Category: Crap For Brains

Presidentish Joe Biden knows exactly what today’s schedule entails. He’s going to Georgia to campaign for Sen. Raphael Warnock.

Unless he’s going to Massachusetts to campaign for Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who isn’t up for election right now.

Or maybe he’s going to Georgia for Warren or Massachusetts for Warnock. And there’s something about a fundraiser.

Maybe we can clear things up by watching the video of Biden himself.

As always, I’m happy to provide for you — at no extra charge — the VodkaPundit Quick & Dirty Transcript.

Also, as always, any errors in the transcription are my own fault, and I apologize in advance. Any sense being made on the part of Biden is purely accidental and should be immediately dismissed.

Transcript:

Reporter: When are you going to Georgia to help Sen. Warnock?

Biden: I’m going to Georgia today to help Sen. Warren. Not to Georgia. I’m going to help Sen. Warren. I’m doing a major fundraiser up in Boston.

Buttigieg: Thank you, Mr. President.

Biden: Today. For, for the, uh, our next and continued Senate candidate and senator.

Biden made it quite clear that he will be traveling to Boston for a major fundraiser. This much is true — I checked his daily calendar. He’ll be attending a reception for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which I assume involves fundraising.

I’m still trying to suss out what he might have meant by “our next and continued Senate candidate and senator.” My guess — and it’s only a guess — is that Biden had Warnock, who is in a special runoff election campaign, stuck in his brain because that’s who the question was about.

Or maybe he’s forgotten that the midterms are over and believes that Warren is fighting to be the “next and continued Senate candidate and senator.”

Warren was not up for reelection in 2022, and won’t be again until 2024.

So Biden does seem to know where he’s going and what he’s doing; he just doesn’t seem to understand why.

Or maybe he’s clear on all three but just has trouble saying it.

Whatever the case, he looks and sounds like the senescent old man he is, and not like the most powerful man in the world.

DON’T BELIEVE GIVING UP RIGHTS PROVIDES SECURITY

New York Time columnist David Brooks is reminding America why they shouldn’t put faith in opinion writers pontificating from their metropolitan ivory towers.

Brooks recently said America would be a much safer country if Americans would simply give up their freedoms and become more like Europe. If America wouldn’t hold onto the individual right to keep and bear arms spelled out in the Second Amendment, and affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, he argues it would be a much safer place.

In his estimation, giving up the ability for self-defense and defense of loved ones would make crime just go away.

“That would take a gigantic culture shift in this country. A revamping of the way we think about privacy, a revamping of the way we think about the role government plays in protecting the common good,” Brooks said during a segment on PBS’ “Newshour.” “I think it would be something. I think it would be good not only to head off shootings, but good to live in a society where we cared more intimately about each other. And I would be willing to give up certain privacies for that to happen.”

That’s certainly out of the mainstream of how the rest of America views lawful firearm ownership. There were over 21 million background checks for the sale of a firearm in 2020, the most ever in a single year. Last year, Americans submitted to 18.5 million background checks. In 2022, background check figures are headed for the third strongest year on record. During the week up to and including Black Friday, the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) tallied over 711,000 background checks, with over 192,000 on Black Friday alone. That was the third busiest day for FBI’s NICS ever.

The Plan: Give Up

Just how would America achieve this utopia that Brooks imagines? Just give up, he said. Give up your rights. Give up your freedoms. Submit to an Orwellian state that provides you with all your needs. He admits this wouldn’t be easy.

“But for many Americans that would just be a massive cultural shift to regard our community and regard our common good in more frankly a European style,” Brooks explained.  “I think it would benefit our society in a whole range of areas, but it’s hard to see that kind of culture change to a society that’s been pretty individualistic for a long, long time.”

America broke away from European-style rule for a reason. The Founding Fathers rejected the British crown’s demands to give up guns then. Based on background checks for gun sales, America continues to reject calls for strict gun control. A recent Gallup poll found that support for more gun control dropped nine points from 66 percent to 57 percent in an October survey.

Failed Disarmament

The argument that individuals should surrender their gun rights has been tried elsewhere with predictable results. Gun owners that complied with gun seizures find themselves unable to protect themselves while criminals that ignore the law are empowered. A recent report from ABC News in Australia showed that criminals find it easier now to obtain illicit firearms than before the multiple amnesty periods when government officials collected firearms from Australians. New Zealand instituted their own gun confiscation program and crime spiked. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern ushered in Draconian gun control, including confiscation, and the country and crime hit new peaks.

