Showing posts with label Gun Control. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gun Control. Show all posts

Saturday, April 25, 2026

The 2026 Election, 9th Edition. The Sic Semper Tyrannus edition.*

Confederate prisoners at Five Forks.

April 23, 2026

Republicans are basically freaking out after Virginia's voters sent redistricting to the legislature, guaranteeing Democratic gains in the state's House of Representative representation.  Donald Trump declared that the vote was stolen, which is utter nonsense, but which was predictable.  

He will claim the same about November's election as well, which is going to go very badly for the Republicans, and he will pull out no stops to try to steal that election.

That scary predication aside, the fall's election is getting pretty predictable right now . Republican's have committed political suicide by reelecting a demented not too sharp octogenarian real estate developer to the office of Presidency, one he is not actually legally qualified to hold.

They deserve no pity, even if the country does.

One group of people who are tiresomely not worth of pity are the far right MAGA crew that likes to predict a civil war, as if they're going to storm out of their suburban homes and fight somebody.  That's complete baloney. This is not going to result in a war of any kind.  It might end in violence however as MAGA has already tried to subvert the last election and probably will try to do so again.

On this, there's been a substantial increase in firearms ownership by liberals, a trend that hasn't received much notice.  It falls into two categories, one being political liberals who are just exercising their Second Amendment Rights. One columnist the other day noted that where there are large groups of right wing armed figures the police almost never act badly during demonstrations and is urging that left wing people do the same.  It makes sense, frankly.  This is a tactic that was taken by black activist groups during the 1960s and 1970s.  Liberals, in my view, should do this in part because it makes sense but also in part due to the fact that right wing Second Amendment groups have  rolled over like a pet dog for Trump.  Indeed, in the last issue of The American Rifleman some NRA member wrote a letter to the editor arguing, well, gosh, if there's a protest, best just to stay away, you know, . . . something completely contrary to the positions of the organization in the past.  

The other group are people who probably have real reason to seek self protection and tend to be in the political such as tranvestites and homosexuals.  That frankly makes real sense to me.  The late Charlie Kirk like to claim that tranvestites were inordinately responsible for mass shootings, which is not true, but that sort of rhetoric really does give a good reason for them to arm themselves.

The redistricting came about due to Trump insisting that it be done in Texas and Gov. Abbot agreeing to do it.  The fact that other states could do the same thing apparently never occurred to the dimwits running the GOP, or at least to the chief dimwit and his Texas minions.  Now the Democrats have done it twice and have gained ground in the effort, although a similar effort in Florida could change that. 

Or not.  Trump has lost such a following amongst Hispanics that the Texas redistricting may actually have the same effect, on a less dramatic scale, in that state.

Indeed, Texas is interesting in this regard as Republicans are howling about how a slim majority of voters can "deprive" the remainder of representation, which is an intellectually weak argument.  Nobody was deprived of representation, even though gerrymandering overall is bad.  Anyhow, it was the voters of Virginia who passed the redistricting plan, albeit only by a slim majority.  In Texas it was done by legislative fiat, even though Democrats, not Republicans, are the majority party in terms of registration in Texas.  Texas's districting outright suppresses Democratic votes, something that will come back to haunt the party in Texas.

At any rate, the GOP's actions are truly an example of the Forrest Gump observation, "stupid is as stupid does".  So much so that a person is really entitled to wonder at this point how dim those in charge right now really are.

Closer to home, where the GOP remains solidly in charge but there seems to be a real chance that the Freedom Caucus is going to really suffer in the fall, the following dates need to be kept in mind.

Party Changes

The state of Wyoming passed legislation affecting when a registered voter is allowed to change their party affiliation.

  • You MUST appear in person in the Elections office on or before May 13, 2026 to declare or change your party affiliation.    
  • NO party changes at the polls on Primary Election Day.
  • Qualified voters who are not yet registered will still be able to register and choose their party on the day of the Primary Election.

Absentee Voting

The timeframe for voting absentee has shortened from 45 days to 28 days.

  • Absentee ballot request may be made by phone, mail, email, online or in person.
  • Your ID is required to vote in person or to pick up a ballot.

Absentee voting for the Primary Election:     July 21 - August 17, 2026
Absentee voting for the   General Election:     October 6 - November 2, 2026

Party Affiliation for Primary Election

  • Registered Voter party affiliation change deadline for the Primary Election is May 13, 2026
  • New voter registrations may declare a party affiliation when registering after this deadline.

