Pelosi rips up Trump speech at conclusion of State of the Union
Just another show of demoncrap utter disrespect.
“All they have to do is not act crazy” and they can’t even do that.
I would expect to see that idiotic stunt in several of Trump’s campaign ads this fall.
“Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad”
—Prometheus in The Masque of Pandora
.@SpeakerPelosi tears up of State of the Union speech.#SOTU #SOTU2020 pic.twitter.com/sIpi4G7KsL
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 5, 2020
The People Who Want To Run The U.S. Economy Can’t Run A Simple Caucus
Today, I broke my morning routine. Normally I shower, dress, wake kids, brush teeth, and make coffee before I pick up my phone. This morning I couldn’t wait. I had to see the results of the Iowa caucus. Unfortunately, we still don’t have them. There were, um, issues.
“A systemwide disaster,” said Derek Eadon, a former Iowa Democratic Party chairman, speaking more bluntly to The New York Times.
It’s fair to say everyone is still trying to figure out what happened. There were problems involving the new app the Iowa Democratic Party rolled out to help report results, although it’s unclear if the issue was with the app, as The New York Post reports, or user error, as the Times reports. (Precinct captains apparently were not trained on the app.)
News reports make it clear there were suspicions there would be app problems, so there was a backup plan: phone in results to state party headquarters. That failed, too.
A precinct captain, on live TV with CNN, was hung up on while trying to report voting results. A party chair who also had problems phoning in results took pictures of the vote and directed his executive director to drive them to Iowa Democratic Party headquarters in Des Moines. She was turned away. It’s clear that some data got reported, while other data did not, which led to at least three different sets of voting results.
“We found inconsistencies,” admitted Iowa Democratic Party Communications Director Mandy McClure. “In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail to validate that all results match and ensure that we have confidence and accuracy in the numbers we report.”
Now there are whispers of conspiracy, as Sen. Bernie Sanders appeared poised for a stunning victory. There is talk that Iowa will now lose its precious spot as the first caucus. While problems always get magnified in the modern news cycle, everyone pretty much agrees last night was a disaster.
The meltdown in Iowa serves as a useful reminder: systems are complicated. We often forget that. We show up at the grocery store and shelves are packed and there’s fresh meat and produce. We need a lift and we pull out our phone and press a button; an Uber shows up. Our car makes a weird sound, and we drop it off and the mechanic takes care of it.
All of this happens on its own. No one is directing the mechanic to be open and service my car. The Uber driver isn’t giving me a lift out of altruism. The grocery store owner doesn’t have fresh produce brought in every morning because she knows how much I love organic peaches right off the tree.
The mechanic, grocery owner, and Uber driver are part of a vast, complicated system that operates with an efficiency the human mind cannot fathom. It’s a system that is directed by no one, and it involves billions of people working in invisible concert. Acting in their own interests, they serve the whole.
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest,” the economist Adam Smith famously observed in “The Wealth of Nations.” “We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.”
Last night, Iowa caucus goers were voting on a field of candidates that contains many who are seeking to vastly expand government control of health care, wages, emissions, agriculture, education, finance, and many other parts of the U.S. economy.
It’s amusing to see candidates who have the hubris to claim they possess the knowledge to effectively regulate an entire economy are running for president in a party that appears unable to effectively manage a simple caucus. A rich irony indeed.
Why the Left Really Wants to Kill America
The century-long attempt to kill capitalism in America gained a dramatic head of steam in the 1960s with the rapid ascendency of progressivism, a Marxist movement that would quietly seize control of the Democratic Party over the last half-century.
