If you’ve read any gun news this week, you know that “journalist” Katie Couric was caught faking part of a documentary to make gun-rights activists look stupid and ashamed of themselves. Fortunately, one of the participants had made an audiotape — a very damning tape for Couric and her methods.
Even anti-gun NPR thought what Couric and her team did was a huge, manipulative no-no.
So in this week’s poll we ask, What happens to Couric now?
You’ve heard that “polls show that 90% of Americans want…” garbage; usually universal preemptively-prove-your-innocence checks, but often any other infringement of your human/civil rights the gun grabbers can dream up. And you’ve wondered where the heck they found that many idiots.
In New Hampshire, the claim by UNH was 93% in favor of UPPYI checks. But I could never find a single person who would admit to participating in the survey. At all. Responding pro or con. The university refused to release their raw polling data. Actual voting (as in electing pro-gun politicians) doesn’t reflect that claim.
In Washington, the Bloomberg Ban Bunnies trotted out the same 90% claim. Granted, when it went to referendum, the infringement passed.
By slightly under 60 percent, as I recall. So where did the the other 30% disappear to?
Yes, the 90% claim has consistently been shown to be low-grade, poorly composted bovine ejecta. Real “polls” — votes — don’t support the numbers, so…
Katie Couric: ‘Silent Majority’ of Gun Owners Want More Gun Control
“The NRA only represents five percent of gun owners, so there’s this huge silent majority, and they represent common ground.”
[Digression: By that logic, the Bloomberg BBs represent — maybe — a few hundred people, so 99.999999999% percent of Americans must want everyone to be heavily armed at all times. -psst- Couric; I’m not NRA, but I’m pro-RKBA.]
See that? Now that the polls are clearly biased, manipulated, and maybe in the NH case, where no data exist, even made up, they have to fall back on the “silent majority” who huddle fearfully under their beds, refusing to voice what they truly want. A silent majority that can’t be verified because they run and hide form pollsters. But who transmit psychic emanations to Couric so she can discern their hidden desires.
Well, that got weird and creepy pretty quick. But that “silent majority” obviously has a thing for submission.
There’s the BBB playbook: Fake the polls; when that doesn’t work, lie. When that still doesn’t work, claim you’re speaking up for those who won’t speak up, or vote, for themselves.
How convenient.
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And so it begins.
Both parties have now produced “inevitable” presidential candidates who are corrupt, opportunistic, sexist, self-serving, anti-gun, pro-big government, as personable as rabid skunks, and (worse from the mainstream point of view) electorally weak.
The Punditocracy, both professional and amateur, feels it has no choice other than to persuade its readership to hold their collective noses and v*te for … somebody. But since there’s not a single good thing to say about the candidate of their reluctant choice, the argument usually goes: “Yes, we know you’ve said you’d rather v*te for nobody than for ______. But think again! On issue A, B, or C Candidate So-and-So is so much worse than Candidate Such-and-Such that you simply must v*te against ________. Or the sky will fall.”
In the face of national loathing for both mainstream candidates, it’s amazing that political insiders have not yet shoved forward an independent Ross Perot or John Anderson type. But here the situation stands. For now.
I am not a pundit. I don’t care if you v*te for Unindicted Co-Conspirator D or Mercurial Megalomaniac R. I don’t care if you v*te at all. As an old political junkie myself, I wake up about two mornings out of three thinking Trump would be less ghastly than Clinton II and wake up on the third morning thinking Hillary has advantages over The Donald, though by the time I’ve dosed myself with caffeine I can’t recall what those advantages might be. Oh yeah, that with those mysterious health problems she’s hiding, she’s more likely than Trump to drop dead suddenly and be replaced with someone marginally less horrible. Or with her email and corrupt fundraising history she’s more likely to be disgraced, indicted, or otherwise forced out of office early. That’s her advantage.
Not a good enough reason to v*te for her, though. Unless someone puts a gun to my head, I won’t be v*ting for anybody.
But I don’t care if you v*te or not. That’s your business. I do care if Americans ask the right questions about these party animals, about the thick mess the country is in, and about how we personally should respond to it.
‘Cause it seems vast swaths of Pundithood want you to ask the wrong questions. And when you ask the wrong questions, you never arrive at the right answers.
—–
One of those “You must v*te against ______!” pieces showed up in the TZP mailbox the other day. (A widely circulated but wildly misattributed piece of commentary.) It made a valid and important point against Hillary: the Supreme Court.
