57 thoughts on “GOP = Guns Over People”

  3. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/supreme-court-verge-expanding-second-amendment-gun-rights

    “The Supreme Court Is on the Verge of Expanding Second Amendment Gun Rights.”

    “The biggest ques­tion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Asso­ci­ation v. Bruen may not be whether a major­ity of justices strike down the state’s century-old hand­gun licens­ing require­ment but how far that major­ity goes in signal­ing that other licens­ing meas­ures created by govern­ment offi­cials are now consti­tu­tion­ally suspect.”

    Wouldn’t licensing and training in gun safety and requiring gun owner to secure their weapons be part of a “well regulated militia”? Also, the Constitution doesn’t say anything about the right to carry one to hunt (animals or humans)…so if they’re gonna argue that if it isn’t enumerated, it isn’t a right…

  4.  … the Second Amendment, like all other rights, is not absolute.  It was Jus- — it was Justice Scalia who wrote, and I quote, “Like most rights, the right…” — Second Amendment — the rights granted by the Second Amendment are “not unlimited.”  Not unlimited.  It never has been. 
    There have always been limitations on what weapons you can own in America.  For example, machine guns have been federally regulated for nearly 90 years.  And this is still a free country.
    This isn’t about taking away anyone’s rights.  It’s about protecting children.  It’s about protecting families.  It’s about protecting whole communities.  It’s about protecting our freedoms to go to school, to a grocery store, and to a church without being shot and killed.

    Remarks by President Biden on Gun Violence in America | The White House

  7. So how do the energy hawks explain this in their quest to expand oil production in the US?

    Three major oil companies have given up opportunities to explore for oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, after the industry and Republican politicians have spent decades workingto gain access to the sensitive region.

    Regenerate Alaska, a division of an Australian firm and the only oil company to directly acquire a tract on the refuge’s nearly 1.6 million-acre coastal plain, canceled its lease last month, after Chevron and Hilcorp, two other major oil companies,had also jettisoned their claims.

    The exits make it far less likely that drilling will take place soon in a vast, unspoiled landscape that has achieved iconic status among environmentalists and has been fought over for half a century. An Anchorage real estate investor and the state-owned Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority still hold leases there, but industry analysts say they lack the financial power and expertise to develop the remote area on their own.
    (Continues)

    Buncha utter BS if you ask me. Chevron knows that expanding oil supply lowers prices which in turn lowers profits. 

  8. Lower gas prices = lower profits = voters not mad at Dems/life is good

    No drilling = higher gas prices = vote the bums out

    This is about causing pain to gain votes and regain power, so they can get even tastier tax cuts.

