Category: Observation O’ The Day

Oservation O’ The Day

” ‘It’s the guns. It’s always been the guns,’ said Lisa Geller, a public health researcher at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins University.”

Adapting the quoted logic…
The US obesity problem is “the forks, it’s always been the forks.”
Distracted driving deaths are “the phones, it’s always been the phones.”

Hmmm… that makes the action the fault of an inanimate object rather than the person wielding the object.

That’s literally the logic from someone at Johns Hopkins.
What an absurd and obviously flawed way to spin the problem statement.

A child shot his teacher, a 72-year-old man opened fire in public: Here’s what that tells us about guns in America.

A 6-year-old student. A 72-year-old man.

They are two people separated by decades and thousands of miles, but united in one tragic fact: Both made national news in January after authorities said they committed horrific gun violence.

The contrast – like many facts about America’s gun violence problem – is both striking and predictable. This doesn’t happen in other countries, experts say. It happens much more frequently in the U.S., but often hidden from public view. Children, in particular, are far more likely to shoot themselves, a friend or family member accidentally, usually inside a home.

“It’s the guns. It’s always been the guns,” said Lisa Geller, a public health researcher at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at Johns Hopkins University.

While other wealthy countries have similar levels of interpersonal violence, the United States stands alone when it comes to shootings. An average of 110 Americans die daily from gun violence, far above the rate of gun deaths for any comparable nation. The U.S. has about 12 gun deaths for every 100,000 residents, almost four times the rate of the next-highest country, Switzerland, according to experts.

GunFreeZone Blog

I have a theory why it feels like everything is getting worse (because it is). It’s deliberate and malicious.

For millennia, the gap in quality of life between the elite of society (the nobility) and the peasants was enormous.
The quality, quantity, and diversity of food, clothing, and other luxuries they had was unmatched by the peasants who lived in squalor and starvation.

But the advent of technology and capitalism changed that. In the last 200 years, the peasants have been playing catch-up.
The quality of life of the average person has increased greatly, closing the gap between the peasants and the elite. The average person lives better than a king two centuries ago, ample food, closets full of clothes, comfortable housing, the ability to travel the world.

This drives the elite mad. How dare we the people live a quality of life nearly as good as they do. Sure they can do things like afford $100 steaks at fancy restaurants, but does it taste 10x better than the $10 steak you can afford?
They have a luxury brand car, but the comforts of it are not substantially better than the comforts that come in a new middle-class car (Bluetooth infotainment, heated everything, etc.). It is an affront to them that you can live almost as well as they do.

They need to look down on us. They need to feel elevated over us. So they have been systematically reversing the trend of the last 200 years to increase the quality of life gap between us and them. They want to make us poorer so they can feel their wealth more acutely.

Their fancy home and nice steak will taste better to them when you live in a shoebox apartment pod with limited climate control heating your synthetic bug protein steak over ab electric range.

Understand that this is the whole reason for the existence of exclusive brands. Their products are not better, their value comes from only a small group being able to buy them. They want quality of life to be exclusive to the elite so it’s more precious to them.

You are being made to suffer on purpose.

Observation O’ The Day
The law — and the DOJ — only protects people the Administration likes.
That’s been made quite clear.

DOJ Official Admits Targeting Pro-Lifers Is Response to Overturn of Roe.

The Justice Department has been targeting pro-life activists through the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act as a response to the overturn of Roe v. Wade, according to Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta.

Gupta delivered remarks at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division’s 65th Anniversary earlier this month. The associate attorney general described the overturn of Roe v. Wade as a “devastating blow to women throughout the country” that took away “the constitutional right to abortion” and increased “the urgency” of the DOJ’s work—including the “enforcement of the FACE Act, to ensure continued lawful access to reproductive services.”

She did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Daily Signal.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division enforces the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which “prohibits threats of force, obstruction and property damage intended to interfere with reproductive health care services.”

It protects both pro-life pregnancy centers and abortion clinics, as a DOJ official noted to Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, last week.