Justice Scalia’s seat is vacant. Ginsberg is 82 years old, Kennedy is 79, Breyer is 77, and Thomas is 67. …
These are 5 vacancies that will likely come up over the next 4-8 years. …
Hillary Clinton has made it clear she will use the Supreme Court to go after the 2nd Amendment. She has literally said that the Supreme Court was wrong in its Heller decision, stating that the Court should overturn and remove the individual right to keep and bear arms. Period.
Never mind that no court, no president, can ever “remove the individual right to keep and bear arms.” They can mightily interfere with the exercise of said right. So yes, the prospect of Hillary controling multiple appointments to the court is ominous.
But then the pundit goes absurdly over the top:
If Hillary Clinton wins, and gets to make these appointments, you likely will never see another Conservative victory at the Supreme Court level, for the rest of your life – – – Including your children and your grandchildren.
The rest of your life? The rest of your grandchildren’s lives? Oh, really? Let’s say you have a child this year and that child grows up and, at age 25, has a child. Then that child, your grandchild, lives 75 years. (Note: “the rest of your life, ridiculous enough, appears in the original. Someone added all those grandchildren as the piece circulated. So it’s the pundit’s editor going even farther over the top.)
We’re supposed to believe that, if Hillary is elected, the Supreme Court will remain rabidly Hillarian for the next 100 years???
“The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”
But worse than the Alice in Wonderland math and the Chicken Little claims are the things unsaid, the facts unstated, the untruths cleverly implied — the questions unasked. Such as:
What makes anyone think Donald Trump is a “conservative,” or that he would appoint “conservative” justices? Trump has supported single-payer health insurance (to the left of Hillary). Trump has been anti-gun, just like Hillary. Trump has used big government to his own ends and wants to use them now in populist (traditionally “left-wing”) causes. Trump has contributed to past Hillary Clinton campaigns. Conservative? What?
What makes anyone think that justices appointed by Trump, even if he happened to choose a few “conservative” ones, would be pro-gun or pro-liberty? This generation may have forgotten that the court headed by “conservative” Chief Justice Earl Warren produced some of the most unconstitutional, left-wing decisions in U.S. history (with Warren’s full and enthusiastic collaboration). But surely we can’t already have forgotten that current “conservative” Chief Justice John Roberts single-handedly saved Obamacare. “Liberal” justices tend to remain liberal, but “conservative” ones often do what other gov-o-crats do: v*te for big government once they’re part of it.
Ask the wrong questions — or fail to ask the right ones — and you’ll inevitably get the wrong answers.
While (correctly) damning Hillary, the viral article says not one, single, positive thing about Trump. It offers not one smidgeon of evidence that Trump would do anything better. Because there is no evidence to offer. It implies in a slippery and sideways manner that he’s a conservative (whatever that means), but actual evidence of his principles or his intentions is completely absent.
But Hillary is anti-gun! Hillary will appoint nasty Supreme Court justices!
So please don’t notice that Trump is just Hillary with even worse hair, a louder mouth, and a different variety of sexism.
The sky will fall if you v*te for Hillary! Your grandchildren will still be stuck with her 100 years from now!
Never mind the consequences of Trump. Don’t mention them. Imply that he’s a “conservative” antidote to creepy authoritarian anti-gun eternal statism and maybe in November it’ll miraculously turn out to be true.
It could happen. And pigs could fly. And Dorothy could click her heels and come safely home to Kansas. And Jesus really could appear on a tortilla. And orchids could bloom outdoors at the North Pole. And presidential candidates could tell the absolute truth, hold noble principles of freedom, and always do exactly what we hope they’ll do, just because we hope it so very, very ardently.
It could happen.
But wouldn’t we be better off if we closely examine reality and act in accordance with that?
Today is Yom Ha’Shoah, holocaust remembrance day. A few thoughts and some more information for you on Yom Ha’Shoah. This is quite a good little article.
A few weeks ago, we celebrated my birthday by attending the grand opening of Arlington’s newest gun shop – NoVA Armory. It is a cute shop close to our apartment in the Lyon Park neighborhood of Arlington.
And because it’s Arlington, the store’s opening wasn’t without the sturm and drang normally expected from the usual leftist gun grabbers that infest this part of the world. The residents protested, and state legislators did what they normally do in these situations – they attempted to use their elected positions to pressure and bully the store and its landlord into closing the shop down.
I have detailed Virginia State Senator Barbara Favola’s and other elected local and state officials’ underhanded tactics in destroying small businesses here. Emails obtained by the blog Bearing Drift reveal that Favola and other Democrats conspired to destroy the business of a local Virginia business owner and military veteran, merely because they did not like having a gun shop in the area.
