J. Kb

Bloomie losing his grip

Chicago imposed a $0.01 per Oz tax on sodas and sugary drinks.

It was supposed to encourage healthy living.

Of course Chicago would focus on something like that and not its homicide rate.  The  leading cause of death of young men in Chicago is not high fructose corn syrup but high velocity lead.

After much backlash, Chicago is now repealing the tax realizing that it hurts working class people and the poor the hardest.

Michael Bloomberg, on his never ending quest to micromanage everyone’s life in America, spent $3 Million pushing for this tax.  Previously his big soda ban was shot down in NYC.

This is great news.  Bloomberg’s grip is slipping.  If he can’t win on a sugar tax in one of America’s most progressive cities, he can’t win on even more contentious issues elsewhere.

He’s overextended his grasp.  People are no longer willing to put up with his overbearing nannying.

Maybe he’ll learn his lesson and just retire, but I don’t think his personality will let him.

I’m happy to watch the man bankrupt himself tiling at political windmills, fighting the not-good fight to remove all joy, happiness, and personal responsibility from people.

Badger Dumb

This video is short but to the point.

A bunch of students with Cocks Not Glocks protested a Katie Pavlich speech at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Wisconsin doesn’t have campus carry.  What these girls are protesting is a speech by a conservative journalist.

Congratulations, Cocks Not Glocks, you have become part of the censorious Left.

Here’s the thing about this video, it is just ridiculous.  Leave the argument by the pro gun rights girl out of it.

The first thing you notice is the Disarm Hate rainbow sign.

What hate?  This is left over from the Pulse Shooting.  It is meaningless in the discussion of concealed carry on campus.  But some anti-gun group printed it so it had to come out whether it’s relevant or not.

Next, is the chant “this is what democracy looks like” as a response to a pro-gun argument.  Trying to drown out someone with an opposing view is not what democracy looks like.  Democracy looks like people voting.

Last, but not least, they are waving dildos.

Yep, they brought out the dildos.

The University of Wisconsin – Madison cost between $25,244 and $47,544 per year, depending on in state or out of state tuition.  It is considered one of the “Public Ivy” universities.

All I can think, watching this, is how bad I feel for the parents of these girls.  Shelling out tens of thousands of dollars to see their daughters not learn how to make a reasoned argument and instead shout nonsensically in public waving artificial penises.

Somewhere there is a dad, seeing his, staring absently into his morning coffee, realizing that all those hours of overtime he put in to give his little girl the best shot in life he can, were wasted.

The Hollywood Cesspool

I am absolutely not shocked about anything I’ve seen regarding the Harvey Weinstein sex scandal.

We find out that Harvey Weinstein, one of the most power men in Hollywood and a kingmaker in politics has spent the last 30 years sexually harassing, sexually abusing, molesting, groping, and raping his way through a who’s who of Hollywood starlets.  Not just that, but the entire industry has been covering for him because everybody knew it was happening.

In 2013, Seth MacFarlane joked about it at the Oscars.  So did 30 Rock in 2012.

The Hollywood outrage over the exposure of Weinstein as a monster is just tired.  They were all complicit in the cover up because of the money and power and prestige that Weinstein had to offer.  It seems that the only aspect of this that upsets them is that Weinstein’s abuses are now on display for us normals and no longer an ivory tower open-secret.

These are of course the people to pretend to be our moral betters, lecturing us through their artistic medium about just how bad we are on things like healthcare and gun laws.

The same late night TV hosts who use their opening monologues to lecture and rant against everything Trump does and Middle America likes were eerily silent on Weinstein.

Weinstein was a major political donor and bundler, to the tune of over $2 Million in the last few elections, all to Democrats.

So it is no surprise to anyone that it took Hillary Clinton nearly a week to condemn him, in very weak terms, and not give back his money.

The statement by the Obamas was also pathetic, and they are not returning the money either.

I have written about the abuse of New York City’s gravity knife laws, twice, how NYC deliberately misinterprets the law to boost arrest numbers by targeting construction workers and laborers for carrying common pocket knives they use on the job because it is easier to harass (usually minority) working class people than it is to bust actual criminals.  This abuse has been lead by NY district attorney Cy Vance.

The Weinstein scandal revealed something interesting about Vance.  He was handed incriminating evidence on Weinstein on a silver platter, and turned down the opportunity to prosecute.

Two sources close to the police investigation said that they had no reason to doubt Gutierrez’s account of the incident. One of them, a police source, said that the department had collected more than enough evidence to prosecute Weinstein. But the other source said that Gutierrez’s statements about her past complicated the case for the office of the Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, Jr. After two weeks of investigation, the District Attorney’s office decided not to file charges. 

After Vance dropped the charges, he received $10,000 from Weinstein’s lawyers.  Sexual assault AND corruption.

The rich and powerful in Hollywood and politics are closing ranks to protect one of their own.  I am honestly not shocked about any of this.

Unfortunately, I think the worst is yet to come.

Weinstein’s name is being removed from all the TV shows he has produced, but he’s still being allowed to keep the money from them.

The outrage will die down once the shock factor is gone.

Hollywood will stop talking about this as soon as they can get away with not having to fake outrage on camera, because it is in their best interests to do so.

