Independent caught Biden’s comments and asked the White House what was going on. He didn’t include the “some of you have already been there” comment that the video captures.

The White House tried to clean it up, claiming he had been clear that we were not sending troops.

 

Then why did he say what he said? Biden is anything but clear. He’s just a mess. And what is he talking about with the “Some of you have already been there” comment? Did Joe reveal something he shouldn’t have? Or is he just being a mess yet again? He had loose lips yesterday when he leaked he would be visiting Ukrainian refugees at the border and someplace else. That endangers his safety

Now you know Russia is going to interpret his comments as us having troops in Ukraine and that’s not a good thing if you’re trying not to kick off World War III. So once again, Joe has stuck his foot in it big time but in an extremely dangerous way.

“I WILL NOT COMPLY”
WASHINGTON LAWMAKERS PASS MAG CAPACITY LIMITS AS CLICHES FLY

Nothing makes less sense than politicians who know zip about firearms, to say nothing of personal protection, passing laws that put restrictions on guns used by armed citizens to defend themselves, their families and in an emergency, their neighbors.

Not only does a magazine ban affect rifles, it also will create problems
for people who own pistols such as this Sig Sauer P229 Elite with its greater capacity.

Washington lawmakers recently passed such a law, and to suggest it stinks would be excessively civil. According to the affected gun owners whose remarks I’ve read on social media, the Evergreen State is taking on a shade of brown, and it’s got nothing to do with fall colors.

Long story short, the legislation prohibits the import, sale, trade or manufacture of a “large capacity magazine,” which is defined as an “ammunition-feeding device with the capacity to accept more than 10 rounds of ammunition…” As one might guess, this set off a buying frenzy, because—and here’s the puzzling part—any such magazines owned prior to the July 1 effective date will be “grandfathered in.” That is, the owners can keep them.

I can hear you all wondering, “How are they going to enforce this?” Magazines don’t have serial numbers, and if somebody has a garage full of them, how would anyone prove that individual didn’t have all of those magazines six months ago?

I happen to own a trio of 25-round magazines for my Ruger 10/22, which—believe it or not—falls within the initiative-adopted definition of a “semi-automatic assault rifle.”

It is imperative for you folks in other states to remember Washington is considered something of a “test tube” state by the gun prohibition lobby. It used to be California, but the Pacific Northwest has become the new petri dish for all manner of gun control nonsense to see what can be passed, and what can’t. What is tried in Washington this year might be coming to a state legislature near you next year.

Outbreak of Clichés

As noted earlier, nothing makes less sense … except perhaps for how some people react on social media to a gun restriction anywhere in the United States.

It’s the same all over, whether in New Jersey, Oregon, California, and Massachusetts; pick a state with a new gun control law and I guarantee you will hear or see the following:

“I will not comply!” pops up first, frequently followed by “I had this tragic boating accident.” What may have been amusing a dozen years ago has lost its oomph. Besides, trying to be clever to get around a dumb gun law can end badly, and such claims are juvenile at best.

At this writing, plaintiffs in a federal case challenging California’s “high capacity” magazine ban had filed an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court for review of their case, known as Duncan v. Bonta. They won twice, at trial and then on appeal to a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, but then the court held an en banc re-hearing with 11 judges, and they reversed.

So, since Washington is also in the Ninth Circuit, we’ll all probably see authorities in that state pushing hard to prevent the high court from reviewing the Duncan case. It is time for the Supremes to take such a case to further define the parameters of the Second Amendment. Let’s hope they are very broad.

Just for edification, the 10-round limit applies to pistol magazines as well as those for rifles. Suddenly, owners of striker- fired Glocks,  Springfields,  Smith & Wessons, SIG SAUERs and other popular pistol brands and models are paying attention. It’s not just guys with rifles who are being targeted. Handgunners are in the crosshairs as well.

