Archive for the 'Politics' Category

James gives the rundown. I’ll just say this. I’m skeptical. For the time being, I’ll leave this in the category of “politics.”

Source.

Forty-five Republicans U.S. senators filed a Congressional Review Act resolution to block a Biden administration Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives rule from being enforced that would require anyone who sells firearms to register as federal firearm licensees.

[ … ]

Cornyn, who was booed at a Republican Party of Texas convention after he pushed through the bill, is now saying he will fight “this lawless rule tooth and nail to ensure the God-given right to keep and bear arms is preserved and this flagrant distortion of congressional intent of our landmark mental health and school safety law is struck down.”

Some Texas Republicans oppose Cornyn for any consideration as the next Senate majority leader, citing what they argue is his anti-Second Amendment stance, The Center Square reported.

U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-NC, who did not join the CRA, but was a cosponsor of the bill being cited by the Biden administration to implement the rule, said it was “outrageous that the Biden Administration decided to take a good faith effort to curb the mental health crisis across our country and turn it into an unconstitutional attempt to restrict firearms from law-abiding American citizens. This overreach is exactly why Republicans don’t trust this Administration, and it will setback any attempt on future bipartisan legislation as long as President Biden is in office.”

Yeah right.

He’s a real 2A champion at the moment, isn’t he?

This CRA, whatever that is, can’t even garner the support of all of the republican senators, much less the majority it needs to prevent a presidential veto.

This is all carnival light and action show, fit for nothing more than electioneering. Cornyn and Tillis are both communists and knew this would happen. Now they get to blame the ATF for it in election season.

Georgiaboy61 explained it in more detail than I have patience for. I hate all of these controllers.

Source.

Good. He should never have been charged to begin with.

That is enough said. Unless readers want to add more about out-of-control prosecutors playing political games to prove a point.

You’re a little person. The rules always apply to you.

If you’re politically connected and believe in disarming the public, the rules don’t apply to you.

🚨Here is the summary regarding Miranda Viscolli from @NMPGVnow purchasing firearms for gift cards and not properly destroying the firearms per the @NewMexicoDOJ and the @ATFHQ:

– If an individual surrenders (gift or donation) to a non-profit entity without consideration and…

— Rep Stefani Lord (@Lord4NM) March 28, 2024

The only reason his opponent advocates handing hard-earned money over to the Chamber of Commerce and doing their bidding is that he wants to fleece middle class taxpayers to fund his own constituency.

The representative is right. It’s called socialism, and it has never worked anywhere. By another name it’s theft.

South Carolina Rep finally SNAPS in chamber, PERFECTLY lifts veil of political corruption in middle of lion's den in two minutes🔥

“I will ALWAYS fall back on the common sense of my constituents FAR MORE than I will EVER listen to you unelected bureaucrats and other… pic.twitter.com/4ir7g7psfK

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) March 13, 2024

This is a mildly interesting video, but I neither have heroes nor get involved in drama.  The most interesting part to me was this comment.

Hop is spot on about where the RD’s come from. I do have one caveat about the claim about the PCBs however. I’ve worked in the industry as a consultant and the number one question I was getting from CEOs and CMOs was how to make sure they stay legal with “Made in USA” and “Assembled in USA” regulations and how much in fines they can expect to pay when they violate them. And almost everyone violates them. In many countries, including the United States, there are strict regulations governing these labels. To be labeled as “Made in USA,” a product generally must be “all or virtually all” made in the United States. This means that a significant portion of the product’s total manufacturing costs must be incurred in the US, and the final assembly or processing of the product must also occur in the U.S. This is regulated by the Federal Trade Commission. The supply chain for everything is global and massive. You’d be shocked if I told you how few things are “honest to God” made here (that actually satisfy FTC compliance). The number of US-located CNC machines, the cornerstone of modern manufacturing, is such a tiny percentage of World’s CNC fleet that I immediately distrust the “Made in USA” certification of origin of some small part (and large parts too). I’m also highly skeptical when manufacturers claim that their PCBs are made here. We’d need to have 20-25x more PCB manufacturing plants for the amount of PCBs that are claimed to be “Made in the USA”. Don’t believe me? Just call up some of the PCB manufactures and try to get some quotes and lead time. You’ll quickly realize that your product will be ready in 2 years time and it will cost 2-3x what your C-suite is asking for. Even the F-35 contractors got into hot water when it was found that most of the PCBs that were “Made in the US” were actually Made in China. Even today, most of the multi-layer, high-speed/high-frequency, PCBs for F-35 are Made in China. A fact that everyone sweeps under the rug now.