At least 98 Catholic churches and 77 pregnancy resource centers and other pro-life organizations have been attacked since May, but the DOJ has apparently not charged a single person in connection with these attacks. Meanwhile, the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has charged 26 pro-life individuals with FACE Act violations this year.

The DOJ has not responded to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment on this point.

Pregnancy resource centers are typically run by pro-life women who seek to offer expectant mothers alternatives to abortion. Such centers provide diapers, baby clothes, and resources for both mothers and fathers, empowering them to care for their child, overcome addictions, build community, and find jobs.

Observation O’ The Day

While magazines in general are necessary to the use of firearms for self-defense, Plaintiffs have not shown, at this stage, that magazines specifically capable of accepting more than ten rounds of ammunition are necessary to the use of firearms for self-defense.

Oh look, we’re making up our own test now to allow a gun law. “Necessary” is not the test dictated in Bruen.

 

Oregon 114 get the brakes applied

Observation O’ The Day

One of two scenarios is possible:

1) Katherine Clark is lying about her child’s experiences to stoke hysteria around climate change for political gain.

2) She aggressively instilled unjust fear into her child, causing them to lose sleep over a political talking point.

We hope it’s the former for the sake of the child. Sincerely.

Indeed, but door number two is a distinct possibility:
Progressives Against Progress. [from the summer of 2010!]

The rise of environmentalism poisoned liberals’ historical optimism. “Crankery, in short, became respectable. In 1972, Sir John Maddox, editor of the British journal Nature, noted that though it had once been usual to see maniacs wearing sandwich boards that proclaimed the imminent end of the Earth, they had been replaced by a growing number of frenzied activists and politicized scientists making precisely the same claim.

In the years since then, liberalism has seen recurring waves of such end-of-days hysteria. These waves have shared not only a common pattern but often the same cast of characters. Strangely, the promised despoliations are most likely to be presented as imminent when Republicans are in the White House. In each case, liberals have argued that the threat of catastrophe can be averted only through drastic actions in which the ordinary political mechanisms of democracy are suspended and power is turned over to a body of experts and supermen.”

–Ed Driscoll

Maybe the World Economic Forum globalists are behind it, maybe not. What is certain is the just-released “Died Suddenly” documentary presents abundant data and disturbing testimony from doctors, journalists, military figures, funeral directors and embalmers that lots of vaccinated people are dying suddenly and with strange fibrous blockages in their arteries and veins. What the hell is going on?- Mark Tapscott

 

Observation O’ The Day

Hi 97 Percent Team,

Thank you for putting on yesterday’s conference. I am a gun owner and member of the firearm community based in Chicago. I share your desire to decrease gun deaths and find common ground. As a sign of my good faith intentions, I recently put on a Safe Storage presentation with a Moms Demand Action representative for our school community despite vehemently disagreeing with their public policy platform.

I feel that the strongest part of yesterday’s presentation was the Hot Button Topics discussion between Amy Swearer and Fred Guttenberg. I am still shocked that Fred wold be willing to sit down with Amy. More conversations like that need to happen where each side sits down with one another to try and have good faith conversations.

I am writing after watching the entirety of yesterday’s presentation. I watched because I was interested in what the panel, which included elected officials and other policy makers, would put forward as give and take compromises to get the gun community onboard. Unfortunately I feel as if it was a hugely blown opportunity on the whole as zero policy compromises were put forward by any of the speakers except Dr. Seigel.

