Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts

Monday, September 15, 2014

Cullen L. Cullen is a real person, not a pseudonym used to write Twilight fanfiction. (Probably.)

I know nothing about Cullen L. Cullen except that he's the Superintendent of the Venice, IL school district, he looks like a stock photo named nerdy_dad_001.jpg, and he's running for the Illinois House of Representatives as a Democrat (he was unopposed in the primary, natch.)

And that's pretty much all I needed to know. If I were being greedy, though, a FAQ section that included the question, "So . . . what's the deal with your names?" would have been ideal. In its absence, I feel justified in imagining that Enrico Fellatini, a mild-mannered school administrator, never expected to be swept off his feet by a YA urban fantasy novel, but the Twilight series was just too much for him, and before he knew it, it had somehow become clear to him that he had to change his name--in a very real, and legally binding sense--to reflect the fact that he is, at heart, not only a Cullen, but the Cullen. The very most Cullen that there could ever be. 

Cullen Cullen.
I have not altered this photo of Cullen L. Cullen (ThaMostCullen54@aol.com) in any way.
(But of course that email address is fake . . . as far as I know.)

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Illinois Speaker Mike Madigan: (217-782-5350) CALL NOW! LINES ARE OPEN!

If you want to see Illinois become a shall-issue, right-to-carry state this year, it's time to call your Representative in the Illinois House. If you're not sure who that is, you can type your address in here and find out who's your Representative and what his/her phone numbers are. Might as well call the Springfield offices; they should be back in town.

Done with that? Good. Now I'm going to ask you to do something that might seem odd: Call Mike Madigan and tell him you expect a fair vote on HB148 and you hope he'll vote for it.
Now, you might be scratching your head right now at the idea that Mike Madigan, Speaker of the House since 1983, leader of Illinois Democrats, father of Lisa Madigan, halfway-adopted-brother of Dick Daley, should be urged to vote for a right-to-carry bill. But please do it anyway. Remember that we don't actually need Madigan to vote for the bill (though that would help, Mike, if you're reading this) but we do need to show him that there's a true grassroots movement after this bill that will remember if he at least makes sure we get a fair floor vote, up or down.
If you aren't done with that because you're not sure of Mike Madigan's phone number, check the title again.

Got that done, too? Congratulations, you are now a hardcore grassroots activist willing to do more than 90% of gun owners can be bothered to do. Wanna buck for the top percentile? Call Glenn Poshard at Southern Illinois University and tell him to quit trying to kill right-to-carry in Illinois over his turf battle. Poshard is currently leading a group of college administrators lobbying to have the entire bill scuttled unless it makes it a felony to possess a firearm anywhere on campus; if you've ever taken a drive through Carbondale or Champaign, you know we're not just talking about the quad here. I know you'll all be polite and cheerful, but firm. Some of you may decide to mention that if Mr. Poshard doesn't call off the dogs, then even when we win right-to-carry, the fight won't be over for him, because I for one would become a near-full-time "Campus Carry" advocate in that event.

When you're trying to kill the carry bill that Chicago police unions want to see passed, you're so far out of touch that you might be out of sight.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Who is Hiram Grau and why does he make me nervous?


First things first: Hiram Grau has just been appointed to be the Director of the Illinois State Police.

Now, why would that make me nervous?

Well, the Illinois State Police (ISP) have an uneven history with Illinois gun owners. My memories of the ISP only go back to the days when Terry Gainer was the Director, and Gainer's signature was on the deceptive little countertop signs that were mailed to my dad's gun shop. These were supposed to be set out on the counters to warn customers that their firearms had to be transported in locked cases in inaccessible compartments (such as the trunk of a car) but with the ammunition transported in a separate compartment of the car. That was folk wisdom for years, but it wasn't the law even back then as far as I've been able to tell. In addition, the ISP has traditionally opposed all gun-rights legislation and favored most gun control in the legislature, and their page of advice to women on "What To Do If You Are Confronted" is legendary for such great advice as "It may sound disgusting, but putting your fingers into you throat and making yourself vomit usually gets results (This method is not often used except as a last resort)" and "there is documentation of assailants that left a would-be-victim alone after she told him that she was pregnant and it would kill her baby. (Some case were women that were too old to even have a baby.)"

Over three years ago, I wrote here about my surprise that the ISP hadn't taken the page down or altered it after a year of being mocked by activists with tongue depressors . . . .