The only ones left with guns were the criminals. That’s a lesson that Canada’s grappling with now as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is eyeing his own gun confiscation scheme and banning the transfer of any handguns. Some Canadian provinces are rejecting the heavy-handed measures. Sadly, history is replete with examples of regimes that took away its citizens firearms only to become tyrannical and turn their citizens into defenseless subjects. Those that fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. Our Founding Fathers in the Declaration of Independence expressed their fear of a tyrannical government and enshrined our right to keep and bear arms for self defense in the Bill of Rights for a reason.

Brooks is wrong to think that ridding ourselves of rights and lawful gun ownership would reduce crime. The answer to rampant crime is more law enforcement. The changes needed to safeguard America’s communities don’t begin with turning our backs on freedoms. It starts with holding elected officials in The White House, Congress, state capitols and district attorneys responsible for not enforcing the law and failing to hold criminals accountable.

Brooks’ notion is a devil’s bargain. Americans know it. Surrendering freedom has never resulted in anything less than creating a society of victims.

We Don’t Need Biden’s Permission To Own A ‘Semi-Automatic’ Gun

“The idea we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick,” Joe Biden argued on Thanksgiving. “It has no socially redeeming value. Zero. None. Not a single solitary rationale for it except profit for the gun manufacturers.”

Need it really be pointed out that it is perfectly within our rights to purchase products devoid of all socially redemptive value? Certainly, it is not the state’s business to determine what we “need.” That said, semi-automatic weapons happen to have an obvious redeeming value and there is a strong rationale for owning them. Semi-auto weapons are easy to use, and their effectiveness and reliability bolster the ability of people to protect themselves, their families, their property, and their community from criminality and, should it descend into tyranny, the government. Gun bans are autocratic and unconstitutional, and, thankfully, also largely unfeasible.

It is difficult to pinpoint what percentage of the 400-plus million firearms in civilian hands today are semi-automatic. These weapons, which fire one cartridge with a single trigger squeeze while preparing the gun for the next shot, constitute a substantial percentage of new gun sales over the past few decades. Banning them would prevent homeowners and those who concealed-carry — not only some of the most law-abiding people in the country, but a growing contingent —without the weapon of choice. The actions of a small number of irrational criminal psychopaths should not corrode the rights of those citizens. Not to mention, corroding our rights would do nothing to stop the irrational criminal psychopaths.

Indeed, semi-autos meet every criterion of legality laid out in D.C. v. Heller, the decision that finally codified the clear historical and legal intention of the Second Amendment. Not only are semi-automatic weapons “in common use” by “law-abiding citizens,” they are not “unusual.” The first semi-automatic pistols hit the civilian marketplace in the 1890s.

Now, there is always the not-so-small chance that Biden has confused the real-world mechanical designation of “semi-automatic” with the political concoction of “assault weapons.” I’m skeptical. Anyone who’s involved in the gun debate knows that “semi-automatic” guns, often purposely conflated with the more dangerous “automatic” weapons, are the target of restrictionists. A few years back during that shameful post-Parkland CNN gun “town hall,” the crowd loudly cheered at the suggestion of banning all “semi-automatic” rifles. And, earlier this year, the president suggested that ordinary citizens should be banned from owning popular “high-caliber” 9mm handguns. “So the idea of these high-caliber weapons is of — there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of thinking about self-protection, hunting,” Biden said of the type of gun used by the Secret Service to protect him.

It is, as it always has been in the gun debate, incrementalism. From “no one wants to take your guns” to “we only want to take some of them” and so on. Of course, even if the president really intended to talk about a semi-automatic rifle ban, his goals would still be unconstitutional. Again, the gun meets every standard set by Heller for legality. And if the Senate somehow musters the 60 votes to push through the ban on certain semi-automatic guns recently passed by the House, states should challenge the federal government, and, if need be, ignore it.

Biden, who often imparts dreadful, sometimes illegal, advice on gun ownership, also has a long history of saying completely inane, insane, and historically illiterate things about firearms —whether cringingly noting that deer don’t wear “Kevlar” or claiming cannons were banned during the Revolutionary era as a way to argue that the Second Amendment “like all other rights, is not absolute.”