Delegate Kathleen Murphy, McLean Democrat, wrote an email to state Sen. Barbara Favola, Arlington Democrat, seeking help in shutting down the gun store. Ms. Favola was instrumental in organizing opposition to Mr. Gates’ shop in Arlington.
“Basically, we convinced the land owner that his business tenants would lose business,” Ms. Favola told Ms. Murphy in a reply. “In other words, moving a gun shop to a small cluster of shops in the middle of a neighborhood was bad for business.
“The argument has to be about supporting small businesses,” Ms. Favola wrote in her email. “The ‘we’ versus ‘they’ argument is winnable with the NRA.”
Ms. Murphy forwarded that email Sept. 25 to other Democrats in her district, including Fairfax County Supervisor John Foust, who is up for re-election Tuesday, saying, “Lets do it.”
They attempted the same tactics with NoVA Armory, but it didn’t quite pan out the way they’d hoped. After protests, intimidation, and even a mailed death threat against store owner Dennis Pratte’s teenage daughter, it got too much, and the company that owns NoVA Armory filed suit against the so-called “protesters,” who colluded to destroy Pratte and his family’s livelihood, and against the elected public officials who used their office and position to intimidate and bully the family out of their business.
I provide details here, and luckily, the ever kind and always responsive Ted Nugent helped me spread the word here.
The suit says that, first, Howell, Favola, Levine, and Hope conspired between one another to destroy Pratte’s business. They are elected officials. They maliciously acted to defame Pratte and destroy the reputation of his business in an effort to prevent it from opening. These elected public officials discussed strategy about how to best do so on social media, and sent a letter to the store’s landlord – on official government stationery – trying to pressure her into abandoning the lease. That’s right. Elected public officials tried to use their official offices and authority to pressure a landlord to sever a relationship with a tenant! Worse yet, they attempted to malign and defend Pratte and his business by claiming that he had opened his business “in order to conduct criminal activities, namely conveyance of firearms to persons ineligible to be in possession thereof and to facilitate violent crime.”
Talk about your abuse of power!
Abuse of power, indeed.
What I noticed after the message about the lawsuit spread is that those named in the legal action began to claim victimhood – as if they were the ones maligned, as if they were the ones whose rights were violated, and as if they were the ones abused.
One of the people named in the suit, an ignorant, pathetic liar named Ryan Albert, published a whiny editorial in the Washington Post a few days ago, claiming his rights are being violated by the suit, and asserting that he is merely being sued for expressing his (uninformed and ignorant) opinion in public.
I fisked this nonsense here, but the basic message is the following:
Your rights stop where others rights begin, Ryan. Your right to speak freely does not include libel. It does not include defamation. It does not include threats and intimidation. I’m going to quote attorney Daniel Hawes here, so you can better understand what this lawsuit references.
Simply put, free speech begins and ends with speech. When you take active steps to put someone out of business, that’s a crime in Virginia, even if you do it mainly by the use of words. That goes beyond “free speech”. If I can make an analogy, the fact that, in Virginia, I’ve got a perfect right to strap on a gun and walk around in public with it doesn’t give me the right to pull it out and shoot someone I don’t like. There is a point at which the privileged conduct stops and wrongful action begins. These people are not “random protesters” – they’re not protesters at all – they’re people who have communicated among themselves to effect an unlawful purpose using unlawful means. NoVa Armory is not a governmental agency, and a letter to its landlord is not “petitioning the government for a redress of grievances”. Trying to shut down that business is not an exercise in free speech.
The unlawful acts include defamation, calling NoVa Armory’s manager “gun-slinger Denny” and accusing him of being a terrorist, a liar, and a person who would sell guns to “those people” who live on the other side of the Anacostia river thereby promoting an illegal “black” market in guns and drugs. But it’s not a suit for defamation, it’s a suit for unlawfully conspiring to injure NoVa Armory in its trade or business in violation of Va. Code sections 18.2-499 and 18.2-500.
Meanwhile, the Virginia Delegate who led this disgusting battle and abused his public office to do so, Delegate Mark Levine, has been dutifully deleting any and all posts on his social media page that were critical of his actions. And believe me, before he went on his censorship spree, the negative comments were voluminous, thanks to Ted Nugent’s help in spreading the message.
It seems the bullies don’t like it when the victims fight back. We need to do that more often, and support those who do.
I’m not a tech blogger, nor do I play one on TV. I would if anyone asked, I’m sure. But let’s be honest, no one is asking.
