Now that there's no hell, it's going to be a really Happy Easter.

The media Hogg
David the Media Hogg is running Rachel Ray’s Nutrish pet food company and several others.  He is causing advertisers are jumping ship on Laura Ingraham’s show because she lampooned poor little Davey Hogg.  Ingraham made the critical mistake of apologizing instead of doubling down on and insulting poor little Davey Hogg again.  It never goes well when an apology is extended to a leftist.

For his part the Hogg refused Ingraham’s apology tweeting out instead:

“I 100% agree an apology in an effort just to save your advertisers is not enough. I will only accept your apology only if you denounce the way your network has treated my friends and I in this fight. It’s time to love thy neighbor, not mudsling at children.”

This is BS on so many levels.  Where to begin?  First off, it should be “friends and me” instead of “friends and I.” No wonder you can't get into the UC system.  

Then the twit tweets to “love thy neighbor” but he won’t accept thy neighbor’s apology unless she goes all Judas Iscariot (Nice Good Friday reference don’t you think?) on her employer – weird huh?  Logic fail and more proof you're not college material.  I think he has yet to embrace this whole “love thy neighbor” thing.

Then the little twit tweets that we shouldn’t “mudsling at children.”  Well at least the truth has finally surfaced.  Hogg is a child.  He’s the same age as George Washington when Washington set out survey Northern Virginia, but Hogg’s a child and Washington a man.  Young MEN not much older than the Hogg are, at this very minute, rucking up, moving out and drawing fire, but Hogg’s a child, and they are real men.  Maybe UC doesn't admit children.

No doubt the Hogg will be jumping on Michael Moore’s extra wide band wagon to lower the voting age to 16.  The obvious response will be, “Children shouldn’t be allowed to vote. In fact, if you’re not old enough or responsible enough to own a gun, you’re not old enough to vote.”

For Rachel Ray, I’m happy you finally found a cuisine, dog food, that you’re comfortable with cooking. 

And it’s just in time for Easter
Dope Francis the Red says, don’t worry, be happy.  There is no hell.  So, Frank, where does the devil live?

I’m reading Jordan Peterson’s book 12 Rules for life (slowly).  Peterson is a big if there’s a yin then there must be yang guy.  As Monsignor John once famously told me when I was trying to convince myself, “If God loves me, He’d never send me to hell.”  “Ahh, but if you believe in heaven, then you must believe in hell.”

ASIDE:  The other bit of brilliance Monsignor laid on me was, “If you recognize even just one miracle in the world past or present, then you must concede everything is a miracle.”  Baffles me to this day.  Not the miracle thing.  My life is a miracle and the way it has turned is a bigger miracle.  But I look at pile of rotting horse manure and ask, how in the world is that a miracle? Then the answers to improbable questions start to pile up.  Did you ever think you’d own a horse?  Did you ever think a horse could create so much waste?  Did you ever think the rotting manure could produce such wonderful tomatoes from your neighbor’s garden?  And on and on and on.  If you work everything backward and forward in that manner the Monsignor eventually wins every time.

The Devil got inside Dope Frank’s head and played his greatest most evil trick on him.  The Devil convinced Dope Frank that he – the Devil – does not exist.  The Bible is full of references to the Devil and hell.  So how is all of that reconciled two days before Easter?  Way to ruin the party, Frank.

As has become a full time job at the Vatican, a spokesman has been sent out to clean up Dope Frank’s mess.  Here’s what has come out:

* In a statement released on Mar. 29, after Scalfari's report garnered worldwide attention, the Vatican said:

"The Holy Father Francis recently received the founder of the newspaper La Repubblica in a private meeting on the occasion of Easter, without however giving him any interviews. What is reported by the author in today’s article [in La Repubblica] is the result of his reconstruction, in which the textual words pronounced by the Pope are not quoted. No quotation of the aforementioned article must therefore be considered as a faithful transcription of the words of the Holy Father."

Notice anything weird about that?  It only says Dope Frank was not “quoted”.  It does not say, “Of course Dope Frank KNOWS that hell exists.”  I guess the new jargon for Dope Frank is, “I wish he’d just disappear.”

  

AntiFa arming up
So yeah, sure let’s turn in our guns now.