I inquired with a couple of pals at the National Shooting Sports Foundation about the origin of the “magic” 10-round limit. Whose idea was that? Neither of my contacts was certain, but it appears to have originated with someone in the gun control lobby, once again demonstrating a lack of firearms understanding evidently rampant among that bunch.

Comment O’ The Day

The Left are suspicious of the government on defense and law & order.
The Right are suspicious of the government on welfare and education.
Both are correct.
Alice Smith; great-great-great-granddaughter of Adam Smith.

BLUF:
The public still has the will and the ability to organize resistance through protests, labor actions, and civil disobedience. Such resistance is essential for anyone who doesn’t wish to live in a dehumanizing and nightmarish dystopia.

The Great Reset Is Real

Communicable diseases have always shaped civilization. The consequences of an epidemic can last for centuries, and the outcomes of many wars have hinged on viral and bacterial infections. Smallpox, for instance, played a central role in the European conquest of the New World. During the American Civil War, nearly two-thirds of soldiers’ deaths were caused by diseases like dysentery and typhoid.

The spread of the bubonic plague through medieval Europe presents one of the clearest examples of how an infectious disease can alter the course of history. By some estimates, the Black Death killed 30 percent to half of Europe’s population. The plague severely shrank the peasant workforce, boosting its labor power. Attempts by the nobility to curtail this trend only fueled turmoil and peasant revolts. With reduced agricultural output, the merchant class gained influence at the nobles’ expense, setting the stage for the transition away from a land-based economy and the eventual disintegration of the feudal system.

From 2020 to 2022, we have witnessed an attempt to engineer a reversal of this historical development. Covid-19, a disease many orders of magnitude less deadly than the plague, has been deliberately exploited by ruling elites to bring about a neo-feudal order. This regression has so far been marked by diminished quality of life, sharply increased inequality, and the erosion of personal freedoms and civil liberties. Plans for digital IDs and central-bank digital currencies may further accelerate these developments, and the result will be total domination of a property-less underclass by ultra-wealthy elites and their expert class of technocratic clerics.

Much has been made of the World Economic Forum, its cartoonishly villainous chairman, Klaus Schwab, and the infiltration of various governments through its “Young Global Leaders” program. The focus on this particular group of actors is useful for illustrating how coalitions of financiers, corporations, and unaccountable nongovernmental organizations shape global policies. Schwab’s pet slogans—“the Great Reset,” “the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” “You will own nothing, and you will be happy”—are now a sort of shorthand for the effort to impoverish the world population and technologically expand elites’ control.

This agenda, however, doesn’t need to be tied to one particular organization or group of leaders. Elites’ desire to subjugate the rest of the world isn’t a “conspiracy theory,” but a pattern of class conflict evident from world history. The outcome of this conflict, now raging across a tangible battlefield as well as a digital one, will determine the shape of the world to come.

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The Road to Serfdom—We’re Almost There

We are learning March 18 something that apparently slipped under the radar for a few days.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) “quietly” made some changes to its data tracker website on March 15, removing tens of thousands of deaths from COVID-19, nearly a quarter of which were those for young people under 18.

They tell us this occurred because of a “coding logic error.”

I wonder how many they would have had to remove if they included those who were registered by hospitals—for profit or otherwise—as having died from the virus when they had multiple other of what we have learned to call co-morbidities. (If there’s one thing we can say for the pandemic, it built our vocabularies.)

In other words, they didn’t necessarily die of COVID-19, but the hospitals said they did, a different kind of coding error, I guess.

The number would likely be staggering.

This supposed “coding logic error”—whatever that may be; the CDC doesn’t precisely tell us—could indeed be symbolic of, or even actually encompass, the entire pandemic.

From this we can make the assumption, if we haven’t already, the pandemic was, and is, extraordinarily overblown, an event that figuratively and literally threw us back to the Middle Ages with people locked down, masked, force vaccinated, businesses shut, schools closed, and science turned inside out, leaving the entire globe in chaos.

And yet, to adopt the title of Neil Sheehan’s book about the Vietnam War, the whole thing was “A Bright Shining Lie.”

