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Can't Help Falling In Love - Elvis Presley Cover
John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Mitch Mitchell
5 under thru 6.....not to bad eh?
Nice start for Rory, DJ, & Garcia a combined -12 thru 13 holes....crazy
MciIroy, Garcia, Willett, Rose, & DJ......277
Loved it!
Janis Joplin - Ball And Chain (Amazing Performance at Monterey)
Prince - Motherless Child (live)
1960 to 2013........
http://thenostalgiamachine.com/years/1968.html
Madison-based music legend received $80,000 from Prince
http://www.channel3000.com/entertainment/Madison-based-music-legend-received-80-000-from-Prince/39230880#.VyAdCH9fNEw.facebook
Billy Paul - Me And Mrs. Jones - R.I.P. Sir
Steve Harvey "Old School"
Gloomy Sunday/Billy Holiday (Angelina Jordan)
Amy Winehouse 'Valerie' Live
I can't believe there's an Otis song That don't no every word of.....thanks for the sweet Otis set My friend.
I'll be there, always enjoy the 5th major, Dechambeau is on my radar
thx all, is it June 16th yet????
Thx Tree, the coveted hat trick, wierd thing is 2 of the 3 wins were blind squirrel picks, Willitt and the infamous Y.E.Yang
Thx Cap, and also thx for spotting me 5 events
thanks Eli, outstanding job as usual....thx for running a great contest.
I don't wanna go into the home run trot to early but I think i crushed it, got it all .....homerun!!
I wasn't signed up or Id have given ya a heads up...finally just sign in just make sure all is well....not like you missin the Masters
gee Cap kinda glad ya forgot...j/k
Dr. John "Big Chief" [Official Audio]
lol, thx bud
Rory, Stenson, A. Scott, D.J, & Willett...172....tyvm
I don't have an opinion on S. Carolina I just thought it was an interesting article and I really don't trust the system we have. I would prefer paper ballots.
Hillary’s Touch Screen Landslide
I still think Walker and the GOP stole the recall.....no faith at all in the current system....just sayin.
Hillary Clinton could not have asked for more. According to the official count, she scored a 47.5 point victory of Bernie Sanders in the South Carolina primary—20 points greater than the RCP average going into the February 27 primary election.
Clinton’s fawning supporters wasted no time. The Washington Post proclaimed that the results spelled “big trouble for Bernie Sanders” going into Super Tuesday.
Was this official “landslide” actually an overwhelming rejection of Sanders’s political revolution or the pre-designated result of the South Carolina’s easily hacked touch screen voting systems?
But was this official “landslide” actually an overwhelming rejection of Sanders’s political revolution or the pre-designated result of the South Carolina’s easily hacked touch screen voting systems? We’ll never know because, as the author noted in 2011, South Carolina, and unfortunately a large number of Americans, are “still clueless” about the 100% unverifiable touch screen voting systems that were used during yesterday’s faith-based election.
https://www.laprogressive.com/hillary-south-carolina-landslide/
He is trying everything he can to lose and he's still gonna win....crazy
Bang Bang Crazy, Part Five (Update)..... HEAR, HEAR
http://www.stonekettle.com/2016/01/bang-bang-crazy-part-five-update.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+StonekettleStation+%28Stonekettle+Station%29
Foreward
Portions of the following essay were first posted to Stonekettle Station on January 1, 2013.
Almost exactly three years ago.
Little has changed in that time. The slaughter continues unabated. Congress has so far not just failed to act but utterly refused to act. Far too many members of that corrupt and selfish body are in the pocket of the gun lobby and are far more concerned with their paychecks and campaign contributions and outright bribes than they are with the oath they swore to protect and defend America. These men and women, conservative and liberal, are cowards. Sniveling, corrupt, morally bankrupt cowards.
This is not about rights.
This is not about the Constitution.
This is about greed.
This is about blood for money.
This is about cowardice.
This about a deliberate failure of government.
More than anything this is about the fears of small and hysterical cowards who have perverted the ideals of freedom and liberty into bloody terror.
The only member of government with the courage to act is President Obama.
His actions are limited to Executive Order – that is, despite the mewling protestations of hysterical fools, the president cannot make laws. He cannot repeal them. He can only adjust how existing federal laws are implemented by the Executive Branch. And he has never pretended anything else. Ever.
For the last seven years, the president has called, repeatedly, on Congress to do their job, to sit down like rational lawmakers and seek legislative solutions to gun violence while preserving the fundamental rights outlined in the Constitution.
The president has given Congress every opportunity to do their job, to take the lead.
Congress has refused.
And if Congress refuses to act, the president must.
The following essay outlines the president’s executive action regarding gun violence. None of it is in even the slightest way unreasonable or unconstitutional or would infringe in even the smallest way with the rights of responsible gun owners. None of it. Not one goddamned word.
It is long, long past time to act.
“The thing that so angers me, and I think so angers you, is that this president is using children as a human shield to advance a very liberal agenda that will do nothing to protect them…’’
That was State Representative, Steve Toth, speaking to a crowd of torch and pitchfork waving Texans two years ago.
Toth was, of course, referring to President Obama’s push for action in the wake of high profile gun violence.
Toth accused the president of using children as human shields.
Human shields. We’ll come back to that.
