Category: Politics

Trying not to start the public floggings

Followup Rant

Good Stuff, Marxists

Kruiser went a little nuts yesterday, talking about evil Democrats:

The most prominent people in the Democratic Party in 2026 are filth. They are all mentally unstable pathological liars who don’t deserve things like the benefit of the doubt in any situation, bipartisan overtures, or the presumption that they’re not inherently evil.

Now when I say “nuts”, I mean nuts — for him.  (For me, that’s just a mild-mannered dissertation.)

He then backs off a little by saying NADALT:

I would like to make it clear that I don’t believe that all Democrats are this way. The party has unfortunately been hijacked by a bunch of loudmouth coastal lunatics who, in my less-than-humble opinion, have irreparably damaged the brand and political relations in this country. That’s right, I don’t think that there is an antidote to the poison that they’ve injected into the American political conversation and I think that anyone who does is hopelessly naive.

The relatively normal Democrats who live in flyover country need to find a way to assert themselves — ballot box, anyone? — and make it clear that paste-eating morons like Hakeem Jefferies and Chuck Schumer are not at all representative of them. They are running out of time to make this case. It won’t cure the aforementioned poison if they do, but it might mitigate its effects. That really is the best that I can hope for, anyway.

I’m heartily sick of hearing that there are “moderate” Democrats.  There aren’t.  “Moderate Democrats” (in historical terms) are now moderate Republicans, which is why Flyover Country is massively Republican.  Those moderate Democrats looked at what their party had become and said, “Uh…no.”  Now they either vote Republican or sit out the elections.

If they don’t, and pull the straight-D lever on Election Day, then they’re no better than the loony Lefties, because by pulling that lever, they’re enabling the actual filth to continue being filthy.

My suggestion for the filthy:

Yeah, it’s a euphemism.  After all, that’s what they’d do to us, given the opportunity.

Remember Cambodia?

Those weren’t conservative Cambodians pulling the triggers.

Get Busy

Anti-Gun Nannies, Politics, Rights, The Gun Thing

Here’s something I can only describe as a wake-up call:

Rep. Andrew Clyde (R) is leading a coalition of GOP House members urging President Donald Trump to pick an Attorney-General who will “immediately” wipe away Biden-era ATF gun controls.  Clyde and 32 other House members signed an April 21, 2026, letter, asking Trump to choose and A-G who will “immediately cease enforcement of Biden-era gun rules and secure permanent – not temporary – relief.”

Yes, yes, and again yes.

I’m getting heartily sick of a Department of [alleged] Justice which pays lip service to the Constitution — and especially to the Second Amendment — but either fails to redress wrongs through inaction or by continuing to slavishly enforce older regulations which tramp all over the Founding Document.

Clyde and his colleagues also ask Trump to choose an A-G who will reform and clean house at the ATF. They view this task as including:

    • Purging the ATF of gun-grabbing bureaucrats;
    • Opposing any effort to create, operate, or maintain a federal firearms registry in any form;
    • Stopping the ATF’s release of sensitive firearm trace data in violation of the Tiahrt Amendment*;
    • Shutting down and deleting the ATF’s illegal, searchable gun registry known as the Out-of-Business Records Imaging System (OBRIS); and
    • Reducing NFA application processing times.

That “purging the ATF of gun-grabbing bureaucrats” should only be a precursor to moving the A and T part back to the Treasury (where it belongs), and a complete deletion of the F, because fuck them.

Clyde and his colleagues pointed to the support Trump received from gun owners during the November 2024 elections, suggesting he should now support them as they supported him: “Mr. President, American gun owners have been some of your most loyal and enthusiastic voters. They delivered for you at the ballot box, and they deserve to see their constitutional rights respected in return.

“The roadmap above requires no new legislation – it only requires leadership, will-power, and a Department of Justice that is genuinely committed to your agenda rather than protecting its own institutional inaction.”

Clearly, ex-AG Blondie wasn’t up to the job.  If I were Trump, I’d make Alan Gottlieb (of the Second Amendment Foundation) the AG, let him clean the place out for (say) two years, and then let him get back to doing his proper job at SAF.

Frankly, I don’t actually care what Trump does.  What I want is for the DOfuckingJ to stop harassing gun owners and go after the real criminals.  And to do it quickly.  If DJT can achieve that with his choice of Blondie’s replacement, so much the better.