Of course, people died, but they do for myriad reasons under varying circumstances. That’s been the condition on planet Earth from time immemorial. More died in this instance because simple and immediate treatments were abjured in favor of far more expensive ones dangerous in themselves.

But that is only one of the reasons the pandemic became as pervasive as it did, taking over all our lives. How did it come to pass that what could have been an unpleasant, even severe, but containable health problem evolved into a civilization-destroying pandemic?

Even now, at this early stage, we must ask the age-old question, cui bono—who benefits? The answer lies in a statement with which we have recently become all too familiar:

“You will own nothing, and you will be happy.”

Happy that COVID is over? Oh, no. Not really. They didn’t mean that.

Many now recognize that sentence for what it is—the marching mantra of the “Great Reset.”

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‘rules for thee, but not for me..   and that goes for prosecution too’

TSA finds firearm in anti-gun California lawmaker’s luggage

Democrat California Assemblyman Jim Cooper, who authored anti “ghost-gun” legislation and receives an F rating from the NRA-ILA, apparently forgot on March 3rd that he had a loaded firearm in his purse. TSA found it during the X-ray screening of his messenger bag, which, according to Cooper’s own office, “looks like a purse.” If you think he got in trouble for this, you’d be sadly mistaken.

According to the NRA ILA:

[Cooper] was not charged during the incident. In fact, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office told the Sacramento Bee that law enforcement stored the discovered firearm for Cooper while he was on his trip and returned the gun to the lawmaker upon his arrival back in Sacramento.

Had you done this in California, you would have been jailed and/or fined. Well, probably.

The official story is that Cooper enjoys some exemption to the California ban on possessing a firearm in the “sterile” area of the airport due to the fact that he’s a retired law enforcement officer. However, bringing it onto a plane in his murse would have been a clear violation of Federal law and it certainly appears that, had TSA not caught his roscoe in his carry-on…well…Cooper had pretty clearly forgotten it was in there.

Additionally, Cooper wasn’t charged under Federal TSA laws for attempting — intentionally or not — to pass a loaded firearm through a security checkpoint, which carries a hefty civil fine up to $10,000 for a first-time offense.

Enjoying special person status and retaining your right to carry a gun in the airport, and attempting to pass a firearm through TSA screening and getting caught but not sanctioned (in fact, accommodated) are pretty far apart on the leniency scale. Looks like anti-gun politician Jim Cooper enjoyed both of these things though he’d undoubtedly lobby to have the book thrown at you.

Der Grëtchënführër™ strikes again (as if this wasn’t expected)

Governor vetoes Theis bill protecting Second Amendment rights
Would have guaranteed issue of concealed pistol licenses during emergencies
LANSING, Mich. — Sen. Lana Theis’ legislation that would have ensured the issuance and renewal of concealed pistol licenses during declared emergencies was vetoed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Friday.

“This is a disappointing day for gun owners,” said Theis, R-Brighton. “The Second Amendment is clear that the rights of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but that is exactly what Gov. Gretchen Whitmer did today.

“People must be able to defend their life and property even, and especially, in times of emergency. State law is clear that county clerks shall issue concealed pistol licenses to those who are qualified, and my bill would have ensured that this essential service would continue regardless of any declared emergency.

“While I am disappointed with Whitmer’s veto, I cannot say that I am shocked. She has never supported gun owners and she likely never will. I hope responsible gun owners will continue their efforts to protect this right. I certainly will.”

Theis fielded numerous complaints throughout the COVID-19 pandemic that county clerks across the state refused or delayed issuing or renewing concealed pistol licenses, infringing on law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights.

Senate Bill 11 would have required county clerks to continue to issue and renew concealed pistol licenses regardless of any shutdown issued by executive order or public health order. County clerks and law enforcement would have also been required to continue providing the fingerprinting services necessary to obtain a new concealed pistol license.

Additionally, the bill would have enabled the Michigan State Police to provide personal identification numbers to concealed pistol license holders, so they may renew their licenses online during any declared emergency.