Toth was speaking at a rally promoted as part of “Guns Across America” and “National Gun Appreciation Day.”
Guns across America.
National gun appreciation day.
I’ll pause for a moment so you can think about how goddamned insane that is.
National Gun Appreciation Day?
Only lunatics would dream up such ridiculous nonsense as National Gun Appreciation Day and Guns Across America.
That’s not patriotism.
That’s not liberty.
That’s not freedom.
Look here, as I’ve noted repeatedly, I myself am a gun owner. It’s very, very likely I know more about guns than you do, I’ve had extensive professional training and decades of experience in gun design, maintenance, and use. Now, I might appreciate the fine engineering or the craftsmanship that goes into making a precision machine, certainly. But that’s not what we’re talking about here, is it? Is it? Gun appreciation day? That’s obsession. That is mass insanity. That is in fact the very definition of insanity, worship of guns, or rather the obsessive and exaggerated lust for power over others that guns represent.
National Gun Appreciation Day is nothing but public masturbation.
Banners at the Austin rally proclaimed “An Armed Society is a Polite Society,’’ ‘'The Second Amendment Comes from God’’ and ‘‘Hey King O, I'm keeping my guns and my religion.’’
And let’s start right there.
An armed society is a polite society?
This is nothing but bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. Provable bullshit. That line, an armed society is a polite society is taken out of context from a Robert Heinlein novel. Heinlein was many things, veteran, patriot, libertarian, but he was not insane and that line was never intended as a rallying cry for those who would pervert the Second Amendment for their own selfish gratification.
I can show you armed societies, truly armed societies, we’ll start in Iraq and work our way around to Somalia via the Mexican drug corridors through gangbanger territory in Los Angeles. Universally armed societies are emphatically not polite. Not once. Not ever. And don’t we Americans make fun of comparatively unarmed societies (compared to us) such as France and Great Britain for their politeness? Canadians are so polite that it’s damned near a cliché, and yet somehow their easy going nature doesn’t seem to be at the muzzle of a gun.
If armed societies are polite societies, how do you explain Texas?
What’s the logic here? Be polite, say please and thank you, better kiss my ass, or I’ll blow your brains out?
Politeness at gunpoint is neither politeness nor a society.
The Second Amendment comes from God?
Again, bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. And bullshit. This, this religious mumbo-jumbo, this God at the muzzle of a gun, is the very thing the Founders fought a revolution to get away from.
How many damned times do we have to go over this?
The Constitution is an agreement between human beings; it is a template for government, a basis for law.
God doesn’t get a vote.
God does not get a vote. Not my God, not your God, not anybody’s God.
God has not one damned thing to do with either the Second Amendment or any other part of the Constitution. Not in any way shape or form, not now, not ever.
I don’t care if you don’t like it. Too bad for you, you want to live where God makes the laws? Then move to Iran. In the US, God stays on his side of the room and the Constitution stays on the other. Anybody who doesn’t understand the difference between supposed natural rights (the so-called “God given” rights of the Declaration of Independence) and the manmade legal rights of the Constitution needs to stop waving their guns and bibles and go back to school – preferably one outside of Texas. The Second Amendment does not come from God. There’s no basis for this statement, not in the Constitution, not in law, not in the Federalist Papers, not in made up quotes from Thomas Jefferson, not even in the bible. It’s bullshit, utter and total bullshit, and serves only to demonstrate a profound and deliberate ignorance by those who cannot help but attempt to impose their goddamned religion on this country at every turn.
And nothing proves me right more than this: I’m keeping my guns and my religion.
Guns and religion.
It’s just me, right? Guns and religion.
It’s getting so that I can’t tell extremist Christians in America from the extremist Muslims who make up ISIS and Iran’s government.
Honestly, from where I sit, all you crazy religious people look pretty much the same.
I’m keeping my guns and religion. Guns and religion.
I wonder what Jesus would have to say about that? How in the hell do you get to guns and religion in the same sentence? Guns and religion, throw in a pickup truck, a keg of shitty beer, and an underage pregnant governor’s daughter and you’ve pretty much described modern conservatives haven’t you?
I’m not a Christian but I was raised in the church and I strongly suspect that Jesus would have bitch slapped the murderous bloody stupidity right out of these people. They understand their own religion even less than they understand the Constitution.
Meanwhile, a bit further north, Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign went predictably ape-shit, and fired off a mass mailing like a runaway AR-15 with a filed down sear.
The hysteria was almost palpable with dire warnings to Kentuckians that Obama was “coming for your guns!”
"You and I are literally surrounded. The gun-grabbers in the Senate are about to launch an all-out-assault on the Second Amendment. On your rights. On your freedom!"
That was McConnell campaign manager Jesse Benton.
Oh no! We’re surrounded!
Surrounded by sissy pacifist liberals! Oh My God! What if they hand us flowers and start singing? Praise God and pass the ammunition! To arms! To arms!
Benton went on to say:
"Our Founders fought a revolution to secure our rights. They would have been appalled by what they heard from an American president the other day. President Obama has the left wing media in a frenzy. The gun-grabbers are in full battle mode. And they are serious."
You know, it’s funny. Whenever the President talks about jobs or the economy or the debt, Mitch McConnell immediately accuses him of not “being serious.” How many times have we heard that exact phrase in the last four years from Mitch McConnell? The president is not serious! Guns though, Mitch is willing to take Obama at his word on that, by God.
