ESSE SINE METU IN FACIE INIMICI TUI. TUENDAM INOPS ET FACERE NON MALI.
From the book: “As the bird shuddered down, the wall of faces lining the perimeter were hidden behind SLRs, lighting, and shoulder-mounted video cameras – journalists here to generate the sugar high of fear that was now as much a part of the American diet as hot dogs, apple pie, and gluten-free muffins.”
To generate the sugar high of fear.
That’s what we see today, isn’t it? Whether they’re pontificating about the bug or about guns?
A series of deadly explosions rock the city of New York and with too many victims and no known motive, the F.B.I. turns once again to Dr. Lucas Page in Robert Pobi’s Under Pressure.
On a beautiful October evening, New York City’s iconic Guggenheim Museum is closed for a tech company’s private gala. Until an explosion rocks the night, instantly killing 702 people, including every single attendee—yet the damage to the building itself was minimal.
An explosion of that precision was no accident and, in response, the FBI mobilizes its entire team — but the sheer number of victims strains their resources. Were all 702 victims in the wrong place at the wrong time, or was there only one target and 701 unlucky bystanders? That many victim files is a staggering amount of data to sort through and Brett Kehoe, Special Agent in Charge of Manhattan, decides that he can’t do this without more computational power.
Dr. Lucas Page, astrophysicist, university professor, and former FBI agent, is uniquely gifted for the task at hand—he can visualize a crime scene as if he was a bystander and can break down any set of data at a glance. Even though Page wants nothing to do with the FBI, with his city under attack and his family at risk, he steps in to find a killer in a haystack before they strike again.
Attorney General William Barr reiterated this week that he wouldn’t wait until after the election to release the report of U.S. Attorney John Durham, who is investigating the origins of the Russia collusion story. This has Democrats nervous and preemptively saying that anything Durham finds will be the result of a political witch hunt.
Democrats have a lot invested in the Russian collusion narrative and to have it officially debunked would be very damaging to their election prospects.
“There’s a real danger, in fact an urgent threat, that anything the Department of Justice does will be timed to aid the president,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D- Conn.) said in an interview, adding, “Barr has proven ready, willing and able to distort, distract and deceive.”
At a hearing Tuesday before the House Judiciary Committee, Barr was quizzed briefly by both sides on the matter but offered little to satisfy his questioners.
An “urgent threat”? Well, there’s certainly a threat to the narrative that damaged the Trump presidency, but beyond that, Blumenthal is emitting gas.
If the main steam media isn’t doing it already (and they aren’t) , it’s because they don’t want it known. That Althouse hasn’t figured this out either means she really is that stupid, or she’s being mendacious and trying to provide cover for her own shortfall.
On June 22, I wrote,”Why isn’t there more reporting in the NYT about who’s responsible for the violence and disorder accompanying the protests?” And then 2 days ago, I wrote, “I want to know who is doing the violence! Is it Antifa? Where is the investigative journalism? Are there peaceful protesters who deserve recognition for their dedication to nonviolence, whose cause is undermined by a separate set of people?”………..
“The left is going bonkers over this. They’re too dumb to realize this is a play off the left’s ‘we can’t start school until we have a vaccine’ and ‘we can’t go back to work until Covid runs its course’ positions. The left now has to choose one course or the other.”
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
You’re never ready for the kind of news we are grappling with this morning. But we have no choice but to seek and find God’s strength and comfort to deal with it.
Herman Cain – our boss, our friend, like a father to so many of us – has passed away. He’s entering the presence of the Savior he’s served as an associate minister at Antioch Baptist Church in Atlanta, and preparing for his reward.
Romans 2:6-7 says: “God ‘will repay each person according to what they have done.’ To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life.” By that measure, we expect the boss is in for some kind of welcome, because all of us who knew him are well aware of how much good he did. Continue reading “”
I had to read this paper because the pseudo-news reports included a remarkable factoid.
In order to address these challenges, a unique dataset of all mass murders in the United States from 1991 to 2016 was created. …
To date, this represents the most comprehensive and accurate database available on mass shooting incidents in the United States, with a total sample size of 592 mass shootings during the study period.
Where did Fridel find hundreds more than any other researcher over a shorter time frame? The devil is in the definitions.
Rockefeller’s Capellan and Jiao defined “mass public shooting” as “the killing of four or more individuals in one or more closely related locations within a 24-hour period.” That’s representative of the definition usually used. It excludes targeted killings like gangbangers fighting over turf, or domestic disputes gone massively wrong.
It excludes serial shootings that don’t occur in a single incident. Fridel went with something a little different.