The Democrats Are Trying to Hide a Very Dirty Secret About Electric Cars

The Left views electric cars like the Rings of Power. It’s predictable but also pathetic. Driving electric cars saves the environment, says the left-wing drone. It emits next to nothing regarding carbon emissions, except that it does. Do liberals think we don’t know that this whole fad is a con game? Where do you think the energy that powers the batteries comes from? Fairies? Electric cars aren’t as efficient as gas-powered vehicles, but you pay more because…of feelings. Screw that. Green energy is a backdoor to communism from greenies who talk more about controlling the means of production than saving Mother Earth. Clean energy is a grift and political crony project aimed at giving fat cat donors tax breaks. Solyndra forever ruined this industry. I don’t care what anyone says, it’s all a long miserable exercise in subsidizing sub-par products.

Coal is what powers your electric car. Do liberals even know that? The very people who mock states like West Virginia don’t seem to know that these areas allow them to drive their precious, overpriced electric cars (via The Federalist):

To advance their climate agenda and deflect backlash about rising gas prices, Democrats are telling Americans that driving electric cars is for the greater good of the environment, fully knowing the charging stations for these cars are not fossil fuel free.

In reality, one of Tesla’s Supercharger stations was reported to get 13 percent of their energy from natural gas and 27 percent from coal. Power plants burn coal to generate electricity to power electric cars and emit a higher fossil fuel footprint than the left would care to admit.

While these vehicles may be falsely advertised, many who invest in these overpriced cars are able to avoid paying the currently outrageous gas prices. Still, Americans’ growing reliance on electric cars and the batteries they require will increase our dependence on countries such as China for materials.

“Chinese companies, particularly CATL, have secured vast supplies of the raw materials that go inside the batteries,” The New York Times reported in December. “That dominance has stirred fears in Washington that Detroit could someday be rendered obsolete, and that Beijing could control American driving in the 21st century the way that oil-producing nations sometimes could in the 20th.”

By increasing our use of electric cars, the United States will require more lithium batteries and will further rely on China to sustain our supply.

Well, isn’t that peachy. Liberals seem to have the yellow fever when it comes to China, or at least they’re a bit kinky when it comes to their wanting to be dominated by this country. Gas prices began to soar when Joe Biden took a hatchet to the Keystone Pipeline and our own oil and gas industry. That’s just a fact.

With the Ukraine war raging now, and sanctions being slapped on Russia for their invasion, the line the Biden White House is selling right now is ‘if you worried about $8/gallon for gas, you should buy a…$50k+ electric car.’ It’s almost too good to be true. You cannot make it up. The Democrats’ plan to ease gas price pain for a large swath of Americans is to force them to buy vehicles they can’t afford. A part of that is due to liberals being idiots. The other part is that it shows how the Democratic Party doesn’t know working people anymore. It’s all urban-based, rich, over-educated, and very white people making these snide remarks. The professional Left is the Democratic Party—and these people view those who drive pick-up trucks as neo-Nazis.

The dirty little secret is that a lot of fossil fuels are used to power the liberal delusions behind their electric car fetish. The Federalist did a great job sifting through the nonsense.

It is an often repeated line that SloJoe has always been on the wrong side of a foreign policy decision even since he set foot in office as a senator

BLUF:
The Arab ministers are telling the US that if it cannot see a terrorist group for what it is, the Arabs are capable of doing so.

The message that many Arabs are sending to Washington is that the appeasement of the mullahs and failure to stand with friends in the Arab world is emboldening the Houthis and other Islamic terrorist groups that are threatening not only Arabs and Muslims, but the US and other Western countries as well.

If the Biden administration and its friends reach a new deal with Iran’s mullahs, we are likely to see more Arabs come out against the US.

Saudi Arabia’s then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Adel al-Jubeir, already warned years ago, “We have made it very clear that if Iran acquires a nuclear capability we will do everything we can to do the same.”