Yesterday’s JG rant

Re: JG editorial “Nonfatal shootings gauge of safety” on Mar 28, 2018 by Natalie Kroovand Hipple

What’s the worry with missing data for an anti-gun report?  There’s a pretty obvious research model already in place for Liberals for such studies.  Use the global cooling-warming-change-disruption model.  First, gather all of the research that confirms your bias. Then hide, distort or ignore all of the other data.  Then declare that, “The debate is over.”  Then demonize anyone who questions the shoddy work by comparing them to Holocaust Deniers. Last, if you’re going to follow the global cooling-warming-change-disruption model, you probably need to be a total hypocrite.  So, buy a couple of sporting rifles to protect your own family while demanding everyone else turn theirs in.   

It’s pretty clear that Kroovand Hipple is looking only for data to confirm her bias.  If she weren’t, she’d be just as concerned about the missing data for the number of times every year a firearm is used but never fired to prevent unreported crimes. Those are burglaries, assaults, batteries, rapes, murders that were not completed due to just the mere display of a firearm.

If we’re looking to gauge safety, collect all of the missing data.  Don’t cherry pick just the data that is sure to confirm your bias.  Maybe an honest assessment of community safety will determine that we’re all safer if we have concealed carry permits. My guess is that if Kroovand Hipple stumbles across that truth, that data will never see the light of day.   

Wednesday, March 28, 2018 1:00 am

Nonfatal shootings gauge of safety

Natalie Kroovand Hipple

There is no crime that grabs headlines quite like homicide. Yet while the homicide rate in the United States has risen in recent years, homicides made up just 1.4 percent of all violent crime in the United States in 2016.

Criminal nonfatal shootings are a better yardstick of a community's safety. They are, in many ways, a superior indicator of violent crime, and determining their frequency would give a more precise snapshot of community safety and better inform police policy and practice.

For the past several years, I have been working in partnership with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department to help the agency learn more about nonfatal shootings. Our work, going back to 2013, shows that nonfatal shootings occur roughly four times more often than homicides committed with a firearm. In Indianapolis, the 13th-largest city in the nation, someone is shot by another person and survives every day. Sometimes it happens more than once a day. Yet there is no system to nationally assess and compare these numbers with other cities.

Nonfatal shootings are basically homicides that weren't completed. Just one centimeter movement to the left can make the difference between the two. Among law enforcement and researchers, there is little distinction between people involved in homicides and in nonfatal shootings.

Counting nonfatal shootings sounds simple, yet most cities are unable to accurately report them. That's partly because the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports and National Incident-Based Reporting System do not require jurisdictions to report such numbers.

In fact, there is no standard definition of a criminal nonfatal shooting. In both the UCR and NIBRS, nonfatal shootings are categorized as aggravated assaults, but neither system makes it easy to separate out nonfatal shootings from other aggravated assaults, such as firing a gun at someone and missing.

To be sure, any person's death at the hands of another is a tragic, irreversible event. But it makes no sense to base our policies for reducing violent crime on such rare incidents. Gathering data about the people, places and situations surrounding nonfatal shootings would better inform law enforcement and improve overall community safety. You cannot understand what you cannot count.

Natalie Kroovand Hipple is an assistant professor in the department of criminal justice at Indiana University.

Sorry TES, as you know, it doesn't take much "courage" to be fawned over by an adoring media

The Empty Suit is back.  He’s heaping praise on the attention seeking teenage know-nothings at Stoneman-Douglas High.  TES had this say about the Stoneman agitators,

“And today there was a march in Washington with hundreds of thousands of people and these rallies were duplicated all around the world. And this was all because of the courage and effort of a handful of 15- and 16-year-olds who took the responsibility that so often adults have failed to take in trying to find a solution to this problem.”

Sorry dope.  “Courage” is not running with the pack of cool kids in high school.  In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It takes no courage whatsoever.  I cannot recall any movie or book or historic event that captured the crowd taking the popular stance and portraying them as courageous heroes for doing so.  

Ask yourself this easy question, if everyone is doing it, how courageous can it be?  You can just see the cheerleaders at Stoneman High gathering around the TV Hogg (when he drops by for his half a day of class each week), “Oh David the TV Hogg, you’re so courageous to do what everyone else is doing and skipping school to promote yourself to do it.”  

My guess is that a good many of the students at Stoneman are beginning to see the tv Hogg and the other agitators for who they are.  The hogglettes are like the kid that pulls the fire alarm the first day of school. Funny and cool he becomes a cult hero.  But by the third time he pulls it that day, he’s just a jerk.  My guess is that the attention Hogg and hogglettes are well on their way to jerkdom among many of their peers.