On the latter, Biden often (fittingly) cites one of the most egregious violations of the First Amendment, Schenck v. United States, which allowed the Woodrow Wilson administration to throw socialists into prison for speech crimes, to make his point. And perhaps that speaks to the crucial distinction at the heart of so many of our debates. Biden, and thus the contemporary left, seems to be under the impression that it’s the state that “allows” us to buy semi-automatic firearms or “allows” us to say certain things. But we don’t need their permission.

This is why they think you’re a racist

First, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.

One of our Thanksgiving traditions, as it is for a lot of you, is watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. I started watching it as a kid and while I don’t particularly care about watching it one way or another, the rest of the family enjoys it and I enjoy that. Such is the life of a dad.

Anyway, every year, we get to see the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes and to be quite honest, that part I enjoy. Ahem.

Anyway, after the parade, I found myself on Twitter, and “Rockettes” was trending. I groaned because I knew what I was likely to find.

Sure enough, it seems some people were pissed that more of the Rockettes weren’t black.

Niki @HaulinOats_
Ah and here are the Rockettes, wishing everyone a VERY WHITE Christmas 🙄 #rockettes #MacysThanksgivingDayParade
2:45 PM ∙ Nov 24, 2022
George Miller @justG_Miller
Tell me you don’t represent the diversity in America without telling me you don’t represent the diversity in America. #Rockettes #MacysParade

2:45 PM ∙ Nov 24, 2022

🤷🏼‍♀️ @Possamaquadi
How is it even statistically possible that there are only 2 Black Rockettes???? Come on, now. #MacysThanksgivingDayParade #Rockettes #RockettesSoWhite
Image

2:49 PM ∙ Nov 24, 2022

Optimistic Sophia @OptimisticSoph1
So the @Rockettes only have 2 black dancers out of 30+ girls? #macydayparade #rockettes
7:46 PM ∙ Nov 24, 2022

Now, in fairness, there are also a lot of people who aren’t like this. Many were celebrating having any representation at all while others were just delighted to see the Rockettes.

But these people represent something.

You see, becoming a Rockette is a strange thing. You have to not just be able to do the dances required, but there are height and weight requirements so everyone fits the same mold. As such, it rules a lot of women out right off the bat.

As such, the lack of black Rockettes could mean any number of things, and they’re not all because those who hire them are racist.

But everyone knows that the arts have a profound liberal bias. Even artists tend to acknowledge that. They’re proud of it, actually.

So what does this have to do with us?

Well, the answer is very simple. You see, when they look at something like this and see racism, they simply can’t fathom that those of us not fawning at the altar of diversity and equity could be anything but racist.

They see the supposed racism in their own ranks and hear about how much better they are than we are and cannot fathom any other potential but that we’re racist.

Yet that “logic” is anything but. It assumes facts not in evidence; namely that liberals are better about race than anyone else.

For me and many others, I judge people as individuals. Their race is part of who they are, but it’s not the totality of their identity. I could no more disapprove of someone for their ethnicity than I could their eye color.

But, for the left, they view people as groups. They see them based on those superficial factors and can’t comprehend that they’re not any such thing. They’re not just “black” or “white” or “Hispanic.”

They’re people, with all the complexity that entails.

We can see that. Apparently, they can’t, and that’s why they can’t imagine how everyone who disagrees with them isn’t a raging racist.

Who’s on first?

Biden claimed 9,000 oil drilling permits are unused. That’s true, but all work can’t begin ‘right now’

WHAT WE FOUND

Only about 10% of domestic oil and gas drilling occurs on federal land. The rest happens on private and state property, Ed Hirs, energy fellow at the University of Houston, said. At the end of 2021, there were 9,173 approved applications for drilling permits on federal and tribal lands, according to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

Jennifer Pett with the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), which represents independent oil and natural gas producers, told VERIFY that more than 9,000 approved permits aren’t producing oil and gas right now. Joshua Axelrod with the National Resources Defense Council also confirmed that more than 9,000 approved permits are unused.

However, that doesn’t mean oil companies could just start drilling right now and produce oil and gas.

According to the IPAA, some of these leases are going through a “complex regulatory process or are held up in litigation.” Western Energy Alliance, which represents hundreds of companies involved in the exploration and production of oil and natural gas, says on its website that it is defending more than 2,200 leases in court, most of which cannot be developed while the cases are ongoing.