The Arabs consider Iran a lethal threat to their national security and the stability of the entire Middle East and other parts of the world. If the Biden administration is going to align itself with the mullahs, it will lose the support of its Arab and Muslim allies, who feel bitterly betrayed and fear that nuclear weapons will end up in the hands of these very mullahs and their terrorist groups.

A Final Warning from Arabs to Biden

  • In a message directed at the Biden administration and the other Western powers involved in the Vienna negotiations, the Arab countries said that Iran and its terrorist militias are continuing to create chaos and instability, especially in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon.
  • The Arabs, including the Arab League, are telling the Biden administration that, in their view, it is not only Iran that threatens their security, but also its terrorist proxies, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
  • The Arabs are clearly worried about the financial and military aid that Iran is providing to the terrorist groups.
  • Any deal with Iran will further strengthen these groups and encourage them to step up their terrorist attacks.
  • The Arabs are also worried that when Iran obtains nuclear weapons, they will sooner or later find their way into the hands of its terrorist proxies and other terrorist groups, including Islamic State (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda.
  • “This president [Biden] is deaf. He cannot be trusted.” – Ali Al-Sarraf, Iraqi political analyst, Al-Arab, March 12, 2022.
  • If the Biden administration and its friends reach a new deal with Iran’s mullahs, we are likely to see more Arabs come out against the US.
  • “We have made it very clear that if Iran acquires a nuclear capability we will do everything we can to do the same.” — Adel al-Jubeir, then Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs, to CNN, May 9, 2018.
  • The Arabs consider Iran a lethal threat to their national security and the stability of the entire Middle East and other parts of the world. If the Biden administration is going to align itself with the mullahs, it will lose the support of its Arab and Muslim allies, who feel bitterly betrayed and fear that nuclear weapons will end up in the hands of these very mullahs and their terrorist groups.

In what appears to be an eleventh hour and desperate warning to the Biden administration against striking a deal with the Iranian regime, four Arab countries have expressed deep concern over Iran’s ballistic missile program and ongoing support for terrorism.

In a statement issued in Cairo on March 9, the Arab Quartet Committee — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt — said that Iran continues to interfere in the internal affairs of Arab countries and play a role in sowing sectarian discord among them by supporting and arming terrorist groups such as the Houthi and Hezbollah militias.

The statement was issued amid growing concern in some Arab countries, that the US and other Western powers could reach a deal with Iran to revive the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal.

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From earlier;
Yeah, give guns to others but want to take guns from us.

The U.S. will directly transfer the following equipment to the Ukrainian military as part of the latest package, according to a White House fact sheet:

800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems
2,000 Javelin anti-armor missiles
1,000 light anti-armor weapons
6,000 AT-4 anti-armor systems
100 Tactical Unmanned Aerial Systems (armed drones)
7,000 small arms for both military and civilian use (100 grenade launchers, 5,000 rifles, 1,000 pistols, 400 machine guns and 400 shotguns)
Over 20 million rounds of ammunition
25,000 sets of body armor
25,000 helmets

Columbia, SC to roll back gun control amid state threats

Some cities think they should pass gun control measures regardless of what rules the state may have in place. In South Carolina, for example, they have preemption. That means cities are forbidden from trying to have local gun control in place. Columbia, South Carolina seemed to think that rule didn’t apply to them.

Now, they’re trying to roll back the gun control measures they passed so they don’t lose state funding.

Columbia will move forward with repealing a series of gun-control measures after bowing from a court fight with S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson and not wanting a fight with state lawmakers who have the power to fund much-needed city projects.

Columbia, with the backing of then-Mayor Steve Benjamin, passed a series of gun ordinances in 2019 making it illegal to possess firearms within 1,000 feet of a school; allowing gun seizures from people under an extreme risk protection order, commonly known as a “red flag” law; and a rule that added buildings where homemade firearms known as “ghost guns” are constructed to be subject to the city’s nuisance laws.