Heroes generally come in packages of one.  Seems to me the hero is more often the loner who does the right thing in spite of the crowd.  He’s rarely just another face running with the crowd.  Name one Gary Cooper movie where Cooper plays a guy in a crowded bar mocking the sheriff for standing up to the cattle baron’s hired guns. 

My thinking is that if Hogg’s heroes had real courage, they’d take on the NRA one on one in a debate on a national program instead of the endless safespace interviews surrounded by like-mind zombies they have engaged in so far.  Hell these “courageous” trolls won’t even debate one of their own peers from Stoneman high.

The lynch mob Vs. Garry Cooper

Kyle Kashuv regularly challenges the “courageous” cool kids to debate guns and the Second Amendment.  The cool kids refuse.  They are used to being treated like pampered stars by the likes of CNN and other Lefty Lib media outlets.  As a result the cool kids haven’t been asked a single difficult or uncomfortable question or presented with a single incongruent fact to expose the faults in their faulty logic on gun control. 

None of them has accepted Kashuv’s debate challenge.  Hogg is on (maybe was on) the Stoneman speech and debate team, so you’d think he’d jump at the opportunity. He hasn’t.  Why? 

Well Lex’s theory is that Hogg his hogglettes are far from heroic figures.  They are the ones acting more like the cattle baron’s gang of henchmen or the angry lynch mob. It’s Kyle Kashuv, the loner, who has the Gary Cooper role in this drama as the defender of truth, justice, law and order (Constitution).  

Wacky leftists (but I repeat myself) might save Republicans in Nov mid terms

David the attention Hogg* and stupid Libs (but I repeat myself) may save Republicans from themselves this Nov.  Seems to me this crowd has let out enough rope, tied a noose at one end, thrown the other end over a tall limb, tied it off, stood on soap box and put the noose around their own neck, all a savvy Republican needs to do now is kick the box from under their feet.

Note*: Given the intense interview schedule for the attention Hogg and his Hoggettes are they in any danger of missing so many school days that Broward’s Cowards are going to have them and their negligent parents hauled into family court for truancy?

Thanks to the attention Hogg, Debbie blabbermouth Schultz and former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, the Dopes are now caught between a rock and a much larger harder rock with an even larger, harder and heavier rock ready to fall on their heads.  Every Republican should demand answers to some very “commons sense gun control” questions.

Do you agree with former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens that the Second Amendment has run its course and should be repealed?

Do you agree with Debbie the blabbermouth Schultz that ammunition should be regulated and controlled?

Do you agree with David the attention Hogg that “assault weapons” should be banned and that the minimum age for the purchase of a long gun should be increased to 21?

Define “assault weapon”?

Any fudging on a solid “yes” on the first three questions will cause an intermural fire fight among Dopes while doing nothing to put the Dope candidate in the middle of the road on the gun debate.

The solid yes proves what we already know, Dopes want to ban all weapons.  That’s an issue that breaks 80-20 in the Republicans’ favor.

A solid no any of the first three will cause Dopes to dump their own guy for not being fascist and/or communist enough.

Many in the media are surprised that Justice Steven let the cat out of the bag about what the true aim of the “common sense” gun law crowd really is. He didn’t.  We all knew what their goal was.  We just thought it would continue incrementally through the courts and not with one fell swoop with a constitutional amendment that will fail colossally and expose Dope lawmakers in the process.  That’s what the MSM are really surprised about. 

The blabbermouth’s move is too cute by half.  It skirts the Second Amendment by attempting to regulate ammunition rather than “arms” per se.  My guess is that the Supreme Court might look at such BS laws as a rather transparent unconstitutional effort to regulate arms akin to regulating ink in effort to quash the press.  Besides, the idiot probably doesn’t know that ammo can be reloaded in the basement so that whole industry would require an entirely new batch of laws.

I think even the left is tiring of the attention Hogg. His little “you’re all f*cking murderers” routine is wearing thin.  I used dread seeing this know-nothing punk beating his puny chest as a holier than thou, smarter than thou, better looking than thou face of a misguided movement.  Now, I think they should put out the idiot out there every single day for a couple hours to do interviews.  He’s become a liability.

The last question is just for fun.  Republicans should ask the question repeatedly to expose the Dope’s total ignorance on guns and how they function.  The more times the question is asked the more the Dope definition will grow and change.  At some point it will – by necessity of how firearms operate - include all semiautomatic weapons.