Hirs explained that a variety of factors can halt the oil drilling process for unused permits.

“Federal leases…are subject to environmental studies. They’re also subject to lawsuits filed by neighbors, by municipalities, by counties and state governments. And so it’s become a more arduous process,” he said.

Companies often need to have separate permits secured for multiple well sites before they can bring in an oil rig, the IPAA says. But just because the government approves the permits doesn’t guarantee the well will produce oil and gas, as some never do. This means approved permits may go unused.

“If you’ve gone, like most companies do, and filed a dozen or two dozen [permits] at a time, and your first well turns out to be a dry hole, you’re not going to go ahead and drill the rest of those,” Hirs said.

It’s true that companies will sometimes sit on unused permits until it makes more financial sense. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that since there isn’t a penalty for not using a drilling permit, some companies wait to begin drilling until oil prices are high enough to make it worth their while. One operator told the GAO that they would add a drilling rig if the price of oil increases and may suspend one if it decreases. Another said a permit may go unused if oil and gas prices are too low for them to turn a profit.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose challenges for oil companies, too. Some are facing a six-month waiting period for piping materials needed to drill and are still short-staffed after layoffs spurred by the pandemic-induced drop in demand for oil, Pett said.

Why gun owners should take Biden’s gun ban comments seriously

On Thanksgiving, Joe Biden once again called on Congress to enact a gun ban, proclaiming that “the idea we still allow semi-automatic weapons to be purchased is sick.” Biden further declared that semi-automatic firearms have “no socially redeeming value, and the claimed that the only reason why they’re sold is the “profit for the gun manufacturers.”

As my colleague Tom Knighton pointed out in his coverage of Biden’s remarks, the president seemingly conflated “semi-automatic firearm” with “assault weapon”; an invented term that generally refers to semi-automatic rifles but not all semi-automatic firearms. I’m not convinced, however, that this was an actual mistake on the part of Biden, despite his long history of mangling his public comments to the point they’re incomprehensible. No, in this case I suspect that Biden intentionally spoke about wanting to ban semi-automatic firearms because that is, in fact, what he wants to do.

Now, there’s no way that Congress is going to pass Biden’s gun ban, even in the lame duck session. There aren’t 60 votes to ban so-called assault weapons, much less the much broader universe of the hundreds of millions of semi-automatic handguns, rifles, and shotguns in the hands of peaceable gun owners. But what if Joe Biden isn’t planning on signing a gun ban bill, but instead abusing his executive authority to impose a sweeping gun ban through regulation instead?

It sounds crazy, but for months now the gun control lobby has been advocating for the administration to take that step, maintaining in court filings and advocacy pieces that semi-automatic firearms are “readily converted” to fully-automatic fire and should therefore be treated like machine guns under the provisions of the National Firearms Act.

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Skynet smiles

Dystopia Arrives in San Francisco: Authorities Introduce Policy Granting Robots a License to Kill.

In this episode of Dystopian Moments on the Left…

While I hesitate to make comparisons to George Orwell’s dystopian account of a future totalitarian state in the classic “1984” while writing about the crazy goings on in today’s America, what term is better suited when dystopia finally arrives? That is if you consider killer robots taking out human beings in the streets.

The San Francisco Police Department has submitted a proposal to city officials, which is likely to be approved on November 29, that would give robots the license to use deadly force against suspects who threaten the lives of citizens or police officers — with military-style weapons, no less.

Look, I’m all in on the notion that the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, but — and maybe it’s just me — robots armed with military-style weapons killing human beings sounds a bit creepy and, well, Orwellian. Nonetheless, as reported by Mission Local, the draft policy reads:

Robots will only be used as a deadly force option when the risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and outweighs any other force option available to SFPD.

San Francisco’s rules committee unanimously approved a version of the draft last week, which will face the Board of Supervisors on November 29th, where it’s likely to sail through. The Board will also be required to sign off on the purchase of any new military-style equipment, but the police will be able to replace existing equipment up to a value of $10 million without approval.

Tifanei Moyer, senior staff attorney with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, wrote in an email, as noted by Mission Local, that the policy isn’t standard and that legal professionals and citizens should reject the idea.

We are living in a dystopian future, where we debate whether the police may use robots to execute citizens without a trial, jury, or judge. This is not normal. No legal professional or ordinary resident should carry on as if it is normal.