     Greed Over People

  9. Written by one of the Uvalde victims moms:
    “The chicken soup in her thermos stayed hot all day while her body grew cold.
    She never had a chance to eat the baloney and cheese sandwich. I got up 10 minutes early to cut the crust off a sandwich that will never be eaten.
    Should I call and cancel her dental appointment next Wednesday? Will the office automatically know?
    Should I still take her brother to the appointment since I already took the day off work? Last time Carlos had one cavity and Amerie asked him what having a cavity feels like.
    She will never experience having a cavity.
    She will never experience having a cavity filled.
    The cavities in her body now are from bullets, and they can never be filled.
    What if she had asked to use the bathroom in the hall a few minutes prior to the gunman entering the room, locking the door, and slaughtering all inside?
    Was she one of the first kids in the room to die or one of the last?
    These are the things they don’t tell us.
    Which of her friends did she see die before her?
    Hannah?
    Emily?
    Both?
    Did their blood and brains splatter across her Girl Scout uniform?
    She just earned a Fire Safety patch.
    What if it got ruined?
    There are no patches for school shootings.
    Was she practicing writing GIRAFFE the moment he walked in her classroom, barricaded the door and opened fire?
    She keeps forgetting the silent “e” at the end.
    We studied this past weekend, and now she doesn’t need to take the spelling test on Friday.
    None of them will take the spelling test on Friday.
    There will be no spelling test on Friday.
    Because there is no one to give it.
    And no one to take it.
    These are the things I will never know:
    I will never know at what age she would have started her period.
    I will never know if she had wisdom teeth.
    (Or if they would have come in crooked.)
    I will never know who she spoke to last. Was it the teacher? Was it her table partner, George? She says George is always talking, even during silent reading.
    Did she even scream?
    She screamed the lyrics to We Don’t Talk About Bruno at 7:58 AM as she hopped out of my car in the circle drive.
    She always sings the Dolores part, her sister sings Mirabel and I’m Bruno.
    “And I wanted you to know that your bro loves you so
    Let it in, let it out, let it rain, let it snow, let it goooooo……..”
    Did the killer ever see Encanto?
    Could we have sat in the same row of seats, on the same day, munching popcorn?
    What if Amerie brushed past him in the aisle? Did she politely say, “Excuse me,” to the boy who would someday blow her eye sockets apart?
    Was he chomping on bubble gum as he destroyed them all?
    If so, what flavor?
    Cinnamon?
    Wintergreen?
    Was the radio on as he drove to massacre them? Or did he drive in silence?
    Was the sun in his eyes as he got out of the car in the parking lot?
    Did his pockets hold sunglasses or just ammunition?
    These are the things I will never know.
    There is laundry in the dryer that is Amerie’s.
    Clothes I never need to fold again.
    Clothes that are right now warmer than her body.
    How will I ever be able to take them out of the dryer and where will I put them if not back in her dresser?
    I can never wash clothes in that dryer again.
    It will stand silent; a tomb for her pajamas and knee socks.
    Her cousin’s graduation party is next month and I already signed her name in the card. Should I cross it out?
    That will be the last card I ever sign her name to.
    The dog will live longer than she will.
    The dog will be 12 next month and she will be eternally 10.
    What will the school do with her backpack?
    It was brand new this year and she attached her collection of keychains like cherished trophies to its zipper.
    A beaded 4 leaf clover she made on St. Patty’s Day.
    A red heart from a Walk-a-Thon.
    A neon ice cream cone from her friend’s birthday party.
    Now there will be no more keychains to attach.
    No more trophies.
    Surely they can’t throw it out?
    Would they throw them all out?
    19 backpacks, full of stickered assignments and rainboots, all taken to the dumpster behind the school?
    Is there even a dumpster big enough to contain all that life?
    These are the things someone else knows:
    The moment the semiautomatic rifle was put into his hands–was “Bring Me a Higher Love” playing in the gun store? “Get off my Cloud” by the Rolling Stones? Maybe it was Elton John’s “Rocket Man.”
    Did the Outback Oasis salesperson hesitate as they slid him 375 rounds of ammunition?
    not my problem my kids are grown and out of school
    Or I don’t have kids, so I don’t have to worry about their skulls getting blown across the naptime mat
    Or fingers crossed there’s a good guy with an equally powerful gun that will stop this gun if needed
    Did they sense any danger or were they more focused on picking that morning’s Raisin Bran out of their teeth?
    My Nana used to say, “Pay attention to what whispers, and you won’t have to when it starts screaming.”
    But now I know there is a more deafening sound than children screaming.
    More horrific even, than automatic rifles on a Tuesday morning.
    I beg the world:
    Pay attention to what’s screaming today, or be forced to endure the silence that follows.”

  10. I’ve always liked Paul Begala.
     
    As much as I would love to say that voters are mad and not gonna take it anymore about guns rights…  methinks the pocket book issues will win the day.
     
    Pogo…  I’m really tired from staying up so late with these basketball games…  I ain’t young anymore.  But I have to watch.  I bet KGC is watching too.

  11. A Washington state nonprofit group and its attorney have been fined more than $28,000 by the state Supreme Court for making legally meritless claims alleging widespread vote fraud.
    The Washington Election Integrity Coalition United was ordered to pay nearly $9,600, and its Sequim-based attorney, Virginia Shogren, was ordered to pay nearly $18,800 for suing Gov. Jay Inslee in October.
    Those fines were imposed last month and announced Wednesday by Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office, which defended Inslee in the case. Ferguson said his office also intends to file a bar complaint against Shogren.

     
    https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/washington-election-integrity-group-and-lawyer-fined-for-meritless-vote-fraud-lawsuit/
     
    Still losing .

  13. MANHATTAN DA’s office likely to indict Bannon for STATE crimes re “build the wall” bogus charity that gets around Trump’s FEDERAL pardon.

  14. Jamie – I think someone in Congress needs to read that letter from the parent of a Uvalde murder victim.   Cameras on. Let’s see who listens, who looks at their phone, who pays attention, who sheds a tear.  We already know the answer. 