After an inappropriately short period of time, the next distraction will hit America and these same people will go back to lecturing us about our moral failings from their award show pulpits.

In the end, Weinstein will keep his money and retire to some private island somewhere to spend his days in luxury, rubbing one out to the memories of the times he coerced an A-Lister into sex.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, will spend one day in prison over the three decades of sexual violence and corruption that occurred.

That is the sickest thing of all.

Choice of Weapon, Pt. 2

Acid attacks are common in the Middle East and Central Asia.  Usually targeted at women who reject a man’s advancements or proposal, or shame the family, the are on the rise in even more economically developed countries in the that region of the world,  such as Iran and India.

Due to some European policy decisions, London is the acid attack capital of Europe and is at epidemic levels.

Having already banned guns, and nearly outlawed knives, London has to severely limit the sales of acid and other household chemicals to stop these attacks.

Evil, savage people will always figure out how to hurt someone if that is their desire.  No amount of bans and restrictions will stop that.

When London has outlawed every weapon, chemical, and sharp or heavy object, these people will turn to eye gouging with their fingers, I guarantee it.

 

Choice of weapon

The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence gives California an “A” grade for its gun laws.  Likewise the Brady Campaign gives California an “A-” grade.

So for two major anti-gun groups, California is a model for what gun ownership in the US should look like.

California is also a crazy Progressive state.  Crazy, as in they lost their damn minds.

Recently California signed into law a bill that makes it no longer a felony to deliberately infect a person with HIV.

You read that right.

If a person knows they are HIV positive, and does not disclose that fact, and deliberately puts another person at risk of contracting an incurable, life altering, and ultimately terminal disease…. so what.

According to California, it is a worse crime to “stigmatize people with HIV” than it is to deliberately infect them with a terminal illness.

We’re not just talking about sex here, even people who know they are HIV positive and donate blood, are safe from prosecution.

This is SUPER dangerous, as HIV can still be transmitted even when the viral load is below the detection limits.  A person can be HIP+, not tell the blood bank, the blood bank tests the blood, no HIV is detected, the recipient still contracts the virus because California doesn’t want to stigmatize HIV.

Having read the text of the bill I’m pretty sure in California, you can go around sticking people with HIV infected needles and not be guilty of a felony.

California has no right to every lecture anybody about gun laws every again.  It is now a state where simply owning a semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine is a felony but murdering someone with an incurable disease is a slap on the wrist.

Answering Miguel

I’m going to answers Miguel’s question from his last post.

I was fucking amazed that after Las Vegas, Pelosi’s bill didn’t call for an outright ban on semi auto rifles.

Think about that.  Really.

In a span of 16 month there were two mass shootings using AR pattern rifles, with combined over 100 dead nearly 600 injured. 

The best that Pelosi could muster was a ban on bump fire stocks.   Not an assault weapons ban.  Just on bump fire stocks and trigger cranks.

That is an amazing victory for our side, that Pelosi knows an AWB would die instantly in Congress.

Yet some in the gun community are choosing to die on the hill of bump fire stocks.

Holy shit.   We have an opportunity to buy good will for a major win for our side  (see the NRA statement on bump fire and national reciprocity).  Fighting that is as bone headed a thought as I’ve ever seen.

For fucks sake, take the comic of the gun rights cake and shove it.

I guarantee if we win bump fire stocks they WILL come back with an AWB to spite us.

Let’s make a deal, a follow up.

I read Miguel’s post on why he might need a vacation.

Allow me to make something clear.

I’m not just a gun blogger and recreational shooter, my income, my living, my career is in guns.  I’m not some weak tea supporter of gun rights.

In my heart of ideological hearts I read “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed” as just that. 

According to Merriam Webster, infringed means “to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another.”

The way I see it, I have the right to go into a gun store and buy an M4 with a giggle switch and under slung M203, pay cash and walk out the door with it.  The only compromise should be on what condiment the person who says I should not be allowed to do that can eat my ass with.

But that isn’t the world we live in.  We live in a world where the NFA, NICS, Gun Control Act of 1968, and FOPA exist.

So there have already been compromises.  I don’t like them but unless there is a civil war or Constitutional Convention, the likelihood of us getting our rights back by stomping our feet and saying “no more compromises” is zero.

Fuck if Trump didn’t get elected on the chant “build the wall” and when DACA came up, he fucking waffled.  Do you expect better from the swamp rats like Ryan and Graham?

Of course not. 

So in the game of politics, I am willing to sacrifice a pawn for a queen.  I’ll trade bump fire for the right to carry on 5th Avenue in NYC with my Alabama permit.  I’d happily trade some piece of plastic shit that causes AR’s to jam for the right to build a 12 inch 300 BLK with a can on it with only a 4473 at point of sale.

I want to beat them at their own game.  It seems most “pro gun” Republicans take a stand before an election then grab their ankles afterwards.  

If you can get results with no compromises, more power to you.  Show me results.  If you can’t, what trades are you willing to make for a big win. 

Also, if you have issues with one of my posts, leave it in the comments.  I read them.  Don’t torment Miguel on my behalf.