Will Republicans be clever enough to use the Second Amendment to expose leftist Dopes for the anti-constitutionalists that they are and sweep to an overwhelming victory in Nov?  Idunno.  They are not a very clever bunch.  

Will they be ruthless enough to kick the milk crate out from under the Dopes’ feet allowing them to hang themselves with their own rope? Maybe, but if they wait for the MSM to do it by asking the Dopes the questions above, the Dope will never have to go on the record.  Reps need to get guys dressed as the constitution or founding fathers to follow the Dope candidates around asking these questions at ever campaign stop. For the Dopes, no answer is worse than a bad answer.

Okay, we may have to stick with Don the non for now

I’m one day into my “Dump Trump” campaign and I’m already having second thoughts.  Here’s the problem with “Dump Trump,” who are you going to replace him with?  Arnold Schwarzenegger says John Kasich.  Why?  Well because Kasich supports a bunch of know-nothing dopey teenagers who are not old enough to vote but who want to ignore the Second Amendment and confiscate your means to defend yourself.  Given that choice, Trump every time.  MAGA!!

Politics is the art of the doable.  Until there is a viable alternative, we have to suck it up and go with Don the non, because he’s not Kasich, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Heap Big Chief Lying Face Liz Warren etc.  It’s actually no worse than voting for Don the non because he wasn’t Shrillda the Hutt.  Sadly, we just have to do what we have to do until something more viable splashes onto the scene.

Besides, I’ve always been of the mind that Pauly Walnuts and Mitch are the real culprits here.  They are the Caligula, D.C. insiders who should have known better.  Why did that POS bill ever make it to Don the non’s desk?  Because they wanted it to. 

Why?  Well, Rat establishment Republicans loath Don the non more than the Dopes.  That’s my theory, and I’m sticking to it.

The real test for Don the non comes in Sep when this process is due to repeat itself.  Don the non (DTN) has said he will veto it.  I think there is a better way.

DTN says he wants a line item veto.  The Supremes have already declared that unconstitutional. So DTN tells congress that in a move to create transparency, every line of the next omnibus will be subject to debate.  Once the bill passes congress and the WH staff has read it, DTN will have House and Senate leadership into the WH for a new game called “Who wants to shut down the government?”

Here’s how it works.  DTN offers up line items from the omnibus that he wants struck.  Leadership can then okay the removal of the item or object.  So DTN says, “Line 37 on page 2,343 - ‘1.7 million dollars for the study of the mating habits of the North American Tiger Ant’ - anyone want to shut down the government to keep that?”

If Chuckles the weeping clown Schumer objects, “Mr. President that’s a line item for Joe Manchin to bring back to the great state of WV to help his reelection bid, and I have to insist that it stays.” 

DTN says, “Oaky let’s vote.  The house and senate are kept in session during these negotiations to settle just such disputes.  Call the Senate to order and vote on line 37 on page 2,343.”  Dopes will throw Manchin so far under the bus he’ll roll out the other side where they’ll have to throw him back under.

If congress were forced to defend such BS there would be a lot less of it.  Also, in order not to interfere with the Caligula, D.C. grandee’s regular “work”, the game would be played only on weekends starting at 4:30 on Fri afternoon and run until 10pm.  Resume at 9am on Sat until 10pm with 1 hour for lunch.  Resume at 12 noon on Sun and run until 6pm every weekend until the president’s list was clear.

I think it’s a brilliant idea.

Today’s JG rant

NOTE: The seed for this piece came from the Griffin in what was a long and pretty incoherent rambling e-mail that I had to run through my Dick Tracey decoder ring twice before it began to make any sense.  But here on the Lex page we try to give credit where credit is due.  Hat tip the Griffin.

David Hogg is trading student’s lives so he can have his 15 minutes of fame.  Hogg, the entire March for our Lives crowd, the MSM and the Hollywood swells that empower them are (let me see how would THEY put it, right) murderers with the blood of 1,000s of teens on their hands.  

Here’s why: In the name of protecting teens from the dreaded but still undefined “assault weapon”, Hogg and other selfish, self-centered, egotist mount their vainglorious opposition to Americans being allowed to exercise their God given, constitutionally protected right to defend themselves.  Meanwhile thousands of teens die each year at hands of the real teen killer – the assault phone.