But sometimes, things in life just sort of can’t be ignored. I recently bought a little tablet hybrid. Meaning it’s a tablet with a detachable keyboard. I put much thought into my purchase. I chose one with decent reviews from a company that seemed to have good customer service. I chose one that can be charged from 100 -240 V AC, 50/60 Hz universal so it could be charged about anywhere, it has good hardware, good ports including a SD card slot that can give me 128 GB extra storage besides the 64 GB it comes with. It has a trackpad, I found out last year trying to blog off my PlayBook that inserting hyperlinks without a mouse or trackpad is a hyper-nightmare. It comes in Rouge Pink.
It also came with Windows 10.
Perhaps I should say the poor thing came infected with Windows 10. I haven’t read much good about Windows 10, and personally I left windoze behind when I bought a new computer infected with Windoze Vista. The word Vista still makes me a little nauseous.
After obsessively checking the FedEx website about 5 times a day the little thing finally arrived. I charged it for the requested 9 hours while I was at work. Hey, I couldn’t use it, but I could look at it’s shiny pink shell. And smile. Ahh yes, the plans I have for you little hybrid!
Finally, 9 hours into my shift and it’s the “q” word. In my business we don’t say the “q” word meaning lack of utter chaos. Saying the “q” word aloud brings down utter chaos upon us. I fire it up and am greeted with it’s cheerful start up logo, then it’s time to set it up. The first screen basically says we are going to set things up, like time, date and language. The “next” button is in it’s usual spot to the bottom right of the page. There is some small writing in the lower left. It says you can customize settings. Ok, let’s. I click on that. Had I done the express set up as I suspect many do this is what I would have missed.
Followed by
I’m sure you are not shocked to find all these settings were turned ON by default. All of them.
And once you shut those off? You also need to go into app permissions, because by default their apps (many of which can’t be uninstalled) have permission to access everything. To get a browser different than Microsoft’s Edge to work required using command line and doing a command line reset. You know, the usual stuff.
So, automatically connect to things shared by my contacts. MicroSnoop will know who all my contacts are. It tells you it is collecting your browsing habits and sending the data to MicroSnoop, it basically collects everything about you and sends it to MicroSnoop. In fact, it is basically turning my little rouge pink traveling buddy into one little tracking device. Sort of like having Bill Gates staring through the window at everything you do…the voyeur.
Pity the people that want to keep their Windoze 7 or 8. Windoze 10 is being pushed off on them if they have recommended updates turned on. In addition to badgering them frequently to upgrade, it’s now just downloading and installing it. Oh, and on Windoz10, you can NOT turn off installing updates, at least not like before.
I realize we are already being tracked like crazy. A friend of mine was telling me about recently doing a google search for HazMat gear. When she logged into Facebook the next time she was greeted with many ads for HazMat materials. You know, the usual stuff that pops up on most womens Facebook pages.
This article has a more humorous take on it, but it’s still true.
Many states are trying to implement the REAL ID act by hook or by crook, in my state it was by crook, but hey, we have a dem governor. There are a host of potential expensive problems created for citizens and their states. But you have to admit, sure will be handy having all that data on people in one giant storage bin. Biometric data, friends, surfing habits, web searches. Even obamacare helps out. The majority of the veterans denied their Second Amendment rights have been turned in by the Veterans Administration. Now even if you’re not a veterans you too can experience the fun since your medical records are now electronic and can be accessed by a whole lot of people other than your doctor. Gee, even your children help out with data collection on the family unit via common (rotten to the) core helpfully pushed along by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. Shock, gasp, awe, astonishment? Not so much.
So with all that tracking going on, I really don’t need my little pink hybrid friend ratting me out to MicroSnoop and any other giant data bases with whom they chose to share information. It’s no one’s business if I surf Drudge, Israeli news sites, Second Amendment sites and listen to the Squirrel Nut Zippers, Matisyahu, Tom T. Hall, Glenn Campbell and Yossi Azulay on YouTube. It just isn’t.
I waffled on writing about this, but when I saw this line in Kit’s column
Understanding how to set up and maintain those networks and infrastructure is the difference between a stagnant movement and a liberty resistance.
I decided to go ahead. Crucial to networks is their ability to do their job, as it needs to be done. For a few hundred years tyrants have known to maintain control, data collection is invaluable.
For decades — ever since I really became aware of RKBA as a political and moral issue, and educated myself on the subject — one particular question has nagged at me.
Given history (Maccabees, Basel, Warsaw Ghetto, and the Holocaust in full, to pick out a few), why and how do so many American Jews support victim disarmament? If any single group has thousands of years of experience with the value of arms, it must certainly be Jews.
