Continue reading What The Washington Post Isn’t Telling You About #Benghazi
Category: Nutjobs on the left
Scumbag Warren
Everybody’s favorite fringe-left Senator of dubious heritage is back in the news today. As crazy as ever, Elizabeth Warren is now trying to figure out why our minimum wage isn’t $22 an hour. So, if you’re a low-skill worker who already can’t find a job with the minimum wage at $7 an hour rest assured that Warren is fighting to make sure you never find a job again.
But, hey, at least Elizabeth Warren is consistent and pays all of the people who work for her at least as much as she thinks minimum wage should be. Oh wait, of course she doesn’t actually do that. No, she pays her interns exactly nothing.
Bloomberg Imitates Satire
If any of you recall the end of the movie Thank You For Smoking the anti-smoking senator, named Ortolan Finistirre, tries to have cigarettes erased from old pictures & movies. He does so because he thinks it makes cigarettes look cool to young people. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has, basically, called for exactly the same thing with his ridiculous proposal to force store owners to hide their cigarettes from public view.
In honor of Bloomberg’s decision to imitate satire I present you with this photoshop.
And, in honor of Bloomberg’s itchy nanny finger, here’s this bonus photoshop.
US Number 1 In Gun Ownership But Doesn’t Crack Top 25 In Gun Murder Rate
One of the most obnoxious liberal talking points on guns involves the idea that guns, in and of themselves, cause gun violence. Apparently, as this argument goes, guns or “gun culture” cause law abiding citizens to transform into murderous nuts. In other words more guns must mean more gun violence.
The argument was famously made by sports writer Jason Whitlock and forwarded by Bob Costas on Sunday Night Football after a player murdered his girlfriend and killed himself. According to Costas and Whitlock guns “exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate arguments, and bait us into embracing confrontation rather than avoiding it.” In other words, guns make us violent.
Obviously this argument is as flawed as saying that refrigerators exacerbate our flaws, tempt us to escalate our eating, and bait us into embracing gluttony rather than avoiding it. However, it’s also an argument that doesn’t remotely match up with what the numbers tell us. In fact, the numbers tell quite a different story.
According to the latest Small Arms Survey conducted by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies the US tops the world in civilian gun ownership. We have 89 guns for ever 100 residents. That’s well beyond Yemen’s second place rate at 55 guns per 100 and nearly twice the rate of Switzerland which comes in third at 46 guns per 100 residents.
To put it bluntly, we have a lot of guns.
If Whitlock, Costas, and their allies are correct that must mean that our gun murder rate is by far the highest in the world, right? It must be sky high in comparison to the rest of the world, no? We must be first in gun murders, correct?
According to information provided by the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime and compiled by the Guardian the answer is an emphatic no. The US is not the world leader in the homicide by firearm rate. The US does not even crack the top 25 in that category.
Instead, the US has the 28th highest homicide by firearm rate of the countries in the report.
This phenomenon isn’t uniquely American either. Switzerland, which ranks 3rd in civilian gun ownership rate at 46 guns per 100 residents, has only the 46th highest homicide rate. Finland, which has the 4th most civilian owned guns at 45 guns per 100 residents, is at 63rd on the list.
So, despite the blustering of Bob Costas and the like guns do not, in fact, turn ordinary people into monsters. More guns do not, in fact, mean more gun violence. Guns can be, and commonly are, used in a responsible manor by people all over the world and especially here in the United States.
O’Keefe Embarrasses Anti-Gun Crusaders
James O’Keefe is back with another sting video. This time he and Project Veritas are embarrassing anti-gun journalists. Watch as the hypocrisy of many in the liberal media’s campaign against guns is exposed for all to see.
Interesting… so, these anti-gun crusaders are afraid that if criminals know their homes are gun free because they don’t want to be caught defenseless against them?
Guess they know how the rest of us feel now, huh?
Gun Misinformation: Assault Rifles and Assault Weapons
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from interacting with gun control advocates it’s that they’re the most misinformed & ignorant people from across the political spectrum. Not only that but they don’t care that they’re misinformed & prefer to remain that way. So this post and my other upcoming posts aren’t for them. Instead I’m doing this to help inform those who are actually interested in being informed.
So, let’s start with one of the most talked about gun types in the country right now. Assault rifles and so-called “assault weapons”.
First off, the term “assault weapon” is essentially a made up term that doesn’t actually refer to any unique subset of guns based on function. Instead, the term is used by gun control advocates to try and ban gun accessories that have certain misidentified or ridiculously exaggerated functions.
For instance, here are a few of the accessories the Brady Campaign wants banned & the utterly ridiculous effects the clearly ignorant person who wrote their frequently asked questions section imagines they have:
A pistol grip which facilitates spray-fire from the hip without losing control. A pistol grip also facilitates one-handed shooting.