*The Tiahrt Amendment is a provision of the U.S. Department of Justice 2003 appropriations bill that prohibits the National Tracing Center of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) from releasing information from its firearms trace database to anyone other than a law enforcement agency or prosecutor in connection with a criminal investigation. This precludes gun trace data from being used in academic research of gun use in crime.  Additionally, the law blocks any data legally released from being admissible in civil lawsuits against gun sellers or manufacturers.

Kicking His (Gr)Ass Blue

Anti-Gun Nannies, Resistance, The Gun Thing

Let’s hear it for the Kentucky state legislature:

When Democrat Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear recently vetoed two pro-gun measures, lawful gun owners in the Bluegrass State were hopeful that pro-gun lawmakers in the state legislature could garner enough votes for an override.

Gov. Beshear vetoed House Bill 78, which would provide critical liability protections for firearm industry members against third-party misuse of the products they manufacture and sell, and House Bill 312, which would create a provisional concealed carry permit for lawful young adults ages 18, 19, and 20.

On April 14, the state legislature convened for a veto override session and successfully overrode both measures. The override vote totals for HB 78 were 80-19 in the House and 31-6 in the Senate, while HB 312 was overridden by 81-to-18 and 28-to-9 margins.

I still can’t understand how the Bluegrass State ever came to elect a Democrat governor in the first place, but as long as the voters keep the legislature in line with solid conservative majorities, we should be okay.  (“We” in this case being Kentucky gun owners, with whom I share a deep and lasting bond through my Readers.)

Would that all states could be this way:  as a country, we’d be in far better shape.  (And by “we”, in this case, I mean everybody and not just gun owners)

More Gubernatorial Ass-Kicking

Legal Stuff, Resistance, Rights

I really like this trend (if it is indeed a trend):

The Kansas State Legislature overrode Governor Laura Kelly’s veto of a bill named in honor of assassinated political commentator Charlie Kirk that strengthens free speech protections on college campuses.

House Bill 2333 received two-thirds support in both chambers this month, overruling the governor’s objection. 

Part of the bill, known as the Kansas Intellectual Rights and Knowledge Act or KIRK Act, protects “expressive activities.” It deems outdoor areas “public forums for the campus community.”

“Any individual who wishes to engage in non-commercial expressive activity on campus shall be permitted to do so freely, so long as the individual’s conduct is lawful and does not materially and substantially disrupt the functioning of the postsecondary educational institution,” the act states. 

Here’s the reason for the veto:

Gov. Kelly argued the bill was unnecessary as free speech is already protected.

Yeah, just like the right to own guns is “already” protected by the Second Amendment — except where it isn’t, in states like California, New York, Illinois and other Blue shitholes.

I hate the fact that we need additional laws to underline the freedoms already supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution (like this KIRK law and the USSC’s Gruen decision);  but these are the times we live in, sadly.

And it’s safe to say that it should be so unlikely that the KIRK law should be necessary on, of all places, college campuses — except that it’s in these very institutions where free speech is most threatened, whether at the hands of radical Left students’ “counter-protests” or at the hands of radical Left college administrations.

Let’s have more KIRK laws, then, and more veto overrides of this nature.

And One More Unnecessary Law

Immigration, Legal Stuff, Politics

I noted in the above two articles that we shouldn’t need more laws to underline what is either Constitutional precept or else self-evident.  Here’s the third example:

No law currently prevents Congress members from having dual citizenship

Act for America is pressuring Congress to pass legislation to ban people with foreign citizenship from serving in the House and Senate.  The Virginia-based national security advocacy group said the lack of a prohibition on Congress members with dual citizenship was a “dangerous loophole.” 

“This bill should never have been necessary,” Act for America said. “From the founding of this republic, the expectation was crystal clear: those entrusted with making laws for the United States must owe their complete and undivided loyalty to America.”

The Constitution sets qualifications for service in Congress, which are a minimum age (25 years old for the House and 30 years old for the Senate), a period of U.S. citizenship (7 years for the House and 9 years for the Senate) and residency in the state represented. However, it does not restrict foreign citizenship.

Actually, from my own memory of the naturalization process, one of the steps towards becoming a U..S. citizen is formally renouncing under oath one’s previous citizenship.  One would think, therefore, that the issue should be moot, and not require a law which underlines the regulation, but it appears that one would be wrong.