The closest I’ve come to understanding this, if only on an intellectual level and certainly not agreement, is expressed by Charlie Deitch. So far as I know, he isn’t Jewish, but this seems to be the same mindset.
Deitch: Fight for gun control now, you don’t know whose life you’re saving
I’m only alive today because she killed her husband 64 years ago.
She felt so certain of her death because she only knew him as an abusive monster her entire young life. Her siblings, the oldest in his teens, had dealt with it much longer. The fact that this was her daddy made her even surer of what was coming.An account I got later in life, the account I’m inclined to believe, is that [grandmother] got the gun away and took her shot. My grandfather, a World War II veteran and inveterate drunk, was dead; my grandmother was arrested; and six months later a grand jury, who heard the first version of events, ruled the shooting self-defense, according to a news report from the time.
Now some will say, of course, and I’m just waiting for the emails, that a gun actually saved my mother’s life back in 1952. And who knows, maybe that’s how you might think of it if you’re not a 5-year-old with a rifle in your face or her 44-year-old son who sometimes thinks about how close he came to not existing so someone else could exercise his Second Amendment rights. But I don’t see it that way, and most rational people wouldn’t see it that way either.
One man with one rifle nearly ended our entire bloodline in one night.
So the fact that everyone knew him as an abusive monster likely to kill them all means nothing. It’s the gun’s fault.
The fact that his grandmother got the rifle away from the would-be killer, yet still felt sufficiently threatened by the disarmed man to find it necessary to kill her own husband in self defense, means nothing. It’s the gun’s fault.
I’m surprised Deitch doesn’t condemn his grandmother for using that nasty, evil rifle. Isn’t it still the gun’s fault, if guns are evil by default?
No, sir, most rational people wouldn’t see it that way. You’ve confused rationality with your own delusions.
And so, I believe, do the Schumers, Feinsteins, Spielbergs, and Creditors of the Jewish world.
Rationally, a firearm is neutral; neither good nor evil. It isn’t even specifically designed to kill. “Firearms are chemical/mechanical devices designed to direct a projectile at a target. That’s all.” The target is chosen through the intent of the person using it. Deitch, of all people — his mother threatened with a gun by his grandfather, and saved by his grandmother with the same gun — should see that.
And so should should anyone whose forebearers used arms to put off their own involuntary participation in the Holocaust.
In the end, it seems that the answer to my question is that those people are irrational, not quite sane. And one does not help a crazy person get better by compromising with them and adopting part of their delusions.
Ed. note: This commentary appeared first on TZP’s weekly email alert. If you would like to be among the first to see new commentary (as well as to get notice of new polls and recaps of recent posts), please sign up for our alert list. (See sidebar or, if you’re on a mobile device, scroll down). Be sure to respond when you receive your activation email!
Today, 73 years ago began the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Some say it ended on May 16th, but there are other sources that say that it lasted on until fall. But the Jews in the ghetto held out longer than the nation of Poland.
The thing was, everything had been fine in Poland. Until it wasn’t.
As candidates debate how best to get America disarmed, this is worth remembering.
Not only were there precious few weapons available, most of the Jews in the ghetto didn’t know how to use them.
But I will leave you with something strong, proud and brave.
Zog nit kein mol- Jewish partisan song, but that’s Yiddish.
THIS, is Hebrew!
NEVER.AGAIN.
Celebrating Americans resisting gun grabbers at Lexington-Concord.
Oh.
Wait.
Town of Lexington Voting To Ban Commonly Owned Firearms & Magazines
For the record. The basic premise of Rotberg’s Article 34 is an insult to all law abiding gun owners. His logic is also flawed in that he insinuates that a gun is inherently “dangerous”. A firearm is an inanimate object incapable of doing anything on its own. The only thing that has the potential for being dangerous is the person and there is nothing in any of the versions of Article 34 which addresses this. It’s just more bigotry, harassment and blame of lawful gun owners.
Never mind.
-sigh-
What in the everloving blue Hades is a “bullet button” loophole? Seriously?
SECTION 1.
It is the intent of the Legislature to effectuate the intent of the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 and to close the bullet button loophole by redefining “detachable magazine,” as used in Section 30515 of the Penal Code, to include an ammunition feeding device that can be readily removed from the firearm with the use of a tool.
The odious trolls in the California legislature have really outdone themselves on this one. With zero knowledge about firearms and zero comprehension of Constitutional rights, they are on a rampage to destroy the right to keep arms in that statist hole of a state.
(h/t Ammoland)