This is completely absurd on all levels. First off, you can’t “spray-fire” in any realistic sense with a semi-automatic rifle. Additionally, shooting with one hand or from the hip is the least accurate or useful way to use any gun.
A threaded barrel designed to accommodate a flash suppressor which allows the shooter to remain concealed when shooting at night, an advantage in combat but unnecessary for hunting or sporting purposes. In addition, the flash suppressor is useful for providing stability during rapid fire.
Flash suppressors do only what the name implies: suppress the flash created when firing a round. They don’t “provide stability during rapid fire”. They are also not useful for the purposes of criminals or mass murderers and the Brady Campaign doesn’t produce a single example of anybody using a flash suppressor in the way they describe and I can’t find one either… probably because there aren’t any.
A threaded barrel designed to accommodate a silencer which allows an assassin to shoot without making noise.
While the entire list is filled with misinformation, this point is by far the most absurd. Silencers do not make guns silent. They simply suppress the amount of noise created by each shot fired. That’s why people in the gun community usually refer to them as suppressors instead of silencers. I encourage anybody interested in how loud a suppressed gun is to actually go to a range and hear it for yourself (if you can actually find one since current gun laws make them difficult to buy). You may not need ear protection depending on the suppressor and gun, but there will be no doubt a gun has been fired.
Honestly, the only way anybody could draw the conclusions written in this Brady Campaign document, especially about hip firing & silencers, is if their only contact with guns involves watching 80s action movies. Given that, I see no way to take these groups and their supporters seriously. At least until they stop spreading ridiculous misinformation.
So, an “assault weapon” isn’t a real subset of firearms based on function but rather a firearm that features some random subset of accessories unrelated to the way the firearm operates However, an assault rifle is an actual term used to describe a specific subset of rifles originating in World War II. The first of this type of firearm was the German Sturmgewehr 44 which means “storm rifle” of the year 1944.
Assault rifles are firearms that combine the fully automatic feature of the sub-machine gun with rifle ammunition. If you remove either one of those features then the firearm is no longer an assault rifle. An assault rifle must be able to shoot rifle ammunition at a fully automatic rate of fire.
Therefore, a rifle only capable of semi-automatic fire is not an assault rifle. That means that the AR-15 commonly available for civilian purchase, which gun control advocates are mainly after and the kind I own, is not an assault rifle. In function it is no different from any other semi-automatic rifle.
Click here for the next post in my gun misinformation series.
David Frum Pushes ABC’s Anti-Gun Propaganda
As most people already know David Frum is a hack. So much so that I’ve taken to labeling people who call themselves conservatives but do their best to undermine and attack conservative beliefs at every turn “Frums”. Therefore it should come as no surprise that Frum was out on Twitter forwarding some old ABC anti-gun propaganda.
Now, there’s a lot of stupid to unpack here, so let’s start with the bizarre statement Frum makes in his tweet. Now, I’ve never been quite sure what the alternate reality David Frum inhabits is like but it’s apparently a place where concealed carry laws haven’t been in existence for decades. Back here on earth though we’ve had concealed carry laws in place in most states for a long time and, as the recent shooting in Oregon reinforces, they’re life savers.
Ok, now that we’ve cleared that up, lets move on the poorly made anti-gun propaganda from ABC that Frum finds so enlightening.
Yea, wow. There’s so many ways in which this “experiment” is stacked against concealed carry. Let’s start with the basics.
In this “experiment” completely untrained & inexperienced college students are pitted against highly trained firearms instructors in a close range shooting match in order to test the effectiveness of carrying a concealed weapon. So the only thing they’re really testing is whether these college students can win in a shootout with a fully trained firearms instructor who attack them with a gun already drawn & using the element of surprise. What a worthwhile undertaking…
But that obvious stacking of odds against concealed carry was apparently not enough for ABC News though as they continued their skewing in several other ways. First off they force the college kids to wear ridiculously long & impractical shirts with snapping holsters, a combination which nobody who carries on a regular basis would ever use. Then the highly trained firearms instructor purposely targets the college kids immediately after shooting the teacher.
Of course even all that wasn’t enough bias for ABC as they basically have to lie about the results of their own test involving the young woman in order to fit their narrative. Not only was the completely untrained woman able to draw her weapon from under her ridiculously over sized shirt but she was able to fire it at the firearms instructor, hit him in the groin, and effectively end the shooting.
ABC labels this a stunning failure because the marksman they used as the bad guy hit her giant helmet at some point, she wasn’t sure about where she had shot the gunman (because that matters for some reason), and because she stood up slightly.
It is important to note that the firearm instructor & police officer’s warnings that being trained & prepared is an essential part of being armed are, of course, sound advice. Nobody should carry a weapon unless they know how to do so responsibly.