    Today is Friday.  There is no spelling test this week, either.

    For the children who survived the Uvalde shooting uninjured, trauma will take time to heal

    “After the early shock gives way to longer-term grief, anger and helplessness, the people of Uvalde — and particularly the children at the school during the shooting — are at high risk of suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, she said.”

    “Characterized as having a prolonged sense of life-or-death alertness for a long period of time, PTSD can manifest in panic attacks and other emotional difficulties — as well as physical inflammation in the body that can lead to serious physical health problems like heart attack, stroke or cancer, Wakefield said.”

  15. Some day’s have weird things going on.  It makes me wonder if someone else is logged into my accounts, such as Twitter.  This afternoon is one.  Twitter is giving me German ads.  Lots and Lots of ads, in German.  Of course it does let me see what is being sold to Germans.  Weird thing is I have not set my VPN to Germany in a year or so.

  16. I’m tellin ya the chickens is comin’ home to roost and the cows are comin’ home.

    Navarro indicted. Federal grand jury.
    Now in custody.

  17. Peter Navarro, former Trump trade adviser, indicted by a federal grand jury over refusing to comply with Jan. 6 subpoena — following Bannon who was also indicted after defying committee request

  18. No one ever told Bannon and Navarro that if you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas?  Geez.

  21. Bannon… that if you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas? 

    Bannon is the dog.
     
    No one knows who the fuck Peter Navarro is, though, besides people like us

  23. there has got to be more parents who want their children to come home from school and who also vote than fringe lunatics who value guns over children’s lives and vote.  Right??

  26. i’ll just leave you with this:
     
    Sometimes, the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a highly-trained federal agent with a gun after waiting over an hour for the 19 other good guys with guns to stand in a hallway in fear
     
    Put that on a T-shirt ✌️🇺🇸🇺🇦

  28. Bannon’s not the only dog in the kennel.  He was sharing fleas with TFG.  He’s got problems with his own fleas and the ones he got from Dumbass. 

  29. Poobah, got a link to the Navarro arrest?  The google machine isn’t showing it. Plenty on the indictment but nothing on an arrest yet.

  32. Holding the One/Six hearings in prime time is a stroke of genius, and with the promise of new evidence ,  should be some real pop corn moments coming .  Things seem to be picking up speed on several lines in this whole mess. 
     

  33. … Navarro is to make his initial appearance this afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

    I’d love to be a fly on the wall in that hearing.

  35. So, I’m still eying  the drought  along the Colorado River.  Found this article  on tree rings , and what they say .
    Found this line  in it  –
    BEYOND THE SHADOW OF A DROUGHT
     
    And this nugget in it , I knew this , but it was a long time ago when I learned it.
     

    It’s important to note that nearly 100 years ago, on November 24, 1922, delegates from seven U.S. states gathered in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to sign the Colorado River Compact—and inadvertently set the region up for failure.
    The delegates believed the average Colorado River stream flow was 16.5 million acre-feet per year. So, their agreement apportioned 7.5 million acre-feet of water annually to provide for growing cities, industrial applications, and irrigation for farming in what they hoped would be a sustainable way. This would allow the remaining 9 million acre-feet per year to maintain the Colorado River ecosystem. Or so they thought.
    The instrumental stream-flow data they employed to inform the compact came from a 22-year period between 1900 and 1921. In an almost unbelievable twist of fate, the Colorado River enjoyed a significantly higher stream flow during that 22-year period than at any other period in the last 500 years! We now know this through tree-ring analyses.
    Compact signatories therefore legally bound themselves to unrealistically large allocations because their input data, unbeknownst to them and by sheer chance, came from an anomalously wet period in the climatic history of the U.S. Southwest. People in the region have been dealing with the consequences of this ever since.
    It seems highly unlikely that the compact will be renegotiated given the current political climate. Politics may supersede nature in the short run, but Mother Nature will rule in the long run.

     
    Tree Rings Are Evidence of the Megadrought—and Our Doom
     
    https://www.sapiens.org/column/curiosities/tree-rings-are-evidence-of-the-megadrought-and-our-doom/
     

     
     

  36. Lake Powell , and Lake Meade  are currently at 30% of full pool. 
    And Phoenix has just  started stage one of their water plan.  Vegas has outlawed grass. And all over the Southwest  ground levels are dropping because so much well water is being pumped. Up to a foot in the last year. 
     