Defined as the killing of four or more individuals (excluding the offender) with a firearm within 24 hours… …
As WISQARS does not provide linkage information, firearms homicide was measured as a count of victims rather than incidents.
Four or more within 24 hours.
No gang or family exclusions. It doesn’t even necessarily specify that the four victims be shot for related reasons or even by the same shooter.
I’m sure she dinked around with that highly questionable definition until she got one that generated clusters in all the wrong states. Since she’s using WISQARS in part, I’m not even sure the “mass shooting” victims had to be in the same city or state, just the same 24 hour period.
Then I hit this.
Household gun ownership was measured using a common proxy, the proportion of suicides committed with a firearm.
“Gun ownership” is estimated from suicides by firearm. Never mind that a goodly percentage of suicides are committed with firearms not owned by the subject. Never mind that better proxies, such as firearm hunting licenses, concealed carry licenses or in states like Illinois and Massachusetts, firearm owner licenses, exist.
Fridel gets to generate bogus data and reinforce the gun-ownership-equals-suicide canard, a twofer.
I should have quit there, but I was gripped by morbid curiosity.
She controlled her data for various socioeconomic and demographic factors. She included firearm homicide rates. But she specifically excluded non-firearm homicides, and violent crimes and property crimes.
It turns out she had per capita hunting license data, but decided not to use it; she just threw it out.
What this really is, then, is a study in how to manipulate and misuse data to further an agenda. Fridel could probably teach Garen Wintemute a few new tricks. Her data is so bad she probably wears an isolation suit to massage it.
INDIAN LAND, S.C. (WBTV) – Deputies are investigating a shooting death after a homeowner fatally shot an uninvited visitor in Lancaster County over the weekend.
Deputies responded to a burglary call around 3:30 a.m. Sunday at a home on Fox Ridge Lane in Indian Land.
Officers said a 37-year-old man drove to the residence uninvited where his ex-girlfriend was visiting.
Deputies said the 37-year-old man, identified as Anastasio Kroustalis, from Matthews, NC, upset that the woman was there. The homeowner, a 40-year-old man, allowed Kroustalis to come inside to the downstairs kitchen.
The homeowner went upstairs to talk with the woman, who was in a walk-in closet in the master bedroom suite. Soon after, Kroustalis made his way upstairs and confronted the homeowner and the woman at the closet door.
Officers said a disturbance ensued and the homeowner fired a handgun at Kroustalis, who was shot and died at the scene. The woman was taken to a medical facility to be treated for injuries and later released.
A search warrant for the home and the Kroustalis’s automobile was obtained, and evidence was collected.
The Pentagon on Wednesday laid out a plan to shift nearly 12,000 service members out of Germany after President Donald Trump repeatedly said the country was “delinquent” on defense spending.
Top defense leaders said the plan, which would bring 6,400 service members home and reposition nearly 5,600 to other countries in Europe, is part of the Pentagon’s broader effort to redistribute U.S. forces across the world to better compete with new threats from Russia and China. The move will leave 24,000 troops in Germany, where the United States has stationed a significant number of forces since the end of the Cold War.
The Marines are about to get their hands on an impressive bit of hardware: A wearable robotic exoskeleton that gives users super strength. The company delivering the unit, a defense-focused subsidiary of Sarcos Robotics developed the exoskeleton for industrial uses, including in energy and construction.
Still, in many ways, this is a return to roots for Sarcos. In 2000, the company was part of a storied class of DARPA grant recipients working on powered exoskeletons for defense purposes. In many ways, the XO, which conserves energy by remaining passive when not actuated, is the fulfillment of that research.
Another exoskeleton maker, Ekso Bionics, came out of the same DARPA grant.
According to Sarcos, the U.S. Marine Corps will test applications for its Guardian XO Alpha, which was first unveiled earlier this year at CES 2020, where it was named “Top Emerging Technology” by Digital Trends,“Best Robot” byPCMag.com, “The Best Ideas and Products of CES” by VentureBeat, and was recognized by WIRED Magazine as being one of the smartest technologies on the show floor. Although the suit may bring to mind nightmares of battlefield cyborgs, the more immediate applications will be in the realm of logistics, where heavy lifting is often necessary. Continue reading “”
Isn’t it strange that all the people who were just down on Confederates are now endorsing rebellion against federal authority? Could it simply be standard operational election year political pandering? Nahhhh.
First, the micro: the Democrats were outrageously rude to the Attorney General of the United States. The hearing was devoted to their abusing him on various ridiculous grounds. He barely got a word in edgewise. At one point, he said something like, “This is a hearing. Aren’t I the one who supposedly is being heard?” Of course not. Whenever he got to mid-sentence, the Democrats interrupted him. “I’m reclaiming my time” was the theme of the day.