Wilson sued the city in 2020, arguing that state law preempted local authority on the gun regulations. A Richland County judge sided with Wilson in 2021.

The City Council gave initial approval March 15 to roll back the gun rules in a split vote. Mayor Daniel Rickenmann and council members Aditi Bussells, Howard Duvall and Joe Taylor voted to repeal. Council members Tina Herbert, Ed McDowell and Will Brennan voted against taking the ordinances off of the books.

It seems some of the City Council objected to the idea that they lost the court case. Of course, they did.

The confusion was because the city planned to appeal, but withdrew the appeal the day of the vote. However, that wouldn’t have changed matters in the least. Preemption laws have been upheld time and time again, so there’s no reason to believe South Carolina’s preemption law would have been an exception.

This leads us to what state lawmakers were considering to push the city back on the straight and narrow.

State Rep. Kirkman Finlay, a Columbia Republican and member of the House budget-writing committee, said he urged a city lobbyist and some council members to outright repeal the rules after the deferred vote or risk jeopardizing his ability to secure backing for $170 million the city requested from lawmakers for a number of projects.

At the top of the list is a $35 million request to fix train crossings that can snarl traffic around downtown.…

Finlay has proposed a bill in the House that would allow the state to withhold money for municipalities that do not follow state law.

Frankly, it’s certainly an option that states should at least consider.

See, the problem with far too many preemption laws is that they lack any real teeth. A municipality can pass a gun control law and while it may be illegal, it can linger indefinitely for any number of reasons. Usually, it’s because private citizens lack standing to challenge such a measure unless they’ve been impacted–that often means “arrested”–and if the state opts not to do its job, you get quite the mess.

We’ve seen it happen in Pennsylvania, for example.

Threatening to withhold funding for various projects may be a good incentive to keep places like Columbia from trying to pass their own gun control measures.

Observation O’ The Day
“Most of the West is run by woke morons. The West’s wealth has largely insulated it from the costs associated with having morons in charge, but we’ve pretty much run through the safety margins.”

Scottish Government Ignores Frantic Food Crisis Warnings, Embraces Green Piety.

The Ukraine was the bread basket of Europe, and Russia was a major source of fertiliser. Yet as the interruption of grain and fertiliser supplies raises the spectre of crop failures and severe food shortages, senior British politicians are ignoring frantic pleas from farmers to release arable land reserved for “re-wilding” projects, and other whacky green schemes.

Green Agenda: Minister Ignores Ukraine Food Crisis Warnings in Favour of Solving ‘Nature Emergency’

PETER CADDLE 14 Mar 2022

A UK minister has ignored the pleas of farmers to take action against the forthcoming Ukraine food crisis in favour of maintaining her leftist government’s green agenda.

As the Ukraine crisis causes Europe’s food security situation to significantly worsen, British farmers have asked authorities to allow land earmarked for “rewilding” to be used for crops in the hopes of curbing ever-rising food prices.

However, Scotland’s leftist Biodiversity minister, Lorna Slater, has outright rejected the farmers’ pleas, instead prioritising pushing her government’s green agenda.…

“We want to do as much as we can for nature and the environment, and we have done that for a long time and yes we will do more,” said the president of the National Union of Farmers Scotland, Martin Kennedy.

“But right now the world has changed and we need to focus on what is really important… food and water is something we take for granted far too much,” he warned.

However, despite the serious supply problems the Ukraine crisis poses for Britain’s supply of food, Minister Slater has outright dismissed the request in favour of her administration’s green agenda.

“We are still in a nature emergency that hasn’t gone away… so it’s a no,” Slater is reported as saying in response to the pleas of farmers.…

Read more: https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/03/14/green-agenda-minister-ignores-ukraine-food-crisis-warnings-in-favour-of-solving-nature-emergency/

If you can’t get your hands on enough fertiliser, the next best option is to expand the acreage of cultivated land, to bring every acre of arable land you can get your hands on into production, like Britain did in WW2.