Then, over a year later, I posted an open letter to the ISP at the Chicago Gun Rights Examiner, explaining my continued surprise that the ISP still had not taken action to remove the page . . .

Three months after that, the ISP responded with promises of a comprehensive review of the entire ISP website . . . .

That was well over a year ago, and as of today, the offensive page of dangerous advice is still there.

There have been hopeful signs, though. Under the much-mocked young Director Jonathon Monken, the ISP dedicated more manpower to processing FOID applications and began to cut down its backlog. Much more promising, the ISP went from persistent hostility toward gun rights to standing neutral on the latest shall-issue right-to-carry bill . . . and combined with the Illinois Sheriffs Association, Illinois Chiefs of Police and Chicago PD Sargeants Association testifying in favor, that's a big boost.

Now, though, Mr. Grau's administration is poised to begin. Grau is an unknown quantity to me, but he's been in charge of investigations for Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez for years, and I hope he doesn't share her hopes for radical gun bans. Time will tell. In the meantime, the rumors that Grau will be expected to make ISP "outside investigations" of law enforcement in Cook County go the way Alvarez wants them to go--starting with the current case in which one of Mayor Daley's nephews hit another young man who later died of the injuries he sustained in falling to the ground, and was later declared innocent by Chicago PD--are all over the Second City Cop blog. And as one particularly cheerful and optimistic Chicago cop put it:
"Apologies to our brothers and sisters at ISP. As you were with Gainer, you again have been saddled with CPD refuse . . . Grau is a Democratic Party clout baby, plain and simple."
Well, thanks. But I'm still hoping Mr. Grau will show me something to gladden my heart.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Anti-gunners getting desperate in Illinois? Rumors and facts. . .

Rumor has it that the national anti-gun groups are making desperate phone calls behind the scenes and finding their usual allies in the Illinois state capitol in a state of confusion. One insider says "nobody is talking to each other." One big reason for the confusion is probably this year's campaign to pass HB0148/SB0082, shall-issue right-to-carry bills titled the "Family and Personal Protection Act." The bills on the IL General Assembly website are not the final versions, by the way, so be warned if you're going there to read up.

Anyway, we've been over my optimism about this before, so suffice it to say that I honestly think this may be the year Illinois gets shall-issue right-to-carry. Groups like the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership apparently agree, because the day after thousands of gun owners flooded the state capitol for IGOLD, they hired Chris Carr from a Blagojevich-connected Chicago firm to lobby in Illinois. Obviously, none of that is rumor; it's public record. The question is, what do they think their lobbyist can say to Governor Quinn, Speaker Madigan or President Cullerton that will counteract the facts on the ground?

Yesterday, The Truth About Guns posted up a video of Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez in the infamous Chicago television appearance in which she told the host: "I believe there should be a law that says no one should have guns." That was Robert Farago's response to another sign of desperation: the rumor is that the Illinois Council Against Handgun Existence and other Illinois groups went looking for a politician willing to stand in front of the microphones for them at a major press conference early this week (Tuesday morning?) and Ms. Alvarez was the best they could find. Given the fact that every one of these groups denies that they want to ban guns, the fact that they feel obliged to go with Alvarez as their point-person on this would seem to imply that they couldn't get, for instance, House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton, or Governor Pat Quinn to be the face of resistance to right-to-carry in Illinois.

What do you suppose we should read into that?

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Priceless!

SecondCityCop got a letter from a reader who was in Springfield to watch HB0148 pass out of the House committee on Tuesday:
First, the city brought the same tired old group: the mayor's aide, [...], a tired old doctor, a bishop and the CPD supe. Imagine, their surprise when the people who were for concealed carry brought in the reps from the Chicago police sergeant's organization AND the Chicago police chiefs association AND the Illinois sheriff's organization and some more guys like that. I hear that the mayor's office called the chief's org after the vote and threatened to withdraw from the assn because the chief spoke on their side!
There's more and it's excellent, but you'll have to click the link if you want to read the whole thing.

Friday, March 11, 2011

IGOLD 2011: A winner is you!

So, IGOLD 2011 has come and gone, and it's the top story on the front page of the Springfield State Journal-Register, and apparently they're passing out live TV news interviews to fat gun nuts in yellow hoodies now . . . . so that's new.

