PDJT's names work, in part, because they are accurate

In PA last week PDJT said the dumb as hoe handle Maxine Waters was “a very low IQ individual”.  Anyone with half a brain who has had the least amount of exposure to Waters is thinking, “Well yeah”.  But low IQ Waters is a black nincompoop so calling her “low IQ”, no matter how utterly stupid she actually is, is clearly racist.

This can all be cleared up by a simple test.  If low IQ Maxine is so smart she can prove it by submitting to an IQ test.  I’ll bet there is a test for low IQ Maxine already out there somewhere.  I had to take one somewhere along the way.  The charts and graphs that accompanied the results comparing me to the rest of the class told me I had achieved an “average score”.  Makes sense.  I’m an average guy in about very measurable way. Okay maybe a tick under, but close enough.

I never considered myself smarter than the average guy anyway, but when you see yourself graphed out and pretty much dead center, it’s a good wake up call.  I clearly was never going to rise by outthinking the crowd.  So what’s left?  Well, I tried to show up earlier, stay later, study, work harder, seek advice, PT and above all offer honest, thereby, out of the ordinary opinions.  As a result, I had an average Marine Corps career.  Which makes sense, because I’m pretty much an average guy.

So low IQ Maxine, time to fess up.  Are you average?  A Wily E. Coyote super genius?  A dullard?  The world wonders.

The one thing we do know is that low IQ Maxine is not a sleepy eyed SOB.  That title has been reserved for NBC’s Chuck Todd who wears it well.

PREDICTION: PDJT will never stop assigning names to opponents.  That strategy has worked out far too well for him to ever stop.  They work because the names always have an element of truth in them.  PDJT destroyed the Republican field in 2016 with it.  He destroyed crooked Hillary with it.  CNN and fake news are now synonymous.  Pocahontas Warren has already been chased from the 2020 Demo-Dope presidential field.  Now sleepy eyed SOB Chuck Todd has been leveled.  I saw a tape of him interviewing Steve Mnuchin on Sunday, and it was clear that he’s rattled by it, because he says he’s “worried about the children”.  Don’t worry Chuck, you sleepy eyed SOB, unless childhood has slid off the rails, they ain’t watchin’.

JG freezing out letters in support of 2A

The JG pretty much refuses to print an equal number of letters in support of the 2A.  I sent a letter to the local radio station explaining the situation and asking that they consider reading some letters on air:

Mar 11, 2018

Dear WOWO Programing Director:

Given the dearth of letters to the editor on the pages of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette supporting the Second Amendment after the Parkland shootings, it seems the JG is freezing out anyone who does not want to ban and/or confiscate certain classes of weapons.  That being the case, I was wondering if WOWO would consider a feature called, “Letters the JG refuses to print”.

 

The segment would consist of soliciting letters sent to the JG on hot topics of the day that went unpublished and reading them on air.  Pretty straight forward.

I know letters go unpublished for a variety of reasons, foul language, unnecessarily abusive style, length etc. However the JG will print one, two or even three letters a day attacking the Second Amendment and only one or two half-hearted letters a week in defense.

 

I suspect that the quality and quantity of letters submitted to the JG in support of Second Amendment rights is not a problem.  Rather the heavy thumb of the Lefty Lib editorial board at the JG, scared to death of an honest and robust debate, is trying to tip the scales.

Anyhoo, just a programming idea for your careful consideration.

Monday’s JG gun offering

Re: Gaylen E Twigg’s letter, “What could…go wrong”, of Mar 12, 2018

Gaylen Twigg wonders, rhetorically, “What could possibly go wrong” with our vast nuclear arsenal in the hands of President Donald J. Trump.