Fertiliser production is an energy intensive process, which is why it has long been outsourced to countries like China and Russia, the number one and two global producers, countries which have plenty of cheap energy. Just under 2% of the world’s global energy production is expended producing ammonia, a first step in the production of agricultural fertiliser. The USA and Canada produce significant amounts of Ammonia, but US and Canadian production is dwarfed by Russian and Chinese production.

The chemical factories which produce ammonia are very large, and contain enormous, multi-story, high pressure reaction vessels. Not something which could be built in five minutes – especially in nations which have also outsourced most of their heavy industry to Russia and China. I fully support starting construction of new fertiliser plants, but plants which have yet to be built won’t solve this year’s problems.

Fertiliser application makes a big difference to crop productivity – around 35 – 60% of modern crop yields is attributable to application of fertiliser. We might get away with one year of reduced fertiliser application, but If soils are depleted by a series of years in which inadequate fertiliser is applied, crop yields could drop by more than 60%.

It doesn’t take much to trigger a food crisis. In 2007-2008 the world experienced a food crisis. The 2007-2008 crisis was not severe enough to significantly affect rich nations, but it led to mass starvation and riots in poor countries. The root cause in that case was a series of droughts, and excessive biofuel subsidies. Just a small blip in production and use of food was enough to push millions of people into hunger.

There is no way of knowing how the current food crisis risk will play out, and who will be affected.

Time is running out to make a decision – northern nations like Britain have very well defined planting and growing seasons. Some high nutrition plants like potatoes grow well throughout Britain, including Scotland, but planting must start in the next month, for most crops, or it will be too late to harvest by the end of Summer.

I strongly suggest people in Britain let green obsessives like Minister Lorna Slater know their “nature emergencies” and re-wilding projects can wait, before British food prices spiral out of the reach of poor people.

We are ‘led’ by the literally mentally defective

Biden’s Remarks at ‘Equal Pay’ Event Were a Gaffe-Filled Dumpster Fire

The White House hosted a Women’s History Month event on Tuesday evening to highlight the left’s ‘Equal Pay Day’ but President Biden apparently decided to make an attempt at breaking the record for how many gaffes he could spit out during his 14 minute remarks.

Right out of the gate, President Biden sought to explain who wasn’t appearing at the event with him saying “there’s been a little change in the arrangement of who’s on the stage because of the First Lady’s husband contracted COVID, but look at this room and what you see,” Biden stated before someone off-stage in the White House pointed out that the “First Lady’s husband” is…Joe Biden. Uncomfortable laughter from the crowd followed as Biden said “that’s right, she’s fine, that’s me that’s not together.” No kidding.

Biden continued by referring to Doug Emhoff as “the Second Lady” before correcting himself with (also wrong) “First Gentleman,” listing two additional incorrect monikers for Kamala Harris’ husband who is in fact the Second Gentleman and not the husband of the president nor the vice president’s wife, nor a lady.

But Biden’s nomenclature challenges didn’t end there. In a line about his U.N. ambassador, the president incorrectly called her “Linda Thomas-Greenhouse,” before correcting himself and using her actual name Linda Thomas-Greenfield. Biden was reading from his teleprompter at this point and, assuming the White House knows the name of the ambassador to the United Nations, Biden should have trusted the words scrolling in front of his eyes. It also wasn’t the first time Biden incorrectly called her “Greenhouse.”

Then, when telling one of his classic freewheeling anecdotes, Biden tripped himself up talking about his Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. “I often kid her, and I wasn’t kidding, early on when I was seeking the nomination had she been born in America she’d be standing here and I’d be sitting there,” Biden said.

“She was a former governor of the state of, uh, Michigan. Michigan, wrong,” Biden said incorrectly fact-checking himself in real-time. “She was a former state of, she was a governor. I’m teasing.” Biden was, of course, right the first time. But he incorrectly corrected himself, called Granholm a former state, and then decided to write the situation off as “teasing.” Hoo-boy.