However, what’s more important to note is exactly what ABC recommends you do instead of arming yourself since they’ve just had you sit through propaganda about how crazy & ineffective that is. Against a myriad of evidence ABC tells its viewers that it’s better to hide, play dead, try to run away, or use your cellphone. Obviously those are things that should be employed if they’re most likely to keep you alive in the situation but pretending you aren’t utterly exposed if those are your only options is insanity.
This clearly serves to remind us that when gun control advocates argue guns are too ineffective or dangerous to be used in self-defense their alternative is always that you be left defenseless. That is absurd.
But when you’re an gun control advocate absurdity is a key piece of most of your arguments so I suppose none of this bothers ABC or David Frum. It should, though, bother anybody who does cares about logic or fact. Hopefully that’s more people than not.
For.Ev.Er.
So, how long do liberals plan to play the ol’ blame Bush game?
Sounds about right… after all they still blame Hoover for the great depression.
OccupyDC Mother Uses Her Kids to Blockade Door During Violent Scuffle
Last night as I returned from a conservative happy hour to met up with a friend at the Americans For Prosperity Defending the American Dream Summit I stumbled into the middle of an OccupyDC demonstration. As I came to the top of the escalator at the DC Convention Center Metro station an attempt by OccupyDC to blockade an entrance to the center deteriorated into a violent scuffle. Disturbingly the occupiers had intentionally placed two small children directly in the middle of the entire ordeal.
I was able to capture a good amount of what happened on video but it did take me a minute or two to get my phone out and start filming. The video starts just after the little wagon the children were sitting in had been pushed out of the doorway. I’m sure there is video of the entire incident from the very beginning floating out there somewhere since many of the occupiers were taping the whole thing themselves. However, I did personally see all of the physical confrontation between security and the occupiers.
At the start of the scuffle the protesters had been able to get inside the convention center and set up a makeshift barrier. This barrier consisted of what appeared to be several large wood trash cans from the center, a large metal recycling bin from the center, the two small children sitting in their wagon, and several occupiers either sitting on the floor or standing up.
The security guards, which may have been assisted by police officers (I’m not sure), then began moving the trash cans and forcing back the protesters. At first only about 5 or 6 protesters resisted the security guards while the rest filmed everything but as they forcibly pushed the protesters and the children’s wagon out of the doorway other protesters became incensed. At that point several other occupiers began screaming and pushing back against the security guards.
The children were extremely upset and crying by this point.
That is where my video picks up (language warning):
Continue reading OccupyDC Mother Uses Her Kids to Blockade Door During Violent Scuffle
Paul Krugman’s Highbrow Trutherism
As we are all well aware of by now Paul Krugman wrote a scathing and astoundingly asinine post trashing several prominent Republicans who played an undeniably important role on 9/11. He, one can only assume out of an abundance of ass-hattery, posted his pathetic screed on the tenth anniversary of 9/11.
That is the most obvious and, therefore, most harped upon act of idiocy Krugman committed. But there is a deeper and more despicable act that Krugman and all the subsequent Krugman coddlers have engaged in.
It’s something I like to call highbrow turtherism.
Highbrow trutherism involves abandoning the conspiratorial beginnings of 9/11 trutherism but accepting all the conclusions of it anyway. Sure Bush and the other evil Republican’s didn’t orchestrate 9/11 but heck if they didn’t use it to forward their evil neocon agenda by starting two illegal wars!!11!1!!! Or, as Paul Krugman puts it:
Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.
Or, as Glenn Greenwald puts it:
That’s because nobody — least of all those shrieking about Krugman’s “impropriety” — believes that 9/11 Day is meant to be apolitical. They know that it’s deeply political — primarily political — and want it to be that. That day has became so important precisely because it enables all sorts of consequential messages to be delivered — about the U.S., its role in the world before 9/11 and after, who is Good and Evil, the need for our Endless Wars and Surveillance State — all with a very emotional punch backing them up: the emotions prompted by the attack that are exploited to reinforce those messages and place them beyond the realm of questioning for decent people.
Or, as Medea Benjamin puts it:
And so on. And so forth. Ad nauseum.
It’s a smart little strategy though, no? Keep all the substantive attacks on your political opponents while disregarding the absolute insanity of the “9/11 was an inside job” crap. Why say Bush orchestrated 9/11 so he could start two illegal wars when you can just say Bush exploited 9/11 so he could start two illegal wars?!
You arrive at the same conclusions in the end without the burden of having to claim fire can’t damage steel. It’s a win-win situation, right?!
Highbrow truthers have the advantage of landing at the same political conclusions as regular truthers all while still being able to show their faces at the New York Times, Slate, Salon, and basically every other liberal publication in existence. Plus they get to keep putting on that air of sophistication and smugness they love so much without being scoffed at by other liberals whose opinion they value so highly.
Honestly, what lefty who has always held a fondness for the conclusions of the 9/11 truth nuts wouldn’t buy into highbrow trutherism? In fact, I bet their are many many more examples out there. Please, feel free to document any you come across down below in the comments.