Well for the blame America first crowd apparently just about everything has gone wrong.  Since his swearing in President Donald J. Trump has:

Pretty much destroyed the ISIS caliphate that grew under Obama

Cut government regulations

Expanded the economy to nearly full employment

Set conditions for historically low unemployment rate for blacks and Hispanics

Encouraged a manufacturing boom

Turned America into one of the world’s largest energy exporters

Cut taxes

Protected American security by protecting our steel and aluminum industries from unfair trade practices

Got us out of the Paris Accords

Got us out of TTP

Renegotiating NAFTA

Offered a generous solution for DACA

Has North Korea rethinking their nuclear strategy

Presided over a stock market boom

Cut illegal immigration by 67%

And most importantly, since about 9:30 pm on Nov 8, 2016, Donald J. Trump has exposed Lefty Libs as a bunch of petulant, whining, sniveling, crybabies desperately hoping for America’s failure under President Trump rather than offer him any credit for the country’s current prosperity and security.

I think America is just winning too much for the #NEVERTRUMP crowd, and that’s just sad.  

What could ... go wrong?'

If our gun laws are properly revised and enforced to prevent mass killings by the mentally ill, the unstable and major lawbreakers, Donald J. Trump will not be allowed nor should he be allowed to purchase or own a firearm.

Yet we've put our vast nuclear arsenal in the hands of a delusional, paranoid, vindictive, totally mendacious bully who can't take the slightest criticism without retaliation.

What could possibly go wrong?

Gaylen E. Twigg

Fort Wayne 

Sunday’s JG gun offering

Re: Ron Flickinger’s letter “Teacher Vs gunman is armed with fear” of Mar 11, 2018

Back when it was in vogue, men considered it a DUTY to step up when the helpless were threatened. Now, according to Flickinger, during a school shooting, they’re expected to cower in the corner wetting themselves hoping the cops show up before they get shot. That is not an attractive way to live…or to die.

Flickinger would rather tolerate the slaughter of innocents than arm himself to do anything that might level the playing field against a school shooter; anything that is that doesn’t include grabbing guns from law abiding citizens.

I have known several capable teachers and school employees who, if asked, would consider it an honor and a duty to arm themselves as the last line of defense between a crazed shooter and their students.  Flickinger has never met any people like that, probably because he chooses to live in a cocoon surrounded by like-minded people.  He might want to consider widening his circle of friends and associates.

In fact, Mr. Flickinger, 18 states (surprisingly including 5 beep blue states) already allow adults with carry permits to be armed on campus so long as they get proper approval from school officials. 

But certainly shaking fear, unarmed, in pool of your own waste while begging for your life is one of the top 25,000 or so reactions to a school shooting.  For myself, I would like to be given the opportunity to choose something a bit different.

   

Teacher vs. gunman is armed with fear

As a proud army veteran (an infantry-trained grunt) and one who has been actively involved with Fort Wayne Community Schools for 48 years, I would like to weigh in on the suggestion by our chief elected official that we should arm teachers to keep our schools safe.

I served on the staffs of eight different schools and I cannot think of one person with whom I worked who would be capable of coming to school “locked and loaded” to keep us all safe.

Of all those educators, the one I would trust the least would be me – and I was probably the only person in most of those buildings who actually had weapons training. I can't speak to the experience of being in a war zone with bullets flying, but even in training I can remember the absolute chaos – the noise, confusion and, yes, fear. Putting me in a position of being involved in an active firefight against any weapon, let alone an automatic one, has to be the result of political leaders, particularly the delusionary one in the White House, watching too much television. I can't imagine anyone being so far removed from reality as to suggest such a ridiculous strategy to protect young people in a culture that celebrates violence regularly.

I would challenge any rational political leaders (I am sure there are some out there) to seek truth from the experts/researchers in mental health, education, sociology, law enforcement and even the military, then make rational decisions on the many and varied steps that will be needed to stop all this nonsense. But I am guessing those steps will be a bit politically dangerous, so I am not going to hold my breath.

Are we ever going to consider using knowledge and reason to determine our social policies? If we do, I am sure that knowledge and reason would never consider arming school teachers.