I am not sure who the Democrats think is the audience for this sort of nonsense. Sentient voters watching on television couldn’t possibly have been impressed. Maybe they are just looking for sentence fragments they can use in fundraising emails.
Then there is the larger point. The Democrats are committed to the view that what is happening in Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, Atlanta and other cities is mere “peaceful protest.” Thus, the Trump administration is unjustified in sending in federal officers to protect federal property, like courthouses. And to the extent that anything untoward happens, it is Donald Trump’s fault. This was the main theory that the Democrats tried to advance through their “questioning” of Attorney General Barr.
This theme is so stupid that it boggles the mind. Presumably most people have seen video footage of the violence that has taken place in cities like Portland and Minneapolis. They have seen violent assaults and burning buildings, long before any federal agents arrived. They have seen massed, armed criminals doing battle with police officers. Can the Democrats possibly be fooling anyone?
We are approaching a very weird election in which one of our major parties is taking a stand in favor of rioting, looting, arson, destruction of federal property, and violent attacks on law enforcement. The Democrats seem to think that this is a winning formula. If it is, our republic is doomed. While we may be in deep trouble, I don’t think we are that far gone yet.
One more thing: perhaps the only non-rhetorical question in today’s hearing came from Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell: “Do you commit to not release the Durham report before the election?” Barr’s answer: “No.” Obamagate is the reason why the Democrats undertook to demonize Attorney General Barr before he was even sworn in. They know it is a chink in their armor, and they have no defense against the facts except to defame the messenger. Hence their over-the-top attacks on William Barr. Whether the Durham report and/or indictments will arrive in time to do any good is another matter.
Is it Wednesday already? Pardon me, I left my calendar in March.
If today’s headline about election-stealing seems a bit over the top and incendiary, I can assure you that it was most intentional. Democrats and their flying media monkeys make outlandish claims like that about conservatives and Republicans all the time and are never held accountable for them.
These are, after all, the lunatics who are referring to the presence of federal officers in burning riot cities as a portent of “martial law.”
Well, more than one can play the hyperbole hysteria game. And when one is hurling outlandishness at Democrats, history tells us that there is a greater likelihood that it will be true (see how I’m warming up to this so quickly?).
At present, the Democrats are attempting to unseat an incumbent president by devising a plan where their candidate doesn’t have to be seen in public for most of the general election campaign. They’re desperate to keep Joe Biden hidden until as many early and mail-in votes as possible are cast for him because they know that the first time he’s on his own in public he’s going to pull down his mask and start sniffing strangers, all the while barking, “Barack likes me!”
On the rare occasions when the idiot in the basement is let off-leash by his wife and handlers, he’s babbling about President Trump trying to “steal” the election. He keeps saying it, too, most recently at a virtual fundraiser hosted by one of the celebrities Hillary Clinton thought would wish her to victory.
“This president is going to try to indirectly steal the election by arguing that mail-in ballots don’t work. They’re not real. They’re not fair,” Biden said.
In each one of these “steal the election” rants, Biden immediately rambles on about mail-in ballots. Again, that’s all they’ve got and they know it. That’s where the real election-stealing can happen and it’s not going to be done by the Republicans.
The Democrats have shown — especially in the Trump era — that most of what they throw at the Republicans is just a bunch of twisted political psychological projection. Continue reading “”
The fourth annual Magpul Wyoming Governor’s Match will return to Cody on Friday. Presented by Vortex Optics, the match continues through Sunday at the Cody Shooting Complex.
“Here in Wyoming, we cherish our right to own firearms and deeply respect what this means,” Gov. Mark Gordon said in a news release last week. “Our Second Amendment, responsible and safe firearm ownership, and a true love of the outdoors all combine at events such as this and provide an excellent showcase for the rest of the world.”
This 12-stage multi-gun match will feature highly skilled participants from around the country. “Three Gun” competitions like the governor’s match require shooters to hit a series of targets at varying ranges with three different weapons as quickly as possible. They are scored based on time and accuracy.Continue reading “”
The Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility, a billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobbying group, has done Evergreen State conservatives—especially gun owners—a huge favor by publishing its “2020 Legislative Score Card.”
That this information is available right before the Aug. 4 primary election is no small thing. One glance up and down the list tells gun owners who not to vote for in state legislative races, and the formula is easy.