The paper is estimating that there were only about 1000-1500 in attendance; I would personally estimate 3000-5000 . . . . 3500-4500 if someone wanted more precision. I thought the numbers were close to last year's turnout, which I estimated at around 4000-4500. I am absolutely no kind of expert on this stuff, though, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt (just a little one, though; I mean, it's not as if I'm not awfully smart or anything.) Also in attendance at IGOLD were a couple of less-desirable elements. One was an older gentleman who was passing out some kind of, as one organizer put it, "Jim Crow literature." He was tossed out of the convention center without putting up much of a protest; must have known he had limited time to do such a thing. Hey, this is not Wisconsin, and we don't owe you a place to peddle your crazy.

Insiders at the capitol are telling each other that the current right-to-carry bill, HB0148/SB82, is nearly inevitable. Of course, this is Illinois politics, where things can get weird and the insiders are sometimes as surprised as everyone else, so I'll believe it when I see it. Still, the logic of the situation does have a certain persuasive force. Senate President Cullerton really does have a lot of pressure coming from downstate Democrats, and he's starting to see more from suburban and even some Chicago districts, too. On the other hand, he has to know that the anti-gun contingent of Chicago legislators may not go completely quietly. Very likely, President Cullerton is wondering whether he can wait for Speaker Madigan's House to pass HB0148 and send it to the Senate, at which point he would have more cover to look for a solution. The big flaw in that plan (well, from my point of view, maybe not from his) is that Speaker Madigan might be waiting for Cullerton to make the first move, for similar reasons. I have this terrible vision of the two of them sitting across a table, each waiting for the other to make the first move, like two old men at the coffee shop sitting with the check between them, each trying his best to outlast the other . . . . casually.

However, listening to rank-and-file legislators talk to each other yesterday was a revelation. The buzz in the capitol hallways was entirely about right-to-carry, which I've never seen at IGOLD before. I don't mean legislators talking to IGOLD participants--that always sounds like someone trying to sell you your own ideas--but the little bits and bites of conversation you pick up between two staffers in an elevator, or a couple of lobbyists on the steps. These people are all talking amongst themselves about right-to-carry and the mood is infectiously optimistic.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Be still, my heart . . . . .

The Springfield State Journal-Register is apparently finished with hinting that they might slightly favor right-to-carry in Illinois, instead coming right out and saying so in a lead editorial in the Sunday edition:

"Our Opinion: Reconsider Ban on Concealed Carry"


They did a good job of recapping the history of concealed carry measures in Illinois, and I only have one or two small quibbles. Great job overall--in fact, when I showed it to my wife, she asked in all seriousness whether it was my guest piece. (It's not, of course.)

The only real trouble they gave me was in their suggestion that anti-gun politicians shouldn't be afraid to revisit right-to-carry because the McDonald decision endorsed "reasonable" restrictions and some compromise might be possible--for instance, that some cities could simply "opt out" of the right-to-carry law.

No. Just no. First of all, as the NRA's Todd Vandermyde has pointed out, the only Justices who wrote about "reasonable" restrictions when they weren't quoting anti-gun amici were the dissenters. That's a polite way of saying that the side that won did NOT endorse "reasonable" restrictions, though they did allow that some restrictions will likely pass muster. What they did was find that the individual right named in the Heller decision is incorporated into the 14th Amendment, which means that it has to be enforced against the states and local governments. That means, in this case, "Illinois" and "Chicago."

So, what is this individual right that now shall not be infringed by Chicago? Well, the Heller decision called it the "right to own and carry weapons in case of confrontation," though of course they didn't actually decide to order Washington, D.C. to allow right-to-carry since that question wasn't before them. But how can anyone figure that Chicago has a legal leg to stand on if they ask to "opt out" of this right entirely? No, right-to-carry is coming in Illinois, and the legislature's choice may very well be between acting in the next session and negotiating with us, or waiting to act and "negotiating" with federal court orders. Good luck with that.

