Gun Free Zone

While working on my last post, I saw this Tweet from Michael Moore:

In the middle of an amazing conversation with @emrata, she announced she was supporting @BernieSanders for President! Listen to the full episode here! Apple:https://t.co/835dh9GHiw

Spotify:https://t.co/fDlI26Nzql

Stitcher:https://t.co/VHvtb76aIk pic.twitter.com/TwA9GNe1O4

— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) January 9, 2020

If you don’t know you Emily Ratajkiwczkiwszykiscyski is, shes a model who became famous for her perky tits and dead-eyed expression in a douchey pop song from 2013, which has been subsequently CANCELED.

Emily’s tits (because I don’t think she has a personality, she always has that same dead-behind-the-eyes expression on her face) were wed to a man with the most douche-bag face you’ve ever seen who is a producer of movies you’ve never seen.  McDoucheface is the privileged son of another producer of movies you’ve never seen.

What is important is that her tits are worth $6 Million, and her husband is worth $12 Million.

So, multimillionaire celebrities.  Supporting Bernie Sanders.

Want to take a guess where this is going?

Emily Ratajkowski and her millionaire husband are living rent free, landlord claims

The millionaire movie-producer hubby of model Emily Ratajkowski is living rent free in the couple’s Noho loft thanks to a legal loophole meant to protect struggling artists, his livid landlord alleges.

Filmmaker Sebastian Bear-McClard, who’s worth an estimated $12 million, has allegedly stiffed the landlord out of $120,000 for the unit at 49 Bleecker St. since 2017, claiming protection under the state’s Loft Law, a building rep said.

“Here is a prime example, in prime NYC real estate, where an uber-wealthy celebrity couple and tenant can take advantage and exploit a law that was intended for truly struggling artists and low-income families in need of affordable housing,” said Carolyn Daly, spokeswoman for a coalition of loft building owners that includes 49 Bleecker.

Bear-McClard, 31, who married “Blurred Lines” music-video dancer Ratajkowski, 27, last year, has subletted the 1,100 square-foot pad on the second floor of the former manufacturing building since 2013, court records show.

After his lease expired in 2017, he hasn’t paid a penny of the $4,900 monthly rent since then, claims lease holder Antoni Ghosh in Manhattan Civil Court.

Daly said what Bear-McClard currently owes is “now over $120,000.”

But it gets worse:

Emily Ratajkowski was paid to leave NYC apartment after ‘dodging rent’: suit

Emily Ratajkowski and her wealthy husband misused a state loft law meant to help starving artists to skip out on $160,000 rent over two years — and then had to be paid to finally leave the building, the landlord claims.

After their great escape, the “Blurred Lines” beauty and her movie producer husband, Sebastian Bear-McClard, who’s worth an estimated $12 million, bought a $2 million home in L.A.

The rent dispute took an ugly turn on Twitter at one point, with the glam couple falsely depicting landlord Antoni Ghosh as a “real estate conglomerate” gouging tenants of the Bleecker Street building, according to a lawsuit Ghosh filed against the pair.

Ghosh, who wants $250,000 in damages, does not own 49 Bleecker St. but has rented an entire floor since 1995 for $23,000 a month. He sublets five of the six units. Bear-McClard began renting the unit in 2013 for $4,200 a month, and the rent eventually climbed to $4,900 a month.

But Bear-McClard stopped paying rent in 2017 and filed a worthless application to register the unit under the city’s Loft Law — which meant he couldn’t be evicted while his application was pending, the suit charges.

Ratajkowski, 28, and Bear-McClard, 32, “utilized delay tactics while that application was being processed, not paying rent,” Ghosh alleged in court papers.

The law is designed to provide affordable housing for artists, who can’t be evicted while their Loft Law application is under review. They law protects such tenants from unlawful eviction or massive rent increases.

While getting no rent, Ghosh had to pay $23,000 a month out of his own pocket to building owner Rogers Investments.

For a reason not outlined in court papers, Rogers Investments actually paid the couple to vacate the building. Ratajkowski and Bear-McClard, pocketed an unknown amount and left in October.

But wait, there’s more:

Emily Ratajkowski Defends Her Husband for Not Paying Rent

In a series of tweets on Monday, EmRata cleared the air about the neighborhood drama that’s taken over their New York City building — and denied that her husband is as rich (or as young) as reports have stated.