Many members of the gun community showed up to watch in the hopes that we may have found a partner where we could work together. Instead we were shown a parade of speakers who have all publically asked for or voted recently for assault weapons bans. Governor Roy Cooper, Rep Moulton, Rep Dean, are all elected officials who have publicly pushed for bans and made clear yesterday that not only are they unwilling to remove these bans (despite the organization’s stated policy as presented by Michael Seigel) but rather they said explicitly that they are just waiting for the opportunity to have the votes to pass it in Congress. Congressman Moulton even threw in the usual talking point about shooting deer with AR-15s and needing better aim. Is insulting comments REALLY how you intend to find common ground with the majority of responsible gun owners who train to use their firearms not for hunting, but to defend themselves and family? Our supposed “voice at the table” Former Rep Walsh put forward no push back but rather spent most of the panel virtue signaling his hatred of the NRA (who we all hate too btw). There was not one word, not one proposal that was put forward as a give-and-take compromise with the gun community. That first panel lost many of us but I continued watching.

Former Schumer aid Emily Amick’s social media is full of video clips demonizing gun owners who own AR-15s, calling for an end to the filibuster to push gun ban proposals, and glowing videos of Congressman Cellini saying “spare me the constiutional right bull sh*t.” How was including her, who again has shown no sign of willing to compromise on any policy, intended on getting buy in from the gun community?

What was the point of allowing WH Assistant Stefanie Feldman to read a 5 minute speech about Biden’s domestic policy, including once again her emphasizing that he wants to ban assault weapons and if you don’t agree with the ban then you don’t actually care about crime? Again not one word about compromises that the administration is willing to make with the gun community.

The gun community has a huge amount of respect for Stephen Guttowski and I am glad you included him in the discussion. Stephen’s method and podcasts, calmly discussing the DETAILS of firearm policy and law should be how 97 Percent moves forward in discussions with the gun community.

Unfortunately I’m not sure your organization will get the chance after yesterday’s conference as much credibility was lost. You simply cannot parade out a bunch of speakers, many of whom are board members, who have publically been strong advocates of gun bans and then ask us to trust your organization because…… your official platform says you don’t want an assault weapons ban? We all remember Conor Lamb campaigning with video of him shooting an AR-15 and then voting to ban them this year.

Richard Aborn (instrumental proponent of 94 AWB), Rep Steve Israel (proponent of AWB and on recent 97% podcast spoke favorable of NY’s Bruen-response bill and explained his idea of compromise as “getting 60% rather than 100%” of gun control policies he wants), and Rep Moulton (who’s service I respect yet again just voted for an AWB), are all prominent members of your board. Why should the gun community trust you???

So when will the gun community trust you? When you come forward with REAL policy compromises as well as fight to overturn abusive laws. We want to stand shoulder to shoulder with you in calling out California’s Handgun Roster or New York’s post-Bruen concealed carry restrictions. We are willing to discuss federal Universal background checks in exchange for national concealed carry reciprocity. A federal license (with training perhaps!) in exchange for not needing FFL NICS checks for transfers. These were the types of discussions we were expecting when we showed up to watch yesterday. The ONLY person who in good faith touched on any of this was Dr. Siegel.

I will end with a humorous fictional story written about someone attending the conference in-person that is circulating among the gun community.

https://hwfo.substack.com/p/ninety-seven-percent

I hope your organization will take this criticism to heart and revamp how you plan on engaging in good faith with the firearm community. Many of us are still willing to talk, but not just about how much we are willing to give up in exchange for nothing.

Best,
David Rice
Chicago

An friend terms posts like this übërpösts™ (in other words: It’s looong)
I’ll append commentary and observations from around the net.

Observation O’ The Day
It’s a look into the smartest minds of the enemy. Joe Huffman

The Ad Industry’s Plan to Fix America’s Gun Crisis

If you want a crude sketch of the biggest corporate players in a given year of TV, look no further than the Emmy Award for best commercial. Twenty-five years of winners form an ensemble cast of petty bourgeois preoccupations: Nike, Chrysler, Bud Light. This year’s nominees included a commercial for Meta (the artist formerly known as Facebook), one for Chevy (repping the still-muscular auto spend), two for Apple (a perennial contender), and two for the prevention of school shootings—one of which won the Emmy.

PSAs Killed Cigarettes. Can They Help End Gun Violence?