And as much as I dislike the appearance of yet another fucking law to join the raft of laws already in situ, I would truly support legislation which would require that all Congress members be required to surrender their non-U.S. passports in public — i.e. as part of their swearing-in ceremony — with failure to do so resulting in immediate disqualification and a by-election to bring someone else into office.

Hell, I think I’d support that such a law be applied to any level of government, federal, state or local.  (Congressional staffers and similar remora also come to mind, by the way.)

Let’s have our republic run by actual Americans, and not something-Americans.

I should point out that no freshly-minted U.S. citizen ever jettisoned their native passport with the alacrity that I did.  I couldn’t wait to get rid of the fucking thing, just as I heartily tossed my (cut-up) Illinois Firearms Owner ID (FOID) card into the Mississippi River on my final trip from Chicago to Texas.

Market Garden Final Thoughts

Wars & Other Fun Games

From Longtime Friend & Reader Sage Grouch comes this response to last week’s Market Garden post:

Thanks for the flattering request for my opinion.

Montgomery, for whom I have a mixed opinion because of his terrific performance in the African desert versus his lackluster performance on mainland Europe (Caen, anyone?), famously said that Market-Garden was “90% successful;” sadly for the Allies that means it was in fact a strategic failure. No question, as you say, it saw some stunning victories at Eindhoven, Vegel, Grave, and Groesbeek;  and Frost’s paras, and the Poles, were nothing short of magnificent. But I think it would be fair to say that British airborne forces were gutted for the rest of the war after Market-Garden, particularly the 1st Abn Div, which suffered 75-80% casualties and never fully recovered, playing no more combat role (as opposed to the US 82nd and 101st Abn Divs who went on to even more glory in the Bulge and beyond). The 6th AbnD, their other para division, was still refitting after Normandy and played only a minor backup role in the Bulge.

In the larger context of Market-Garden’s strategic failure, this loss was compounded by the operational cost: elite troops, including very valuable officers who could have been husbanded for future opportunities (or used more conservatively) were instead expended in a high-risk gamble that yielded only a vulnerable salient.

There were certainly some wins for the Allies as a result of Market-Garden. As has been said, the US 82nd and 101st performed brilliantly and largely achieved their objectives, not least of which was holding “Hell’s Highway” against fierce German counterattacks. The offensive freed a big swath of south and central Netherlands, including some V-2 launch sites and, of course, liberating a large number of Dutch civilians, who were thus spared the worst effects of the “Hunger Winter” yet to come. It inflicted large losses on the two German SS Panzer divisions that were refitting in the area, which affected Hitler’s ability to use them as he would have liked in the Bulge in December. And to be sure, the area captured was a useful jumping-off salient for operations in 1945, even though that wasn’t one of the stated objectives of the operation.

Having said that…

As we’ve said, seizure of the Arnhem bridge and establishment of a firm bridgehead over the Lower Rhine was the stated goal of the whole exercise, and that failed; with it failed the plan to outflank the Westwall and end the war 7-8 months earlier than it ultimately did, with all the casualties and physical damage to Europe caused during that period. (And no seizure of Berlin by the Western Allies, which could have shaped the Cold War in Europe differently for half a century. I like to think Eisenhower would not have stopped at the Elbe had his forces gotten that far by, say, November or December 1944, when the Russians were still ~300 miles and several months away, on the Vistula, but I could well be optimistic about that.)

The resulting salient after the operation was a vulnerable “bulge” that had to be defended by a large number of Allied troops who could have been used elsewhere, instead of acting as a springboard for further offensive operations. And I’ve already talked about the damage to British airborne capability and the high overall cost in elite troops and equipment.

So I maintain that Market-Garden was a strategic and operational failure, which featured many brilliant tactical performances.

To my mind, the most important part of how Market Garden turned out is what I missed, i.e. “It inflicted large losses on the two German SS Panzer divisions that were refitting in the area, which affected Hitler’s ability to use them as he would have liked in the Bulge in December.”  The effect of that attrition on the Bulge attack was incalculable.

So we’re all clear on the matter:  I respect Mr. Grouch’s opinion on the WWII Western Front as I do few others.  (He’s actually a twice-published author on the Battle Of The Bulge, so his expertise in these matters is beyond question.)  And fortunately for me, our views on the above are so similar as to be pretty much identical.

Thanks, buddy.