Candidate Filing Dates

  • State, County and City offices filing runs May 14, 2026 through May 29, 2026
  • College and School Boards, Fire Districts and Soil Conservation Districts filing runs August 5, 2026 through August 24, 2026

Absentee Voting

  • July 21, 2026 through August 17, 2026 for the Primary
  • October 6, 2026 through November 2, 2026 for the General

Election Days

  • Primary Election Day is Tuesday, August 18, 2026 
  • General Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026

Wyoming's Voter ID Law

Effective July 1, 2021, Wyoming voters will be required to show an acceptable form of identification when voting in person. There are many ID options for you to use to prove your identity.  Visit the Wyoming Secretary of State's Office website for more information.

A couple of observations.

One is that you used to be able to change party affiliation at the polls, but the state's GOP got that changed out of fear that all five of the state's remaining Democrats would change party at the poll and vote for Battling Bob LaFollette.

It's a stupid fear.  Any Democrats who were going to do that did it years ago.  The law actually just locks people into their current party, but the propaganda value of this lives on as the real Democrats, the Dixiecrats, like to continually complain that the GOP is backed with RINOs. It is, they are the RINOs.

Another observation is that you have to show "an acceptable" form of identification, so if you are going to vote, bring it.  The Secretary of State's office provides the following as "acceptable:

  • WY Driver's License or ID Card
  • Tribal ID Card
  • Valid US Passport
  • US Military Card
  • DL or ID Card from Another State
  • University of Wyoming Student ID
  • Wyoming Community College Student ID
  • Wyoming Public School Student ID
  • Valid Medicare Insurance Card*
  • Valid Medicaid Insurance Card*
  • Valid Wyoming Concealed Firearm Permit

Mostly because this was the pet project of California Carpetbagger Chuck Gray, I'm going to bring my driver's license, my military ID, and my concealed firearm's permit.  I'm also going to ask everyone manning the polls to see their ID's.  If I have to prove I'm an American citizen, well they should have to do so as well.

The other thing is that the candidate registration date is also coming right up.  It actually runs through May 29, but this year, I'd get that done by May 13 if I was going to run, which I'm not going to (probably).

cont:

And now there's a new candidate for the Senate, Sam Mead from the well known Mead family.  That makes the candidates, on the GOP side (no Democrats have announced):

Harriet Hageman 

Jimmy Skovgard

Samuel Mead

Mead is probably a pretty serious contender.  His website, which is probably not the best way to judge things, shows him to be the best serious candidate to announce, if we disregard Skovgard, who isn't mounting much of a campaign so far.

The first flyer for Steve Freiss, running for House today, arrived in which he tries to maintain he's like Reagan and Trump, which is patently absurd in that Trump and Reagan are nothing like each other.

April 24, 2026

The State Republican Convention opened in Douglas and already has the appearance of the 7th Cavalry attempting to form a final defensive line at Little Big Horn.

Wyomingites are showing increasing signs that they're sick to death of the Freedom  Caucus, but the county delegations still heavily reflect that.  So, they're thinking of just violating the law and even pulling out of primaries.

The dipshittery is already in evidence, as shown by this quote:

What we as a party are moving towards is what people have been asking for decades.

Wyoming Republican Party Chair Bryan Miller.

Miller spent his career in the Air Force sucking off the government tit and then came to Wyoming on the far right "I worked for the government but I hate the government so much I still collect government retirement and am now sucking on the other government tit" platform. Given that, like most of the WFC, what he imagines what people have wanted "for decades" is based on talking to a small group of like minded, small minded, feverish minds, many of whom spent their decades somewhere else.

Basically, the Freedom Caucus is worried that the voters are going to kick it in the ass in the primary and are trying to find a way that county WFC controlled bodies can declare who the candidates in the fall will be.

That's not going to fly.  Anyone can still register as a Republican and run as one if they declare themselves to be one.  The GOP can't change that.  What it can do, however, is break into open civil war before a general election and destroy itself.

Long-term, by attacking the primaries, it might just lead to a non partisan open primary, which would be a fantastic development.