“Husband is 38, not 31,” she wrote. “He’s an independent movie producer so people thinking he’s rich is real nice but not based in fact.”

She then went on to say that Bear-McClard really is a descendent of struggling artists who’s just trying to “fight the good fight” for NYC creatives who have been priced out of their homes … by holding out on rent, presumably.

Yeah… down with those money-grubbing landlords.  That’s the socialist way.

Even if what she says about her husband is true, which is in doubt since he bought a $2 Million home in California, she’s still worth $6 Million.  Why couldn’t she pay the rent?  Or is it too feminist to ask a multimillionaire celebrity wife to financially support her husband?

They downplay their wealth and high-profile status while overinflating the status of their landlord to justify why a couple worth $18 million dollars can steal two years’ worth of rent from a guy trying to run a business.

Multimillionaire Millennial celebrities stealing rent, good.  Landlord worth far less than them, bad.

This is the first time that I, and probably most people have heard of this loophole in the law.  It goes back to the 1982 Loft Law, which goes back to activism started in the 1960s.

Pretty much, if you are a “fine artist” you can get the City of New York to certify you, so that you get to pay well below market rate (pennies on the dollar) for huge lofts in converted industrial buildings if you use them as studio space.  If you try and make a living as an artist, doing the sorts of things other artists do to make money, fuck you.

Fine arts. The individual is engaged in an art form or art occupation that can be considered and is pursued by the individual as a “fine art”, evidenced by a substantial element of independent esthetic judgment and self-directed work. The production of work solely on a commercial, industrial or work-forhire basis without evidence of the foregoing elements is not sufficient to demonstrate pursuit as a “fine art. ”
Professional basis. The individual is committed to the art form or art occupation as his/her primary vocation and others in the field recognize the individual as a professional with regard to the art form or occupation.

So if you paint graphics during the day and your shit at night or you make money as a wedding photographer while trying to establish yourself as the next Mapplethorpe by taking black-and-white pictures of men inserting things into their anuses, you don’t get cheap rent.

If you are an inventor or innovator, working on the next app or cutting edge piece of technology, no matter how much more useful that is to society than a woman who swings on a trapeze with her flowers in her vagina (no, I am not making that up).  Fuck you three times.

So if you needed another reason to hate the fuck out of artists, there you go.

What this law really does is fuck over landlords and building owners.  They technically can pass the cost of renovation of lofts onto their artist tenants but “the paperwork is so onerous that most just swallow the costs.  Additionally, the law protects tenants from eviction.”

So what really happens is the landlords jack up the rent on others in the building who are not “certified artists.”

SoHo has long since become a playground for the rich, as has the Flatiron District, where Arthur Atlas’s neighbor across the hall pays $11,000 a month for a space exactly the same size as his.

Atlas pays only $600 a month as a “certified artist.”  That’s 95% less in rent for the same size place, because one of those people got a special piece of paper from city that says he’s an artist.

Not a doctor, or a nurse, or a paramedic, or a firefighter, not an electrical engineer, or lineman; not someone useful to the city, who can save lives or keep the lights on in an emergency.  No, the city subsidizes the most immediately useless people to society.

And because the way Progressives write these laws, a multimillionaire celebrity couple can use them to fuck over a landlord and claim to be the good guys.

Welcome to Sander’s America, where you hard-working Americans are going to get screwed so millionaire celebrity artists can get their subsidized Dachas.

I finished reading (and agreeing a lot) with J.Kb’s post on the idiotic comments of Michael Moore and I went looking for a funeral procession for comparison.

The funeral for Ronald Reagan

Dear Fat Slob Moore, even though your Lefty friends have been shoving in our faces how old and rich is the Iranian culture (actually it is the Persian culture that has nothing to do with the current crop of inhabitants of the area) we treat or State Funerals with pomp and circumstance. There were thousands upon thousands freely attending the funeral, not being forced to attend or lose their jobs or meal coupons or even freedom. And we sure as hell do not treat the funeral of a beloved person as a mosh pit during a metal concert after flying the body in coach and parading it through the streets in the back of a pick up truck.

So much for “ancient” culture.

Mom had a fantastic Green Thumb. I used to say you give that woman a broken broom handle and she would get it flowering in a month. Back in Venezuela she used to grow and keep Cattleyas and it was not unusual for her to get over a hundred flowers every May.