That’s a bit nonsensical in my book, given that an officer in the same situation, as outlined earlier, would make the same deadly force decision — or would he or she? Jennifer Tu, a fellow with the American Friends Service Committee, appears to disagree:

There is a really big difference between hurting someone right in front of you, and hurting someone via a video screen.

The SFPD has 17 robots in its arsenal, 12 of which are fully functional. According to police spokesperson Officer Robert Rueca, they have never been used to attack anyone. That appears about to change. If the policy is approved as expected, it will just be a matter of time before a robot takes out a suspect.

Hell, let’s extrapolate. How long will it be before deadly robots patrol the crime-infested streets of cities across America? If it someday happens, would that be a good thing or bad? Questions abound.

On November 29, San Francisco and its citizenry will likely take a giant step forward — or would that be backward?  All the way to George Orwell’s 1984.

BLUF
Biden may have directly named Elon Musk at that press conference, but his threat was aimed at every household in America.

Biden’s not-so-subtle lurch toward dictatorship

In the wake of the midterm elections, President Joe Biden was asked during a rare press conference, in reference to Twitter’s new owner, whether he thought Elon Musk was a threat to national security. With a pause and a smirk, the president said that topic was “ worthy of being looked at. ”

With those words, Biden made it clear that if you even seem to oppose his politics, your private life will be under the direct scrutiny of the state. Despite his constant prattle about saving our democracy, Biden seems to think he’s running an authoritarian police state.

In truth, the federal government already maintains entities that review acquisitions such as Musk’s for anything from foreign influence to anti-competitive business practices. After many months in which Musk’s negotiations to purchase Twitter happened in full public view, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last week that she sees no basis for the government to investigate that purchase.

Despite Musk’s having followed the law, Biden, on a whim, wants to change the game. Suddenly, and after years of Twitter and other social media having significant foreign investors, a normal and transparent voluntary transaction is a potential “threat to national security.”

Biden signaled his desire to strip off the veneer of the rule of law and use the power of the presidency as a dictator would—by his whim and without respect for the rules that everyone else must abide by.

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He used that ‘no redeeming social value‘ line because he believes it has some magical power over the courts. Where his senile brain got it was when SCOTUS in Memoirs v. Massachusetts required that to prove obscenity it must be affirmatively established that the material is “utterly without redeeming social value”

Biden Protected by Very Guns He Says Have ‘No Redeeming Value’

President Joe Biden is protected by semiautomatic firearms yet told reporters Thanksgiving morning that he cannot understand how sales of semiautomatic guns continue, as they have “no social redeeming value.”

Biden said, “The idea we still allow semiautomatic weapons to be purchased is sick. It has no social redeeming value.”

(Can you even imagine a world in which Secret Service agents are standing around with six-shot revolvers in their holsters?)

After criticizing semiautomatics, Biden pledged anew on Thanksgiving to ban “assault weapons.”

Ironically, again, Biden is protected by “assault weapons.”

Breitbart News reported that Biden was given a Secret Service detail during the 2020 presidential campaign and from that time till now, agents are around him 24/7 to keep him safe.

A source told Breitbart News such a detail meant Biden would be protected with semiautomatic pistols and rifles — perhaps ARs and/or Sig Sauer MCX platform firearms. There was also the strong possibility of fully automatic firearms being part of the equation. The latter category of firearms consists of submachine guns, such as the H&K MP5. (An MP5 is a true “assault weapon.”)

Biden’s agents rely on semiautomatic platform firearms to protect him from bad guys, yet Biden criticizes such guns being for sale for average citizens who need to protect their own lives everyday. The key phrase: “No social redeeming value.”

Fauci Deposition report: “he can’t recall practically anything dealing with his Covid response!”
Louisiana AG Jeff Landry: “Wow! It was amazing to spend 7 hours with Dr. Fauci. The man who single-handedly wrecked the U.S. economy based upon ‘the science.’ Only to discover that he can’t recall practically anything dealing with his Covid response!”

The deposition of Anthony Fauci took place today in the lawsuit commenced by Louisiana and Missouri, alleging that numerous Biden administration officials colluded with and directed big tech and social media giants to censor dissenting scientific and medical voices with regard to Covid.

