20 thoughts on “Gunning Our Politics/Profits = GOP”

  1. David Horsey’s Gun industry is America’s worst evil | The Seattle Times:

    The firearms industry may be the biggest force for evil in America.
    The evil lies not just in the fact that these manufacturers made the weapons that were used to slaughter 19 school children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, last week, 10 shoppers at a Buffalo, NY, grocery store the week before and more than 1,500 other Americans in 270 mass shootings since 2009. No, the firearms merchants have done far more than simply build guns and offer them for sale.
    According to evidence revealed by industry whistleblowers and in newly released court documents, the gun makers have, for two decades, helped push the right wing paranoia and conspiratorial fantasies that have fed the fever for assault rifles while using social media, video games and direct marketing to target teenagers as eventual customers. It is no coincidence that the typical mass shooter is a young man brandishing a freshly-purchased weapon of war. Advertising works.
    As a result, gun sales have soared since the start of the century and the U.S. now has twice as many guns as it has people. With millions of dollars drawn from this blood money, the gun industry transformed the National Rifle Association, once a respectable, hunting-centered group, into its militant mouthpiece. And, with more millions donated to political campaigns, the industry turned the Republican Party into a legion of pathetic puppets who dutifully block all attempts to pass the sensible gun control legislation that a large majority of Americans support.
    The absolutist defense of the Second Amendment presented by the NRA, the GOP and the gun industry is not actually about the right to bear arms. That is a cover story to hide the true motivation behind the gun epidemic that is killing Americans day after day after day: financial profit and political power.
    And, with the mourning far from over in Uvalde and Buffalo, that seems especially evil.

  2. bink, suspiciously sounds like some of your past posts. any chance you ghost wrote this for bill?

    actually maher here seems more to be referencing the not-so-grown-up adults among us rather than today’s kids who’re getting the really scary education about a real world of violence and stupidity.

    New Rule: We have to figure out how a country can solve any problem if so many of its people are so intractably, astoundingly stupid.

  3. late night comics also had a go at GOPers, pot & guns according to the guardian:

    On Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host ridiculed the far-right Fox News pundit Laura Ingraham who has been trying to link pot use to gun violence, claiming that young people are more likely to commit violence if they smoke. “Maybe we should make sure those people don’t have AR-15s in their house,” Kimmel suggested.
    He called it “a hell of an angle” and suggested she was really “scraping the bottom of the barrel” to help “create a cloud of uncertainty when we might actually be ready to do something”. 

    and at foxnews:

    “Republicans are gonna steal the issue. I think eventually,” Maher told Holder. “I mean, someone like John Boehner works for a marijuana company now. I mean, it could be one of those freedom issues. And, of course, Republicans smoke lots of pot too.” 
    “Not enough,” Holder quipped, sparking laughter from the audience.
    Holder added, “They need to mellow out just a little more.”

  4. NOAA

    ¡ 17h

    Carbon dioxide is now more than 50% higher than pre-industrial levels, pushing the atmosphere further into territory not seen for millions of years.

  6. Maybe we might begin by convincing these people who want an AR-15 for protection against a tyrannical Govt that the rifle would do them about as much good as a slingshot if the federal Govt decided to come down on their ass.

  7. i tried to watch that Maher clip but i just can’t stand that show 
     
    Yes Americans are incredibly intellectually lazy, i agree

  8. it’s kind of hard to tell gun-nuts they don’t need guns now though after the Uvalde Donut Eating Squad stood around and listened to kids get murdered through a door, they ain’t protecting nothing but their pension

  9. prime example of having a fool for your lawyer adage from the hill:

    During the court hearing, Navarro insisted on representing himself as he faces two misdemeanor contempt counts and used the time to rail against the various investigators who have sought his testimony and records.

    “Who are these people,” Navarro said. “This is not America. I mean, I was a distinguished public servant for four years and nobody ever questioned my ethics. And they’re treating me in this fashion.”

    Navarro said he was arrested as he was boarding a plane to Nashville on Friday on his way to make a television appearance. He accused federal law enforcement of “prosecutorial misconduct” for the way he was taken into custody.

    “There are bigger things at play than whether I go to prison,” he said. “And that’s why I’m standing here.”

    […]

    Criminal defendants are typically advised against representing themselves due in part to the complex legal and procedural issues at play, but Navarro said Friday that he doesn’t want to “spend his retirement savings on lawyers.”

    Federal Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui also advised him that he could be at risk of incriminating himself with his comments in court.

    “There’s a lot of attention upon you in this case,” Faruqui said. “Every time you speak just remember it could be something that’s used against you in court. It’s difficult, I’m sure, because you want for people to see that not only presume this, but the reasons why you are innocent. Every time that you’re speaking, it could mean potentially putting yourself at risk.”

  10. Hunting is a rich white people activity now, btw, you need land to hunt on and the rich white people own all of it, so few people actually hunt, it’s all bullshit

  11. Elin Musk’s business model depends on people commuting in cars, of course he wants employees back in the office, he doesn’t give a shit about the environment

  12. i still haven’t bought a car, just gonna carpool, people are happy to get gas money lately, yay high gas prices

  13. He can go musk himself.  He’d have been much better off had he ever learned anything about the value of sometimes just shutting the fuck up.

  14. It’s a huge expense to drive and maintain an automobile, and gas is just part of it.  

  15. yeah i’ve had enough of the $400/month + $2k magically disappearing into thin air every six months lifestyle

  16. Ok, well, always a pleasure Mr. S, as John Wayne said in the immortal 1947 Technicolor classic ‘Uncle Pappy’s Ranch’, “i’m-a-burnin’ daylight”, have a good Saturday ✌️💪🇺🇸
     
    you, too, patd❤️

  18. In all that is going on in this country and the world a death local to our little cozy company town (D.C.) is a bit unnoticed. 
     

    Barry Sussman, the Washington Post editor who directly oversaw the Watergate investigation by reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, providing invaluable — if at times unheralded — contributions to the news coverage that helped force President Richard M. Nixon from office, died June 1 at his home in Rockville, Md. He was 87.

     
    His role as editor was in the book, but not the movie. 
    The link might be behind a paywall. 

  19. I dunno.  Some guys use so much Axe body spray that you can’t get within 6 feet of them.  Stop the spread. 

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