This is honestly a very sad thing.  America lost its ability to do large steel construction long ago with the demise of that work in Pennsylvania, the ports in Virginia and a couple of places in Alabama. Thus, today we can no longer fabricate large sea-going vessels such as battleships or carriers. Even the reactor vessels for Catawba Nuclear Station were made in the Rotterdam shipyard.

Optical quality glass is obviously made now only in Germany and Japan.

I guess it’s the same for printed circuit boards. What a shame and a sham that we cannot make our own electronics. You can blame our rulers for that as they whored themselves after globalism.  The whole thing is ridiculous and it’s not only a sad commentary on our competitiveness, but national security as well.

I thought after the Covid scam Ford intended to start up manufacturing of PCBs in America? I don’t know how that’s going.

Outdoor Life.

This week, as North America’s wildlife professionals gather in Louisville, Kentucky, for the annual meetings of The Wildlife Society, the question of who calls the shots in wildlife management will be a hot topic.

Last year’s Wildlife Society annual meeting, in Spokane, was defined by what some in the wildlife-management profession characterized as a takeover by animal-rights activists who generally feel left out of traditional wildlife management.

They’re not entirely wrong. Most state wildlife agencies are funded mainly by hunters, either through license sales or pass-through revenue from taxes on guns, bows, and ammunition. And while state fish and game departments have wide authority to manage butterflies, minnows, and songbirds, most manage primarily for catchable fish and huntable game.

The wildlife activists, who want state agencies to de-emphasize hunting and fishing in favor of more tolerance for carnivores and non-game species, are not politely asking to be included, as last year’s Wildlife Society meeting indicated. In many states, they’re using the political process to win gubernatorial appointments to fish and game commissions. Washington, where these animal-rights advocates now hold a majority of commission seats, has become the leading indicator of a transition away from agencies that cater mainly to hunters and anglers.

Colorado is quickly moving toward a similar model, with the recent appointment of three commissioners who represent constituents who may have never bought a hunting or fishing license.

I know someone from Colorado.  I can vouch for what he’s saying about Colorado hunting.

This is just great.  Now they’re coming for hunting!

All of you “We’re not voting our way out of this” guys may want to reconsider your position.  I have long said that politics is warfare, plain and simple, just done in another way.  If you don’t want to put in the effort to engage in the front lines of the warfare, when will you?

So, you may want to think about who your state is electing to the governor’s mansion.  It matters.  It matters to hunters and shooters.

After you are the one who orchestrated the nationwide shutdown, kept kids home from school, and marched that communist Fauci in front of the TV cameras for a year and failed to reign in the NIH and CDC.

And on top of that took the credit for rolling out an untested shot that causes blood clots and destroys the immune system. Yeah, you’ve got the nerve.

Survival Blog.

“Administration and character of Eutropius, A.D. 395-399:

