Debating themselves

The number of people whose beliefs and values I disagree with, are legion. That said, I can usually respect a person, even though I disagree with their beliefs, as long as they’re true to those beliefs. There are, of course, exceptions to that rule, if your beliefs are “Everyone must believe as I do, or be killed,” for example… (looking at much of the Muslim leadership here) yeah, you’re best service to humanity would be as pig food. Still, there’s a number of people whose beliefs I just can not get behind, yet I respect them for their beliefs and their honesty, whether they share that respect or not.

What I have real problems with is hypocrites. I’m not talking about the guy who had a “Road to Damascus” moment, stands up and says “Look, I was wrong. I believed X, and I’ve seen enough evidence that X is, frankly, fucked up, that I now believe Y, and let me tell you why.” I’m talking about the guy who says things like “All Q are evil, and need to be run out of town on a rail” until someone they dislike says “we’re going to do something about Q,” and then change their tune to “Q are great, why is that dickhead ranting against Q? We need MORE Q.”

Today I’m going to hold my little spotlight on a few of these folks.

Pull up a seat, dinner tonight is going to be a beef barley stew, because we have a butt ton of beef stock from last night’s dinner. You know where the drinks are, grab something, and please don’t forget the tip jar where we collect for the mess.

The first group to get lit up is going to be The Atlantic. I’ll give a hat tip to fellow author Richard D. Cartwright for calling my attention to this, as I avoid that rag like the plague, but he called it to my attention.

Before I get to their latest lunacy, I’m going to pick on their ad agency for a second. Why? Because of their latest add, that they run about five times during each 45 minute episode of one of the very few things that I watch on TV. Specifically, the latest cinematic version of James Herriot’s All Creatures Great and Small. I’ve loved these tales since I first found the books, and this version follows the stories faithfully (as far as I can remember) with great acting, and true characterization. The cast is great, and if the stories have a little more meaning to me, now that I’m trying to start a small farm, instead of just growing up in a farming area… well…

ANYWAY, their ad, “A is for” misses a few “A”s like Assholes, Awful, and Arrogant. It finishes with the claim “Atlantic, Explaining America to the world.” Mothafucka, you all need someone to explain America to YOU. America is NOT Downtown Manhattan for fifteen blocks, The Water Street District of D.C. and ‘The Vineyard in the season.” It’s not Foggy Bottom, and “all the right people, who go to all the right parties.”

That said, what drew Richard to bring that birdcage liner to my attention was their article on donald-trump-nothing-like-robert-mueller

Now their dragging up a bunch of stuff that never happened, and reports since discredited; things like Trump calling American war dead “losers and suckers” and stating that Trump once complained to the JCS chairman that “no one wants to see that, the wounded” both claims made by their rag, and denied by everyone who was there, is just par for the course.

They’re mainstream media whores, if they can quote themselves and get a few more eyes dragged across their article, well that might stave off the bankruptcy court for another few days, and when they’re advertising on PBS five times in a forty-five-minute TV show, they’re desperately trying to stave that off. The only other advertisement I remember seeing on that venue was the “famous” Jaguar commercial, and we know how that went, right?

But the thing that really gets me is how they’re hugging up to Mueller for his service in the Vietnam war. These fuckers are the same folks that called the guys coming home from the war ‘war criminals’ and ‘baby killers.’

Understand a few things; I’m not Christian, my faith embraces the idea that there are enemies and bad people in the world, and that some of them just need killin. I don’t believe in “turn the other cheek.” I’m rather more a fan of execute that murderer, and for treason, well the “blood eagle” is a fine old tradition.

Mueller was not an honorable human being, and I refuse to pretend he was. Before you say “well Trump!” I’m not saying he’s honorable either. He’s a flawed, okay, very flawed, man.

If we want to list his flaws, Maybe I’ll devote a column to that one day. That said, he has done more to restore power to the US in international affairs than any president since R.R. And that alone gets him a pass on some things, in my eyes. If you don’t agree, and if you think that his domestic policies are a shit show, well, I don’t care. The president frankly should not have anywhere near the power that a current president does, to influence internal policies.