The bottom line is that if the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to carry weapons for personal defense, as the Supreme Court has said it does at least in dicta, then there's no legal way for Illinois to remain the one state in the union that won't allow any citizen to carry a loaded firearm for any reason (police officers and politicians excepted, of course.) And, once Illinois brings itself into compliance and provides equal protection before the law for its citizens, it's hard to see how Chicago could "opt out" and take that equal protection away from over half the citizens in the state. Last year, when many Illinois right-to-carry activists (including me) tried to make a push to get a right-to-carry law that would have allowed Chicago and other home-rule municipalities to "opt out," it would probably have been found legal for them to do it. But they weren't willing to talk about that deal, and the NRA torpedoed it behind the scenes in the Illinois General Assembly. A lot of people were angry about that, but let's face it now: the NRA turned out to be right on this one. We didn't want to wait for the McDonald decision, but that was impatience talking. As it turned out, we find ourselves today in a position where Illinois doesn't need to make that deal that Chicago and its puppets spurned back then. In fact, I'll just come out and say it clearly here: in the long run, I'm glad the other side was too foolish to take that deal, and I'm glad Vandermyde and the NRA killed it.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Right-to-Carry Town Hall Meeting . . . in Chicago!

Tomorrow night, the UTATU Collective (a student service group at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago) will host a Right-to-Carry informational town-hall meeting at the Carruthers Center for Inner-City Studies near the corner of Oakwood and Langley, just a few blocks off the lake on the south side of Chicago.

That's right, Chicago. And the night after that, there'll be an identical meeting in Elmhurst, IL--one of the most putatively anti-gun of the Chicago suburbs.

All the recent focus on McDonald v. Chicago has tended to take some focus off the very real political changes in Illinois regarding right-to-carry. Five or ten years ago I would have laughed at the idea of putting on a meeting like this one. Tomorrow I expect it to be packed.

I'm planning to make the drive; I've laid in a supply of audiobooks so I can take off after work tomorrow, zoom up to Chicago listening to Pale Horse Coming by Stephen Hunter and then slog back home listening to The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by the late, great Carl Sagan. Thursday morning is going to suck. There was a time when I could drive eight hours in a night, roll into home at one or two in the morning, and be raring to go in the morning . . . . but that was before I got old.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Ess You What Huh What?

I'm glad I'm not the only one wondering what on earth the "States United to Prevent Gun Violence" is supposed to be. Their name is only slightly less stupid than the "Freedom States Alliance," which is just about a syntactically null statement (what are the "Freedom States," and why do they advocate cracking down on freedom?)
Seriously, "States United?" You idiots are claiming to be a coalition of state governments or something. You are, at best, a sort of shell corporation consisting of various vestigial state-level gun-banning groups that represent tiny minorities of the voters in your respective states. You are entirely full of crap, and I've never heard of you. My guess is that the SUPGV was created out of whole cloth quite recently as a way to pool that sweet, sweet grant money from the Joyce Foundation people so everyone can keep feeding, even if each goober had to accept less largesse than he's grown accustomed to.

Being a gun-ban astroturf activist is not a fun or respected life, but it beats working for a living, I guess.

Friday, February 5, 2010

IL Politics: Boosting Hoosier self-esteem since 1818

Shootin' Buddy wants to hear more about the Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor. This is because Shootin' Buddy is from Indiana, and people who live in Indiana love Illinois political scandals almost as much as people who live in Illinois. I think it makes them feel smugly self-righteous.

The quickest reference would be to go to the Capitol Fax Blog and look for the name "Scott Cohen" or "Scott Lee Cohen." I'll write more about this tomorrow, but right now I have some other stuff to do, so here are the important parts for those of you who live outside the walls.