Ron Flickinger

Fort Wayne

Saturday’s JG gun offering

Re: Ed Smith’s letter “Here’s what students should demand on gun” of Mar 10, 2o18

Here’s what students should know

A primer for Indiana students organizing or participating in March for Our Lives.

The AR-15 is a semiautomatic rifle.  Stripped of the gun grabber modifiers like the still undefined yet dreaded “assault-style weapon”, an AR-15 functions in the exact same manner as about 46% of America’s over 300 million firearms.

Next, if you learn nothing else, learn this: criminals do not care one bit about America’s over 20,000 gun laws already in place.  California is one of 6 states that prohibits residents from owning or buying “assault weapons”.  On Dec 2, 2015 two criminal jihadists killed 14 people and wounded 21 others using supposedly “banned” weapons.

The Supreme Court has “rejected” nothing with regard to extending Second Amendment rights to semiautomatic weapons.  The Second Amendment still says what it says.

In response to this ironclad logic of the Vietnam era: If you’re old enough to go to war, you ought to be old enough to vote; in 1971 states ratified the 26^th Amendment reducing the voting age from 21 to 18.  Now the gun grabbers are turning logic on its head by arguing: 18 is old enough for Uncle Sam to put a rifle in your hands but not old enough for you to own one for yourself.

The background check is the biggest canard perpetrated on the public by gun grabbers. .07 percent of criminals obtain a gun through the supposed “gun show loophole”. 

Here’s another thing to remember.  Lefty Libs only trust young people as far as they think that they can trust you to vote Democrat. They do not trust you to make an informed decision about buying a pack of cigarettes, a six pack of beer, a rifle or obtaining a concealed carry permit. In short, Lefty Libs do not trust your judgement on anything other than voting for them.  Like the Parkland kids, they are using you.

Here's what students should demand on guns

A primer for Indiana students organizing or participating in March For Our Lives on March 00:

Don't let anyone tell you it isn't the laws that are the problem and that AR-15 assault-style weapons are protected by the Second Amendment. Six states and the District of Columbia have banned assault-style weapons and large- capacity magazines. The Supreme Court recently rejected a challenge to a ban on these assault-style weapons, leaving in place the lower court's decision that such a ban is permissible under the Second Amendment.

Laws that provide legal access to firearms by individuals younger than 21 increase the risk of school shootings. Most school shootings involve an individual who is a student at the school or a former student. These individuals typically have anger issues related to problems they encountered in school. We should not provide them with legal access to these weapons.

Federal law only requires a background check by a federally licensed firearm dealer. An individual who has been declined as a result of a background check can purchase the firearm from a private seller at a gun show in Indiana. Private sellers in Indiana legally sell all types of firearms, including AR-15-style assault weapons, to individuals age 18 and older without a background check. Only federally licensed dealers are restricted from selling handguns to individuals younger than 21.

Indiana will issue a license to carry a firearm in public to individuals age 18 and older subject to a background check. Most states restrict these licenses to 21 and older. Studies show that states with the weakest gun laws have the highest rate of gun deaths.

Tell your representatives to protect your school with universal background checks on all gun purchases, a ban on AR-15-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, and to restrict gun purchases and concealed-carry licenses to age 21 and older.

Ed Smith

President, Hoosiers Concerned About Gun Violence

PDJT's double win: peace with N. Korea - MSM disappointment

PDJT shocks the world. Drops nuke on N. Korea!  

What?  No nuke?  There was supposed to be big news on N. Korea last night.  Surely PDJT nuked the commie bastards. 

What PDJT actually did was drop a metaphorical nuke on the MSM. CNN et al all have to be sitting around saying – “WTF?  PDJT is going to meet with lil’ Rocket Man?  The doomsday clock was advanced to half a millisecond to midnight because PDJT said he’d never say that 'Lil’ Rocket Man was short and fat’.  Now the two are going to meet?  WTF?  PDJT is a buffoon who doesn’t know what he’s doing.  How can this be happening?  He looks like he’s interested in peace – WTF?”