Another proposal is that Republican candidates take a loyalty oath the GOP platform.  The state platform has a barely disguised "grab the public lands" plank in it that Wyomingites hate, but the Confederates love.  Showing more their loyalty to the Lost Cause, it also includes a plank that requires the state to ignore the decisions of Courts that don't go their way, something that actually is flat out illegal and which makes them into a traitorous body seeking the overthrow of the American government, although they seemingly can't grasp that.

The deluded WFC feels that they can secure their failing movement, basically, by expelling everyone else, which at the end of the day would result in a competing Republican body, which would be an outright good development, particularly now. The existing GOP is heading for a cliff this Fall and there's a strong chance it'll start to actually dissolve next year.

cont:

April 25, 2026

Protect Wyoming is directly going after some of the bad state legislators, and Bob Ide pretty meg tops the list there:


I'vc never understood how his district elected him.  They had an experienced conservative, Drew Perkins, who now works for the Governor.  In his place they got a guy who was actually in D.C. at the time of the Insurrection and holds every single extreme right wing view.

On the GOP Convention, the platform fight goes on:

While I personally am religious, Wyoming is the least religious state in the United States.  It's notable that this attempt to declare the state a Christian one failed pretty handily, but also notable that it came up at all.

Also notable is that the state of Wyoming's land board voted to fund housing projects in certain areas to the tune of $5M.  Carpetbagger Chuck Gray, hoping for the U.S. House, tried to keep resident aliens ineligible, and given the locations that this applies to, they'd clearly be part of the population in need.  Degenfelder, who is running for Governor on the "sure, I'm personally a Catholic but the blasphemous octogenarian Demented Don Trump endorsed me" voted for the proposal.

Seems like there's a poem about practicing to deceive.

Footnotes:

"Thus always to tyrants", the state motto of Virginia.

Related threads:

Pollice Verso. The 2026 Political Negative Endorsement. The Don't Vote For List.

Last edition:

The 2026 Election, 7th Edition, Do not stand with those who promote the sins that cry out to Heaven.


Republicans. You have reached July 20, 1944. You can either act with the insurgents and save your party (maybe) or go down in the bunker and destroy it for a generation, or more.

Saturday, March 28, 2026

Tuesday, March 28, 1876. The Haitō Edict.

The Japanese government issued the Haitō Edict, The Sword Abolishment Edict (廃刀令) prohibiting people, with the exception of former lords (daimyōs), the military, and law enforcement officials, from carrying weapons in public, including swords.

It was an attack on the former samurai class, with their establishment itself having already been eliminated.


Heavily romanticized, the samurai were one of the traditional Japanese classes which were an impediment on the Meji government consolidating power and modernizing the country.  Regular citizens bearing arms had been banned in 1870 as part of the effort and the Imperial Japanese Army, with conscription, established in 1873.  The moves were resented, but successful in consolidating imperial power.

Last edition:

Sunday, March 26, 1876. Big Horn Expedition returns.

Monday, January 26, 2026

The Trump Administration decides the Second Amendment ain't that much.


Yeoman, January 6, 2025.

Alex Pretti, who was shot down by the Border Patrol, with Border Patrol shooting ten rounds.1

I'm seeing one of my predictions about the Second Trump Administration coming true.

Everyone should have seen it.

Of the many people I know who voted for Donald Trump, there were three groups of what I'd call "single issue" voters who voted for him on the solid belief that he shared their views on one single issue, and that overrode everything else. There are: 1) opponents of abortion2 , 2) opponents of gun control, 3) opponents of wars overseas ("forever wars").3

Trumps betrayed you, if you are in one of these categories, on all three.

The betrayal on gun control is simply epic.

A few days ago the Border Patrol gunned down Alex Pretti.  They actually shot ten shots.  People will defend the Border Patrol on this, but it's indefensible.  He was carrying a handgun legally, and it had been removed from him before he was killed.4

For decades the NRA insisted that Americans, and indeed everyone everywhere, had an absolute right to carry a firearm anywhere and campaigned for the right to carry, concealed and unconcealed, everywhere.5   Pretti had availed himself of that right.  He was going absolutely nothing illegal at the time he was gunned down.

The Administration's reaction has been to make every left wing gun control argument you've ever heard.

I don't know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign.

Kash Patel.  Well, Kash, don't come to Wyoming then.  There aren't any, and I mean any, largescale demonstrations were people aren't carrying, concealed and unconcealed. Shoot, I saw a guy with a M1 Garand and fixed bayonet a couple of years ago.