So if that’s your complaint, FIX IT, get congress to reclaim some of the power they have ceded to the various agencies that work for the Executive Branch, and make them functional again, because they sure as fuck are not functional right now. SCOTUS has made it clear on several occasions that there’s more power being wielded by administrative agencies (all of which work for the Executive, if you don’t understand that, go back to school and relearn how the three branches of government work.) We’re going to hit on this more later.

Mueller was a perfect example of excess power in appointed positions. He was the most corrupt and partisan director of the FBI since J Edger himself. I’ve covered some of the stuff that has come out about “secret documents hidden even from most directors” before, so I’m not going to belabor that here, but I will say that Mueller did his very best to reform the FBI from the rather partisan agency that it has been since birth, to the US version of the Stasi, or the Gestapo, and the fact that he didn’t quite make it, had more to do with his inability and his running out of time, than his desires.

I don’t care that he was a combat vet, SO AM I, so what? That entitles you to membership in the VFW, and maybe to a slightly higher pension. It does not, now or ever, make you infallible, or even necessarily a good person. Guess what, Herman Goring was a combat vet too. So was Khrushchev, and not even the Russians like him! (our tour guide called him “that fat stupid peasant farmer from Ukraine.”) Combat may make you a hero, it may be necessary, it does not grant you infallibility.

Then there’s Rachel Mad Cow, who screamed last year that “Trump is going to ignore Iran until they have a nuclear warhead pointed at us, and then it will be too late.” Only to change her tune to “Trump has no right to strike Iran” now. Along with Chucky Schumer, who was very supportive of requiring in person voter registration, and removal of illegal aliens from the voting rolls in the late 90s; and is now frothing at the mouth now about how “that’s racist hate speech”.

In fact I find it hilarious, (loathsome, but hilarious) how many people reverse their views just because Trump comes down on the side they used to be on.

I’ll put the entire leadership of the BATFE on the list too. (we’re back to Executive branch agencies acting badly) Now there may be, somewhere in the ATF’s rank and file, a man of honor and integrity, but I’ve never met one.

If you look up “deep state” or colloquially, “the swamp” you find pictures of everyone from second level supervisors on up to the director of the ATF.

First, they were for “Stabilizing Braces” for handguns. They said that “absolutely those are legal” in formal findings and letters to several manufacturers. Then under President Auto-pen, They said “These convert a pistol to a SBR (short barreled rifle) and by putting one on a pistol, you are committing a felony. Then one of the people who were charged, took the whole thing to court, and the entire ruling by the ATF was vacated. And the ATF agreed that it was vacated.

Then they said that “well, we reserve the right to continue bringing felony prosecutions on this.” So Texas sued in Texas v ATF. Now the ATF is moving to throw the suit out, because the rule is “formally nullified and revoked[.]”

To which Texas answers, uh, if they’re still “reserving the right to…” then there’s still live issues, your honor, and dismissing the case as moot is justice denied.

Well, the response to that, as quoted by the NRA-ILA is the most ridiculous piece of doublespeak and circular logic I’ve seen in a while, and I’ll quote it here in it’s entirety in the hope that someone can make sense of this bullshit:

Plaintiffs also make much of the fact that defendants [i.e., the ATF] continue to enforce the NFA’s and the GCA’s regulation of short barreled rifles against some brace-equipped pistols, even though the Rule has been universally vacated. But that should come as no surprise, as that is consistent with how [ATF] have always explained how things work if a court vacated the Rule or enjoined its enforcement. … At any rate, that [ATF] continue to enforce certain statutory requirements and prohibitions that they have been delegated the authority and responsibility to administer is irrelevant to whether plaintiffs’ APA challenge to the now defunct rule is moot.

The best translation I can get from this is “well, that’s the way we’ve always done business, we were delegated the power to do what we want, and how dare you question it.”

ATF Delinda Est. Put any needful (damn little) regulatory power remaining under the USDA for alcohol, and tobacco, and the Department of Commerce for Firearms. For Explosives, give it to the Secret Service.

The NRA suggests this is just a couple career lawyers trying to keep as much flexibility for the department they work for, as they can. I think it’s a bunch of Swamp denizens conducting a holding action, in hopes that once Trump goes away, they can go back to their old shit.