  • Illinois' 1970 Constitution mandates that each party hold separate primary elections for Governor and Lt. Governor, but the primary winners run together on the same ticket. So we sometimes see two candidates who hate each other or have never met. Sometimes a Governor candidate and a Lt. Governor candidate team up in the primaries, but they have no way of guaranteeing that if one wins, the other will win too.
  • It wasn't that long ago that a young dreamer named Rod Blagojevich had to run with a grizzled perpetual candidate named Pat Quinn. Quinn was a crusader and Blagojevich was a corrupt and hated Governor, but neither got a choice of running mate. And Quinn went so far as to hint that it was now OK to vote for Blagojevich, since Quinn would be there to pick up the reins of the state if Blagojevich happened to get indicted or impeached. That's why Quinn is Governor of Illinois today.
  • But OH! The IRONY! Now Quinn has fought his way to the nomination so he can win election on his own and convince people not to inscribe "The Accidental Governor" on his tombstone. It was a vicious campaign, with his opponent, a popular Comptroller with a reputation for trying to control spending and pay the bills, actually digging up video of Chicago's first black Mayor (who can't comment, since he's dead) explaining why he fired Quinn for gross incompetence. The race came down to a 50-50 split, with Quinn ahead by about 7,000 votes, and Hynes waited a couple of days to make sure it was over before he conceded. But a few hours before that concession . . . .
  • The press suddenly woke up and began to ask Scott Lee Cohen questions. Cohen was a surprise winner in the Lt. Governor primary, but most people knew almost nothing about him. All most of us knew was that you couldn't turn on a radio without hearing a very persuasive, positive ad for Cohen about how he was "the only candidate doing something about jobs in Illinois" by holding job fairs in the state.
  • Unfortunately for Quinn, it turns out that Cohen has a little more to his record than that, including . . . .
  • Allegations of steroid abuse and roid raging (from his ex-wife's divorce filings.)
  • Allegations of abuse in his divorce (again, from divorce filings.)
  • Allegations that he held a knife to a woman's throat (happened a few months into his divorce, he calls her his girlfriend and a licensed massage therapist he met in "a massage therapy place," police report on the incident describes her as a prostitute. The cops reported that she had abrasions consistent with a knife on her throat, but she didn't show up for court and charges were dismissed.)
Now at least one political authority in IL (Archpundit) is calling for Quinn and the Democrats to put Dan Hynes, the guy who just spent six months feuding with Quinn and shredding him in an attempt to take his job, in Cohen's place as candidate for Lt. Governor. But here's the catch--even if Quinn is that statesmanlike, they can't remove Cohen. He won the election. He either steps down voluntarily, or he's in the race. And he doesn't owe anyone in the Democrat Party any favors . . . . I'm considering a grassroots campaign of support for the guy.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

IL Gubernatorial primary election goes crazy, punches horse, drinks aftershave


Seriously, it's crazy here. Crazy awesome.

The short version: There were two mildly anti-gun Democrats running for Governor of IL, and they tore each other up, ending up about 7,000 votes apart. Their race is probably over, but it was fun while it lasted, featuring Democrat gems like accusations of racism from both sides over the Dan Hynes ad that featured former Chicago Mayor Harold Washington explaining why he fired Governor Quinn from Chicago city government in the 1980s. Why is that racist? Well, it's old video! Harold Washington is dead!
Still not racist? Well, Harold Washington was black, and it's either racist to feature a dead black man in your commercial (even if he was a unique authority on your opponent and no one disputes that his comments are being used in context) or it's racist to criticize a commercial with a dead black man in it . . . . depending on which side you want to win.
Anyway, the spectacle last night was fantastic, with Quinn declaring victory at about the same time Quinn was vowing to fight on "until tomorrow," perhaps unaware that it had already been "tomorrow" for about half an hour by that time.

In the GOP race, everyone knew that it would come down to a showdown between Kirk Dillard, Andy McKenna and Jim Ryan (Dillard is the only pro-gun candidate in that troika.) Fiery Tea Party newcomer Adam Andrzejewski (An-jee-EFF-ski) was considered a possible spoiler, having lots and lots of Facebook fans and having gotten a late mention from Rush Limbaugh himself (tranquilizers be upon him.) But someone forgot to tell Bill Brady, the only candidate other than Dillard with a pro-gun voting record (arguably a stronger record than Dillard's, but not by much.) At the moment, as the candidates are sitting down to the GOP's "Unity Breakfast," Brady and Dillard are locked in a virtual tie for first place. With 97 precincts still unreported, Brady holds a lead of 503 votes. It's anybody's ball game, and a recount is almost guaranteed, but for Illinois gun owners this is a battle between a great candidate and a splendid candidate.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

From Comments: Stay off my side, hippie.

So Andy Martin stopped by to leave a comment on the post about Scott Brown's upset in Massachusett's Senate race:
My campaign is the big winner from the “Massachusetts Message,” because we are the only campaign nimble enough to react quickly. We will have a new statewide ad up this Friday. Patrick Hughes is dead in the water.