The president specifically said that he is not trying to infringe on the Second Amendment and that any significant changes to gun laws in the US would require congressional legislation.
According to Mitch, liberals are in full battle mode.
Conservatives, on the other hand, are in a full-on panic.
For a bunch of people armed to the teeth, they sure are scared of a bunch of sissy unarmed gay liberals. It must be a hell of a way to go through life, pissing your pants all of the time.
Funny thing, I thought guns and religion were supposed to give you courage? No?
I digress.
Conservatives are losing their minds over the idea of executive action on Obama’s part, once again demonstrating a profound lack of understanding of the actual Constitution and how our government actually works.
Executive orders only apply to the Executive Branch of Government.
Obama can’t just make laws and issue orders, it doesn’t work that way. All executive action can do is enforce, or not, existing law – i.e. bills already created and passed by Congress, and signed into law by the President.
And you’d think people obsessed with the Constitution would know that.
The president unveiled a legislative package which he urged Congress to pass in the wake of the Aurora and Newtown massacres.
Now, that package included a ban on assault weapons and armor piercing bullets and a 10-round limit on magazines. Note that the president can’t out and out ban assault weapons, armor piercing ammunition, or restrict hi-cap magazines, those things require legislation. Which is what he asked congress to think about. Obama isn’t acting like a dictator despite conservative hysteria, he’s acting like a president – and polls show that a majority of Americans want some kind of control over these weapons.
That’s the president’s job, to ask congress to look into it.
However, McConnell's message calls the president’s proposals a "thinly-veiled scheme,” and McConnell pledged that he will oppose not only legislation but executive actions as well. And he has – all while taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from the National Rifle Association.
Obama’s suggestion that limits be placed on certain weapons and ammunition has no chance of becoming any kind of law.
Obama’s suggestion that Congress do its job and explore other options has been utterly rebuffed. Congress has made it clear that they will not under any circumstance risk the approval and largess of the gun lobby. They would rather see the blood of Americans run freely in the streets than risk their office or bankroll.
Congress, they are cowards, one and all.
And so, the only option open to the president is Executive Action.
Obama’s Executive Actions are a result of the the Vice President's commission on gun violence, which recommended twenty-three executive actions:
1. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
Obama will order federal agencies, i.e. agencies responsible to the Executive, to provide personal data to the background check system.
Now, that’s the background check system which is supposed to help keep guns out of the hands of crazy people and criminals. This is the system that the NRA claims they support – and really, why shouldn’t they?
And keeping guns out of the hands of the dangerously mentally ill and criminals is also something the NRA and Gun Lobby say they support.
There is absolutely no reason whatsoever to oppose this action. None. Unless you do believe that those with dangerous mental illness and/or criminals should be allowed buy and own guns. And if you do, please explain why in the comments below. I’d love to hear it.
2. Address unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
Again, this is exactly what conservatives have been calling for. Less government, less regulation, less red-tape. Keep guns out of the hands of crazy people and criminals.
And again, why would anybody oppose making the very system they say they support work better?
3. Improve incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
The background check system is only as good as the information available to it. Much of that information, at the state level is provided voluntarily. The president cannot order the states to provide information, nor has he attempted to do so in any way. What he has done, is to suggest incentives for states to provide that information voluntarily. This is no different than the incentives encouraging states to set speed limits or standardize state issued drivers licenses.
And again, if you want to keep guns out of the hands of the murderous nuts and the criminals, wouldn’t you want the system to have access to that information? If not, why not? Please explain in the comments. I can’t wait to hear it.
4. Direct the Attorney General to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
Even the most ardent of gun rights advocate thinks there are people who shouldn’t have guns. Kids, criminals, terrorists, the dangerously mentally ill.
This Executive Action simply orders the AG to review those categories and suggest updates to existing regulations.
Again, review the criteria currently used to prohibit individuals from having a gun. Is there a regulation that prevents a known member of ISIS from buying a gun? Is there? How do you know without a review? If there isn’t, shouldn’t there be?
Note: This review cannot change the regulation or change the criteria used to implement the regulation. It can however provide accurate information to Congress, should they decide to update the law.
Note: Would such an update keep a known terrorist from obtaining a gun? No, probably not. But if he can’t buy it legally from a gun dealer, then merely attempting to do so would alert authorities, and should he then go elsewhere to the criminal underground he becomes that much more vulnerable to law enforcement operations. Isn’t that what you want?
Note: This was the concern of a number of conservative lawmakers and used as justification to oppose immigration of Syrian refugees – i.e. possible Islamic terrorists hiding among them would be able to buy guns from any gun store legally.
Again, if you oppose this idea, and you think children, criminals, and members of ISIS should be able to purchase guns legally in the United States, I’d love to hear why.
5. Propose rulemaking to give law enforcement the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
I honestly can’t imagine why anybody other than criminals would oppose this.
If somebody is arrested and their guns impounded, why wouldn’t you want their record checked before those guns are returned? Why would anybody, especially those currently caveating their social media posts with #bluelivesmatter and #alllivesmatter, want the police to return guns to those who are legally prevented from having them?
If guns don’t kill people, if people kill people, then why would you hand a gun to people who have demonstrated the inclination to murder others?