Which was something different. For most of America’s 244-year history, the dominant political parties that evolved had a common goal constantly working to improve the country they both loved. In the 1860s, a Republican president went to war to end slavery. A century later, a Democratic president launched another well-intentioned war, a war on poverty. Democrats and Republicans alike largely saw their country as a force for good, both at home and abroad. Beginning in the 1960s, that widely- shared view began to show cracks as the progressive movement began tightening its grip on the modern Democratic Party. Democrat icons of the 1960s — Adlai Stevenson, Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Sam Nunn, Hubert Humphrey and JFK, to name a few — were genuine patriots who loved their country, a sentiment that was shared by a large majority of that era’s rank and file Democrats. Such is no longer the case. Here are four ways Democrats are looking to end the idea of America altogether:
Killing America by replacing patriotism with socialism
In October 2018, The New York Times reported that 69% of progressive Democrats are ashamed of being American. Increasingly influenced by the progressive wing of their party, Democrats as a whole have moved sharply away from that love of country, and veered toward socialism that sounded like communism: In February 2019, Public Opinion Strategies found that an astounding 77% of Democrats who plan to vote in 2020 self-identify as socialists. Aided and abetted by the complicit mainstream media, the modern Democratic Party has been remarkably successful at driving down patriotism: Gallup found that less than a third of Democrats are extremely proud of their country. That’s less than a third, and trending sharply downward.
Killing America by making citizenship meaningless
Why has the modern Democratic Party worked so diligently to erode patriotism? Because love of country is a major impediment to convincing voters to support what they really want, which is yielding their nation’s sovereignty to an international governing body, ultimately the United Nations. With patriotism marginalized, a society’s populace can more easily be led to no longer see themselves as citizens of their country, but as “citizens of the world.” (In his July 2008 speech in Berlin, progressive presidential candidate Barack Obama told an adoring crowd of 200,000 cheering Europeans, “I come to you as a Citizen of the World.”)
In Europe, the long-standing national identity of every progressive-run nation is already being intentionally erased, and it stands as a sort of bellwether of things to come over here.
Government-encouraged mass migration is its instrument, and the same thing is being attempted in America by the modern Democratic Party. This particular phenomenon is particularly associated with billionaire globalist George Soros. The Hungarian-born “stateless statesman” is the most prolific financier of the progressive push for a world without borders.
In his anti-capitalist best-seller, The Crisis of Global Capitalism, Soros sets out the progressive strategy. Complaining bitterly about “the sway of sovereign nations,” Soros has advocated for, and since spent immense sums each year fostering “open society alliances” among sovereign nations. The goal of these alliances is to indoctrinate citizens of western nations to accept the high-mindedness of doing away with national identities in favor of a collectivist world identity. With national identities erased, people no longer see themselves as patriotic citizens of their countries, but as united citizens of an enlightened global society. People who oppose the unfettered influx of migrants and refugees are shouted down as racists and xenophobes. Once open-border alliances have been solidified, the last obstacle is cleared for a borderless world governed by the UN. For global governance to become a reality, the sovereignty of every western nation, including America, must be eliminated, Soros believes.
When the election of Donald Trump dealt a calamitous setback to the near-term realization of fundamentally transforming America, Soros penned an angry rant comparing Trump to Hitler, and calling him a racist and a xenophobe. Known as “the puppet master” because of the enormous influence he exerts on Democratic Party hierarchy, Soros’s foremost target in taking down sovereign western democracies is the crown jewel of them all: the United States of America. In working toward the culmination of that takedown, the billionaire globalist mastermind has powerful allies at the highest levels of the modern Democratic Party.
Killing America through identity politics
To overthrow a capitalist society, The Communist Manifesto calls for fomenting a titanic struggle by pitting an alleged victim class against an alleged oppressor class. In the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks rose to power by pitting the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.
Over the last half-century, the Democratic Party has taken the concept of Marxist/Leninist dialectical struggle to new heights through its use of identity politics. The term refers to politically subdividing the electorate into multiple factions (voting blocks), whose members are told they are singled out for persecution by a bigoted and unjust society. To wit: People of color are persecuted by racists & white supremacists, women by sexists & misogynists, refugees & illegal immigrants by nativists & xenophobes, Muslims by Islamophobes, gays & lesbians by homophobes & religious bigots, the 99% by the 1%, and so on. The goal of identity politics is to turn a majority of the American electorate against their country.
The self-serving narrative of identity politics is that caring, inclusive and tolerant Democrats will righteously defend the members (voters) of each identity group from the constant onslaught of outrages inflicted on them by an oppressive society. Identity politics is used as a political bludgeon to deceive Americans into believing their country is an incurably unjust place where things can be set straight only by killing off its existing economic and governing systems.