Also on the “back to their old shit” files, we have Iran, who is continuing to attack (mostly ineffectively, though they did get a couple missiles or drones through) Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, because the US and Israel are blowing up everything that they can find of the Iranian government, the Iranian Military and the IRGC. Along with hanging their international sports stars while complaining that the US can’t guarantee their (Iranian) sports stars safety, if they come to the international Soccer championships. All the while US press is crying about how America is losing the war on Iran because we can’t find enough shit to blow up, and Iran keeps taking out our missiles with government leaders and ammo dumps.

If none of that makes sense to you, it’s because you can’t understand the mind sets of the players involved. It’s quite simple: Iran believes that the “twelfth Iman” which is their flavor of “the return of the savior” or the arrival of the savior, if you’re Jewish, or Ragnarok… can be forced, by the creation of World War Three. (or four, depending on how you look at it.)

See, the theory looks like this. God (Allah) promised that he will send a final leader, then come down and lead the hosts himself against the army of nonbelievers in the final war. After which we’ll have peace on earth under gods will, everyone gets their seventy-two virgins, and we call it a wrap. (of course the happiness of the seventy-two virgins is irrelevant, because to the Muslims, especially the ones of this flavor, women ain’t people, they’re just possessions and sperm receptacles.) They believe they can force their God’s hand, and create that final war. Since Allah promised that in the end we win, they lose, well the worse we’re losing, the more likely it is that Allah will come and finish this. Yes, I know it’s loony-tunes, but it’s what they believe.

As for the press, they’re trying everything they can, to make those people and their beliefs successful, because anything is preferable to Trump winning, ever, at anything. And yes, I know that’s loony-toons too, but that’s why people say TDS is a mental illness. People would rather give global power to someone that stones women to death for showing their hair, than to Trump. If you’re looking for sanity, you are looking in the wrong isle.

Some company in Chattanooga called Lodestar Technology, has marketed a pistol that is supposed to be locked and inert until it receives a registered fingerprint, a four-digit passcode, or authorization from a mobile app. chattanooga-company-launches-smart-gun- “with a one second fingerprint scan the gun becomes operational.” Stop me if you’ve heard this before…

So, how many of us have smart phones? How often has your smart phone refused to recognize your fingerprint, because your hand is wet, or dirty, or the phone is having that time of the month?

Now, imagine, instead of wanting to call someone, or look up who the guy they named that bridge after was, you were trying to get your gun to work because some motherfucker was shooting at you… Oh but it’ll work with an App… That’s great, as long as your phone is with you, you have service, it’s charged up, and your phone isn’t being pissy today… AND you have enough time to get to the app, and tell it to unlock your gun, so you can shoot the bad guy, who’s pumping bullets into you while you fiddle around on your phone.

Wait, you can enter a four-digit code. Just a second mister thug, I have to type this in here. Okay, now I am ready to resist you. That only works if you’re the three musketeers.

Well, what if we gave it to cops? Sure, Officer down, back up officer is out of rounds, picks up downed officers’ gun to continue the battle: Gun, “Oy, what you doing? you’re not the boss of me!”

“Piss off machine, your boss is bleeding out, and I’m going to be too if you don’t put lead into the bad guys!”

“Right, lets see your fingerprint then. No you wanker, I can’t see it through all the blood on your finger, clean it off!”

“Never mind, Machine, I just took a round between the eyes.”

Texas is experiencing the joys of a legislature more interested in being a group of “mean girls” than a governing body. Seems there’s a bill in the house that would challenge a SCOTUS ruling from 1982 demanding that the states educate illegal immigrant kids for free. Most of the Republicans (which is enough to get it made into law) agree that this would be a good idea…

Ah, but it seems the guy that wrote it, is someone that’s “on the outs” with the Republican Party. https://texasscorecard.com/state/author-problem-white-house-summit-exposes-rift-over-texas-bill-to-end-free-education-for-illegals/ see “in the culture of the Texas House, that (an author problem) is when legislation is authored by someone whom the lobby or the chamber’s leadership simply does not like.” Yeah, apparently for the mean girls in Austin, who you kiss is more important than whether you have a good idea or not.

QOTD CSU Professor O’Quinn: “As a lesbian, I got plenty of girlfriends with PENlSES, okay?” (so, she’s straight with extra steps???)

Yours in Service,

William Lehman