6. Publish a letter from ATF to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
All we’re talking about here is guidance to gun dealers on how to use the background check system. Hardly totalitarianism.
7. Launch a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
Why would anybody be opposed to this? Hell, the gun lobby, gun dealers, and responsible gun owners should be leading the charge on this. This, right here, safe and responsible gun ownership was the founding ideal of the National Rifle Association.
If you are opposed to a campaign promoting safe and responsible gun ownership, by all means tell me why in the comments. By all means.
8. Review safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
We have the Consumer Product Safety Commission review TV sets and waffle irons to make sure they don’t burn our houses down, why wouldn’t you want the same review and testing applied to gun locks and safes?
You tell me you’re a responsible gun owner. You say you keep your guns locked up. If you’re going to spend money on an expensive safe, on trigger locks, don’t you want to know if they’re any good? Don’t you want them engineered to the minimum standards necessary to do the job you bought them for?
Please, explain to me how having the Consumer Product Safety Commission review standards for guns safes and trigger locks infringes on your Constitutional Rights in any way whatsoever. You’re not even required by federal law to use those devices.
9. Issue a Presidential Memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations. 10. Release a DOJ report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and make it widely available to law enforcement.
Why would anybody oppose either of these actions?
11. Confirm an ATF director.
For the last eight years, that’s eight years, Congress has refused to confirm an ATF director under either George Bush or Barack Obama.
Eight years.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tabacco, and Firearms has fewer agents now than it did in 1970 and takes up to eight years between inspections of gun stores because of a lack of personnel. The agency is prohibited from creating a searchable computer database for gun ownership records and has been leaderless for eight years.
This is entirely because congressmen beholden to the gun industry won’t allow confirmation of an ATF director. Understand, the Senate hasn’t rejected Obama’s nominations, they won’t even allow them to come up for debate. In other words, the Senate refuses, absolutely refuses, to do their Constitutionally mandated job for no other reason than they are being bribed by the National Rifle Association.
Eight years, folks, now you tell me what these people are afraid of. Go on, I can’t wait to hear it.
12. Provide law enforcement, first responders, and school officials with proper training for active shooter situations.
THIS WAS THE NRA’S IDEA.
This was the NRA’s idea. So what’s the problem? Who opposes proper training for first responders and law enforcement? Go ahead, you tell me why. You explain to me how training law enforcement, first responders, and school teachers what to do in an active shooter situation infringes on your right to keep and bear arms. Go right ahead. Spell it out, line by line, detail by detail, and show your work. Let’s hear it.
13. Maximize enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
Again, THIS IS CONSERVATIVES’ IDEA.
Enforce existing laws. Prosecute crime.
14. Issue a Presidential Memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control to research the causes and prevention of gun violence.
Guns don’t kill people, people kill people, isn’t that what the NRA has been telling us?
It’s the people, not the guns.
So don’t you want to know why people kill people?
Let’s see, conservatives won’t let us do anything about guns, but they don’t want us to do anything about the people who use guns to commit mass murder. Logically (if that word can be used in this context) it would appear that conservatives are ok with mass slaughter.
Be honest, what exactly are conservatives afraid of here?
There is only one reason why anybody would be afraid of this research. Only one reason.
Think about that. Take all the time you need. It’ll come to you.
15. Direct the Attorney General to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenge the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
Boy, sure wouldn’t want the AG to issue a report! Oh no, not a report! Anything but a report.
We wouldn’t want to know about new gun safety technologies, or the challenges to implementing some of these things, or methods for helping the gun industry develop safer guns. We’re all about research that leads to the development of more deadly weapons and ammunition, but not safer guns.
Note that this isn’t even a concrete action. It’s a report regarding the availability and most effective safety technologies. You know, the very thing you can find in damned near any gun magazine.
Also note that the AG can’t mandate gun manufacturers implement any of those technologies – that would require an act of Congress. The president is only instructing the AG to make the information available. That’s it.
And really, how horrifying would it be if the government actually helped gun makers produce safer weapons? The government did that with cars and look what we ended up with, seat belts and air bags and anti-lock brakes, we hardly ended up with fascism as a result. What we got was better cars.
16. Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes. 17. Release a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.
Sure wouldn’t want to know if somebody with murderous tendencies or clinical depression or adverse mental issues has easy access to a gun, right?
Because, guns don’t kill people, people kill people, but people who might kill themselves or kill other people shouldn’t be asked if they have access to guns which don’t kill people. Conservative logic, conservative tautology.
Again, ask yourself what’s the real concern here? What are conservatives really afraid of?
Think about it. If crazy people aren’t allowed to have guns…
18. Provide incentives for schools to hire school resource officers. 19. Develop model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
Again, ARMED GUARDS IN SCHOOLS IS THE NRA’S IDEA.
So why are gun rights advocates against it when the president agrees with them?
Maybe Obama should propose arming Latinos and black people, see how long it takes for conservatives to start screaming for gun control.
Tell me, why would responsible gun owners oppose schools and churches and colleges developing a plan to deal with emergencies?
20. Release a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover. 21. Finalize regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within ACA exchanges. 22. Commit to finalizing mental health parity regulations. 23. Launch a national dialogue led by Secretaries Sebelius and Duncan on mental health.