That is the observed pattern and it’s important. It tells us why the 2020 elections will determine whether our free market Republic survives, or falls from within to single-party socialist rule.
One Step Closer to a Batsuit for Soldiers
If they name it Nemourlon, then add it onto a powered exosuit………..
Researchers announce new military funding in search for body armor skin that could be 300 times stronger than anything we’ve seen before.
In Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins, there’s a scene where inventor Lucius Fox, played by Morgan Freeman, explains that Wayne Enterprises has created a prototype body armor for the U.S. infantry that’s as light as kevlar but bullet and knife proof. Bruce Wayne asks why it never went into production. “The bean counters figured a soldier’s life wasn’t worth the 300 grand,” Fox replies.
In real life, and with Defense Department money, researchers from Florida Atlantic University, or FAU, are using advanced polymers and carbon nanotubes to engineer a new type of body fabric that could eventually prove to be 300 times as strong as today’s state of the art, but just as light.
Hassan Mahfuz, the lead investigator on the project at FAU, says that “the whole idea is to absorb the energy and be able to dissipate very quickly so it doesn’t concentrate,” and pierce the fabric and the person inside of it.
How do you do that? As Mahfuz and several colleagues from different institutions point out in this paper, you need to create an entirely new type of treatment for nylon fabric, a hybrid mixture of a polymer that Mahfuz describes as similar to Ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene and carbon nanotubes. The former has been around since the 1950s, the latter was only discovered in 1991. They’re hollow cylinders of carbon molecules, a product of nanotechnology, or the manipulation of objects at a billionth of a meter in size.
Carbon nanotubes are so strong and light (roughly 100 times stronger than steel but one-sixth of the weight) that researchers have proposed they may play a role in super springs, drug delivery, and future hypersonic weapons. Getting them to interact with ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene will be key to realizing ever higher levels of strength.
The Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office has provided about $569,000 in funding for the effort according to a release on Wednesday from the University.
“My first attempt is to increase [strength] by 25 percent” above the current state of the art within a year, said Mahfuz, who expressed confidence that he would eventually reach a 300 percent strength increase but couldn’t speculate on the timing, since research is ongoing. “As we publish, we’ll know,” he said
Novel Coronavirus(2019-nCoV)
Situation Report – 15
• No new countries reported cases of 2019-nCoV in the 24 hours since the previous situation report.
SITUATION IN NUMBERS
total and new cases in last 24 hours
Globally
20630 confirmed (3241 new)
China
20471 confirmed (3235 new)
2788 severe (492 new)
425 deaths (64 new)
Outside of China
159 confirmed (6 new)
23 countries
1 deathNo change in the U.S.
SAF CHALLENGE TO ILL. NON-RESIDENT CCW PROHIBITION GETS BACKING FROM STATE AG’s
BELLEVUE, WA – Eighteen state attorneys general have joined in an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court supporting a Second Amendment Foundation petition for writ of certiorari seeking high court review in the case of Culp v. Raoul, which challenges the refusal by Illinois to take applications from non-residents for an Illinois carry license.
Plaintiffs are asking the Court to determine “Whether the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms requires that the State of Illinois allow qualified non-residents to apply for an Illinois concealed carry license.” SAF is joined by the Illinois State Rifle Association, Illinois Carry and several private citizens. They are represented by attorney David G. Sigale of Wheaton.
The amicus brief, submitted by Missouri Attorney General Eric S. Schmitt, is joined by attorneys general from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.
While Illinois statute says the State Police “shall by rule allow for nonresident license applications from any state or territory of the United States with laws related to firearm ownership, possession, and carrying, that are substantially similar to the requirements to obtain a license” in Illinois.
“However,” the petition for review says, “that right to concealed carry is denied, in a discriminatory and arbitrary manner, to the law-abiding and qualified persons in 45 states, who are prohibited from even applying for an Illinois concealed carry license (“CCL”), regardless of their qualifications. Therefore, Illinois’s prohibition on virtually all non-residents obtaining a concealed carry license for self-defense violates the Petitioners’ rights under the Second Amendment.”