About 300 people of all ages are killed each year by rifles – that’s ALL rifles not just the dreaded but still undefined “assault weapon.”  By contrast, 11 TEENS lose their lives EVERY SINGLE DAY at the hands of assault phones due to distracted driving.  Hogg and other murderers like him have sucked the oxygen out of the air from those of us trying to stop the mayhem caused by assault phones on America’s roads.

Hogg doesn’t care if teens die by the thousands at the hands of assault phones as long as he gets his weekly 10-12 bookings on TV.  Instead of calling for the banning of something he cannot defined, Hogg should be calling for a ban on assault phones. 

Unlike the Hogg, I can define what it is I want to ban.  Assault phone: Any phone capable of sending or receiving text messages.  Also, since most accidents involving distracted drivers occur with drivers between the ages of 21 and 25, the legal age to purchase any mobile phone (or food at the drive through for that matter) needs to be increased to 26 years of age. 

By his total lack of concern for the real killer of teens, it is clear that Hogg is in the pocket of the murderers at big cell phone.

Until further notice Lex is done with the non-negotiator

Since his famous ride down the escalator at Trump Tower, my advice to Republicans has been to “ride the Trump tiger.”  Up until last Friday, I think that has proven to be sound advice. It all changed Friday when The Donald signed the omnibus thereby declaring to everyone that the Trump tiger was nothing more than a swamp dwelling PUSSYcat. 

My advice for anyone smart enough not to have signed on to that POS omnibus is “Dump Trump.” His idiosyncratic manners could be tolerated, even enjoyed, when he was doing the right thing.  When there is no upside to The Donald’s odd ball behavior there is no upside to tolerating it.

The “great negotiator*” got nothing from a bloated 1.3 TRILLION dollar pile of crap omnibus.  He got rolled like a beach ball by Rat establishment Republicans who probably want him impeached more than the Demo-Dopes do. Don bitched that no one in congress read the bill.  Well neither did he.  Yet he foolishly signed.

NOTE:  Don’s new name is, “Don the non” as in Don the non-negotiator 

Don the non could have controlled TV over the weekend with a live debate on the 2,200+ page bill.  Sit the bill in the middle of a conference table.  Bring in the four amigos – Chuck and Nancy, and Pauly and Mitch on one side to defend the BS.  Bring in Cruz and Paul, and Gomert and Jordan on the other to tear it to shreds.  It would have made for great TV watching the swamp rats trying to defend the un-defendable.  He didn’t.  He just signed it.  Then he whined like a little b*tch.

As a result guys like Lex are out.  The ONLY thing keeping Don the non afloat so far has been the continued support from his base.  That support was contingent upon Don the non doing the right thing.  Friday he caved.  As a result, I believe so will his base of support. Without his base the Trump Tiger is a docile, toothless, clawless, blind swamp dwelling PUSSYcat not to be feared by anyone Dope or Rat. He’s finished.  The Caligula, D.C. hyenas are already circling his wounded carcass going for the kill, which will come shortly after the mid-terms.  

Some may think, there’s still time to right the ship before Nov.  How?  With what issue?  Another trillion dollar infrastructure bill?  Total BS.  It’ll be another trillion dollars wasted and authored by Chuckels the weeping clown Schumer. So, another budget battel in Sep?  That’s too little too late - unless Don the non holds out for total funding for the border wall and shuts the GD government down until after the election to get it.

I know Don the non reads Lex so I’ve included this open letter.

Dear Don the non;

I think even you misunderstand why you are where you are.  You probably think that you’re POTUS because the American people love you and that’s why they came out to vote for you. 

Not true.  We voted for you in spite of the fact that we knew exactly who you are – a loud mouth boor.  We voted for you in spite of your being a lout, because we thought you’d “drain the swamp.”  We voted for you in spite of all of your Trump University-like shady BS deals and your 30 year fine balancing act between legal and illegal because you represented something different from the Caligula, D.C. mainstream. 

We didn’t vote for you because we had some illusion that you were a rare scholar or a fine representative of what a Madisonian republican and diplomat should look like or even that you had the slightest clue of what that means and would require.  We voted for you because we thought that you were looking out for us.

Most of all we voted for you because you were not Shrillda the Hutt. That’s a pretty low bar to cross to get into the Oval Office.

All that went out the window on Friday when you signed the 2,200+ page pile of crap called the omnibus.  As a result, I don’t care if Maxine Waters impeaches you or not.  The downside of your bombast and petulant outbursts now far outweigh any good I thought you might do.