Now according to the gun nuts, it’s not the guns, it’s the crazy people.
But they’re opposed to anything that might help keep crazy people from picking up a gun and killing other people.
The only option conservatives will support is the one where they get to carry guns so they can shoot crazy people with guns.
There you have it. Obama’s executive actions.
I’ve listed them all. Go read them again.
Show me one, just one, Executive Order that infringes on your Second Amendment rights in any way whatsoever.
Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Well?
The thing that so angers me, and I think so angers you, is that this president is using children as a human shield to advance a very liberal agenda that will do nothing to protect them…
No, Representative Toth, it doesn’t anger me.
What angers me are fear mongers like you.
Hateful, paranoid, fearful little rabble rousers like you, that’s what angers me.
Frightened insecure gun nuts who can’t seem to differentiate between their dick and their pistol, that’s what angers me.
The fact that when children are slaughtered in a riot of blood, when adults are killed in a hail of bullets, when Americans are gunned down on the streets of the United States every single goddamned day, the first thing people like you think of is to run out and buy more fucking guns.
That’s what angers me, Congressman Toth.
I’ll tell you what really angers me, that fact that as a gun owner myself, as somebody who has owned and used and taught firearms for most of my adult life, I get lumped in with lunatics like you and the NRA, that’s what pisses me off more than anything else, Representative Toth.
And really human shields?
Human shields?
Seriously?
At least President Obama thinks of children as human.
Unlike Representative Toth and his friends down at the NRA who seem to regard kids as little more than pop-up targets.
The only thing Gun Appreciation Day did for me, was make me appreciate the fact that today America has a president and a vice president with the courage to face these idiots head on.
Go get them, Mr. President.
Afterword
Obama is not coming for your guns.
It is time to decide where you stand. The gun nuts have drawn their line of death in the sand, which side are you on? Choose. It is time for sane and rational Americans to stand their ground in the face of this murderous bloody lunacy and push back with with determination and grit. There are more of us than them. Many of us are armed too. I’m not afraid of these fuckers and you shouldn’t be either. Get off your ass, pick up your phone, log into your computer, or march your ass down to your local representative’s office AND PUT THESE COWARDLY BASTARDS ON NOTICE.
Listen to me, if you are taking orders from the likes of Wayne Lapierre, Tom Selleck, and Ted Nugent, you are a fucking idiot. The NRA doesn’t represent me and it for goddamned sure doesn’t defend my rights. Not now. Not ever.
Now, right now, it is time to stand with your president.
Get on it.
- Jim Wright/Stonekettle Station
Addendum 1: Every time I write one of these, I hope it's the last. But it never is, there's always another massacre. Always.
The Seven Stages of Gun Violence
The Bang Bang Crazy Series:
Part 1, What we need, see, are more guns, big fucking guns
Part 2, Gun violence isn't the exception in America, it's who we are
Part 3, Sandy Hook, the NRA, and a gun in every school
Part 4, More dead kids and why we have laws
Part 5, (Update) Gun control and a polite society
Part 6, The Christopher Donner rampage, they needed killin'
Part 7, Still more dead kids and let's print our own guns!
Part 8, Let's try blaming the victim, shall we?
Part 9, Armed soldiers on post, sure, nothing to go wrong there.
Part 10, Big Damned Heroes!
Part 11, Two in the Bush
What do we do about it? How do we change our culture of gun violence? Bang Bang Sanity
Addendum 2: As noted elsewhere, I’ve been around guns my entire life. My dad taught me to shoot when I was a kid – in fact the very first gun I ever fired was my dad’s prized black powder .75 caliber smooth bore Civil War trench piece when I was about four years old. I still own my very first gun, bought from Meijers Thrifty Acres in Jenison, Michigan, for me by my dad when I was fourteen years old – a lever action Winchester 30-30. I got my first deer with that gun. I grew up shooting, at home, in the Boy Scouts, hunting, target shooting, plinking, with friends and with family. Thirty years ago I joined the military and spent my entire life there. I know more than a little about guns. I’m a graduate of the Smith & Wesson Rangemaster Academy, the nation’s premier firearms instructor school. I’m a certified armorer and gunsmith. I’ve attended pretty much every boarding officer and gun school the military has. I hold both the Expert Pistol and Expert Rifle Medals. I’ve taught small arms and combat arms to both military and civilians for nearly thirty years now. I’ve fired damned near everything the US military owns, from the old .38 revolver to a US Navy Aegis Guided Missile Cruiser’s 5” main battery – and everything in between. I can still field strip a Colt .45 M-1911 pistol and put it back together in under a minute, blindfolded – I happen to own several of them, along with numerous other semi-auto pistols and a number of revolvers. I used to shoot professionally and in competition. I helped to design, test, field, and fire in combat US Military weapons systems. I’ve spent my entire life in places where gun usage is extremely, extremely, common. I have a Concealed Carry Permit. I’m an Alaskan and I typically carry a gun in the wilds of Alaska on a regular basis. I am neither pro-gun nor anti-gun, a gun is a tool, nothing more. If you feel that I’m ignorant of guns, or that I’m anti-gun, or unAmerican, well, you’re welcome to speak your piece – just so long as you can live with what comes after.
That and jam the internet....poof they'll be gone....and the birds can come back.