PSAs Killed Cigarettes. Can They Help End Gun Violence?© Getty; The Atlantic

Continue reading “”

It’s apparent now that he’s considered expendable.

Observation O’ The Day
The media bail on Biden:

All polling points to Biden’s majorities in the House and Senate being wiped out come the November midterm elections. When that happens, and I mean the very next day, these innuendos and grumblings for Biden to step aside will become full-bore primal screams, and he won’t be able to survive them.

-Stephen L. Miller

CNN Crushes President Joe Biden With Fact Check.

It may not be something that CNN watchers are used to seeing, but President Joe Biden got hammered by a fact check from the network.

“Gas prices weren’t over $5 when Biden took office. The Social Security hike isn’t a Biden achievement. The Trump tax cut didn’t ‘only’ go to the top 1%. Biden didn’t cut the debt in half. Biden didn’t get Congress to pass a law to forgive student debt,” CNN fact checker Daniel Dale said.

“The unemployment rate. Biden said at the Florida rally on Tuesday: ‘Unemployment is down from 6.5 to 3.5%, the lowest in 50 years.’ He said at the New Mexico rally on Thursday: ‘Unemployment rate is 3.5% – the lowest it’s been in 50 years.

“But Biden didn’t acknowledge that September’s 3.5% unemployment rate was actually a tie for the lowest in 50 years – a tie, specifically, with three months of Trump’s administration, in late 2019 and early 2020,” the fact checker said.

“Since Biden uses these campaign speeches to favorably compare his own record to Trump’s record, that omission is significant.

“The unemployment rate rose to 3.7% in October; that number was revealed on Friday, after these Biden comments. The rate was 6.4% in January 2021, the month Biden took office,” he said.

Biden’s student debt policy

“During an on-camera discussion conducted by progressive organization NowThis News and published online in late October, Biden told young activists that they ‘probably are aware, I just signed a law’ on student debt forgiveness that is being challenged by Republicans.

“He added: ‘It’s passed. I got it passed by a vote or two, and it’s in effect.’

“Biden’s claims are false,” he said.

“He created his student debt forgiveness initiative through executive action, not through legislation, so he didn’t sign a law and didn’t get it passed by any margin.

“Since Republicans opposed to the initiative, including those challenging the initiative in court, have called it unlawful precisely because it wasn’t passed by Congress, the distinction between a law and an executive action is a highly pertinent fact here,” the fact checker said.

“A White House official told CNN that Biden was referring to the Inflation Reduction Act, the law narrowly passed by the Senate in August; the official said the Inflation Reduction Act created “room for other crucial programs” by bringing down the deficit. But Biden certainly did not make it clear that he was talking about anything other than the student debt initiative” he said.

Gas prices

“Biden correctly noted on various occasions in October that gas prices have declined substantially since their June 2022 peak – though, as always, it’s important to note that presidents have a limited impact on gas prices.

“But in an economic speech in New York last week, Biden said, ‘Today, the most common price of gas in America is $3.39 – down from over $5 when I took office.’

“Biden’s claim that the most common gas price when he took office was more than $5 is not even close to accurate,” the fact checker said.

“The most common price for a gallon of regular gas on the day he was inaugurated, January 20, 2021, was $2.39, according to data provided to CNN by Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.

“In other words, Biden made it sound like gas prices had fallen significantly during his presidency when they had actually increased significantly,” he said.

“In other recent remarks, Biden has discussed the state of gas prices in relation to the summer peak of more than $5 per gallon, not in relation to when he took office.

“Regardless, the comment last week was the second this fall in which Biden inaccurately described the price of gas – both times in a way that made it sound more impressive,” he said.

But the president may be getting desperate as on Saturday, polling analysis publication FiveThirtyEight changed its Senate forecast from a “toss-up” to leaning Republican, Newsmax reported.

At president, the analyst firm lists Republican chances of winning the Senate at 55 in 100 versus Democrats retaining control at 45 in 100.