“We’re grateful to the 18 attorneys general for joining the amicus, on behalf of the residents of their respective states,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “The right to bear arms does not end at the Illinois state line, and untold numbers of citizens from other states have occasion to travel to or through Illinois and they should not be expected to leave their right of self- defense at the border.”
Brisbane homeowner shoots, kills man inside his home’
BRISBANE CA— A resident shot and killed a man inside his home in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Brisbane in what authorities initially said was a home invasion.
Officers were called Monday around 4:20 p.m. to a home in a quiet neighborhood, where they found a man dead from gunshot wounds inside the house, Brisbane police spokeswoman Michelle Moneda.
Moneda said Tuesday that the incident no longer appears to have stemmed from a home invasion or robbery, though she could not provide more information about what happened. Detectives were still trying to determine what happened and whether the shooter and the man who died were related, she said.
The resident was cooperating with police and was not in custody on Tuesday, Moneda said.
Neither of the men’s names have been released
One teen shot by neighbors, another crashes into tree during police chase after alleged crime spree
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (WBTV) – One teen was shot and another crashed into a tree while running from police following a string of attempted armed robberies and burglaries Tuesday morning, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police.
The series of events began around 4:35 a.m. on Otter Creek Drive when a man spotted two people breaking into his wife’s vehicle. The man confronted the would-be thieves who then pulled out a gun and began to drive away in a white Toyota Camry. But before leaving, police say, the duo circled back around and fired multiple shots at the man.
The victim was not struck, but his vehicle was.
Less than a half hour later, around 4:50 p.m., police say the duo – still driving the Camry – pulled up behind another car on Clems Branch Drive. One of the teens then got out of the Camry, put on a mask and pointed a gun at the driver of the second vehicle. That driver was armed, however, and fired at the masked teen who then ran from the scene.
Just a few minutes after that, around 4:56 a.m., police spotted a stolen white Camry that matched the description of the one used in the two recent crimes. The driver refused to stop and a pursuit ensued before the teen driving the Camry struck a tree on Bevington Place.
Police say the driver, a teenager and a convicted felon, was taken to the hospital with non life-threatening injuries.
Some time later, at 6:30 a.m., police were still trying to find the second suspect whey they got a call about a shooting on Myers Mill Lane in Ballantyne. When they arrived, they found a 17-year-old who had been shot being held down by good Samaritans.
This is a based Rand Paul speech that everyone needs to see
pic.twitter.com/4XGcfFQFTL— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 4, 2020
Here’s the Transcript of the first 5 minutes – the final 90 seconds is a repetition.
During the proceedings, I asked a question that was disallowed, and I’m going to ask that question again this morning. Because the Constitution does protect debate, and it does protect the asking of questions.
I think they made a big mistake now allowing my question. My question did not talk anybody who is a whistleblower; my question did not accuse anybody of being a whistleblower; it did not make a statement believing someone was a whistleblower. I simply named two peoples’ names, because I think it’s very important to know what happened.
We are now finding out that the FISA investigation was predicated upon 17 lies by the FBI, by people at high levels who were biased against the President, and it turns out it was an illegitimate investigation. Everything they did to investigate the President was untrue, and it involved people using the government to do things that should have never been done in the first place.
So I asked this question, and this is my question: Are you aware that the House Committee staffer, Sean Misko, had a close relationship with Eric Ciaramella while they were at the National Security Council together? How would you respond to reports that Ciaramella and Misko may have worked together to plot impeaching the President before there were formal House impeachment proceedings?
Why did I ask this question? Because there are news reports saying these two people, one of whom works for Adam Schiff, and one of them who worked with this person at the NSC, that they knew each other and had been overheard talking about impeaching the President in the first month of his office. In January of 2017, they were already plotting the impeachment.
And you say, well, we should protect the whistleblower, and the whistleblower deserve anonymity. The law does not preserve anonymity.
His boss is not supposed to say anything about him, he’s not supposed to be fired – I’m for that. But when you get into the details of talking about whistleblowers, there’s a variety of opinions around here.
The greatest whistleblower in American history in all likelihood was Edward Snowden. What do people here want to do with him? Half the people here want to put him to death; the other half want to put him in jail forever. So, it depends on what you blow the whistle on, whether or not they’re for the whistleblower statute.