LMAO Oh nooooo they've over taken an unprotected bird sanctuary....bunch on pea brained WHISIS
Cliven Bundy's Sons Take Over Federal Refuge Building In Oregon
http://crooksandliars.com/2016/01/cliven-bundys-sons-take-over-federal
Prayer to Baby Jesus
A glimmer is more than I had left so I'll take it.
He was just commended today for dismantling the Government Accountability Board. Gee I wonder why they were pleased with him....crooks!
Gimme Shelter - Playing for Change (Lyrics)
Spencer Davis Group - Valmiina Pyörii (Finnish TV Show) 1966 Nugget
For the good of America the GOP/Nazi party must be crushed at the voting booth.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/12/15/1460447/-For-the-good-of-America-the-GOP-Nazi-party-must-be-crushed-at-the-voting-booth
For the last six months Donald Trump has led the GOP primary. All it took for him to do so was a racist rant against Mexicans. Since then he has added racist rants towards Muslims and hostility towards black people to his policy free campaign. All the while every last chickenshit ratfucking Republican has been too afraid of calling out Trump’s racism because they all want to win over his racist primary voters. It turns out libertarianism, fiscal conservativism and balanced budgets aren’t what motivates the GOP base. Racism does. Yelling at Muslims does. Trump proves this every time he opens his pie hole. Libertarianism is dead in the water in the GOP primary, just look at Rand Paul. Fiscal conservativism doesn’t get a huge crowd at rallies either. But you want to scream at brown people? There is a huuuuuge space for screaming at brown people in today’s GOP. Huuuuge.
This fucking bullshit has to stop.
We are now at a point where someone who has the support of Nazi’s and white supremacists has the lead in the GOP primaries. This didn’t happen by mistake and it didn’t materialize out of thin air. And not just any lead, but a commanding lead. That candidate, Trump, refuses to reject the support of those Nazi’s. None of Trump’s main competitors for the GOP nomination have the balls to tell those racists to fuck off either. They are all fucking cowards, cowards who pander to racist people.
For the good of America it isn’t enough to defeat Trump. The entire Republican party must be crushed at the voting booth until they drive the racists out of their party. Until these people sober up they must be kept the fuck away from power, and if they refuse to sober up as I suspect then the GOP must be forced to go the way of the Whigs.
At tonight’s GOP debate it is a safe bet that none of the other Republican candidates for President will call out Trump for having Nazi supporters. None of these candidates will call out Trump for running a campaign that appeals to the KKK.
Remember way back when, in the before times, in the long long ago when Sarah Palin accused Obama of palling around with terrorists? Well the GOP isn’t just palling around with Nazi’s, they are holding rallies for them. And the press will keep booking the GOP pied piper of racism because ratings and ad sales literally Trump decency, all while beltway hacks shriek “Both sides do it” and try to find a way to prove Dems are just as bad.
Well I don’t see the leading Democratic candidates holding racist hate rallies, do you?
Both sides don’t do it. One side, the GOP, is so beholden to the vast chunk of their racist primary voters that they can not call them out, they can not purge the racists from their party without admitting total defeat for this and likely the next few election cycles.
GOOD.
Because this GOP deserves defeat. They have nothing but failed economic ideas that only benefit the wealthiest 1%, and it is wrapped up in nativist, racist and religiously extremist platitudes that have produced the logical conclusion of seven years of calling Obama a secret muslim and kenyan would have gotten you, a party full of racist assholes and people who are blind to or comfortable with being in a party of racist assholes.
There comes a point when we as Americans have to say ENOUGH. We have to call out the GOP for what it has become, a broken, dying ideology for the wealthiest 1% that is rooted in racism, hate, fear and religious extremism.
We must defeat these fucking lunatics. They have far more power now then they should and for the good of America we must make sure that they don’t get anymore. History will judge America harshly if one of these cowardly, craven tools in the party of Trump win the Presidency. Because if every Muslim has to constantly denounce terrorism, if every black person has to constantly be asked why they won’t speak out against black on black crime, then it is long past time that every single Republican must be forced to denounce Donald Seig Heil Trump or own him.
And if they can’t denounce Trump OPENLY for pandering to racists FUCK THEM. Their agonizing political death and disappearance into the dustbin of history will be all that much more deserved.
Rant off
Top U.S. Psychiatrists Confirm Trump’s Narcissistic Personality Disorder, ‘Textbook Case’
A striking number of leading mental health experts are concerned enough about the possibility of a Trump presidency that they’re willing to speak out, publicly, about the candidate’s “Textbook narcissistic personality disorder.”
During a recent interview with Vanity Fair, developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education, referred to Trump as “remarkably narcissistic,” while clinical psychologist Ben Michaelis used the term “Textbook narcissistic personality disorder,” to describe Trump.
Michaelis went on to explain,
“In the field we use clusters of personality disorders. Narcissism is in cluster B, which means it has similarities with histrionic personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder. There are similarities between them.”
Going on, Michaelis described Trump’s constant belittling of other people as a ‘symptom’ of a deeper problem.
“To degrade people is really part of a cluster-B personality disorder: it’s antisocial and shows a lack of remorse for other people. The way to make it O.K. to attack someone verbally, psychologically, or physically is to lower them. That’s what he’s doing.”