Patel tried to claim that Pretti was breaking the law by carrying a sidearm at a protest, apparently ignoring that this guy became a hero for something like that:


Minneapolis police officials, at any rate, quickly disabused that notion, noting in the press and on Face the Nation that this simply isn't true.  Pretti wasn't breaking the law.

That same comment was made House Majority Leader Steve Scalise who was flat out confronted by Margaret Brennan on the same topic on Face the Nation.  Scalise stumpbed all over himself and said he was for the Second Amendment had had sponsored a concealed carry law down in Louisiana, but that if you are carrying a gun while breaking the law it's a felony, and Pretti was breaking the law.

Pretti wasn't breaking the law, but it does give you a pretty good idea of what the former Republican Party, now the Fascist Party, thinks of the 1st Amendment as well as the 2nd.

The ever nervous Scott Bessent had to appear on Meet the Press.

KARL: He was an ICU use who worked for the VA and there's no evidence he brandished the gun whatsoever

BESSENT: But he brought a gun

KARL: I mean, we do have a Second Amendment

BESSENT: I've been to a protest -- guess what? I didn't bring a gun. I brought a billboard

The always nervous Scott Bessent.6   

Bessent has been to a protest?  Was it a super megabucks soybean protest? 

Same thing here.  Now bringing a gun to a protest marks you for death.

Kristi Noem, whose thugs committed the killing, really went after Pretti, calling him a domestic terrorist.  That is now the official line for any of these protestors, they're terrorists.  Neom sated:

I don't know of any peaceful protester that shows up with a gun and ammunition rather than a sign.

Noem falsely accused Pretti of brandishing the weapon.

Stephen Miller called Pretti "an assassin" and accused him of trying to murder Federal agents.  

J. D. Vance repeated that lie, and Gregory Bovino more or less did.  Only Trump, who was initially claimed to have said something falsely, apparently hasn't.

    Ironically, it was the press and the police that were defending Second Amendment rights to carry the past couple of days. You shouldn't bring a gun to a protest.  Pretti's handgun, which is a fairly typical 9mm SIG, was a "military weapon" (it is, but just about any semi automatic handgun could be), he had "multiple magazines".

    And finally, we have the Dear Leader himself:

    I don’t like any shooting. I don’t like it. But I don’t like it when somebody goes into a protest and he’s got a very powerful, fully loaded gun with two magazines loaded up with bullets also. That doesn’t play good either.

    Donald Trump.7 

    Basically, the Administration's position is that if you are carrying a handgun, the Federal Government can gun you down.

    All things right out of the left wing gun control handbook.

    The very thing, I"d note, that the NRA warned us about, in regard to the Federal Government, with the irony being it comes right from the man they backed.

    Not that any of this should be a surprise.  I've never felt for a moment that Trump had any actually affinity for firearms or was a member of "gun culture".8    He's a salesman, and he sold gun owners a line of bull.

    Now they know better.  But it will be too late.

    The things is, however, the accomplishments on the Second Amendment have been made. They can be taken away.  Therefore, a real "fool me once" thing is at play here.  A lot of gun owners are going to keep backing Trump as they'll refuse to think on this.  

    And that's why support for Trump will prove to be too late.  W.E.B. Dubois declared that "only a fool never changes his mind".  How many gun owners will choose to be fools?

    Footnotes:

    1. The large number of shots suggest that the Border Patrol falls into the keep shooting category of policing, which many large city police do as well.  

    I'm not a fan of magazine capacity laws, but I"m at the point where I don't think most policemen of any type should carry a firearm at all, and that when they do, it's time to go back to .38 revolvers.  They're simply less likely to kill people if they are med in that fashion

    2.  A lot of people who find this to be a deep moral issue, and I do see it that way, voted for Trump on the false belief that they had no other choice.  There were other choices.

    Now Trump is urging his supporters to soften their opposition to abortion. Mitch McConnel gets credit for the conservative judiciary that Trump put in place, which issued the Dodds decision, but there would be no real strong reason to feel that Trump cares much about the issue himself.

    Trump's own sexual history is immoral, and usually multiple partners indicates a casual attitude towards abortion.  There's nothing to indicate that any of Trump's tarts had one, but he has shifted his position, and its still shifting, over the years.  