I’m not for retributions on the whistleblower. I don’t want him to go to jail, I don’t want him to lose his job. But if six people who all worked together at the NSC knew each other and gamed the system, knowing that they would get these protections, they gamed the system in order to try to bring down the President, we should know about that.
If they had extreme bias going into the impeachment, we should know about that.
So, I think the question is an important one, and I think we should still get to the bottom of it.
Were people plotting to bring down the President? They were plotting in advance of the election – were they plotting within the halls of government to bring down the President?
Look, these people also knew the Vindman brothers, who are still in government. So, you’ve got two Vindman brothers over there who know Eric Ciaramella, who also know Sean Misko, who also knew two other people now working on Adam Schiff’s staff.
And Adam Schiff throws his hands up and says, ‘I don’t know who the whistleblower is, I’ve never met him. I have no idea who he is.’
So, if he doesn’t know who he is, the President’s counsel doesn’t know who he is, how does the Chief Justice of the United States know who the whistleblower is? I have no independent confirmation from anyone in the government as to who the whistleblower is.
So, how am I prevented from asking a question, when nobody seems to know who this person is?
My point is, that by having such protections, such overzealous protection, we don’t get to the root of the matter how this started. Because this could happen again.
When the institution of the bureaucracy, the intelligence community with all the power to listen into every phone conversation you have, has political bias and can game the system to go after you, that’s a real worry.
It’s a real worry that they spied on the President, but what if you’re just an average American? What if you’re just a supporter of President Trump, or you’re a Republican or you’re a conservative? Are we not concerned that secret courts could allow for warrants to listen to your phone calls, to tap into your emails, to read your text messages? I’m very concerned about that.
So, we’re going to have this discussion go on. It really isn’t about the whistleblower so much, it’s about reforming government. It’s about limiting the power of what they can do as secret courts.
Virginia Senate blocks another Northam-backed gun bill
The Virginia Senate blocked one of Gov. Ralph Northam’s top gun-control bills Monday, adding to the list of measures the Democratic governor supports that may not pass the legislature.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted against a bill that would make it a felony to “recklessly leave a loaded, unsecured firearm” in a way that endangers a minor.
It’s one of eight gun-related proposals that Northam has urged lawmakers to adopt. Virginia has become ground zero in the nation’s raging debate over gun control and mass shootings as a new Democratic majority seeks to enact strict new limits. Last month, tens of thousands of guns-rights activists from around the country flooded the Capitol and surrounding area in protest, some donning tactical gear and carrying military rifles.
Two moderate Democrats — Sens. Creigh Deeds and Chap Petersen — joined with Republicans to defeat the bill Monday over concerns that law-abiding gun owners could be unfairly punished.
A similar measure has already passed the House, and the legislation could still pass the Senate later during this year’s legislative session.
Lawmakers have already signaled that at least one other Northam-backed gun-control bill — a ban on so-called assault weapons like the popular AR-15-syle rifles — may not pass.
Climate Hypocrite: Bernie Leads 2020 Field in Private Jet Spending
The Bernie Sanders campaign spent just under $1.2 million on private jet travel last quarter, outpacing the entire 2020 Democratic presidential primary field.
The most recent filing from Sanders reveals $1,199,579 in spending during the final three months of 2019 to Apollo Jets, LLC, a “luxury private jet charter service.”
The campaign spent an additional $23,941 for transportation to Virginia-based Advanced Aviation Team.
The candidate who comes closest to matching Sanders in private jet spending was former vice president Joe Biden, whose campaign spent $1,040,698 to Advanced Aviation Team last quarter.
My strategy is that what gun a person owns is immaterial. People should be able to possess whatever gun they can afford. It’s what they do with the gun that they should be held accountable for. I think I’m going to buy this one and do a review of it.
Gun Mania: A New Perspective – What We Must Do to Reduce Shootings, Homicides and Suicides in America is now available in print and e-book formats. In it, Bruce D. Thatcher examines the historical reasons why guns are a core element of America’s culture, why guns are not significant in the cultures of other developed nations, and policy implications for reduction of gun-related and other homicides and suicides in America.