We covered the case and the court order for Fauci (and others) to testify under oath in these posts:

We don’t know much about what happened. The deposition, while it was recorded, was not streamed. And there apparently is a protective order prohibiting the parties or those in attendance from separately recording.

In advance of the deposition, Missouri Attorney General (and Senator-elect) Eric Schmitt promised they would attempt to get answers from Fauci:

“Tomorrow, along with my colleague from Louisiana, my Office and I will depose Dr. Anthony Fauci in our lawsuit against the Biden Administration for allegedly colluding with social media companies to censor freedom of speech,” said Attorney General Schmitt. “Since we filed our landmark lawsuit, we have uncovered documents and discovery that show clear coordination between the Biden Administration and social media companies on censoring speech, but we’re not done yet. We plan to get answers on behalf of the American people. Stay tuned.”

Well, it’s not clear how many answers were given. Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, who attended the deposition, tweeted that Fauci had a lack of memory

Wow! It was amazing to spend 7 hours with Dr. Fauci. The man who single-handedly wrecked the U.S. economy based upon “the science.” Only to discover that he can’t recall practically anything dealing with his Covid response!

 

Jenin Younes, an attorney from the New Civil Liberties Alliance, representing the physicians and scientist who were attacked after signing The Great Barrington Declaration, was present, and observed:

One of my favorite quotes from Fauci’s deposition today: “I have a very busy day job running a six billion dollar institute. I don’t have time to worry about things like the Great Barrington Declaration.”

The other one, which I didn’t write down carefully enough to claim is verbatim, is: I was too busy developing a vaccine that saved millions of lives to care about what happens on social media.

 

At some point we’ll find out more about the deposition, and what Fauci forgot.

Fauci is leaving his post in December, before Republicans take control of the House. He will be the subject of House committee investigations and will be subpoenaed to testify.

UPDATES

 

I’ll paraphrase Mussolini:
“All within the narrative, nothing outside the narrative, nothing against the narrative.”

Controversial Take: It’s Bad To Put Words In The Mouths Of Murder Victims
On Ben Collins and the scourge of opportunistic post-tragedy commentary

On Tuesday’s Morning Joe, Ben Collins, who “covers disinformation, extremism and the internet for NBC News,” gave what I found to be a very strange soliloquy about Club Q, an LGBT nightclub in Colorado Springs where five people were killed and about 18 injured by a man named Anderson Lee Aldrich on Saturday night.

Collins subsequently tweeted a link to it (archived here):

Collins starts by asking, “Am I doing something wrong here?” Then he runs down his and his colleagues’ tireless coverage of anti-LGBT rhetoric on the right, reading a bunch of headlines that are splashed on-screen:

He then says, “And I’m just wondering — what could I have done different? Seriously. As reporters, what can we do different?”

To be blunt, I found this obnoxious and solipsistic. Not everything is about journalists. The probability that any mass murder has anything to do with anything Ben Collins or his colleagues did (or didn’t do) is approximately nil. This is just a very strange, self-absorbed way to understand the world.

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The Supreme Court grants cert for trademark lawsuit over chewable dog toy designed to mimic Jack Daniel’s whiskey bottle

 

Now accepting the point that trademark law is an important part of U.S. business, I still find it near ridiculous that SCOTUS will take such a case, and give it the same consideration, and time, that is given any other case they decide to take, instead of likely bypassing one or more of the 2nd amendment cases that undoubtedly come their way during the current session.

I mean…a doggie toy?

Jack Daniel’s Seeks to Take Dog Toys Battle to Supreme Court

Nov. 20, 2020 [NOTE THE DATE! SCOTUS has had this for two years!

Along with weighty matters of state like the presidential election and the future of health care, the U.S. Supreme Court’s tasks could include deciding whether trademark law has an exemption for potty humor.

Jack Daniel’s Properties Inc. is petitioning the high court to reverse a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that a maker of dog toys could sell one shaped like the company’s familiar whiskey bottles. The appeals court held that VIP Products LLC’s pun-laden chew toy expressed a humorous message, involved the First Amendment, and satisfied the so-called Rogers test for incorporating trademarks into creative works.

That upset a balance between trademark law and free speech by dramatically and baselessly over-extending the Rogers test for evaluating trademark use in “artistic expression,” Jack Daniel’s and trademark groups argue. VIP Products this week secured a four-week extension of its Wednesday deadline to file a response asking the high court to reject the Jack Daniel’s petition.