I do not have a clue how such talks might turn out.  Rocket Man is as likely as not to pull out a knife and try to stab PDJT.  Idunno.  But it is absolutely hilarious to watch the MSM tie themselves into knots trying to undo six months of ridiculing Trump about starting a war with N. Korea now that N. Korea has vowed to stop their nuke development and testing in exchange for a sit down with PDJT.

Combine the N. Korea news with the steel and aluminum tariffs and it was pretty good day for PDJT.  So good in fact I’d expect PDJT to squash the good news under an unnecessary tweet any minute now calling the Queen of England a whore or something.

So we have PDJT the peacemaker and PDJT the guardian of the American workingman on top of PDJT the tax slayer, PDJT the ISIS slayer, PDJT overseer of the booming US economy, PDJT the architect of American energy independence etc. etc.

If you look at what PDJT has done instead of what he has tweeted, it is all pretty good stuff. 

The Griffin opined that the harm of a trade war could be substantially reduced if the infrastructure bill goes through quickly and American steel is used in those projects, energy exports off-set trade restrictions on ag and other products and the economy rolls along at near full employment. 

Who knows, with the right economic outlook, we might start making our own TVs and light bulbs again and a Ford or Chevy will be as good a buy as Hundi or Toyota.  

PDJT is the blue collar billionaire and the Dopes and MSM cannot stand it.   

Today’s JG gun offering

As the old saying goes, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”

As is permanently the case with gun grabbers, solving the problem is always last on the list of things to do. At the top of the list are unrealistic, nay unachievable goals - banning and confiscating certain types or even all weapons – except of course the constitutionally protected and somehow sacred “hunting rifle*”, which oddly functions in the exact same manner and is often are more powerful than the guns they want to ban.

So schools remain open and unprotected because the gun grabbers cannot stand the thought of them being made safe with “common sense” entry and exit procedures that do not include banning the still undefined yet dreaded “assault rifle”.  Nor can they stomach the thought of an armed, trained protector inside the school.  It is better for their cause that a certain number of kids get gunned down every year than to lock the doors and provide an armed deterrent on school grounds.

Actually the NRA is the premier organization for teaching the safe handling of a firearm.  With cooperation between the NRA and local police, a school employee with some existing weapons knowledge and skill could probably be trained for school carry in 6 weeks or so.

For guys like Jay Kalver, who don’t know a bump stock from a soup stock and think an AR-15 is a “high powered” “machinegun-like” rifle the cause is probably hopeless.  Better that Mr. Kalver be restricted to the current method of defending himself and his students during a school shooting, hide in the corner and wait to be shot.

NOTE:  Since 1787, the word “hunting” does not appear in the Second Amendment. 

Arm teachers to teeth

Having taught in public and parochial school systems for three decades, I'm having a hard time following the debate on arming teachers.

As the old saying goes, “Don't bring a knife to a gunfight.” So, assuming the National Rifle Association and our elected officials will never do anything to impede the flow of large-magazine, high-powered, military-style weapons in our society, we'd better be ready to arm educators with equal firepower or better.

I'd hate to have to face down an armed assailant spraying bullets with a machine gun-like weapon from across the hall at me and my kids with a handgun. It doesn't sound like a fair fight to me – no, sir. Now maybe if I had a few stun grenades, or my very own AR-15 with a bump stock, I'm sure I could resolve the problem of an active shooter without much collateral damage.

Not only will this strike fear in the heart of anyone crazy enough to gun down a grade school, but it will also sell another couple of hundred thousand assault rifles. Sounds like a win/win to me. The NRA should love this idea.

I would think that six months of training to become proficient at using weapons of war following four or five years of college to learn how to teach should get the job done. And if teachers aren't willing to learn to kill, then maybe they just weren't cut out for the job.