When confronted with gun-related deaths, many want guns to be the problem. They’re easy to see. Dealing with them should be simple and fast; just pass new laws to keep guns away from people who shouldn’t have them … or from everyone. However, this approach hasn’t, doesn’t and won’t work in America.
Thatcher says, “How can we reduce death and injury caused by guns?” is the wrong question. A much better question is “how can we reduce the overall rates of suicide and violent crime?”
Gun Mania brings that question to the forefront by looking at the history of America and four other nations to identify why guns are a core element of only the American culture, and implications for reducing our rate of violent deaths.
The United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand were all settled and developed, initially, by migrants from the United Kingdom.
But key differences in the development circumstances led to guns becoming a core cultural element only in America.
Because guns are not significant in the cultures of these other countries, they have been able to implement substantial gun control. Because guns are a core element of the American culture, the sorts of gun measures that have been accepted in the other four countries generally will not work in America.
When confronted with the problem of gun deaths, many want guns to be the problem.
They’re easy to see. Dealing with them should be simple and fast; just pass new laws to keep guns away from people who shouldn’t have them, or from everyone.
However, this approach hasn’t, doesn’t and won’t work in America. A different strategy has far more potential for saving lives.
FROM THE EDITOR: Can someone explain the gun control endgame?
End game? They want to disarm the population, because they want you dead.
With another legislative session in Olympia, there is another slate of gun control bills that have conservative Facebook whipped up in a frenzy. For the umpteenth year, gun control is among the top issues when it comes to politics and that probably will never change.
We hear the same tired stats that have been thrown out and modeled for everyone’s argument. While I do like to look at some sort of basis when it comes to political topics, it almost appears facts really don’t matter anymore because you can cherry pick basically any subset of data to support your view.
A quick glance at cable news and you might think we have a huge gun violence problem since it is always being talked about. However the top killers in the U.S. for 2019 is:
647,457 dead from heart disease
599,108 from cancer
169,936 from accidents.
160,201 from chronic lower respiratory diseases
146,383 from strokes
121,404 from Alzheimer’s disease
83,563 from Diabetes
55, 673 from influenza and pneumoniaBut how often do people draw opposing lines in the diabetes debate, or talk about the accident lobby? When did cable news do a wall-to-wall special report on heart disease?
Some of these causes of death due to poor life choices and poor diets. “Eat healthier” isn’t going to transition into a viable bill on Capitol Hill. Our healthcare system is hopelessly tangled, and while cancer treatment keeps getting better, we don’t have a cure. No amount of legislation is going to stop cancer. We usually don’t even think about the flu or pneumonia but they are actually big killers
When it comes to violence, there are some weird things to consider. You have definitions and terms thrown out there that aren’t clearly defined. There is no accepted definition of “mass shooting,” for example.
While the 30K+ people died in shootings is thrown around a lot in the media, the breakdown of these stats paint a slightly different picture.
In 2016, nearly 23K of these deaths were from suicides, 14K came from homicides and just 71 of them came from mass shootings.
But again this breakdown is really never presented to us by the media or politicians when discussing gun control bills. There was a recent story saying 2019 had the most number of mass shootings on record resulting in the death of 211 people combined.
It’s tragic. It’s sad to see. I’m not condoning gun violence or shrugging it. But when things get put into perspective, blunt objects kill more people a year than guns, with 443 people killed. There were 1,515 people who died in a year from knives or cutting objects. There were 672 deaths from fists, feet and other personal weapons according to the FBI. The maligned firearm – the rifle – was around 400 people.
To me, it begs the question, what good will gun control laws do if it “may” prevent 400 deaths? That doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the 30K+ deaths a year. The handgun is the biggest perpetrator of shootings and a large majority of these are people taking their own lives – which is a completely different topic to unpack. While firearms make it easier, people have many other methods that could be used to take their own lives as well.
The reality and numbers smack into what is coming from bills in Olympia and how the argument is framed. Heck the recent rally of thousands of gun rights activists in Virginia was called a “White Nationalists gathering” and the rally was portrayed as something that could erupt in violence at any point. You know what happened? Nothing. People just showed that they want to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights.