Andy Martin
www.Andyforussenator.com

Right. What Mr. Martin didn't mention is that his "nimble" campaign will probably, if history is a guide, "react quickly" with an ad explaining that only a vote for Andy Martin can prevent the Jew World Order from building its alliance with Barack Obama's secret Muslim terrorist brotherhood. There's no point in re-hashing all the insanity here, since Media Matters has been nice enough to compile most of the craziness in one place. See? I told you I could be independent. Don't stop reading before you get to the bottom, or you'll regret it. The highlights go something like this:

  • Andy Martin used to be Anthony Martin-Trigona.
  • Andy Martin graduated from the University of Illinois law school, but was denied admission to the bar because he did some weird, unprofessional things in courts and because the Selective Service had declared that he suffered from mild mental illness.
  • Andy Martin has filed hundreds of lawsuits, maybe thousands, spanning decades. He sues the other party, but is known for then vindictively suing the judge, opposing lawyers, their families . . . . this is not an exaggeration on my part, but is well documented in court decisions.
  • Remember when the Birthers were saying that Islamic law states that you're Muslim if your father was a Muslim, so Barack Obama has to be a Muslim even if he renounced the faith or even never practiced it because he just is, OK? Yup, that came from Andy Martin (that is to say, he takes credit for it.)
  • Andy Martin believes (or believed?) that there is a widespread Jewish conspiracy to bankrupt him and steal his property, and that the evil Joos work as a "wolf pack" within a "national network" of Jews. Opposing this "herd instinct" of "slimy Jew" thieves is so exhausting and frustrating, he wrote, that it brought him around to understanding why the Nazis committed the Holocaust and prevented him from feeling regret that it happened.
In short, I hope you get the help you need someday, Andy Martin. You do not appear to be operating with your faculties in good working order. I think you'd be shocked how much your life would change if you took a year or two off from running for the Senate and sending out wacko emails and just concentrated on finding a professional to talk to about your life.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Waiting By the Phone . . .

I called the state board of education today to see where they are on the letter I sent them. Basically, I applied for an approval to teach special education with my certificate based on the classes I've taken. They sent me a deficiency statement with a deficiency I don't have--I sent them a transcript showing that I got an "A" in the class they say I haven't taken. Yesterday, the college confirmed that the class in question satisfies the requirement. So I called today, and the lady on the phone was very nice and very helpful, but all she could tell me was that there is a record that they received my letter on the 13th of July. Someone will call me back to discuss it, but it'll probably take "at least a couple of days."
They're just like everybody else in state government--5 people do the work of 10 because all the money went t0 redecorate some professional son-in-law's corner office.

I'm also waiting with bated breath for a call from Representative Mark Kirk's campaign office with the dates and times for his "Downstate Tour" town-hall meetings. There will be two local to me, and I intend to get to both. Kirk needs to understand that the gun-banning (and boasting about it!) that played so well in his yuppie north-suburban district won't fly statewide.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Chicago GRE: Gun Rights Activists Reach Out At Black Women's Expo in Chicago


Recently, no fewer than four pro-gun groups cooperated to get two informational booths at the Black Women's Expo in Chicago for the second year. We're moving out beyond the gun shows now, folks:
"Anti-gun activists consider Chicago a stronghold. It's supposed to be their base of operations, the place where they can raise money, agitate the public to demand their anti-gun agenda, and rely on ignorance to keep everyone in line while they do it. "Dr. G" noted the effect a few key pieces of information could have: "Many people (maybe 50%) were shocked to find out that the police are not responsible for their individual safety, and that Illinois and Wisconsin were the only two states in the country without concealed carry laws in place." To pro-gun activists reading this article, that might sound like two trite soundbites everyone has heard a million times, but in Chicago, that's not the case. By bringing this information to people who would never have thought of attending a gun show or an IGOLD rally, these volunteers are putting down grass roots through Chicago pavement."
Read the whole thing, and if you like it, tell somebody!



Friday, August 7, 2009

Obama "Kenyan Birth Certificate" Hoax

Why, it can't be! I'm SHOCKED, I tell you!
Upload.mn Upload.mn
No, wait, no I'm not. This was completely predictable and widely predicted. Sorry, I forgot for a minute there.

Fine cotton business paper: $11

Inkjet printer: $35

1940 Royal Model KMM manual typewriter: $10

2 Shilling coin: $1

Pilot Varsity fountain pen: $3

Punkin' the Birthers: Priceless
Before you get your panties in a knot, observe that those aren't my words. I'm quoting the person who used a few dollars worth of office supplies to expose Birthers as what they are: people who really, truly believe in the power of magical thinking.

Hat Tip to Little Green Footballs.



Saturday, August 1, 2009

Coincidences

UPDATE: Well, yesterday, after I wrote this and set it to publish on Saturday morning, Congress went to work on a $2 billion funding bill to make sure the program could continue. Good . . . . news? I guess?