The Ninth Circuit’s interpretation “would completely gut the trademark and dilution statutes,” trademark attorney James H. Donoian of McCarter & English LLP said. He said he couldn’t understand the basis for the dog toy being deemed an artistic expression, bristling at the court finding mere “humor” to be enough.

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D.C. Activist Who Pushed for City’s Soft-on-Crime Bill Shot and Killed

Kelvin Blowe was shot and killed in Washington, D.C. on the same day the city council voted unanimously to pass a bill he advocated for that reduces penalties for serious offenses such as robbery, burglary, carjackings, and carrying a firearm without a license.

The Washington Post reports Blowe had spent over five years in prison for robbery and the experience “instilled in him a passion to right inequities he believed he encountered.”

 After getting out, he joined DC Justice Lab, one of the groups that pushed to overhaul the city’s criminal code. He testified in support of the proposed bill in December.

The Marine Corps veteran, who was diagnosed with PTSD, was working as a security guard and was taking coworkers home last week when he was shot and killed when a gunman “emerged from a stolen car after a crash with Blowe. Authorities said they believe Blowe also possessed a weapon, as they recovered a gun next to his body…Blowe’s family said they did not know he had a weapon.”

After the crash occurred, Blowe got out and approached the car when he was then shot. It is not known if Blowe pointed his firearm at them. The suspects fled the scene and have yet to be found.

“It is very difficult to accept that someone who survived the worst of what we have to offer — sent off to the military, sent off to prison — couldn’t survive living on the streets of D.C.,” Patrice Sulton, a civil rights lawyer and executive director of the DC Justice Lab, told the Post “He dedicated himself to preventing the exact kind of harm that befell him.”

“The bill passed earlier this week, reduces the mandatory minimum sentences, which are already lenient for gun offenders [and] felons in possession of illegal guns,” D.C. Police Union Chief Shop Steward Adam Shaatal said in reaction to the news.

Republicans in both the House and the Senate have voiced opposition to the bill that was approved this week. Rep. Jame Comer (R-KY), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, previously told Townhall they will work to prevent the bill from becoming law should Mayor Muriel Bowser signs it since they have jurisdiction over the city.

MEDIA LOSES ITS MIND OVER “RAMBO STYLE KNIFE” USED IN IDAHO QUAD-MURDER

That the media is prone to hyperventillation over anything weapon-related should hardly come as a shock. Our friends in the firearms community face it all the time when the media label what to many is just a light range trip worth of guns and ammunition an “arsenal”. Well they are at it again, and this time it is the knife community’s turn in the barrel, as the media frenzy over the quadruple homicide in Moscow, ID rages.

If you haven’t tuned into the news this week, 4 University of Idaho students were brutally stabbed to death over the weekend, and the Police seem to be at a loss. Their decision to focus on the potential murder weapon, looks to this reporter like an attempt to give the media anything in the face of very few public leads. The murder weapon remains undiscovered.

I am not a forensic expert by any means, though I took a few forensic anthropology classes in graduate school and I understand how the coroner reached their conclusion as to the nature of said weapon. The wound channels from the stabbings would have particular characteristics in terms of size and shape, and from this they have deduced that they match the characteristics of one of the most, if not the most mass-produced and iconic American fixed blade knives, the USMC Mark 2., commonly known as the KA-BAR.

KA-BAR USMC MK. 2 (from KABAR.com)

From Idaho Statesman:

Moscow police appear to be searching for a “Rambo”-style knife involved in the killing of four University of Idaho students, a store manager said Wednesday. Scott Jutte, general manager of Moscow Building Supply, told the Idaho Statesman that police have visited the store more than once to ask whether the retailer sold anyone Ka-Bar brand knives, which are also known as K bar knives. Idaho State Police spokesperson Aaron Snell told the Statesman on Thursday that detectives visited several local hardware stores that may carry “fixed-blade type knives,” but that they weren’t solely asking about Ka-Bar knives.

Ka-Bar, of Olean, New York, manufactures military-grade blades that were originally designed for use by American troops in World War II.

Jutte said a police officer stopped by the home improvement store and lumber yard off North Main Street in Moscow to speak with him on Monday. “They were specifically asking whether or not we carry Ka-Bar-style knives, which we do not,” Jutte said in an interview. “If we did, we could’ve reviewed surveillance footage. But it wasn’t something I could help them with.” Jutte said he is familiar with the military-style weapon, even though his store doesn’t sell it.