I was asked “wouldn’t you feel uncomfortable if you were among that group?”
No. No one is going to mess with an armed group of people. Gun owners to me are the people who follow the laws, and I’ve never felt uncomfortable around 2nd Amendment enthusiasts. On the flip side, a recent shooting in Seattle showed that a criminal not following gun laws currently on the books had no problem getting a firearm — again proving our government’s inability to control guns except by making law-abiding gun owners criminals with sweeping rule changes.
I’ve said before, there is plenty of dialogue that needs to happen in this country. I, for one, would like to see more gun training, gun safety courses and more teaching moments. The anti-gun movement is so patently ignorant about how guns even operate, how can they govern them? More information needs to be spread.
But gun control narratives and misrepresentations get spun. It is a perfectly suited political football. Both sides can form their ranks, talk about how the other side is either taking away rights, crazy, out of touch or hellbent on turning America into a hellscape.
But why?
With no solution reached in decades of gun debate, what exactly are the goals? Prevent 400 gun deaths out of 38K? Take guns away from law abiding citizens while criminals can still acquire guns? I would just like someone to lay out their end goals as opposed to root for their team in the debate
When ritual becomes more important than what you started out to accomplish, you’ve become religious which is man’s attempt at doing something on his own to tie himself back to God.
Baltimore County officials revealed this week that the county has not recycled glass materials for about seven years, though they are strongly urging residents to continue placing the items in their recycling bins.
The revelation was first circulated Friday on the Facebook page The Towson Flyer, shocking some residents who demanded answers about why the county has continued to collect glass for recycling. Glass bottles and jars of all colors were listed as acceptable materials on the county website’s recycling collection page Saturday morning.
Steve Lafferty, county sustainability officer, said it’s true the county has not recycled the material since 2013, the year it also opened a $23 million single-stream recycling facility in Cockeysville. Lafferty was hired to the newly created sustainability position in September 2019.
This problem of recyclable glass being thrown out was “inherited” from a previous administration, according to Sean Naron, spokesman for County Executive Johnny Olszewski.
Over the years, the county’s Department of Public Works encountered technical and financial limitations that meant it could no longer recycle glass at county municipal facilities.
The economics of recycling are changing, meaning there are fewer private waste management companies in the marketplace willing to take glass.
“It has become harder and harder to find a market” for glass recycling, Lafferty said.
The county is in preliminary discussions with an independent vendor about recycling glass materials, Naron said.
In the meantime, county officials have been reluctant to tell residents not to recycle their glass for fear of derailing a good habit.
“It’s unfortunate that we can’t tell people we have a better solution right now,” Lafferty said. “We know it’s an important issue.”
2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in the U.S.
As of 2/3/2020
People under Investigation (PUI) in the United States Positive 11 Negative 167 Pending§ 82 Total 260
WHO Novel Coronavirus(2019-nCoV)
Situation Report – 14
SITUATION IN NUMBERS
total and new cases in last 24 hours
Globally
17391 confirmed (2838 new)
China
17238 confirmed (2831 new)
2296 severe (186 new)
361 deaths (57 new)
Outside of China
153 confirmed (7 new)
23 countries
1 death
Robber Killed, Shopkeeper Wounded in Gunfight at Santa Clarita Liquor Store
A gun battle between a would-be robber and a liquor store owner in Santa Clarita late Sunday left the suspect dead and the shopkeeper wounded, authorities said.
The shootout unfolded about 8:20 p.m. at a store in the 19900 block of Golden Valley Road, just east of Sierra Highway, according to Deputy Tracey Koerner of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Information Bureau.
A man entered the store and tried to rob it, offiicals said.
“There was an exchange of gunfire between the suspect and the victim/store owner,” Koerner said in a written statement.
Both the robber and the store owner were struck, he said.
Video footage from the scene showed deputies approaching with guns drawn as the store owner is seen crawling out of the business with apparent leg wounds.
“(He) was transported to a local hospital with a non-life threatening injury to his lower torso,” Koerner said.
Paramedics pronounced the suspect dead at the scene.
