Category: Politics

Trying not to start the public floggings

“Bannings”

Anti-Gun Nannies, Rights

Ran into this little A.I. video SOTI, and while none of it concerns me — yet — I think there are a couple of things worth noting.

The “12 Guns Being Banned in 2026” are interesting, although none of them fall within my “I Want This Thing In My Gun Safe” parameters, mostly because they are chambered in calibers that don’t interest me (although that new Zastava M70…hmmm), too expensive (e.g. Daniel Defense) or else I’m just not interested in that type of gun (e.g. Tavor 12ga multi-tube shotgun).

However, what does interest me is that the GFW state legislators — all the usual suspects, plus Vermont (!!! WTF?) — have decided that if they can’t ban a gun just because it’s a gun, they’re going to ban it because it’s “military-specific” (like that matters), “common sporting purposes” (ditto), “concealable” (ditto) or, more worryingly, because of various features that they don’t like.  In other words, the guns are becoming too efficient and reliable, and only the military should have access to these features (again, bullshit, but it’s what they’re running with).

It’s a long video and both boring and/or irritating (#A.I.narration), but like I said, what it reveals is the ways with which the GFWs are targeting guns.  And my Virginia Readers should pay special attention because that’s the direction your state is heading if it’s not there already (ditto Colorado, a.k.a. Eastern California).

Of course, the Second Amendment Foundation will get involved at some point, and maybe a few of these abuses will reach the Supreme Court to have their pee-pees whacked;  but that’s leaving our fate in the hands of lawyers, which is always a risky proposition.

However, there may come a time when some guy (or guys) will get sick of all this bullshit and say “Come and get them” to which the state will reply “Challenge accepted” and the whole thing will end in tears.  I should point out that this is precisely the outcome these totalitarian bastards are hoping for.

Be careful out there, buy more ammo, and practice a lot.  And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the range.

Afterthought:  I think it’s time I should look at one of those FRT (forced recoil trigger) thingies, just because I suspect that they will soon be a definite target for the GFWs.  Which is why I should get one, most probably for the FrankenPoodleShooter.

Likewise, as soon as I can buy a moderator (“silencer”) over the counter without paperwork, that too will be added to the above.  Not because I especially want one, but because they don’t want me to have one.

Revision

History, Wars & Other Fun Games

I have to say that I’ve always thought that WWII’s Operation Market Garden was actually a very successful military campaign, and not the horrible failure as it’s been painted.  And this guy agrees with me:

In fact, the operation succeeded at six of its seven principal objectives, a rate of achievement that would be considered remarkable in almost any other military context. The American 82nd Airborne Division, under Brigadier General James Gavin, faced the daunting task of seizing the great road bridge at Nijmegen across the Waal River, one of the widest river crossings in Western Europe. They did so after brutal urban combat and a daylight assault river crossing in canvas boats under direct enemy fire, one of the most audacious tactical actions of the entire war.7 The bridge was taken intact even after the Germans tried to blow it up. The 101st Airborne Division, led by Major General Maxwell Taylor, seized the majority of its assigned bridges and canal crossings in the southern portion of the corridor and held the vital road that the operation depended on, quickly dubbed “Hell’s Highway” by the soldiers who fought along it, against repeated and determined German counterattacks. British armored units of XXX Corps advanced deeper into occupied territory in a shorter period than in any previous operation in the Western campaign. The scale of what was accomplished tends to disappear in the shadow of Arnhem, but it was genuinely extraordinary, representing the successful coordination of tens of thousands of men, hundreds of aircraft, and an armored column driving north along a single road through hostile country.

I have read a ton of history on the topic — WWII is very much a period of history near to my heart — and I think that too often Market Garden is used a lot by American historians to have a go at Brit Field Marshal Montgomery.  (He’s too often caricatured instead of appreciated.  Not that I have a problem with that, in general terms, because he set himself up for it pretty much all the way through the war.  But we tend to forget that the reason Monty was so cautious a military commander was that he was faced with the stark fact that British and Commonwealth manpower’s losses were, to use the modern term, quite unsustainable.)

Going back to Market Garden:  it may well have been a bridge too far (Arnhem), but its only real failure was that even if it had been a total success, it’s doubtful that it would have been the war-ender that Montgomery believed it would be.

I await Reader Sage Grouch’s informed opinion on this.

Amateurs Vs. Professionals

Diplomacy, Marxists, Politics, Wars & Other Fun Games

In which some smart guy compares the hard-headed and realistic professionalism of Trump’s foreign policy towards Iran vs. that of the feckless Obama administration.

While then-Secretary of State John Kerry famously treated Iranian negotiators like esteemed colleagues, Vice President JD Vance just treated them like a landlord dealing with a delinquent tenant who thinks he owns the building.

I’d like to think that was Kerry’s underpinning philosophy — simple foolishness and a massive misread of the room — but then I’d have to think that Fuckface’s dealings with Iran didn’t involve in-depth discussions with Barack Traitor Obama, who always had another, more malevolent attitude towards his adopted country.

The fact of the matter is that the Obama administration sold the United States out to Iran — with cash as well as white-glove treatment — and it’s taken us this long to reverse that ghastly policy.

Motive Laid Bare

Budgets, Gummint, Taxes and Theft

Ambrose Bierce once said something along the lines of:  “Whenever politicians talk, no matter what the topic, it’s always about money.”

In that spirit therefore, I offer up this little piece of shit masquerading as a pearl:

Democrats have moved to enact legislation that would establish retroactive liability for American energy producers through so-called “climate superfund” laws which penalize companies for lawfully providing energy that Americans rely on every day.

Beyond potential political challenges, the Democrat plan to punish energy producers also faces significant legal hurdles.

The Justice Department and Vermont in late March faced off in the federal courts over the 2024 climate superfund law that would require fossil fuel providers to pay for the alleged costs of climate change. The Trump administration has sued to block the law, claiming it violates the Constitution. The administration believes that climate superfund laws are unlawful attempts to regulate emissions that cross state lines. API and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have filed their own lawsuit against Vermont.

Jonathan Rose, who represented Vermont at the late March hearing, said, “We don’t need to convince the court that climate change presents serious challenges to the state of Vermont. The act is intended to recover some of the costs it’s going to need to adapt to climate change,” he said. “What it doesn’t do is, it doesn’t try to mitigate climate change, stop climate change, or otherwise impact global emissions or anything like that.”

Yeah, it’s not even attempting to paint itself as having “noble” intentions (i.e. staving off Global Cooling Climate Warming Change©);  it’s a naked grab for money, pure and simple.  The accepted “fact” that Global Cooling Climate Warming Change© is actually a thing simply gives the theft a foundation.  (Corollary:  if Global Cooling Climate Warming Change© is not real — it isn’t — then all this bullshit should go away — it won’t — because they’ll always clamp onto some other imaginary catastrophe as a pretext for their theft.)

A cursory look at a couple of other states trying to do similar:  New York and Hawaii.  Both Bluer than Paul Newman’s eyes, both stuck with massive Democrat government-created spending deficits.

Funding Culture

Culture, Foreign Affairs

I don’t always agree with what John Konrad says, but on this topic he’s spot-on:

Civilization is the ability to sustain itself.  By that measure, Europe isn’t a civilization at all.  It’s a dependency with better wine.  That’s not a threat. I t’s a weather report.  Build a Navy.  Or don’t.  But stop lecturing the people who made you “better than us”.   Our “crudeness”, our “stunted liberal education”, our “ugly strip malls” are because we sacrificed our culture to support yours.

Read the whole thing, it’s worth it.  The question is, though:  how many Europeans are going to read it and wake up to its reality?