    3.  Trump really likes to brand himself as a peace president but there are no wars that the US was involved in when he took office that we are now out of, the only real lingering one being the war in Syria.  He's started a new conflict in Venezuela, conducted a largescale mixed result raid in Iran, and appears to about to hit Iran again.

    4.  Pretti's parents said that they knew he had a permit, but didn't know him to actually carry.  I'm in the same category.

    My reaction is probably a lot like a lot of people in Pretty's category.  I'm going to start carrying.  

    5. A spokesman from the NRA initially defended the shooting, slightly, and then the organization, waking up to the fact that it's about to be dumped by its members (it's already in financial trouble) backtracked and came out supporting carrying, but in a very muted fashion.

    6.  Bessent is another figure who doesn't square with what MAGA claims its view of the world is.  He's an open homosexual in a homosexual union, something that MAGAs declare as abhorrent and which they repeatedly sneered at Biden's Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for.  It's been interesting that Buttigieg and Jean-Pierre were condemned for the very same thing that Bessent does at home, the point being that like a lot of members of fascist movements, MAGA adherents will suspend all of their supposedly deeply held beliefs to follow the leader.

    7. The two magazine thing is a real left wing talking point.  

    Use of the terms "very powerful" and "bullets" in place of cartridges almost always demonstrates firearms ignorance.  9mm pistols are not "very powerful". Quite the contrary. That's why some police forces simply blaze away with them, and why soldiers are taught to shoot an opponent more than once.  The 9mm should be a good police round for that very reason as its unlikely to kill anyone with a single shot.

    8.  I'll have to get into gun culture, which I use as a positive expression, not a negative one, elsewhere, but I've never trusted anyone in the Second Amendment movement who wasn't an active member of a shooting sport, if even only a collector.  While Eric Trump is a hunter, Donald Trump's only outside interest seems to be the incredibly boring sport of golf.  If you can shoot, you wouldn't send much time on the golf course.

    Wayne LaPierre, the former head of the NRA, struck me that way also, but I don't really know much about him.  Chuck Gray in Wyoming strikes me that way also, although I could of course be wrong.

    Sunday, January 25, 2026

    CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 114th Edition. The Armed Citizen and ICE. He never served but they did. Geographically ignorant. He's demented. Canada comes to the US's aid. . . again.

    Trump Tweet.  My prediction is that gun control is coming for the very reasons that the NRA always warned us about, and the NRA is going to roll over like a pet dog. (Note, this later proved to be a bogus tweet, but Trump said things that were relatively close to it).

    Killed while carrying, you don't need that gun after all.

    For years and years the National Rifle Association warned us about "jack booted thugs" working for the Federal government.

    It also told us that part of the reason we needed a Second Amendment was to protect ourselves against a  repressive government.  It runs a column on its site every couple of days extolling the virtues of being an "armed citizen".

    The Armed Citizen® Jan. 19, 2026

    Yesterday a Border Patrol Agent in Minneapolis took offense, apparently, along with another officer to Alex Jeffrey Pretti filming their activities.  They started pushing people around and pepper spraying, actions which with municipal police forces would get the department and the officers sued.  They wrestled Pretti to the ground.

    He was a permitted concealed carry holder, and he was carrying a concealed handgun.  According to one news source, the officers had secured his handgun before shooting him, which they did.

    Apparently, once again, more than one shot was fired.  Apparently, ten shots were fired.

    Ten.

    I know what the defenses are going to be and what is going to be claimed.  Videos are always a bit difficult to discern and so we really don't know what the officers saw.  Here's what a witnesses affidavit states:

    I am a resident of the Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota. I am over 18 years of age. I am a children's entertainer who specializes in face painting.

    On Saturday, January 24, 2026, at about 8:50 am, I was getting ready to go to work when I heard whistles outside. I knew the whistles meant that ICE agents were in the area, so I decided to check it out on my way to work. I've been involved in observing in my community because it is so important to document what ICE is doing to my neighbors. Connecting to your local community and knowing who your neighbors are is something I profoundly value.

    I drove to Nicollet Ave. and 26th where I could hear the whistles coming from. I turned south onto Nicollet. There were already several ICE agents there and they'd set up a sort of vehicle convoy on Nicollet and 28th. There were also about 15 observers there, recording and observing ICE.

    I saw ICE agents surrounding cars and punching car windows. I also saw them stopping vehicles further down Nicollet, so I backed up because I didn't feel safe continuing on.