The new predictions come after the outlet reported on Monday: “Herschel Walker’s scandals may hurt his chances against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. Meanwhile, Democrats are hoping to pick up a seat in Pennsylvania, but that race has gotten a lot tighter recently.”

“Other Senate races are competitive but have identifiable favorites. For instance, strong Democratic incumbents currently have an edge in Arizona and New Hampshire. And the Senate races in North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin are also close but will likely result in Republican winners,” the outlet also added.

Observation O’ The Day

So Team Brandon will stop endlessly printing money to reduce inflation? As Milton Friedman has said, “Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.”

We technically are in a recession, but Biden and many in the DNC-MSM have been holding off on actually calling it that so that they can wait until there’s a GOP majority to blame. But Biden’s crankery is the mirror image version of what Virginia Postrel dubbed in December of 2008, “Depression Lust, and Depression Porn,” when Obama-worshipping Democratic Party operatives with bylines wanted American to get it good and hard, so that Obama could enter into office as the next FDR conquering the Depression. -Ed Driscoll

Biden slams Republicans ‘rooting for a recession’ after last jobs report before election.

President Joe Biden accused Republicans of “rooting for a recession” in a statement on the final pre-election jobs report.

Friday’s report is the last major economic statistic before Election Day in a race where voters’ financial worries appear to be tilting the balance toward Republicans.

Citing historically low unemployment, a growing economy, and lower gas prices, Biden said the report “shows that our jobs recovery remains strong.”

The White House has downplayed concern of a recession on the horizon despite high inflation, slowing labor force participation, and wage growth year-over-year.

On Friday, Biden said that the “comments by Republican leadership sure seem to indicate they are rooting for a recession.”

“As long as I’m president, I’m not going to accept an argument that the problem is that too many Americans are finding good jobs,” Biden said. The president has attempted to draw a contrast with Republicans as polls indicate that key groups of voters are unhappy with the White House’s handling of the economy.

Yet Biden acknowledged rising prices Friday as the country’s “top economic challenge,” vowing “to do what it takes” to bring these down.

“I know that American families are feeling squeezed,” he said.

In October, the economy added 261,000 jobs, a higher-than-expected number amid the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes. Yet the unemployment rate rose slightly to 3.7%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed on Friday.

The figures are expected to be closely scrutinized as voters head to the polls next week and Democrats attempt to defend their congressional majorities after two years in office.

Observation O’ The Day:

Interesting!
This appears to be applicable to Markley’s Law. Liberals attack the masculinity of their political opponents because they view that as an extremely potent attack—as it would be against themselves. They are insecure about their manhood and they imagine the same of their political opponents.
As frequently suspected, projection is strong with these people.—Joe

His brain is acting like a computer with defective RAM.

Observation O’ The Day
Given how much editing NBC and its sister networks must do to get usable footage of Biden, that they allowed this to air could be a preview of how the networks will start treating him post-midterms. –Ed Driscoll

Awkward! Zoned-out Biden, 79, gives excruciating pause when MSNBC host asked if Jill wants him to run again in 2024 — before dodging question by saying First Lady thinks he’s doing ‘important work.’

 

If you can’t clearly define a federal power, then it should not exist until you can. One of the bedrock principles of our constitution is supposed to be that federal powers are limited and defined. If you can’t limit it and define it, it’s not a federal power. -Glenn Reynolds

The Sackett Oral Argument and the Problem of Defining “Waters of the United States”
The justices wrestled with the problem of identifying a clear, coherent, and administrable definition to constrain federal regulatory jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act.

Yesterday the Supreme Court opened October Term 2022 with oral argument in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency, a case in which the Court is asked (once again) to clarify the scope of federal regulatory authority over wetlands under the Clean Water Act (CWA).  In previous posts I discussed the issues in the case, the cert grant, and the decision below.