Yeah, I know Pauly walnuts and that limp Richard over in the senate - McConnell - set you up.  It was a no win for The Donald.  If you veto the bill government shuts down, and The Donald gets blamed.  If you sign the POS, you get impeached because your support falls through the floor and the mid-terms become a disaster. You chose impeachment. 

All you had to do was say that you were not signing it while there was money in the bill for a raise for congress and leave town for the weekend. Then you could have enjoyed watching the rats scurry. 

Then, when safely ensconced at Mara a Lago, you could have told Pauly and Mitch, “while you’re getting the raise out, here’s the other 12,000,0000 things in that pile of crap bill that you sent me that have to go.  And while you are at it there must be at least a modest allotment for the wall I continue to promise the American people but have done less than zero to get underway.”

Sadly, Don you lost your nerve.  You didn’t do it.  So now your tweet storms are just so much BS.  I hope Mueller wraps up his investigation today with a dozen or so charges against you from double parking to kidnapping the Lindberg baby.  I do not really care. 

You too prove the point Don, we can vote for change; we can vote for limited conservative government, but we cannot get it.  The swamp is too deep.  The swamp creatures are too powerful.  At this point, for the good of the country, Pence is the best choice.  Good bye Don.  Resign before they impeach you.

I know how your mind works.  Right now you are wondering how to make money off the impending impeachment and senate trial. A world-wide office pool at $5 a head betting on the final vote totals and who the holdouts will be ought to do the trick.  Is another billion or so in your already bloated bank account really worth it?

I continue to give you credit for beating Shrillda the Hutt like a drum and driving the entire class of Lefty Loons crazy for more than a year.  Well done on that. But today they celebrate.  They have won.  You’re done.

NOTE: I reserve the right to deny that I ever posted this if this somehow miraculously works out.

Parkland school agitators are “students” not “survivors”
Parkland school agitator David Hogg is as often as not referred to as a “Parkland school shooting survivor.”  

What is a “Parkland school shooting survivor”?  Is everyone who was at Parkland that day a “survivor”?  In my own mind students who were shot, wounded and survived to tell about it are the real “survivors.”  Everyone else should be referred to as Parkland school students or staff.

To be a “cancer survivor” you actually have to have survived the disease.  My dad had cancer.  He was a survivor.  I lived in the house with him.  Does that make me a “cancer survivor”?

 

Today’s JG rant

Re: David A. Wass’ letter, “CIA director poor pick as Secretary of State,” of Mar 25, 2018

Dude, grow up.   

CIA director poor pick as secretary of State

The appointment of CIA Director Mike Pompeo as secretary of State is a tragic blow to American credibility. The CIA is internationally infamous for its role in the overthrow of governments such as in Iran and Chile, the use of torture, and a host of “dirty tricks” around the globe. To have its director become the diplomatic voice of the United States is a sad and frightening development.

David A. Waas

North Manchester 

My guess is that when the investigation is done, in 15-20 years if the Mueller investigation is an indication, and they find out that the ladies forgot to "carry the one" somewhere along the way in their calculations, the blame will be fixed on some white construction shlub, let’s call him Carl, because the lady engineers will say, with their arms folded across their chests while tapping their heels, “It’s all Carl’s fault.  He's the one who forgot to put the orange thingy over the doohickey.” 

Why facebook is like mowing your front lawn naked

PDJT’s shake up
No. Hell no.  I don’t know what to make of the legal shake up and WH turn over, but I’m a big John Bolton fan.  So, I’m happy that he’s aboard.

The omnibus
PDJT should veto the spending bill.  Shut it down if necessary.  Tell Pauly Walnuts and Mitch to grow a pair and send up a budget bill that looks something like what they were elected to support. 

Facebook
I’m confused.  People get on facebook to vomit every aspect of their lives from when they get out of bed to when the go to sleep; to what and where they are eating; to what they think about every issue under the sun; to all of the cool videos and memes.  It’s truly interesting and creepy. 

But given what the platform is used for, how the heck can anyone claim that their privacy has been violated when their peculiar wants and desires that they have posted for all to see become known/sold to “outsiders”?  If you insist on mowing the front yard naked, you should not be surprised when a photo of it shows up in the church bulletin or a cease and desist order arrives by special courier.