The first events of the reign of Arcadius and Honorius are so intimately connected, that the rebellion of the Goths and the fall of Rufinus have already claimed a place in the history of the West. It has already been observed that Eutropius, one of the principal eunuchs of the palace of Constantinople, succeeded the haughty minister whose ruin he had accomplished and whose vices he soon imitated. Every order of the state bowed to the new favourite; and their tame and obsequious submission encouraged him to insult the laws, and, what is still more difficult and dangerous, the manners of his country. Under the weakest of the predecessors of Arcadius the reign of the eunuchs had been secret and almost invisible. They insinuated themselves into the confidence of the prince but their ostensible functions were confined to the menial service of the wardrobe and Imperial bedchamber. They might direct in a whisper the public counsels, and blast by their malicious suggestions the fame and fortunes of the most illustrious citizens; but they never presumed to stand forward in the front of empire, or to profane the public honours of the state. Eutropius was the first of his artificial sex who dared to assume the character of a Roman magistrate and general. Sometimes, in the presence of the blushing senate, he ascended the tribunal to pronounce judgment or to repeat elaborate harangues; and sometimes appeared on horseback, at the head of his troops, in the dress and armour of a hero. The disregard of custom and decency always betrays a weak and ill-regulated mind; nor does Eutropius seem to have compensated for the folly of the design by any superior merit or ability in the execution. His former habits of life had not introduced him to the study of the laws or the exercises of the field; his awkward and unsuccessful attempts provoked the secret contempt of the spectators; the Goths expressed their wish that such a general might always command the armies of Rome; and the name of the minister was branded with ridicule, more pernicious, perhaps, than hatred to a public character. The subjects of Arcadius were exasperated by the recollection that this deformed and decrepit eunuch, who so perversely mimicked the actions of a man, was born in the most abject conditions of servitude; that before he entered the Imperial palace he had been successively sold and purchased by an hundred masters, who had exhausted his youthful strength in every mean and infamous office, and at length dismissed him in his old age to freedom and poverty. While these disgraceful stories were circulated, and perhaps exaggerated, in private conversations, the vanity of the favourite was flattered with the most extraordinary honours. In the senate, in the capital, in the provinces, the statues of Eutropius were erected, in brass or marble, decorated with the symbols of his civil and military virtues, and inscribed with the pompous title of the third founder of Constantinople. He was promoted to the rank of patrician, which began to signify, in a popular and even legal acceptation, the father of the emperor: and the last year of the fourth century was polluted by the consulship of an eunuch and a slave. This strange and inexpiable prodigy awakened, however, the prejudices of the Romans. The effeminate consul was rejected by the West as an indelible stain to the annals of the republic; and without invoking the shades of Brutus and Camillus, the colleague of Eutropius, a learned and respectable magistrate, sufficiently represented the different maxims of the two administrations.”  – Edward Gibbon, The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, Chapter 32

Effeminate Eunuchs.  Does this sound as if it could be written about the current ruling caste of America today?

He poses some interesting questions, and I’d like to see this issue studied a bit by him or someone equally familiar with both constitutional and case law.

My own view is that simply putting a sign up at an entrance to so-called government property (like a park) isn’t reason enough to justify a search.  That’s not a so-called “administrative search.”  I assume and believe that for public places, the rules of “Terry Stop” still apply, i.e., there must be articulable reason for the search such as suspicion in the commission of a crime.

I’ve given this some thought too concerning stops and searches of hunters on public lands.  Almost every hunter is aware of his training, i.e., when you are approached by a DNR officer, put your weapon in a safe condition, be polite, and be prepared to have your privacy invaded.  He may and probably will demand to see your hunting license and examine your harvest.

But why?  What gives that DNR agent the right to do that?  The fact that they’re on “public land?”  Do the citizens not own the public land?  What’s the difference between public hunting land and a downtown sidewalk?  Do we allow cops to come up to us and frisk us, demand to identify us, and demand to search our belongings because we’re walking on a sidewalk “owned” by the state?  No, most states do not have stop and identify statutes, and besides, those are unconstitutional even if they exist.

Why does a DNR officer have the right to assume I don’t have a hunting license just because I’m hunting (that’s the assumption behind demanding to see my hunting license, right, that I don’t have a license)?  Why does the DNR officer have the right to force me to open the tailgate of my truck and examine my harvest?  Does he have evidence of a crime to make such invasive demands?  Without such evidence, or at least suspicion, does that search violate the fourth amendment?

I would claim that it does.  England had rules regulating hunting under the notion of the royal forest.  As of the 12th century, nearly a third of England’s land was designated “royal forest,” and only the king’s men and other nobility were allowed to hunt game there.

We don’t live in England.  We live in America.  We fought a war over things just like this.

I think this is pregnant ground to be tilled, and I’d like to see lawyers take this up with some offended hunter – perhaps all the way to the supreme court.