A. Jay Kalver

Decatur  

California to go the way of CNN

PDJT’s at it again.  He picks an enemy most Americans cannot stand – CNN – and then goes after them.  Take Jeff Sessions’ speech in CA yesterday.  Could it have been more perfect?

The subject was sanctuary cities, but it could have been anything.  Sessions could have maligned CA for its BS high speed rail line to Las Vegas, or its BS highway system once the envy of the world, or the human excrement piling in San Francisco streets, or LA’s homeless tent tenement of 58K, or its cultural divide between urbanites and suburbanites, or its cultural divide of the western 1/8^th of the state from the eastern, or the north-south cultural divide, or its slow motion slide from dominance and “the” place to be in the 80s to its current status as a national joke all the while electing the exact same Demo-Dopes to continue the slide into the abyss.  It has gotten so bad that even the Lefty Lib cannot stand the chaos that they have sown and are now leaving the state in droves to places like TX.

Don’t believe me.  Believe U-Haul.  It cost nearly double to get a truck out of CA as it does to get one going back to CA.  Lemmesee, econ 101, supply and demand plays into this somehow.

Jeff Sessions did not grab at any of CA’s low hanging fruit of chaos in his speech.  He went right for the sanctuary policies of the state and many of its cities.  “Sanctuary” for illegal aliens is not very popular among American voters.  So what Sessions accomplished was to take on the national joke (CA) on an issue that the state has chosen to poke a sharp sick in the eye of common sense Americans and use the stick to bludgeon CA.  Brilliant. I cannot wait for the name PDJT comes up with for the state and its idiot Gov. Jerry Brow who somehow survives the Gov. Moonbeam moniker.

Sh*thole is already taken so it’ll have to be something else that is as catchy, as demonstrably true but perhaps a bit less risqué.  PDJT is a master at labels.  I’ll leave the task to him.

So now CA, a place PDJT’s base looks on as commie state, Republicans have no chance what-so-ever of winning in, is directly in PDJT’s cross-hairs. He can unload on them pretty much 24-7 with zero political consequences. 

For their part, Dopes everywhere are on parade again protesting the rule of law, placing illegal aliens ahead of American citizens and making their open borders agenda plain for all to see.  All of that may play well in Marin County, CA but to the rest of the country it is a primary reason Donald J. Trump is president.  

Today’s JG gun offering

The reason that the discussion on “common sense” gun control is difficult is that one side hides their true intentions while calling the other side murders and terrorists. Constitutionalist trying to negotiate with gun grabbers is like Israelis trying to negotiate with Palestinians.  How do you negotiate with someone who just wants you dead?

Jay Wax let the cat out of the bag when he noted that, “And like Australia did, we can easily offer a buyback program for any of the banned weapons then melt them down.”  First off, the word “easily” is a silly notion. Unlike Australia where about 640,000 guns were confiscated, there are over 300 million guns in America today.  Do the math on the fair market value of whatever percentage of that 300 million that you intend to ban and ask yourself if it might not be cheaper to lock the doors and put armed guards in the schools.

Next, Australia did not and does not have a Second Amendment for harebrained legislation enacted by cowardly knee-jerk politicians to run afoul of. Fortunately, America does.  Fortunately, it is written in very plain language.  “[T]he right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” 

It does not say, “Congress shall make the determination, separating mere wants from essential needs, as to which arms the people will be permitted to bear.”  It does not say, “The rights of the people bear hunting rifles, shall not be infringed.”

Like a great deal of the nonsense spewed by gun grabbers, it is just plain wrong that ArmaLite Rifles are not suitable for hunting or home defense.   They are in fact ideal for small game and varmints.  The ability to customize the weapon to fit nearly any shooter, its minimal recoil, accuracy and yes, lethality makes it ideal, nay indispensable, for home defense.

Mr. Wax’s letter was good for one reason.  It let the cat of the bag as to what the true aim of “common sense” gun legislation is: An Australian-like confiscation of Americans’ guns. 