Yesterday something over at Captain of a Crew of One caught my eye. It seems that The Revenuers have decided to suspend their "Cash for Clunkers" program. It was supposed to pay car dealers big money for older, less fuel-efficient cars taken in trade for newer cars. The Revenuers put up $1 billion for the program because it sounds like a lot, it's a nice round number, and the people who proposed it weren't paying the freight. What the good Captain noticed was that The Revenuers said they had paid out $9.6 million out of the billion on almost 23,000 "clunkers" and were now suspending the program because they were afraid they were out of money. How could they be out of money after spending less than $10 million out of $1 billion? Because it took forever to get the program started, and now they have a huge backlog of deals The Revenuers haven't processed yet. By my math, if roughly 1% of their money represents, conservatively, about 22,000 deals, then the remaining 99% should be around 2,178,000 deals they have backlogged right now. That's a lot of backlog.

The reason I'm posting this here instead of just in Captain's comments is that it reminded me of another story I heard on Thursday. It appears that the EPA has rather abruptly adjusted the fuel economy of a lot of old models upward (though, to be fair, they say they've adjusted many downward as well.) That move resulted in lots of people finding that their clunkers are no longer clunky enough to get some of that free federal money nobody pays for, and that's a problem. There are even reports of dealerships calling customers to give them a choice between paying the difference or returning their new cars and taking back their clunkers.

When I first heard that story (confession time: I heard it on Rush Limbaugh's show) I figured it was a weird coincidence that looked really bad from a PR point of view. Now I wonder. It seems like we're asking rather a lot of coincidence these days.

Friday, July 24, 2009

OH MY!

I'm sorry, but two different bloggers I love wrote about this story and neither used the One True Headline. It had to be done. Go read it at View From the Porch and SaysUncle and then you can try to tell me I'm wrong.

Wait . . . oh, snap. Jack Landis hit the original article's comment section with t3h r34l 1nf0:
Dear Ms. Doyle,
I am used to the inability of anyone in the media, or anyone from the various “Ban the Gun” groups, to distinguish between fully automatic machineguns (all real assault weapons are select fire weapons capable of fully automatic fire) and black colored semi auto guns. Real machineguns are used in violent crimes in the single digits on an annual basis nationally, when used at all. All TV crooks have machineguns and spray bullets everywhere. To the general public, a black gun with a pistol grip is a “machinegun” because everything they see on TV says it is, and that’s just the way it is. So what was it that brought my eyes to such a screeching halt as I read your article a few minutes ago? It was these two paragraphs:
”Authorities have noticed an increase in high caliber(!?)weapons in Los Angeles. One of the most startling incidents was when a Fabrique National 57, an assault pistol used to kill big game, was found, etc…".
“You use it on large lions, tigers and bears,” said LAPD Deputy Chief Michel Moore, commander of the Valley Bureau”.
This is so wrong in SO many areas that I just had to write you.
1.There is no such thing as an assault pistol. I won’t go into all the reasons the term is an oxy-moron.
2.I am assuming he is referring to an FN FiveseveN pistol. The FiveseveN refers to the diameter of the bullet it shoots, 5.7 millimeter, or .22 caliber. I don’t know if you are aware of it or not, but .22’s are universally considered to be “Small” caliber. The pistol is a standard looking and operating, polymer frame, semi auto that is functionally and appearance wise no different than any other pistol of this type, i.e.’ Glock, etc.
3.Since we are constantly being bombarded with the message that “Assault weapons have no sporting purpose, they are just designed to kill people.” how do we have an assault pistol designed to kill “large lions, etc.?”
4.The correct designation of the cartridge is 5.7 x 27 FN. The 27 refers to the length of the case in millimeters and as such, is just over 1” long. The case is a bottleneck whose largest diameter is less than .32 caliber. As you can see, small bullet, small case. The cartridge has about one third the muzzle energy of the 5.56 NATO cartridge fired in the M-16 rifle by our military. In the civilian world, the same cartridge, called a .223 Remington, is considered a medium range (< 250 yards) varmint cartridge. This means ground squirrels, prairie dogs, woodchucks, etc. Are you getting the picture here? A cartridge with 3 times the power of the 5.7 x 28 is used for varmints, a type of game not generally considered to be in the same class as “large lions, etc.”.22 caliber rifles, no matter how big the cartridge case they use (which determines how much powder is behind them, and thus, pretty much, their power), are illegal (too small) for deer hunting in most places in the US. Africa’s dangerous game minimum legal caliber rifle is, in most places, a .375 H&H Magnum. This cartridge generates ~ 20 times the energy of the puny 5.7. In energy, the 5.7 falls at the low end of 9mm Parabellum and the high end of the .38 Special. Again, LIONS?????
5.Our esteemed Deputy Chief apparently thinks his service pistol is entirely adequate for hunting “large lions, etc., and thus probably hunts rhino with a switch, or needs have his medication changed (or fire the ignoramus who gave him this info).
6.This information that I have given you is also available at the following websites:
http://pun.org/josh/archives/2005/01/fn-57-pi... ; http://www.gundigest.com/article/FN5.7_PartTw...
We have just been exposed to too much deliberate disinformation over the years. In the immortal words of Molly to Fibber McGee,“It just ain’t so McGee!”