Michaelis expressed his concerns about a Trump presidency, saying,
“He’s applying for the greatest job in the land, the greatest task of which is to serve, but there’s nothing about the man that is service-oriented. He’s only serving himself.”
Indeed, narcissism is characterized with by an exaggerated sense of self-importance, as well as a lack of concern or empathy toward others.
While it was once thought that narcissists were overcompensating for low self-esteem, the latest research suggests that narcissistic personality disorder is defined by a sincere belief that you are superior to others.
According to Psychology Today, “the latest evidence indicates that narcissists are actually secure or grandiose,” not just on a superficial level, but on a subconscious level as well.
A person with narcissistic personality disorder:
Reacts to criticism with anger, shame or humiliation
Takes advantage of others to reach his or her own goals
Exaggerates own importance
Exaggerates achievements and talents
Entertains unrealistic fantasies about success, power, beauty, intelligence or romance
Has unreasonable expectation of favorable treatment
Requires constant attention and positive reinforcement from others
Disregards the feelings of others, lacks empathy
Has obsessive self-interest
Pursues mainly selfish goals
“He’s very easy to diagnose,” psychotherapist Charlotte Prozan told Vanity Fair. “In the first debate, he talked over people and was domineering. He’ll do anything to demean others,” she said.
George Simon, a clinical psychologist who specializes in manipulative personalities, told Vanity Fair that Trump is “so classic that I’m archiving video clips of him to use in workshops because there’s no better example of his characteristics.” He went on to say that without Trump, he “would have had to hire actors and write vignettes,” to illustrate the narcissistic personality disorder for his students. He described the candidate as “a dream come true,” at least from the perspective of having a boatload of free material to use during student lectures.
Licensed clinical social worker Wendy Terrie Behary pointed out that narcissists often have a deliberately distorted interpretation of reality.
She explained to Vanity Fair,
“Narcissists are not necessarily liars, but they are notoriously uncomfortable with the truth. The truth means the potential to feel ashamed. If all they have to show the world as a source of feeling acceptable is their success and performance, be it in business or sports or celebrity, then the risk of people seeing them fail or squander their success is so difficult to their self-esteem that they feel ashamed. We call it the narcissistic injury. They’re uncomfortable with their own limitations. It’s not that they’re cut out to lie, it’s just that they can’t handle what’s real.”
Vanity Fair asked what kind of treatment was available for someone with narcissistic personality disorder. Behary responded by saying she’d be “shocked if Trump walked through her office door. “Most narcissists don’t seek treatment unless there’s someone threatening to take something away from them. There’d have to be some kind of meaningful consequence for him to come in,” she said.
Simon responded similarly, saying,
“There is help available, but it doesn’t look like the help people are used to. It’s not insight-oriented psychotherapy, because narcissists already have insight. They’re aware; the problem is, they don’t care. They know how you’d like them to act; the problem is, they’ve got a different set of rules. The kind of approach that can have some impact is confrontational. It confronts distorted thinking and behavior patterns in the here-and-now moment when the narcissists are doing their thing in the session.”
As Harvard professor Howard Gardner pointed out during the interview, as frightening as the idea might be, the real problem facing our nation may not be the threat of a Donald Trump presidency.
“For me, the compelling question is the psychological state of his supporters. They are unable or unwilling to make a connection between the challenges faced by any president and the knowledge and behavior of Donald Trump. In a democracy, that is disastrous,” Gardner said.
The idea that Trump, an obviously disturbed individual who consistently belittles and degrades other people, is currently polling better than every other GOP candidate says a lot about the Republican Party.
Clearly teapublican voters see Trump as a reflection of themselves. As a party, they’re rabidly against treating other people with dignity and respect, calling it “political correctness” – a thing to be despised and rejected at all costs.
The more offensive and disgusting you are, the higher you poll among Republican voters. The more you threaten to harm “lesser” human beings, whether in the name of your “superior” race, religion or creed, the more the rabid right adores you.
The Republican Party may claim to be the party of “Christian values,” but it’s really an entire political movement that is made up of people exactly like Donald Trump, self-obsessed and sincerely convinced that they are superior to their fellow human beings.
Donald Trump is their candidate because he accurately represents their devotion to the Ayn Rand Virtues of Selfishness doctrine that has been spoon fed to them by the right-wing propaganda network over the last few decades.
The idea of “American exceptionalism” has taken root, and many are convinced of their white Christian supremacy, just as surely as any member of the KKK or the American Nazi party has ever been. They are so convinced of it that they cheer at the mention of a nuclear holocaust in the Middle-East, and praise Donald Trump for proposing that mosques be shut down and Muslims profiled.
Not surprisingly, Hitler also was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. The lack of empathy and remorse, characteristic of someone with the disorder, explains how he could commit such horrible crimes against other human beings, without ever feeling guilt or remorse.
A short list of other well-known figures with narcissistic personality disorder include,
Jim Jones
Joseph Stalin
The infamous Angel of Death, Joseph Mengele
Serial killer Ted Bundy
Lee Harvey Oswald
Saddam Hussein
It’s no wonder so many mental health experts are sounding the warning about Donald Trump. In spite of the “Goldwater rule,” many mental health professionals feel it is their duty to warn Americans about the dangers of allowing someone with Donald Trump’s psychological makeup to become Commander-in-Chief of the largest and most powerful military force on earth.