Of course, she got too old for such intensive love labor and other than her parsley, basil, culantro and an eternal failing fight with a couple of tomato plants, she downsized to a single orchid plant bought many years ago in Home Depot if memory serves right. Even at the hospital on her last days, she told me to take care of her plants, specially her orchid.

After she died, I have been keeping an eye on her plants and making sure they do not die (It seems I  am cursed with a somewhat green thumb myself, but I never cared much for gardening) doing the watering and fertilizing thing. When I stepped out on our porch just minutes ago, I saw her orchid had finally bloomed and yes, I got a bit teary.

Mom’s last orchid.

Michael Moore just can’t stop loving on Soliemani.

He decided to post this:

Just wondering – is there an American General for whom millions of us would turn out for his funeral? Mad Dog? Kelly? Colin Powel? William Westmoreland? Can anyone even name the chair of the Joint Chiefs?We all support those who serve but would we pour into the streets like this? pic.twitter.com/L1Y5Bb9iys

— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) January 8, 2020

I want to tackle this bullshit in a few parts:

First, the last two high ranking government officials I remember dying were President George HW Bush and Justice Antonin Scalia.

Here is what the news reported on them:

Thousands line up into wee hours of night to pay respects to George H.W. Bush

Bush has lied in state since Monday evening. On Tuesday, he was visited by family, including former President George W. Bush and first lady Laura Bush, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and old rivals, like Bob Dole, who was helped out of his wheelchair to salute the World War II veteran.

But the lion’s share of the visitors were everyday Americans — and they came out by the thousands. Some waited three or four hours or more.

People streamed into the rotunda all night. The line was still thousands of people deep well after midnight. By the time it started to thin around 6 a.m., 42,000 people had paid their respects, according to a U.S. Capitol Police source.

and

Thousands Pay Respects To Justice Antonin Scalia At Funeral

Thousands of mourners gathered at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington on Saturday for the funeral of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

An estimated 4,000 people attended the funeral, which came after a week of mourning for Scalia, who died last Saturday at 79. He was remembered as an intellectual giant on the Supreme Court, known for his clear legal writing.

So in fact, Americans do publicly mourn the deaths of and pay respects to beloved political figures.

The last general to die, according to the Internet was Major General Harold J. Greene, in Afghanistan in 2014.

I don’t remember him getting the fanfare that Bush or Scalia did, but I will stipulate that it is a good thing.  The United States is not a junta or military dictatorship.  We are a civilian republic.  Our military leaders shouldn’t be political.

Perhaps Colin Powell or James “Mad Dog” Mattis might, but they are the exception, not the rule.  They were charismatic leaders, much beloved by the Soldiers and Marines that followed them, as opposed to the many bureaucratic generals in administrative positions that few people ever hear about.  They were also both high ranking cabinet members, Powell was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Secretary of State, while Mattis was Secretary of Defense.

Soliemani was not just a general but the second most significant person in Iranian leadership, after the Ayatollah.  There is no equivalent role in the US Government.  He could be described as a Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, VP, and Speaker of the House all rolled into one.

Saying that Americans do not support our troops the way the Iranians do because we don’t flood the streets when a general dies (in the rare occasion that happens), is next level horse shit.

Second, I don’t know many of those people in the streets are doing that because the love Soliemani or because they don’t want to be shot by the IRGC for disloyalty.

The stories of Stalin having the first person that stopped applauding him seem to be apocryphal, but they do capture the reality of the fear of people living under a totalitarian regime.

This is what the BBC is reporting:

Soleimani: Why huge crowds turned out for Iran commander’s funeral

Only seven weeks ago, Iran witnessed the most violent anti-government demonstrations in decades. Security forces killed anywhere between 330 and 1,500 protesters in more than 100 cities across the country. Thousands more were injured and arrested.

So why have so many people come out to pay homage to Soleimani?

Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif took to Twitter with a message to President Donald Trump: “Have you seen such a sea of humanity in your life?… Do you still think you can break the will of a great nation and its people?”

But it is also clear that the government launched a massive effort to mobilise as many people as possible. The huge turnout sent a strong signal to President Trump that the government enjoys widespread support.

People turn up in large numbers because they feel required to do so.