Here’s a warning the gun grabbers ought to heed. The last time the government tried to confiscate Americans’ guns was in 1775 at Lexington and Concord.  How did that work out for the gun grabbers? 

No reason to oppose sensible restrictions

There is a tired old axiom used by the gun rights crowd: “Guns don't kill, people do!” One of the reasons that slogan has stuck around is that there is a ring of truth to it. But what guns do accomplish is what they were manufactured for – to shoot things with a deadly projectile. And there are hundreds of different designs to meet that intended goal.

I am so inspired by the teens who survived the Parkland, Florida, shooting. I wanted to co-opt their slogan, “Enough is enough!” The most critical change is one that was in force for 10 years until it was allowed to expire. Also, banning sale of assault-style weapons, bump stocks and large-capacity ammunition magazines. Guns such as the AR-15 are not used for hunting. They are not suitable for home protection either. What purpose do they serve? Just one, being efficient weapons of war. As an adult, I know the difference between a want and a need. You might want an assault rifle because they look cool. But you honestly do not need it. And like Australia did, we can easily offer a buyback program for any of the banned weapons then melt them down.

There are other common-sense regulations that can be put into place. First off, closing the non-licensed gun seller loopholes and requiring universal background checks, coordinating military and civilian criminal records into the background data base, waiting periods on any firearm purchase, and age restrictions on purchasing certain types of weapons.

I am not calling for a repeal of the Second Amendment. But one court after another has ruled that states and the federal government have a compelling interest in regulating the gun market. Hundreds of people have died in mass shootings since the lifting of the federal assault weapons ban. It is well past time to revive that bill and save lives.

Campaign contributions from the National Rifle Association, various gun lobbies and PACs have corrupted countless politicians. And it's time to wrest control from them back to the people who always seem to be in the line of fire. Call me a snowflake or any other name you can hurl at me. I am sick of watching the senseless slaughter of innocent lives made more efficient using military-grade weaponry.

Jay A. Wax

Fort Wayne

If you have a lot guys shooting them, I suppose single shot rifles are fine

A Star is born

AppleRich Farms offered up this enlightening link of VA House Delegate Nick Freitas who is sure to become a super star.

Today’s offering to the JG gun debate.

 

Bravo to Donald L. Clark Jr. for winning the Journal Gazette’s virtue signaler award of the day on gun control.  My goodness if it was good enough for our forefathers, well then by golly it’s good enough for Clark, because when it comes to gun control, he’s is just better than us.

One shot at time?  I guess that’s why infantry tactics of the day required that soldiers line up shoulder to shoulder three deep.  Each line firing a volley and then moving to the rear allowing the next ranks to fire while the first rank reloaded. 

The weapons may have been single shot, but the military tactic of the day was to achieve a sustained accurate rate of fire on the enemy.  The same is true today.

Our forefathers used single shot weapons because that is what was widely available at the time.  If Clark or anyone else thinks that the founders would not have embraced multi shot or semiautomatic weapons were they available, they are nuts. 

Here’s the thing.  I do not care how Clark chooses to defend himself.  If having single shot weapon is good enough for him, fine.  If having no gun is good enough for him, fine.  If he wants to put one of those oh so effective “gun free zone” signs in his front yard warning thieves and criminal that they must disarm before entering, I’m okay with that.

Mr. Clark can disarm himself in any manner he chooses.  What he and others cannot do is disarm me, not without a fight.

Oh and just for the record, since 1787 the Second Amendment STILL does not have a single word in it about hunting.   

Good enough for them

When our forefathers wrote the Second Amendment, there were no semiautomatic or automatic weapons. It was written with the understanding of one shot per weapon because that's all they had.

I'm not against the Second Amendment. From the time I started hunting at age 13 to my current age of 68, I always used a weapon that shot one shot at a time. Our forefathers only had one shot per weapon; they did not starve and won the Revolution. As a Vietnam vet, I have seen what semiautomatic weapons can do and don't want to see it again.

Donald L. Clark Jr.