So if you don’t want a picture of yourself mowing your front lawn naked to show up in the church bulletin, put some damn clothes on.  Same with facebook.  If you don’t want “your data” to fall into the “wrong hands”, don’t put your data on facebook for everyone to see/steal.  

Call me crazy but if you insist that you have 21,000 “friends” that you want “share” every aspect of your life with, you ought not to be surprised when one or two of them turn out to be creeps selling data. That’s what the interweb does.

Try this.  Go on the interweb and search “patio furniture”.  Wait 30 seconds and watch your mailbox fill up with spam from patio furniture companies.  Watch the little ads on the side of the page fill up with patio furniture ads. 

And just how monumentally stupid are facebook users?  First they insist on sharing every aspect of lives on a public forum, then they are supposedly shocked when people notice them.  They start out ardent Shrillda the Hutt supporters. Then, when some nefarious limey tech company “steals their data” that's out there for the world to see, they fall head over heels for Trump.  It’s as if the mere act of someone noticing them (AKA stealing their data) on facebook is enough to change their political outlook from being stark raving lunatics into right thinking thoughtful people.

Can they really be that stupid?  Apparently. And now we know “what happened”. 

Today’s JG rant

Re: Walter Martiny's letter, Unlikely the founders endorsed armed revolt, of Mar 23, 2018

One of the great problems with having a debate with gun grabbers is that they are ignorant of nearly every issue required to have that debate and sadly, I believe, willfully so. 

Take Walter Martiny’s letter.  Martiny claims that “every case” where arms were used “to interfere or stop the federal government from imposing its regulations” failed. 

Martiny leaves out the first and most obvious incident where armed colonists threw off the yolk of the most powerful military in the world at the time – Britain and its mercenaries.

Purists who have no argument against history will resort to wordsmithing saying, “Well England wasn’t the ‘federal government.’”  Well it was the most powerful government in the world at the time and its heavy hand was pressing down hard on the colonies who defeated them in armed conflict.

Martiny thinks that, “no one can say with certainty what these great politicians had in mind when they drafted [the constitution]”.  But we can. Read Federalist #46 which says in part:  

“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.”

We cannot have a serious debate on the Second Amendment because for 30 years now, one side has remained willfully ignorant of the law, the traditions, the statistics (which like global warming they insist on manipulating on a good day and outright lie about on a normal day) and even how the very guns they wish to ban operate.  Instead they rely solely on appeals to emotions.

For 20 years now the gun grabbers have whined about the dreaded but still undefined “military-style assault weapon.”  Look it up and see if there is a single reasonable definition of this beast that apparently is as deadly as the plague, as common as nitrogen in the atmosphere but after 20 years still lacks a reasonable, easily understood and common definition.

Let me offer one:  A semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine that is capable of receiving more than 10 cartridges.  Why should that simple definition be so hard for gun grabbers to get their heads around?  Because it’s not invoking hysteria.  Most importantly, because it is easily understood, people will know exactly what the grabbers are after – their semi-automatic rifles, then their shotguns, then their handguns, then all guns. It is no more complicated than that.

Emotional hysteria is all the gun grabbers can rely upon. 

Unlikely that founders endorsed armed revolt

There is a great deal of controversy regarding the intention of the men who in 1791 drafted the Bill of Rights to gain ratification of the Constitution. Certainly, no one  can say with certainty what these great politicians had in mind when they drafted this important document. However, there are facts that can help.

At that time, the nation consisted of 13 previous colonies on the East Coast between the Atlantic Ocean and the Appalachian Mountains. The total population was less than 1.5 million people. Most lived in rural areas, many on  plantations. Only five cities were 10,000 or more people. There was constant danger on the border from foreign powers and Indian raids.

Some have suggested that the “well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state” is required to protect citizens from the established government.

There have been many attempts to use this freedom to bear arms to interfere or stop the federal government from imposing its regulations. The first was Shays Rebellion, then the Whiskey Rebellion, the Civil War, on down to Ruby Ridge and Waco. In every case, the government prevailed.

Only twice to my knowledge was armed revolt successful. During Prohibition, gangs succeeded importing alcohol. Also during the 1920s, the Terminal Gang in New Orleans held off the police until the mayor appointed the gang to the police department, ushering in the most corrupt regime until after World War II a new mayor fired them and appointed a new force. I leave to your interpretation whether the Black Panthers moved the equality argument forward.

I don't think the brilliant founders ever thought that armed mob rule was in the best interest of the country.

Walter Martiny

Fort Wayne