Jan 162023
 

This should prove interesting and quite possibly terribly sad: famed manufacturer of .50 caliber rifles Barrett has sold out to an Australian defense contractor, meaning it is now a company run by a government that does not allow it’s subjects to own such things. Will production remain in Tennessee? Will they continue to sell to the US civilian market?

 

All management and staff at the Murfreesboro manufacturing facility in Tennessee have been retained and production will continue as normal. Over time it is expected that manufacturing activities in Murfreesboro will be further expanded.

Uh-oh. If history has taught me anything, an official statement that “all is well” results in “everybody panic.” It may be that this is part of the strategy t make the deal profitable: a *lot* of people are going to believe, and not without cause, that Barretts for the US civvie market are going to dry up, and will therefore panic-buy. This will lead to an infusion of cash pretty quickly. It will then be up to the Aussies, from the same Australia that went full Big Brother the first chance it got when the Commie Cough hit, to decide whether to keep the golden goose alive, or to slaughter it.

 

NIOA acquires US manufacturer Barrett Firearms

 

Barretts are, of course, a particular favorite firearm to hate for the gun grabbers… not because they are actually used in crimes, but because these people are scared of big things they don’t understand (along with little things they don’t understand). Yanking them from the civilian market is something these authoritarian tyrants would love to do. One straightforward way to do it is simply buy the company and stop selling them to peons like us.

 Posted by at 11:10 pm
Jan 142023
 

Attorney General says if sheriffs won’t enforce gun ban ‘there are other people there to do the job’

The attorney general of the state of Illinois is annoyed that the great majority of the county sheriffs – elected officials who do not report to the Governor, nor can he remove them from office – have told the Governor to get bent over the issue of arresting several million citizens for the crime of owning semi-automatic rifles and standard capacity magazines. The AG believes that other police forces than county sheriffs can do the job, such as the State Police. Perhaps he thinks the Governor can call up the National Guard for this task. But for those sheriffs who take their jobs seriously, they may well arrest State Police who attempt to arrest citizens. And the sheriffs would be right to do so: their oaths tend to include words to the effect of “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” and banning magazines and firearms is, especially in light of recent Supreme Court decisions, monumentally and obviously unconstitutional.

 

This would not be unprecedented. Recall the ATF agent who got himself arrested a couple years ago. This was an arrest and tazing that didn’t need to happen; it followed the same script as so many other arrests: someone high on drugs or entitlement refuses to comply even a little bit with simple orders of the police, and things go badly for them. in this case, the ATF agent was high on his sense of overwhelming power… which it turned out he didn’t actually have.

 

I imagine if State Police or some such start actually arresting the law abiding, various resistance movements will start up that will keep them under surveillance and sic Sheriffs and vigilance committees on them. Real-time monitoring of anyone suspected of trying to enforce the unconstitutional law would seem entirely feasible in this day and age.

 

Also: virtually all police enjoy “qualified immunity,” which protects them from getting sued when they behave badly. But as I understand it, that immunity goes away if they are doing something unconstitutional. So, ummm… if you are a State Police officer who really doesn’t want to lose his house, his saving and his kids college fund, maybe think twice before violating someones Constitutional rights. Just a thought.

 Posted by at 10:29 am
Jan 112023
 

On the one hand, earlier today the FAA ordered a “ground stop” to all domestic flights, basically shutting down the aviation economy:

Buttigieg responds to latest transportation crisis as he faces continued criticism

On the other hand, eggs are becoming a luxury good, unavailable to regular folks.

Egg Shortage: What’s Behind Soaring Prices – and When Will They Go Back Down?

In the Midwest, a dozen large eggs cost an average of $5.17 last week, compared with roughly $1.50 in January 2022 and 94 cents in 2021. …In California last week, the average price for a dozen eggs reached $7.37, according to the USDA’s Egg Market Overview report.

 

This is apparently due to a bird flu wiping out chicken in industrial quantities.

 Posted by at 10:10 pm
Jan 102023
 

The President of the United States has at least one absolute power: the power to declassify secret documents. There is some discussion about the process, but is *seems* that all he needs to do is say “this document is declassified,” and that’s that.

The Vice President does *not* have that power.

 

Biden and his legal team don’t know what’s in classified documents found in his private office, sources say

 Posted by at 9:17 pm
Dec 262022
 

We’re clearly being led by the very, very best:

The War on Merit Takes a Bizarre Turn

For years, two administrators at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology (TJ) have been withholding notifications of National Merit awards from the school’s families, most of them Asian, thus denying students the right to use those awards to boost their college-admission prospects and earn scholarships. This episode has emerged amid the school district’s new strategy of “equal outcomes for every student, without exception.” School administrators, for instance, have implemented an “equitable grading” policy that eliminates zeros, gives students a grade of 50 percent just for showing up, and assigns a cryptic code of “NTI” for assignments not turned in.

Spectacular.

I have hopes that the lawyers sure to be hired by the families involves *are* fans of merit and are the best at what they do so they can sue this high school and its administration into oblivion.

 Posted by at 9:00 pm
Dec 212022
 

The great majority of the time when someone says “there aught to be a law,” there really aughtn’t. But a law I’d get behind: any new bill in Congress must be read, in it entirety, on the floor of the House and Senate by those who wrote and co-sponsored it before it is allowed to come up to vote. Only those who sat there and listened to at least 75% of the reading would be allowed to vote on the bill; those who weren’t there are automatically registered as “no” votes. This would have the effect of making bills *vastly* smaller than the bloated monstrosities they’ve become.

Take, for example, the latest budget. The R. Lee Ermey bit at the end wholly encapsulates things.

 Posted by at 3:58 am