Fort Wayne

Lex: On (trade) War

In his epic tome On War, Karl Von Clausewitz famously opined, “Everything in war is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.”  Yeah, I know.  I think what he really meant to say is, “Everything war in is difficult.” But you will not be called a strategic military genius if you state the plain truth in plain language?

I guess it’s like the old saying, “Ten years in prison.  It’s easy to say, but it’s hard to do.” It’s like any project that starts with the famous words, “All we have to do is…” as if what follows will be as simple as watching the ballgame with a cold one and bag of chips while lounging on the couch.  It never works out that way.

So color me skeptical when PDJT announces that “trade wars are good and easy to win.”  I think the idea of a trade war is simple enough.  The Chinese are dumping cheap steel on you and ruining the domestic market so slap a tariff on the ChiCom steel so that the home team can compete.  Simple. 

But then the ChiComs slap a tariff on beef coming in from the US.  So the US slaps a tariff on everything sold at a WalMart store – and on, and on, and on…

Ahhh, now I get what KVC was getting at.  It looks simple on paper but even talk of tariffs drives the markets and industry nuts.

Well here are a few points about PDJT’s tariffs:

One, I’m pretty sure this is just one more campaign promise fulfilled. As he said during the campaign, the world has been “ripping us off” for decades.  He was going to put an end to it.  So, one more campaign promise fulfilled. 

Will it (tariffs) put an end to it (ripping us off)?  Idunno the American economy is humming.  Were he to have asked me, I’d have recommended waiting to possibly tank the economy until after the mid-terms.

Two, there is a national strategic aspect to all of this.  There are certain industries (steel is one) vital to our national defense.  Those industries cannot be allowed to atrophy under unfair trade practices even if it does mean paying a bit more for a new car or a six pack of beer.  (Really, unless you’re going out on a boat or into space, you should be buying your beer in bottles anyway.  Who drinks a great wine out of a can?)

Three, there are other strategic values at play here.  The ChiComs have been marginally helpful in getting Kim Jun Un under control.  Maybe the tariff is one more way to tighten the screws on the ChiComs.  The navy just sent an aircraft carrier on a port call in Vietnam.  I’m sure the ChiComs – like a bunch of Americans over the age of 60 - are thinking WTF with that move.  President for life Xi is like hopeless Demo-Dopes in one regard, I’m sure he’s wishing he had a Shrillda the Hutt presidency to deal with. 

But it may be more than the ChiComs.  The tariffs are now being used as a further bargaining chip in NAFTA negotiations.  A new more beneficial NAFTA will mean no more tariffs on Mexico and Canada.  Well, PDJT may need to levy some sort of tariff on Mexico to pay for the wall, but other than that…

Then there is Western Europe – the EU.  Is anyone else of the opinion that we’ve molly coddled that lazy bunch of socialist azzbags long enough?  If the EU retaliates in any way, PDJT ought to pull up military stakes and move everything east toward our real allies in Europe - Poland, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Bulgaria etc.  

The only thing the soft Western Europeans are going to be good for in a no sh*t shooting war will be to organize the terms of their own F-ing surrender and what kind of wine and cheese is best served at the occasion. We might as well side with people in Europe who will actually fight to defend themselves.

As has been the case since before WWII, America’s real economic interests lie to our west and south.  We should be cultivating trade in the Pacific and then all the way to India and in Central and South America.  To the extent that we do look east, it should be to the African continent.

Everything is simple in trade wars except that even the simplest thing then becomes difficult.  See when Lex puts it that way he sounds so sophisticated.  As opposed to his own way of putting it: This could turn out to be a real F-ing mess.

For Lefty Libs it's as if the 2nd Amendment doesn't even exist

Today’s offering to the JG gun debate. 

Re: Gordon E. Walter’s letter, Founders’ vision needs modern update of Mar 3, 2018

Let’s take Walter’s idea about “updating” the Second Amendment and apply it to the First Amendment. 