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Biden Blames the Jews for His Ukraine Policy
The president and his people try to seal a new Iran deal by hanging their appeasement of Putin on Israel

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was precipitated by assurances from China, Germany, and the United States that each of Russia’s major trading partners either backed his position or had zero interest in getting in his way. President Joe Biden’s invitations to Putin to bite off more chunks of Ukraine made it clear that America was not interested in a fight with the Russian dictator in his own backyard. Surely, the mighty Putin would make quick work of the Ukrainians. After all, he helped put down the Syrian rebellion to preserve Iran’s stake in Syria, and thereby sealed Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with the clerical regime in Tehran. So why make a big fuss, especially since at the same time Putin is intent on breaking Ukraine, he is also brokering the new Iran Deal with U.S. negotiators in Vienna?

The problem for Biden is that Putin is not winning his war in anything like the quick and easy fashion that the White House and other world powers apparently expected. Moreover, the prospect of a dictator murdering thousands of Ukrainians in Europe in a prolonged war may be a tougher pill to swallow for so-called Western elites than the same dictator helping to murder half a million Syrians.

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You have his word as a Biden.

Biden pledges: We won’t fight a war against Russia in Ukraine.

A leftover from Friday. Hawks are complaining about this statement on grounds that it implicitly invites Putin to grab any non-NATO country he likes and to pummel Ukraine into submission using whatever conventional means he can muster.

 

BLUF:
The problem, in an age of political polarization, is that about 40% of the population will automatically believe anything a Democrat tells them, even if it contradicts the most basic principles of economics, and there is a vast media establishment which won’t even question Biden’s bizarre counterfactual claims about inflation, energy policy, etc. All that matters to them is the cynical question, “Cui bono?” Who benefits from a particular belief — Democrats or Republicans?……..

Thus does “truth” become a partisan prize, over which one party claims a monopoly. By selling their souls to advance this belief system, the media destroy their own credibility. Then they wonder why we don’t trust them.

‘Simply Not True.

Joe Biden believes he is honest, and that anyone who disagrees with him is lying, or is ignorant, or has been deceived by liars.

So deeply convinced is Joe Biden of his own honesty that he thinks his very name is synonymous with truth-telling:

“I give you my word as a Biden: I will never stoop to President Trump’s level.”
— Nov. 20, 2019

“I give you my word as a Biden: If I am elected president I will do everything in my power to protect our children from gun violence.”
— March 10, 2020

“I give you my word as a Biden: When I’m president, I will lead with science, listen to the experts and heed their advice, and always tell you the truth.”
— March 18, 2020

When I first noticed him using this “my word as a Biden” phrase during the 2020 campaign, I was puzzled. Has the Biden family been so prominently associated with honesty that when Joe says this, most Americans say, “Well, that settles it”? Of course not. In fact, Biden’s first presidential campaign, in 1988, collapsed in disgrace specifically because of Joe’s dishonesty, when he was caught plagiarizing others — most notably British Labour leader Ne0l Kinnock — in his speeches:

Democratic presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden Jr., a U.S. senator from Delaware, was driven from the nomination battle after delivering, without attribution, passages from a speech by British Labor party leader Neil Kinnock. A barrage of subsidiary revelations by the press also contributed to Biden’s withdrawal: a serious plagiarism incident involving Biden during his law school years; the senator’s boastful exaggerations of his academic record at a New Hampshire campaign event; and the discovery of other quotations in Biden’s speeches pilfered from past Democratic politicians.

Joe Biden lies about a lot of things, including his own biography. It is fair to say he is notoriously dishonest, and yet he seems to believe that nobody knows this, and that he enjoys a reputation as a truth-teller.

[Well, that ‘he seems to believe’ goes along with the delusions of senile dementia and SloJoe believing his own propaganda. Sucks for us to have a Commander In Chief who for the time, is no more than a meat puppet, It makes you wonder what might happen if one day Joe decides that his handlers are wrong and he’s going to do something other than what they want him to, and Jill – and the secret service – decide to back him up.]

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