    But the Today Show , yesterday gave us 2 full hours about the fucking Queen of England. 
    Well America is about to learn,  too late that having a lawn like the Queen of fucking England is crazy West of the 100th meridian. 

    And that thunderbolt is coming this summer, and into fall.
    Power or Water ?

    Vegas leads the world on it’s water efforts for a big city. But the dam keeps the lights on. There ain’t no plan “B” to run the AC in all those hotel rooms.

  37. And no water for swamp coolers. 

    The desert will return to the desert rats. People? What people?

    One desert rat to another: Whew! I thought those assholes would NEVER leave.

  38. Navarro ranted and raved at his first court appearance on Friday, hours after FBI agents arrested him as he boarded an airplane on charges of contempt of Congress.

    “I didn’t tell them I was going to Nashville today, and they wound up arresting me at the gate door,” Navarro complained at the hearing, calling his treatment “despicable.”… “I served in the Trump White House for four years. I saved millions of lives.”

  39. “I’m about to get my ass burned off!”
    Couldn’t happen to a nicer etc.  

  43. As I said  2 weeks back , our pattern has changed, we got 1.4 inches last night.  These rains have saved our bacon from zero to a chance  of a cotton  crop. 
    And not one virgin was tossed  into our sand pile to do it. 

  44. Sturg –
    Jim Jordan , a classic  example  of an asshole who never got punched in the face  in high school. 
    Now thanks to him  and his cult , it’s a 22,3 round thru the forehead. 

  45. Oh jeez I need popcorn. 

    “They intercepted me gettin’ on the plane and then they put me in handcuffs, they bring me here. They put me in leg irons. They stick me in a cell.” — Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro on being charged for contempt of Congress for defying a January 6th Committee subpoena.

  46. Jim Jordan.    I’ve never had a bit of use for “coaches” and he’s a perfect example of why.  

  48. Excerpt from WaPo

    The indictment was returned Thursday and unsealed Friday, when Navarro appeared in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

    During his initial appearance, Navarro accused prosecutors and the FBI of misconduct, suggesting that the timing of his lawsuit and the charges against him were part of a race to the courthouse. Navarro said his legal claims should be resolved before his criminal case, which probably would run out the clock on the committee’s efforts this year.

    In court, he did not enter a plea, but said he wanted to postpone a scheduled June 17 arraignment before another federal judge to allow his civil suit to proceed first. He accused prosecutors of launching a “preemptive strike” by charging him criminally before his allegations against the legitimacy of the committee and claims of executive privilege could be heard. Even though he was in touch with the FBI and prosecutors as recently as Wednesday, he said he was given no notice that he would be arrested until he was, at a D.C. area airport Friday morning, and pulled off an airplane bound for Nashville where he was to make a television appearance tonight.

    Trying to figure out his theory about why his civil suit should proceed before the criminal one. There’s that speedy trial thing related to the criminal charges – and no one will tell you that there’s anything like a speedy anything in civil trials – unless of course it gets tossed right out of the gate.

    Like they say, “Fool for a client.”

  49. RR said way up stream that pocketbook issues would rule the next  vote. 
    And she was in doubt about that.
    But this vote is about body counts , and uteruses .
    And we have know idea about the policing  of  uteruses or the body count in November. 
     
    Ever since Columbine  there has been this growing pool of fear  in school kids that are voters.  That’s 25 years,  I think these folks  will vote this year, And who knows about women swing voters ? 
    I’m willing to bet that they will be mad as hell. 
     

  53. My television just sang to me very sweetly “when you’re pinching off a porcupine” about taking a dump.

  54. https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/03/politics/ron-desantis-tampa-bay-rays-gun-violence/index.html

    DeSantis shows that he is proudly
    pro-gun violence:

    “….blocked state funding for a new Tampa Bay Rays training facility partly because the baseball team spoke out against gun violence in the wake of back-to-back gun-related massacres in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York…”

    It seems that he is also against freedom of speech. I guess the Second Amendment trumps the First Amendment in Ron’s world.

    “Two days after a gunman killed 19 children and two adults at a Texas elementary school, the Rays announced a $50,000 donation to Everytown for Gun Safety, an organization that advocates policies to prevent gun violence. The Major League Baseball team also tweeted a statement calling for action.”

  56. Hmmmm, are folks going to stop vacationing in states that promote gun violence with their ever-weakening laws and weak-minded governors? 

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