If a politician gets a “0%” Voting grade, vote for him or her. Politicians rating “100%” should get an immediate rejection, and their opponent should get the gun owner vote. In between, any politician earning a rating below 50% deserves a look, while anyone popping above 50% should be considered overdue for replacement. Continue reading “”
“In the future, I believe this misbegotten episode regarding hydroxychloroquine will be studied by sociologists of medicine as a classic example of how extra-scientific factors overrode clear-cut medical evidence,” wrote Harvey Risch in a recent edition of Newsweek magazine.
Risch is not a writer for the New American, nor is he a truck driver, politician, insurance adjustor, real estate agent, or tax accountant. Rather, Dr. Risch is a professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health, and he said unequivocally that hydroxychloroquine, sold under the brand name of Plaquenil, is “the key to defeating Covid-19.”
Dr. Risch has published over 300 peer-reviewed articles, and is on the editorial board of several leading medical journals. He wrote, “I am fighting for a treatment that the data fully support but which, for reasons having nothing to do with a correct understanding of the science, has been pushed to the sidelines.” Continue reading “”
It is with sadness we announce a good friend and fellow Shootist has passed
BUTTE MT- A Butte woman returned to her home on Florence Avenue Friday evening to find a strange man asleep on her couch.
She held the man at gunpoint until police arrived and arrested Michael Berberick of Billings, who was found with a pistol and brass knuckles.
Berberick allegedly told police he thought he was in Billings.
He remains jailed and faces charges, including a parole violation.
His team’s problem is, if he does debate, it will be over as well, due to his dementia, and they know it. Between a rock and a hard place doesn’t begin to describe their problem.
And, he’s got 10 minutes for a softball ‘interview’ by a local TV guy in Phoenix – that looks like it was prescripted so SloJoe could read off a TelePrompter and printed answer sheet- but no time for Chris Wallace?
Again, we know why: Wallace has just enough ethics left to not provide his list of questions in advance and Biden’s team knows it would turn out to be a disaster for Joe if he has to speak without assistance.
It was the commentary of author Thomas Friedman that got me asking if this is a legitimate tactic: could the Biden Team seriously be considering the idea that they could keep presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden off the debate stage? Could they really keep him from debating President Donald Trump going into November?
Nevermind that failing to debate Trump will cost Biden the election, Freidman’s idea was farcical, as are many of the things now written in the New York Times (like the 1619 Project, which its author now admits is a flight of fancy.) Friedman wrote:
First, Biden should declare that he will take part in a debate only if Trump releases his tax returns for 2016 through 2018. Biden has already done so, and they are on his website. Trump must, too. No more gifting Trump something he can attack while hiding his own questionable finances.
And second, Biden should insist that a real-time fact-checking team approved by both candidates be hired by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates — and that 10 minutes before the scheduled conclusion of the debate this team report on any misleading statements, phony numbers or outright lies either candidate had uttered. That way no one in that massive television audience can go away easily misled.
Tax returns? The Supreme Court has already ruled on this. Twice. Besides, no one who is fence-sitting on this race cares about tax returns (though, if we can also see Hunter Biden’s returns, maybe this could get really interesting!) As to his second point? Ok! Fact check away! But does Freidman not understand the double-edged sword of immediate fact checking? Has he never heard Joe Biden speak? Or, more accurately, fail to speak?
But what if this idea isn’t farcical? What if this is an actual idea in the minds of the political Left? Oh, sure, the Left could blow off the idea, and complain that I’m bringing up a red herring. But it’s not. A red herring is the Left asking, “Will Trump Leave Office?” if he loses the election. Recently, it’s been a litany of nonsense-merchants filling minutes on cable news and 280 characters on Twitter – with no proof – on how Trump is not going to accept the election results, or about how Trump is using law enforcement in Portland as a test run for fighting off election results in November.
Clearly, the only two people in recent memory who haven’t accepted election results are Stacey Abrams and Hillary Clinton. But what of Trump’s answer to Chris Wallace of Fox News, when he wouldn’t say that he would accept the election results? Well, that was a bunk question from Wallace. Should anyone accept results they don’t have yet? Should they accept results where fraud is alleged? Should they accept results where tampering is questioned? Of course, the answer is no. You go back, re-check, recount and confirm that the votes of the citizenry were honored and properly counted. When Trump said, “I have to see,” it was clear to rational people that those circumstances were the ones he was referring to. Or, he recognized the question as garbage and decided to give Wallace palpitations.
But back to this idea of Biden not debating. It started with Freidman, but it was clearly backed by the New York Times. And if tax returns are the first thing on their list, it seems very obvious that the Old Gray Narrative is telling Joe Biden not to debate Donald Trump.