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/11/22/top-u-s-psychiatrists-confirm-trumps-narcissistic-personality-disorder-textbook-case/
Democrats in the Wisconsin Assembly recused themselves en masse from a Wednesday evening vote on a contentious GOP proposal to reshape the state's campaign finance laws. The bill passed shortly before 8 p.m. with the unanimous support of the chamber's Republican members, with no Democrats casting votes.
The minority party has staunchly opposed the bill from the outset, arguing it would open the door for corruption and expand the influence of money in politics. Democrats cited state statute 19.46, which prevents public officials from "taking any official action substantially affecting a matter in which the official ... has a substantial financial interest."
"Because the bill has a direct financial interest for myself ... I feel it is necessary to recuse myself given the direct self-interest that this bill provides for members of this body," said Rep. Cory Mason, D-Racine, leading the arguments.
Rep. Gary Hebl, D-Sun Prairie, said he has "no right to vote" on an increase in payment for himself or his campaign committee. Rep. Mandela Barnes, D-Milwaukee, said the bill would be "more palatable" if legislators had waited until after the current election cycle to consider it.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, accused Democrats of setting a "seriously dangerous precedent" by recusing themselves, noting legislators could make the same argument for voting on the state budget or issues that affect their hometown.
"I have never been so disappointed in the members of the minority," Vos said.
Vos said Democrats took their leadership's cue to "walk off a cliff" and called their actions "silly in the extreme."
The Assembly voted in 2013 to approve bill that would have doubled campaign contribution limits. That bill passed the chamber on a voice vote, but failed to pass in the Senate.
Rep. Joel Kleefisch, R-Oconomowoc, said he was saddened to see Democrats engage in a "stunt." Rep. Adam Neylon, R-Pewaukee, called on the minority party to "stop the theatrics," arguing that if legislators never voted on campaign finance rules, "we will operate under the current existing state law throughout history forever."
"Is that what you want? Because that doesn't sound very progressive to me," Neylon said.
Republicans also noted that statute 19.46 also does not "prohibit a state public official from taking official action with respect to any proposal to modify state law or the state administrative code."
But Rep. Evan Goyke, D-Milwaukee, said this bill is different from past proposals, arguing that it's a "personal conflict of interest for a politician to rewrite the rules to favor themselves."
Republicans backing the proposal say the legislation is necessary to bring the state's statutes up to speed with several court rulings governing campaign finance, and say the bill is designed to protect First Amendment rights to free speech.
The legislation would double the amount of contributions that state and local candidates could receive from individuals, and would adjust that limit for inflation every five years.
Under the bill, political parties and legislative campaign committees could make unlimited donations to a candidate committee.
The bill would allow legislative campaign committees and political parties to receive unlimited contributions, with the exception of a $12,000 per year limit on PAC contributions to those committees and parties.
The legislation would also allow unlimited contributions to be made to and transferred between political action committees.
The proposal would ban candidates from coordinating with outside groups on express advocacy — calls to vote "for or against" a candidate — but would place no restrictions on coordination on issue advocacy. Issue advocacy avoids telling voters to elect or defeat a candidate and instead focuses on a candidate's policies. The state Supreme Court ruled in July that kind of coordination is legal, as a matter of free speech.
Campaign donors would no longer be required to disclose their employer under the bill. Instead, they would be required to list their occupation. Currently, donors who give more than $200 are required to list both pieces of information.
A spokeswoman for the governor's office said the office will review the proposal, but did not indicate whether Walker supports it as-is. A spokeswoman for Fitzgerald said the senator expects changes may be required for the bill to gain traction in the Senate.
Earlier Wednesday, the Assembly approved a proposal that would split the state's elections agency into two agencies both run by a bipartisan panel of appointees, rather than the retired judges who currently oversee elections and ethics issues. Two Republicans joined Democrats in voting against it.
The Assembly on Tuesday voted on party lines to pass a bill that would limit the scope of crimes that can be investigated in a John Doe probe to the most severe felonies and some violent crimes, meaning campaign finance and ethics violations could no longer be subject to a John Doe.
Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca, D-Kenosha, has said the slate of bills marks "the end of clean, open and transparent government in Wisconsin."
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http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/wisconsin-democrats-recuse-themselves-from-vote-on-gop-campaign-finance/article_0c85a489-4f31-5da8-9fce-1139e4df9e19.html
wow, sad day for Wisconsin...the below from Rep Terese Berceau yesterday...and to put it in everyone's face, they abolished John Doe investigations at 12:01 this morning..the earliest possible minute they could "Legitimize" the Selling off of Democracy behind closed doors...ugh
"In the Capitol today from 9 to 9, missing the beautiful weather, and tomorrow will be the same. All to witness the continued shredding of democracy in Wisconsin. Today it was exempting politicians from John Doe investigations, tomorrow it will be changing our campaign finance laws to end disclosure laws for corporations. And then to add insult to injury, the Republicans will dismantle our Governmental Accountability Board, the watchdog agency over ethics and adherence to campaign finance laws. The trifecta to help them maintain one party rule. Oh wait...they also have redistricting on their side. They are good at what they do. Unfortunately none of this is good for our state, our democracy, our people. Enjoy the weather tomorrow!"