If oral argument was any indication, the justices recognize the need for greater regulatory certainty, but also recognize the difficulty in drawing a clear line to demarcate where “waters of the United States” end and non-federal waters or lands begin. Much of the argument focused on precisely this question, causing the justices to explore the meaning of the word “adjacent,” as the Court previously upheld the EPA and Army Corps’ authority over wetlands adjacent to navigable waters in United States v. Riverside Bayview Homes, perhaps the high-water mark of Court acquiescence to broad assertions of federal regulatory power under the CWA. Accordingly, the justices considered whether “adjacent wetlands” must be physically connected to navigable waters, must be neighboring to such waters, or must merely be nearby, and most seemed unconvinced with the answers they received from the advocates.

Continue reading “”

It’s the ongoing conflict between centrally planned and free markets. Or the zero-sum versus non zero-sum mindset. There exist people who crave and even insist on control. These people believe there MUST be someone, organization, or something in control. They are certain they and the world are a better place if control is exerted over a wide set of peoples action.

Some people believe the world would be a better place if most property and (possibly “or” instead of “and”, but this would be rare when you get down to the details) economic decisions are controlled by some supposedly superior being. This superior being is typically a government controlled by a committee and/or a dictator. These people fall in a spectrum that can generally be considered socialist to communist.

Some people believe the world would be a better place if social position and activity decisions (particularly sexual behaviors) are controlled by some supposedly superior being. This superior being is typically a government controlled or at least guided by a set of religious leaders. These people fall in a spectrum that can generally be considered democratic theists, many monarchists, to theocrats.

In the more general case people can be classified as being on a scale from anarchist to authoritarian. Here I am referring to the somewhat less common definition of anarchist as the organization of society on the basis of voluntary cooperation, without political institutions or hierarchical government rather than a state of disorder and chaos.

All social organizations have tradeoff. And under various situations some organizational types are vastly superior to others. For example an anarchist society does not do well against a communist society in search of hosts to satisfy their parasitic requirements. Yet, not too far up the spectrum from anarchist a society with government formed for the protection can economically and technologically, hence militarily defeat a similarly sized society near the authoritarian end of the spectrum.

I find our current political climate annoying because, as Robb indirectly points out above, a frightening number of people are demanding “progress” toward authoritarian government. There is actually a “sweet spot”, by many measures of societal “health”, which lies far closer to the anarchist end of the scale. This is an old, and mostly ignored, observation. History appears to be nearing another catastrophic rhyme.— Joe Huffman

Observation O’ The Day

There is a new trend, and it is battlespace prep. In both the US and Canada there is now a coordinated effort by the political/MSM class to portray every kind of dissent from secular progressive authoritarianism as nothing less than violent insurrection and terrorism. In the Canadian media, people who object to vaccine mandates have been promoted from Nazis to a vast network of violent insurrectionists. In the US, we are told that people angry about the Mar-A-Lago raid are about to commence terrorist actions against civilians, even using dirty bombs.

How Extremist Gun Culture Is Trying to Co-Opt the Rosary
Why are sacramental beads suddenly showing up next to AR-15s online?

Just as the AR-15 rifle has become a sacred object for Christian nationalists in general, the rosary has acquired a militaristic meaning for radical-traditional (or “rad trad”) Catholics. On this extremist fringe, rosary beads have been woven into a conspiratorial politics and absolutist gun culture. These armed radical traditionalists have taken up a spiritual notion that the rosary can be a weapon in the fight against evil and turned it into something dangerously literal.

Their social-media pages are saturated with images of rosaries draped over firearms, warriors in prayer, Deus Vult (“God wills it”) crusader memes, and exhortations for men to rise up and become Church Militants. Influencers on platforms such as Instagram share posts referencing “everyday carry” and “gat check” (gat is slang for “firearm”) that include soldiers’ “battle beads,” handguns, and assault rifles. One artist posts illustrations of his favorite Catholic saints, clergy, and influencers toting AR-15-style rifles labeled SANCTUM ROSARIUM alongside violently homophobic screeds that are celebrated by social-media accounts with thousands of followers.

Continue reading “”