Jack Landis
Technical Services Manager &
GunTech Editor
American Gunsmithing Institute

Chicago anti gun donor family raises cash for Obama despite sub-prime past


Today's Chicago Gun Rights Examiner column examines one of President Obama's "kingmakers" who has escaped the kind of scrutiny that, say, a "polarizing figure" like Sarah Palin has suffered in the national spotlight. Penny Pritzker's family donated $1000 to the Brady Campaign in Chicago, which got me looking at them, but the rabbit hole goes deeper than that. The Pritzkers took over a huge Chicago savings and loan after it failed in 1988, got hundreds of millions of dollars from the feds to do so, and proceeded to run it into the ground by investing huge amounts into subprime loans (where have we heard this before?) By the time the bank was seized by the feds in 2001, they'd paid themselves $200 million in very questionable dividends and the depositors were left holding the bag (except for their first $100,000 in losses, which you and I paid in federal taxes.)

Then Penny Pritzker became Barack Obama's National Fund-Raising Campaign Chair . . . . .read the whole thing and tell a friend. And don't forget to check back on Monday for more fun facts from the Brady PAC's fund-raising records!
And if you like what you read, check out my other pieces and the other Gun Rights Examiners in the widget to the left.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Judge Sotomayor thinks gun rights are about hunting?

Hey, look, I did it again. I know everyone else is already talking about Judge Sonia Sotomayor, and I know nothing I write is going to make any difference in the scripted drama being played out in the Judiciary Committee hearing rooms. And yet, I couldn't let her flip comments about the right to keep and bear arms stand without a response.

The right recognized in the Heller v. D.C. decision is the right to keep and bear arms. It was not protected in the Bill of Rights because the founders of this nation thought hunting rights might one day be endangered. It was protected because they believed that it was important for the citizenry of a republic to be on equal footing with its government, and that meant that the citizens needed to be armed. Not so that they could hunt . . . That, Judge Sotomayor, is why the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution protects an individual right to keep and bear arms; because a government should not be allowed to dominate its people by force.


Go read the whole thing, if you would, and tell a friend. Much of the rest of it is unapologetically cribbed from Breda and Caleb, so you know it's quality.

Wait . . . you do listen to Gun Nuts: The Next Generation, don't you? Surely you must.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Jersey City Gunfight

Photo from Michael Totten

Hope the officers will pull through . . . the chief did say that one officer who was very gravely wounded has been improving. Here's hoping. No need to hope for the suspects; they've shuffled off this mortal coil.

It will be interesting to see which particular blood dance the Chopsaw Gang at the Brady Bunch choose for this occasion. All you hunters out there who just know they'll never try to take away your 870 may be surprised, since the news reports are all quoting the Chief of Police as saying the suspects were "ready for war . . . with a pump-action shotgun." Ask all the hunters who used to own pump shotguns for rabbits in Australia until they voted for an "assault weapons ban" how that worked out for them. The AHSA will have an especially interesting row to hoe here. Chances are, though, that if these were suspects in a "major crime" as the Chief states, that they were breaking several New Jersey laws by owning the shotgun in the first place.

The Chopsaw Gang doesn't care why you own a gun. All they know is that the Chopsaws are always hungry.

(Note: I don't think I actually stole this from Thirdpower at Days of Our Trailers, since we say different things, but I do notice he got to it first. Again.)