Even the Washington Post had to run this article:

Don’t believe Iranian propaganda about the mourning for Soleimani

Over the next few days, it will be hard to escape footage of huge crowds gathering in Iranian cities to mourn the death of Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian general killed by a U.S. drone strike. For anyone watching, I have one piece of advice: Don’t take what you’re seeing at face value.

The regime is not taking any chances, though. In the city of Ahvaz, where large numbers of people turned out to mourn Soleimani, the government has forced students and officials to attend. It provided free transport and ordered shops to shut down. According to videos sent to me by people inside the country, the authorities are making little kids write essays praising the fallen commander. First-graders who didn’t know how to write were encouraged to cry for Soleimani.

Some Iranians have compared the funeral services for Soleimani to those held for the Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich, the Butcher of Prague, killed by Allied agents during World War II.

The media in the Islamic Republic is heavily controlled. Public gatherings are allowed only if they are pro-regime. Critics are jailed or shot. (Even I, living outside the country, have received a death threat on Iranian national TV for my coverage of Soleimani’s killing.) So it’s not hard to use all the tools and resources of the state to stage a funeral procession.

So Michael Moore has swallowed the Iranian propaganda, hook, line, sinker, pole, fisherman, and boat, and argues that makes the Iranian people better than Americans.

Lastly, I will argue that I don’t want to live in an America where a general who did not serve as an elected official is celebrated with “millions” of people pouring out into the streets.  Frankly, I don’t want to live in an America where any politician is so important to the fabric of society that his or her death causes “millions” of people to flood the street and shut down the nation for days.

That is a sign of unrelenting despotism.

But being a good Leftist, that’s what Moore seems to want.  An oppressive government that is so powerful and overbearing in everyday life that the death of a high ranking official drives a substantial percent of the population into the streets to mourn… or else they get shot for disloyalty.

You guys remember Meredith Lowell, the lady who attacked a person in church because she thought she was wearing fur which turned out to be fake?

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – A woman accused of walking into a Cleveland Heights church and stabbing a guest will be getting a sanity evaluation to determine if she is competent to stand trial.
The attorney for Meredith Lowell, 35, asked for the evaluation in court on Tuesday and his request was granted.
Lowell, of Cleveland Heights, was indicted on several charges, including attempted murder and aggravated burglary.
Her bond was recently reduced from $1 million to $250,000.

Cleveland Heights woman accused of stabbing faux fur wearer to get sanity evaluation

There is a video on the link that gives more information of the attack including a portion of the police body cam when she was arrested. Once again it was church members who stepped in and stopped the attack by tackling down Ms Lowell and holding her till cops arrived.

I thought we were told Churches are supposed to be places were nothing bad is suppose to happen and we don’t need to defend ourselves in there.

Check the video:

According to North Miami Police officials, 21-year-old Pamario Rolle was minding his own business and eating his food inside Licking Miami – located at Northwest 125th Street and 7th Avenue – when 24-year-old Henry Poumier-Cristo stood up and began striking him Tuesday night.

Police say surveillance video showed that Rolle said nothing to Poumier-Cristo to instigate the altercation. But, after being hit and leaving the area, Rolle returned with a firearm and shot Poumier-Cristo outside the restaurant.

Surveillance Footage Shows Shooting Outside North Miami Restaurant

(1) You are attacked by somebody with an obvious advantage (Disparity of force) and respond in a defensive manner(2) as you are trying to escape (3) which you do, break the fight and manage to produce your weapon (4), The attacker sees the weapon and decides to leave the scene (5) and at this time the event that forced you to go for your weapon has ended. You are no longer in fear of death or grave bodily harm.  Any action here can be either interpreted as either “making sure the attacker left” or “Giving chase” (6&7.) If nothing else had happened, I am amost sure (IANAL) no charges would have been brought, but Ego reared its ugly head and you shot an unarmed fleeing man (8) and now you arrested and charged with aggravated battery with a weapon.

Our only satisfaction when using deadly force is that we stopped an attacker from being able to kill or maim you or an innocent person. If the attacker stops or runs away, we are no longer withing the protection of the narrow window of Self-Defense and any use of Deadly Force is illegal and in the case above, just trying to soothe a bruised ego.

Florida Gun Rights 2020 – SB 1540 – An arrest for Domestic Violence makes you a Prohibited Person – BAD BILL