    I noticed a man sort of acting to help traffic move more smoothly. He helped me find a place to park. I got out with my whistle and my camera. I went over to him and said something like, "I'm going to film and use my whistle."

    It seemed like most ICE activity was happening a little farther down the street from us, near 27th. Someone was being thrown to the ground.

    I started recording. There was an agent by a car across the street. Two observers were a few feet away from the agent, blowing their whistles. One was wearing a backpack.

    I and the man who was observing and helping direct traffic were standing in the street. There was a phone in the man's hand recording a video.

    An agent approached and asked us to back up, so I moved slowly back onto the sidewalk.

    The man stayed in the street, filming as the other observers I mentioned earlier were being forced backward by another ICE agent threatening them with pepper spray. The man went closer to support them as they got threatened, just with his camera out. I didn't see him reach for or hold a gun.

    Then the ICE agent shoved one of the other observers to the ground. Then he started pepper spraying all three of them directly in the face and all over. The man with the phone put his hands above his head and the agent sprayed him again and pushed him.

    Then the man tried to help up the woman the ICE agent had shoved to the ground. The ICE agents just kept spraying. More agents came over and grabbed the man who was still trying to help the woman get up. All three of the observers looked to have been badly affected by the pepper spray. I could feel the pepper spray in my eyes.

    The agents pulled the man on the ground. I didn't see him touch any of them-he wasn't even turned toward them. It didn't look like he was trying to resist, just trying to help the woman up. I didn't see him with a gun. They threw him to the ground. Four or five agents had him on the ground and they just started shooting him. They shot him so many times.

    14.1 don't know why they shot him. He was only helping. I was five feet from him and they just shot him.

    15. The video I recorded of what happened accurately depicts the events leading up to the agents shooting him and several minutes afterwards. The video is attached as Exhibit 1.

    16. I have read the statement from DHS about what happened and it is wrong. The man did not approach the agents with a gun. He approached them with a camera. He was just trying to help a woman get up and they took him to the ground.

    17. I feel afraid. Only hours have passed since they shot a man right in front me and I don't feel like I can go home because I heard agents were looking for me. I don't know what the agents will do when they find me. I do know that they're not telling the truth about what happened. I've heard that other witnesses might have been arrested and taken to the Whipple Building.

    18. I am disgusted and gutted at how they are treating my neighbors and my state. I keep alternating between crying and feeling determined it is important to remember the value of documenting injustice. We show up for the people who need us to bear witness, because it can't just be one group of people bearing the brunt of their tyranny. This is a struggle to protect our freedom and democracy, those things are on the line. He lost his life for those values.

    What we do know is what the NRA told its members, like me, is now revealed to be complete crap.  Where are the outcries from firearms permit holders (and I am one).  I don't blame Pretti for being armed when this group of Brownshirts is around.

    The lesson is clear.  Interfere with ICE at the risk of being beat up or killed.

    And the message from the defenders of freedom on the right wing are clear.  They never meant what they said, or they'd be outraged by the gunning down of a man who was legally carrying.

    For years I've been warning that the result of the NRA's slavish support for Trump would be an irony, the Trump Administration will come after legal gun owners.  It's starting:

    Peaceful protesters do not have 9-millimeter weapons with two extra magazines.

    Rep Van Drew, New Jersey.  There you have it. What used to be a position of the left.  You don't really need that gun.

    It's only one step to, you don't need that gun, give it to me.

    And the NRA is just going to stand there and do nothing whatsoever.  They've simply become a fundraising branch of MAGA.

    I'm not, I'll note, the only one who holds this view.  After I first posted this I came across this:

    Exercising Your 2nd Amendment Rights Is Not A Death Sentence

    ICE just executed an American in Minneapolis for legally exercising his Constitutional rights

    In that article, Siler states:

    The shooting is troublingly reminiscent of the 2016 murder of Philando Castile—a black man—who was murdered by police in Minnesota for exercising his Second Amendment rights. During a routine traffic stop Castile, who also possessed a valid Permit to Carry, informed the police officer that he was in possession of a firearm. The officer instructed Castile not to reach for that firearm, to which he responded, “I’m not.” The officer then fired seven shots at point blank range, hitting Castile five times.

    In the wake of Castile’s murder, so-called “gun rights” organizations like the National Rifle Association failed to issue any substantial statement, or to call for any changes to police training, procedures, or similar. As of the time of writing, the NRA has yet to issue any statement about this execution.

