As the great Antonin Scalia so accurately observed, “The transformation of charity into legal entitlement has produced donors without love and recipients without gratitude.”
In a related item forwarded by James Nichols, mark well how the WaPo noted the passing of Robert Trump compared to the suicide of ISIS leader Abu Baker al-Baghdadi, who, it must be remembered, took the lives of two innocent children when he detonated a suicide vest to avoid capture by U.S. forces in Syria:
When a major newspaper of record…its steadily diminishing readership and influence notwithstanding…treats the passing of a President’s brother with such disrespect, can anyone seriously feign surprise when a nominally “Christian” bishop tweets:
First up, courtesy of Speed Mach, as opposed to whatever apostasy Talbert Swan is preaching, the editorial board at Issues & Insight issues a warning you can take as gospel:
“At a briefing on Thursday, Joe Biden called for a nationwide mask-wearing mandate “for the next three months at a minimum.” Never mind that such a federal mandate is likely unconstitutional, this is just one of a multitude of areas where Biden, and his running mate Kamala Harris, want to impose the federal government on even the most mundane of actions by Americans.
It is surely worth noting, especially by those who claim to value liberty, that Biden and Harris eagerly desire to take much of it away, always in the name of some greater good. Indeed, over the course of their campaigns, the two have proposed either to outlaw or force so many things there’s not enough room to list them all here.
So, as a reader service, we’ve gathered up a sampling of things they say they want to either ban or mandate should they gain access to the White House…”
The bans include, but would in no way be limited to: Plastic straws, plastic bags, gas-powered cars, the death penalty, private prisons, new oil and gas leases on federal lands and offshore, fracking, “assault” rifles, right-to-work laws, Trump from Twitter (okay, for ONCE we agree!), social media “hate” speech and private health insurance.
As for the mandates: Masks, government-approved health insurance, $15 minimum wage, equal pay, six months paid parental leave as well as requirement for the Federal Reserve to “aggressively target persistent racial gaps in job, wages, and wealth”.
The article concludes with the observation…
“The bottom line is that if you cherish freedom, you will get a lot less of it in a Biden-Harris administration. However, if you like the federal government bossing you around in every corner of your lives, then they are the candidates for you.“
Hey, whatcould go wrong?!? More importantly, is there even a…
…Biden’s bans and mandates will stop there?!?
But if you think Groper Joe’s list of bans and mandates will be onerous, wait until he’s declared non compos mentis, and Kamala gets her hands on the reins of power.
Since we’re on the subject of the 2020 Dimocratic ticket…
…watch as members of the Fourth Estate are shuffled out of a Biden-Harris Press event without the chance to ask questions for the THIRD day in a row:
It’s almost as if his handlers don’t want the top of ticket saying…
…between now and November 3rd?!?
Sorry, kid…and the rest of America…but it is!
Turning from the ridiculous to the sublime, we next offer the thoughts of NRO‘s Kevin Williamson on the occasion of…
“The Second Amendment has won a small victory in California, with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals striking down as unconstitutional the state’s ban on so-called high-capacity magazines — which, as the court pointed out, is in practice a ban on most of the handgun and rifle magazines sold in the United States, because California defines “high capacity” as eleven rounds.
“It makes unlawful magazines that are commonly used in handguns by law abiding citizens for self-defense,” Judge Kenneth Lee wrote in the majority opinion. “And it substantially burdens the core right of self-defense guaranteed to the people under the Second Amendment.” And, so: “It cannot stand.”
Well said.
Bans on high-capacity magazines are, like almost everything else in our politics today, largely symbolic.
The majority of the deaths from gunshot wounds in the United States are suicides. Three out of five of the Americans who die from gunshot wounds every year are suicides, not murders. (Another nonnegligible portion are accidents.) At the risk of being macabre in the unfortunately necessary course of pointing out the obvious, suicides tend to be single-shot affairs. The Americans who die in suicides are not being killed by the 20th round in the magazine — they are being killed by despair, by the same spiritual crisis that is at the foundation of so much misery in the United States today, from opioid addiction to the neglect and abuse of dependent children.
But we have been through this many times.
…Every few years, we have a public convulsion over some other exotic firearm.
A while back, it was .50-caliber rifles. I saw a nice one for sale a while back: It was 48 inches long, weighed 35 pounds, and cost just under $13,000. I have not been able to find a public report of one’s ever having been used in a murder. I can guess why. But we will fight over them, because we must fight over them.
Similarly, the so-called assault rifles are instruments of homicide only rarely — so rarely, in fact, that government records rarely break them out as their own category. In 2018, all rifles — from scary-looking black “assault rifles” to granddad’s deer rifle — accounted for fewer than 300 murders, according to the FBI. More Americans are beaten to death with fists or baseball bats than are shot to death with “assault rifles,” and five times as many are stabbed to death. Rifles did outpace asphyxiation and fire in the homicide rankings.
Most American criminals prefer ordinary handguns — they’re cheap, generally easy to operate, and can fit into a coat pocket or glovebox. The argument put forward against the exotic weapons — that limiting access to them would reduce crime — is in reality much more applicable to the ordinary weapons. Taking the .50-caliber sniper rifles and the extended Glock magazines off the streets would have almost no effect on American murder. But instituting a comprehensive national firearms banprobably would, assuming it was accompanied by a program of robust confiscation. Of course, that would be unconstitutional, and even the crazytalk Democrats of 2020 are not going to try to do any such thing. (Oh,…REALLY?!?
Note, she never explains how such a ban/mandatory wouldn’t conflict with the 2nd Amendment!)