The founders couldn’t have foreseen the Internet, TV, radio and mobile devices that keep the population instantaneously updated on current events and opinions.

Using Walter’s logic, the only methods for informing the public that should retain today’s First Amendment protections are town criers and publications printed using movable type, ink rollers and capable of printing one page at a time on a printing press.

If that sounds silly, it’s only because it is silly. If it’s silly for the First Amendment it is just as silly when applied to the Second Amendment.  

The constitution is not a cafeteria menu. The population is not subject to emotional arguments from people who think that they can pick through this clause, ignore that amendment, take a little bit of this Article and a bit of that one – but always taking just the stuff they like while throwing the rest in the trash. 

What the founders could not foresee they left a means whereby the constitution could be amended.  With regard to the Second Amendment, that’s something the Democrats will not touch with a 10 foot pole. For them, it’s better to pretend that you’re interested in a solution than to ever offer one that will expose your true aim.  

With regard to school safety, that’s something that could be fixed in a week without adding a single word to the more than 20,000 gun laws already in effect.  For starters, how about locking the doors, putting an armed guard outside and armed guard inside and see how that works?  Democrats will not address “common sense” school safety because they’d rather complain about guns and “common sense” school safety doesn’t infringe on anyone’s Second Amendment rights.

Democrats always prefer having issues to having solutions for issues.   

Founders' vision needs modern update

Altogether, the Founding Fathers did a remarkable job of writing the Constitution, based on history and the conditions they knew at the time.

There was no way they could have foreseen automobiles, airplanes, telephones, electrical power grids, nuclear energy, TV, computers and the Internet. However, when those developments arrived, the Constitution allowed legislators to establish rules for living safely with the new products.

For the Second Amendment, we know the conditions facing the Founders. The “arms” they knew were muzzle-loading rifles and single-shot pistols. An undisturbed expert rifleman might make two or three shots per minute. It would take an assembled militia to hold off a group of invaders.

Does anybody really believe that Washington or Madison would have wanted everyone to have an AR-15?

Maybe, after the latest tragedy, our legislators will have the common sense and courage to modernize gun laws of the 18th century.

Gordon E. Walter

Fort Wayne

Membership not political money is NRA's power

Latest bid for publication in the JG:

For all of the money that Lefty Libs contend that it is supposedly contributing to political campaigns, the NRA did not even rank in the top 50 of political donors during the 2016 election cycle.

During that cycle, the NRA spent a bit over one million dollars on direct political contributions.  By comparison Lefty Lib donor Tom Steyer’s organization contributed close to 90 million dollars – all of it directed to Left-wing causes.

Unlike the shadowy money Steyer is throwing around, every one of the NRA’s political contributions is an open secret published in their magazines and online for everyone to see.

Here’s the big problem for Nancy Conklin and the rest of the gun grabbers.  It’s not the NRA’s miniscule political contributions that politicians fear.  It is the 5 million plus (and growing again) members of the NRA that give it its power. 

We do not scare.  We are not going away because a bunch of Leftist loons want us to so that they can destroy the 2^nd Amendment. We didn’t kill anyone in that FL school.  Nikolas Cruz did.  He was aided and abetted by incompetent local police, Lefty Lib crime reporting requirements that kept Cruz out of the NICS database and the FBI.

Those are the cold, hard, sad facts of the FL school shooting.  Had authorities done their job, it could have been prevented.   

Stay up to date on NRA's puppets

The slaughter of innocents will never end until our elected officials examine their conscience and pass reasonable gun-control legislation rather than bowing to the will of the gun lobbyists who influence their votes with campaign contributions.

I suggest the media publish a list of all potential candidates and present members of Congress who accept contributions from the National Rifle Association and like-minded groups, keeping it updated until Election Day.

Voters should refuse to vote for these individuals and give our support to gun-control advocates. Until then, the greed of the NRA will prevail.

NANCY CONKLIN

Fort Wayne