Americans don’t reward cowardice all that much. They aren’t into those who hide from danger, or the truth. Biden has been hiding in his basement. Sure, coronavirus made it easy to do, but the Biden Team accepted their basement arrangement far too easily. Everyone has noticed that he’s hiding, including him! When Wallace interviewed President Trump, Trump said that if Joe Biden had to do an interview like this, he’d be, “on the ground crying for mommy.”
Would he? Well, we don’t know. Wallace – who graciously credited Trump for appearing on the show and answering tough questions – noted that Biden was invited, but declined. He didn’t decline being the first guest on Joy Reid’s new MSNBC show (Reid, it should be remembered, wrote anti-gay posts about then-Florida Governor Rick Scott, claimed she was hacked, never fully apologized for lying about not being hacked, never fully apologized for her comments that would have gotten a conservative fired on the spot and was rewarded with a prime-time slot on television.)
Ok, you go where the interview is easy (and Reid’s interview wasn’t just a softball, it was an unpacked snowball.) It makes sense that Biden stuck with the friendly confines. But his campaign thinks they can get disaffected Republicans. Wouldn’t more of them be watching Fox News than MSNBC? Sure, they may hate Trump. But that doesn’t mean they’re settling in for a night with Rachel Maddow.
Biden purposefully skips hard interviews. Biden avoids hard questions. His team cuts off anyone and everyone, ending interviews with their candidate aggressively:
Sure, he has time constraints. But Biden can’t find ten minutes for Chris Wallace? Meanwhile, President Trump is getting asked questions from Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports! (Don’t laugh, Portnoy is a smart guy and has an army of devoted followers. And there is no doubt Trump reached Americans he never would have reached without that conversation.)
My bet, for reasons clear to all of us, is that Biden’s Team is afraid of what will happen on a debate stage. My bet is that all of Biden’s admissions that he can, “…hardly wait” to debate Trump are a lie. They know Joe doesn’t have the acuity to handle 90 minutes of debate. Please note that I am not a doctor, and I am not diagnosing Joe Biden. I’ve just heard him talk, and he can’t verbalize four sentences without falling apart. You’ve heard the same. You believe the same. And, my bet is, so does the Biden Team.
The problem is what I mentioned earlier: Failing to debate Trump will cost Biden the election. Specifically, it will cost him the Midwest. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan: The fence-sitting voter will not vote for the guy who is afraid to debate. The Biden Team can claim tax returns or Covid-19 or the weather or the chupacabra for their reason not to show up, but none of those reasons work. None will be accepted. None will be tolerated.
Trump could pull a Trump and decide not to debate because the network or the moderators are against him. But he hasn’t done that yet. In fact, he’s pushing to add debates to the three already on the schedule. Trump sees what we see: Biden can not handle the debate stage once, let alone four times.
However many debates there are, there has to be at least one. America will not accept a debate-less election. America expects those who want to lead this nation to stand up in front of them and make their case. On this there is no debate for Joe Biden: Show up, and you might lose. Fail to show up, and you definitely will.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
–Santanyana
And from the current state of education, it’s a wonder our children & young adults might even be able to appreciate history.
Just thirty years ago, socialism seemed utterly discredited.
An economic, moral, and political failure, socialism had rightly been thrown on the ash heap of history after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Unfortunately, bad ideas never truly go away—and socialism has come back with a vengeance.
A generation of young people who don’t remember the misery that socialism inflicted on Russia and Eastern Europe is embracing it all over again. Oblivious to the unexampled prosperity capitalism has showered upon them, they are demanding utopia.
In his provocative new book, The Socialist Temptation, Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute explains:
Why the socialist temptation is suddenly so powerful among young people
That even when socialism doesn’t usher in a bloody tyranny (as, for example, in the Soviet Union, China, and Venezuela), it still makes everyone poor and miserable
Why under the relatively benign democractic socialism of Murray’s youth in pre-Thatcher Britain, he had to do his homework by candlelight
That the Scandinavian economies are not really socialist at all
The inconsistencies in socialist thought that prevent it from ever working in practice
How we can show young people the sorry truth about socialism and turn the tide of history against this destructive pipe dream
Sprightly, convincing, and original, The Socialist Temptation is a powerful warning that the resurgence of socialism could rob us of our freedom and prosperity.
“How embarrassing, to have her elite white privilege card declined like that.”
Evergreen State gun rights activists are stunned at what appears to be hypocrisy of anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety, which sent out a pair of emails in recent days, one complaining about the National Rifle Association’s ability to raise $1 million in June, and the other reminding recipients about the $60 million it plans to spend to help elect “gun sense candidates.” Continue reading “”