…I…get a lot of email from angry young leftist knuckleheads demanding to know what my “plan” is — they love a plan, even if it is a plan to do something pointless and symbolic in selfish pursuit of emotional validation. There isn’t a practical and constitutional way to use firearms regulation to meaningfully reduce violent crime. But what about the majority of gunshot deaths, which are, in the narrowest sense, voluntary? There seems to be a reasonably broad consensus — broad enough to include both Bernie Sanders and the editors of National Review — that the American system of caring for people with mental-health problems is in need of reform. We might make a dent in a problem that accounts for, among other things, the majority of gunshot deaths.
Or, we could have another debate about how much more dangerous an eleven-round magazine is than a ten-round magazine.
That debate has been had at the Ninth Circuit. The Bill of Rights had a good day in court.“
Moving from Law & Order to Lawlessness & Disorder, as Jackson, MS’s WLBT.com. relates…
“…The indictments state the officers either participated or assisted in physically removing Robinson from his vehicle, body-slamming him on his head, as well as striking and kicking him multiple times in the head and chest.
…“This is something that should have never been indicted, and every police officer that works particularly in Jackson and in this county could find themselves in this position,” said Francis Springer, one of the attorneys for the trio.
Robinson died two days after contact with police during a manhunt for a murder suspect in January. He was pulled out of his car for noncompliance after police saw what they thought was a drug transaction. When he wouldn’t show his hands, which were down between the seats, he was put on the ground and handcuffed.
Initial reports alleged the officers had beaten him, though law enforcement accounts differ. Robinson stayed on the scene after being released from custody for around an hour afterward before heading home to the Mustang Motel, witnesses told authorities.
Surveillance video from the Mustang Motel shows Robinson going into his room that night and several people going in and out throughout the evening. Later that night he was hospitalized for a medical condition, and he died two days later.
Coroner Sharon Grisham-Stewart ruled the death a homicide by blunt force trauma. Jackson Police Department’s Internal Affairs found no evidence of wrongdoing, nor did the FBI find any evidence of civil rights violations. The city’s civil service commission also cleared the officers to go back to duty.
Mayor Chokwe A. Lumumba issued a statement on the indictments on Thursday night.
“Our administration is committed to ensuring that Jacksonians have an accountable police department. As part of our accountability process, the City of Jackson has implemented a policy to turn all cases involving officer involved deaths over to the DA for review by a grand jury,” he said. “The Hinds County grand jury indictments, issued today, begin another phase of the process. In the full spirit of transparency, the administration will continue to monitor the situation and provide information to the public throughout each phase. We ask that you keep all those affected by this tragedy the in your prayers.”
Springer says if the case goes to trial, the evidence will show that not only are the officers not guilty, but that there is no evidence against them…”
Sorry, but even were we to question the integrity of the Internal Affairs investigation into Robinson’s death, the FBI‘s findings would seem conclusive. After all, it’s not likeComey, Strzok or McCabe were conducting the inquiry…and it involved Russian collusion…or Hillary’s private, illegal, unsecured email server.
Which brings us to The Lighter Side:
Then there’s these little bon mots from Ed Hickey…
…two more from Rick Page…
…five memes from Balls Cotton…
…two from the lovely Shannon…
…a related one from Chuck Sachs…
…and last, but never least, an offering from TLJ:
Finally, we’ll call it a wrap with yet another sordid story straight from the pages of The Crime Blotter, as we learn a…
“A district attorney in California lashed out in court this week, saying an allegedly impaired driver accused of killing a pregnant Disneyland employee now faces murder and other charges following previous DUI convictions in 2008, 2015 and 2016.
Courtney Fritz Pandolfi, 40, of Garden Grove, was charged Thursday with murder, driving under the influence of drugs causing injury, and driving on a suspended license, the Orange County Register reported. The first two counts are felonies while the third is a misdemeanor.
“This is beyond shocking and it is absolutely reprehensible,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement of Pandolfi’s latest DUI arrest, which followed the death of Yesenia Lisette Aguilar, 23, who succumbed in a hospital soon after being struck on a sidewalk in Anaheim on Tuesday.
…After all three previous DUI convictions, Pandolfi was given a warning that’s known as a “Watson advisement,” the Register reported. It informs suspects convicted of DUI that they could face murder charges if someone dies as the result of a subsequent DUI incident.
Proof that a convicted DUI driver received a Watson advisement in the past allows prosecutors to pursue a charge of second-degree murder, instead of vehicular manslaughter, if a DUI-related death occurs, according to the Register…”
In another tale of just desserts forwarded by Bill Meisen, The Daily Caller informs us how a…
“A Philadelphia gunman who wounded a deli store owner in a shooting with an AK-47 that took place in 2018 has been sentenced to 14 years and three months in prison.
Jovaun Patterson, 31, pleaded guilty to federal attempted robbery and weapons charges back in December of 2019, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.The federal charges were brought against him after Patterson pleaded guilty to assault and robbery charges in exchange for a sentence of 3.5 years to 10 years in state prison.
U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain claimed the sentence was an example of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner offering “sweetheart deals to violent defendants.”
…McSwain said this case is indicative of the increasing gun violence in the city. “Last weekend alone 25 people in the city were shot. This slaughter in our streets has largely been met with indifference,” McSwain said, according to 6ABC.“
Two thoughts immediately come to mind: First, Patterson SHOT the deli owner; so WTF wasn’t he charged with either attempted murder or manslaughter?!?
Philadelphia and New York: with certain exceptions…including but not limited to anyone working at Pat’s, Geno’s or either of the two New York Palms…it couldn’t happen to a more deserving group of people.
Magoo
P.S. We’ll be going under the knife at 0815 Monday morning; And while we’re not concerned about the surgery, we’ll take all the prayers we can get for a speedy and complete recovery.
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