    I’ve been making the point for years that the real purpose of so called, “gun rights” organizations like the NRA has nothing to do with gun rights, but is instead to radicalize low-information Americans into voting for tax cuts for billionaires using guns as a nexus of radicalization and disinformation. The NRA’s language has nothing to do with its actions.

    Take, for instance, this commercial which sets out to recruit members for the NRA. It expressly argues that immigrants need to own guns in order to defend against torture, assassination, and, “hanging the people in the streets.”

    Well, NRA, masked government thugs are executing law-abiding Americans in the streets, in broad daylight, in front of cameras. And they say they’re doing that because we’re exercising our Constitutional right to self-defense. Where are you?

    FWIW, if I went anywhere near one of these protests, I'd be carrying.

    And make no mistake. We're about to get massive gun control. The Dear Leader has decreed that only criminals carry guns in the street.

    The coffins of Danish troops who died in Afghanistan following the US invocation of Article 5.

    The man with no service slanders our allies.

    Following the entire demented embarrassing episode over Greenland, Дональд Трамп has had an entire series of demented rages.  I use the term "demented" here advisedly.  

    Donald Trump was of military age, and a graduate from a military school, during the Vietnam War.

    Trump was initially classified as 1-A in 1966.  He received four educational deferments during the war, the chickenshit policy of the draft at the time that let the upper class and middle class get a bit of a free ride to avoid the draft.  In 1968 he was given a one year medical deferment for a bone spur.  In 1969 he received a high lottery number, making it unlikely that he'd be called.

    The real question is the bone spur item, and whether he really had one or not.  He was, reportedly, in pretty good shape back then.

    Trump has a track record of insulting service members, and it's pretty clear, in spite of what he's said this term in office, that he basically regards them as losers.  And that comports with his world view, where the only people that matter are the rich. Rich people don't join the service often, although there are exceptions.

    The Трамп rages this time insulted NATO and claimed that NATO had never done anything for the US. This brought an immediate rebuke from Denmark and the UK.  Трамп  tried to then say that sure, they'd sent troops, to Afghanistan when we invoked Article 5, but they'd stayed behind the lines a ways.

    What a hugely ironic statement for a man who stayed so far behind the lines, he wasn't in the same country as the lines.

    He's now apologized to the UK.

    The man is an idiot.

    FWIW, our NATO allies fully supported us in Afghanistan.  Many of the same nations supported us in Iraq, twice.  In the Vietnam War, the one that Дональд didn't go to, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Taiwan and South Korea sent ground troops.  Spain sent medical troops. Canada sent a hospital ship.

    A meme only an ignoramus could post.

    Penguin stupidity

    Трамп is still smarking overy his humiliation over Greenland.  The man who wrote the "art of the deal" appears to have secured the exact same deal we had in the 1950s.  That's some negotiating.

    Anyhow, a hallmark of the Трамп  administration is the use of social media, and this was released.


    Penguins don't live in the Arctic.  Somebody in the Trump administration is do dumb not to know that.

    Nonetheless, the members of the Administration stood right up to be counted in the ranks of morons and all posted their own penguin themed memes, making the entire administration look stupid to anyone with an education, and the entire country look stupid to people who live elsewhere.  A really clever retort about coveting Austria (which so far Trump hasn't) is here:


    It's gone on too long

    Anyone who eyes to see knows that Trump's mental status is rocketing into oblivion.  Why does Congress and the Cabinet allow this madman to continue to be in office.

    Well, the Cabinet you frankly can't expect much out of.  Probably only Rubio is ready to flip the 25th Amendment switch, and he's been invisible recently.  Scott Bessent tends to get sent instead, and always appears scared.

    Congress could do something, but Republicans just can't seem to do so, so afraid of the aging senile man are they.

    Helping after being insulted.

    Canadian electrical service companies are sending linemen into the US to repair storm damage.

    This after the demented clown in the White House says Canada (which has defeated the US twice in war, I'd note) wouldn't exist bur for the U.S.

    Being neighborly is a Canadian thing.  It used to be a U.S. thing, but right now being a complete asshole is a U.S. thing.

    Last edition:

    CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 113th Edition. Some things you aren't hearing much about right now and some things that require explanation that we're not getting. The Venezuelan Distraction Edition.