He says he is “familiar with the “military style weapon””…

I am trying to figure out what is specifically “military” about the KA-BAR, other than its history of course. The name of the Mk. 2 in Government-bureaucratese is “Knife, Fighting Utility”. Fighting is a verb, something you could do with it, not a description. I can fight you with a stapler. An entrenching tool is a devastatingly effective melee weapon. We don’t call a “Fighting Shovel”, no matter how efficiently it can be used as such.

Utility is a good descriptive word, as they are used for everything from prying open crates to opening ration cans. The “KA-BAR” (originally made by Camillus, PAL, and others under WWII contract) was much better at these tasks than the WWI era M1918 Trench Knife, with its more fragile, less utilitarian stiletto blade and single grip knuckle-duster hand guard.

The USMC Mk.2, now manufactured by KA-BAR Knives Inc. of Olean, New York, remains one of the most popular fixed blade outdoor knives in existence. A good portion of this is due to its military heritage. Many a serviceman or has carried the knife on deployment, even into combat just like their grandfathers before them. They are an heirloom quality tool, and it is entirely possible that someone actually carried their Grandfather’s own knife in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Of course plenty of civilians, this writer included, own one as well. It is an extremely robust and useful knife to have in the woods. It can shave, baton, drill, and all of the other tasks one might need in the field. I imagine that there is at least one in 20% or more of households in Idaho given the lifestyle and demographics. And that doesn’t count other fixed blade hunting knives as well of which Idaho most certainly has an abundance.

I feel for KA-BAR, which is being dragged by the media online. They slant their coverage to imply that anyone who owns this most common of fixed blades is some sort of survivalist nutball. It is expected, but disheartening.

Where they have made a heck of a jump is to apply the “Rambo” label to the knife. Rambo carried two different Jim Lile custom knives in the First Blood Movies:

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An additional take on the morning’s mendacity by the 3rd circuit court

Appeals Court Cites Bigoted Historical Laws to Uphold Ban on Non-Violent Felons Owning Guns

The federal government can continue to block non-violent felons from possessing firearms.

That’s what a three-judge panel for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday. It found the federal law barring those convicted of non-violent felonies from possessing guns is consistent with the country’s history and tradition of gun regulation. The court specifically relies on historical laws that disarmed disfavored minority groups to reach that conclusion, despite referring to that history as “repugnant” and “unconstitutional.”

“The earliest firearm legislation in colonial America prohibited Native Americans, Black people, and indentured servants from owning firearms,” the court’s per curiam opinion reads. “Likewise, Catholics in the American colonies (as in Britain) were subject to disarmament without demonstrating a proclivity for violence.”

The ruling is the first from a federal appeals court to deal with the federal prohibition on felons having guns after the Supreme Court created a new standard for reviewing gun cases in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, which requires modern gun laws to be substantially similar to those in place near the ratification of the Second Amendment in order to be considered constitutional. An established circuit precedent upholding felon-in-possession crimes, even for non-violent offenders, could prove influential as courts flesh out how the new Bruen standard affects modern gun laws.

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Portland’s Antifa ‘Justice’ Strikes Again

A Portland “anti-fascist” activist has been found not guilty of being a fascist by roughing up a journalist and stealing his phone because he didn’t like what the reporter said about his Antifa friends. After the Portland judge let off the notorious Portland Antifa attacker, he delivered a lecture to the victim, reporter Andy Ngo.

There’s your justice, Portland.

Ngo sought justice in court for three-and-a-half years against John Hacker, one of a mob of activists that has made a point to follow, chase, hassle, and attack Ngo multiple times.

 

The Post Millennial reported that Hacker confronted Ngo in a Portland area 24 Hour Fitness where he assaulted the reporter, poured water on him, and stole his phone. Ngo captured part of John Hacker’s attack on video.

“The shaky video is less than 30 seconds long, but prosecutors say it’s a key piece of evidence showing Hacker approaching Ngo, grabbing the device, and yelling, “I will break your f*cking phone,” the news website reported.

The Deputy District Attorney argued before the judge that Hacker had conducted a “harassment campaign targeting Ngo for years.”

Indeed, Hacker was part of a mob that chased Ngo in downtown Portland, forcing the journalist to seek a hiding place at a posh hotel.

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