No additional suspects were being sought, officials said.
No further information was available as the investigation continued into the early-morning hours Monday.
Man shoots teen in stolen car, drives him to the hospital
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Officials with the Metro Nashville Police Department say a 15-year-old was shot in Nashville after a man found him in his girlfriend’s stolen car.
The ordeal unfolded around 8:30 a.m. Monday on Rainwood Drive near Madison. Authorities said a 27-year-old man and his girlfriend tracked the car to the address after it was stolen last week.
Police said there were two people in the vehicle, both of whom appeared to be teens. The man used his car to box in the other to keep the driver from leaving.
The teen driver tried to drive away and hit the shooter’s car and another vehicle. The man shot at the car several times, hitting the teen in the arm. The other suspect ran and hasn’t been found.
The man drove the teen to TriStar Skyline Medical Center with a non-life-threatening injury. Police said the shooter’s vehicle, the shooter, and the juvenile were all detained at the hospital for further investigation.
“I heard four or five gun shots and they were loud and they echoed in the house,” neighbor Jacori Leffler recalled. “It sounded like you were in downtown on Fourth of July watching the fireworks.”
Neighbors said the actions of the shooter went too far, and believed he should’ve called police instead.
No. When the car thief used the stolen car as a weapon, that was who went ‘too far’.
The name of the shooter has not been released.
Good grief.
I have been sick since last week and still don’t have much of a voice. I’ve had to keep my mouth shut and just watch TV and read. The amount of hysteria coming from anti-Trump pundits and TV talking heads has reached past absurdity and gone straight to insane.
No, we are not a monarchy now. No, the constitution is not in shambles. No, the President is not a dictator. No, the confederacy is not complicit in protecting the President.
Y’all are a bunch of insane clowns is what y’all are. This hysteria is just too much and too insane.
The GOP needs to be burned down because it refused to toss the guy you didn’t vote for?
The constitution no longer has any weight, merit, or meaning because you lost a political fight?
Stop being stupid. All your talking points have been as stupid as the Republican talking points. The President has turned you people into what you think he is.
Democrats in the House could have called all these people you’re demanding the GOP call. But they chose not to. They didn’t even fight for them. They could have. They chose not to. But the GOP is the bad guy because Orange Man Bad.
You people have made every single thing an outrage so nothing is really outrageous anymore. To the extent the Senate will vote to acquit the President, your willingness to drive up every minor thing into impeachable outrage has played a great deal into it.
Every tweet, every glare, every statement, every misstatement, every policy, every policy misreported, all the news that had to be retracted, all the news that got things right — all of it has aided and abetted the President and got us to this point.
I know none of you think you are responsible because you signal as loudly as possible every second of every day that Trump is to blame, must be removed, and you want to burn down the GOP. But that’s just it — therein lies your portion of culpability. Because you’ve screamed wolf at every shadow and railed against the President for everything he has done, no matter how insignificant, you’ve helped desensitize everyone else.
I mean honestly, it is hard to take any of it from either side seriously at this point.
Let the voters decide in November and you guys try to stop lighting your hair on fire every time the President says something you don’t like.
Stop being hysterical. It cheapens serious points some of you would otherwise make.
Kerry: I’m Here for Biden Because He’ll Do Something About AR-16s and Long Clips
They know not one thing about guns other than what some idiot wrote for them, and yet they want to decide for you what rights you’ll get.
Floridians won’t get to vote on an assault weapons ban in 2020
Well, because they couldn’t even manage to get 20% of the needed signatures to cause a referendum. Not that referendums should be used to restrict rights, especially one enumerated in the Bill of Rights against government infringement and ruled ‘fundamental’ by the Supreme Court.
What is surprising is that there’s that many people who care so little for rights that they’d want to vote them away.
Florida voters won’t get to decide this year whether assault weapons should be banned.
A proposed ban didn’t get the 766,200 signatures needed to be placed on the ballot.
Supporters say they are now focusing on getting the question before voters in 2022. The group pushing the petition — Ban Assault Weapons Now — collected 145,000 verified signatures this past year. The deadline to meet the signature requirement for this year’s election was Feb. 1.