See? Existing laws work

According to the federals charges, this guy lied on the ATF form 4473 he completed to purchase firearms (he is allegedly a user of illegal drugs, whihc makes him ineligible to purchase firearms). He was arrested and charged, and will (hopefully) not be allowed to own guns in the future.

Feds arrest armed Colorado man after remark about Boulder massacre

But what I’d like to see is the government using the same tenacity to trace the source of every crime gun, arresting anyone who illegally supplied firearm(s) to a criminal. That would do a lot more for preventing gun crime than making more rules that only law-abiding citizens will be forced to follow.

You can tell a bad idea…

… when those supporting it have to lie or mislead to justify their action. Such is the case with Democrats attempting to eliminate the filibuster.

Elizabeth Warren is the latest Democrat to make the claim that the filibuster is racist in their attempt to steamroll their liberal agenda over the objections of the minority:

“The filibuster has deep roots in racism, and it should not be permitted to serve that function, or to create a veto for the minority,” the senior Democratic senator from Massachusetts said. “In a democracy, it’s majority rules.”

Couple of critical points:

1) The roots of the filibuster are not based in racism; it is based on a simple rule change, and it’s initial uses to stymie legislation had nothing to do with racism.
2) While the filibuster has been used to support many causes both good and bad, it was the Democrats who used it in a racist manner to block civil rights legislation.
3) It’s a republic, stupid (something a 5th grader – at a charter school, anyway – knows).

Now that’s true gall: the Democrats are using their own past acts in preventing civil rights legislation as justification for eliminating the filibuster. Takes a special kind of politician to pull that off, don’t you think?

The truth is that the potential for the filibuster has existed for more two centuries, and has been repeatedly used to force compromise and consensus on important legislation. It has long been a staple of senators developing legislation meant to endure, rather than being replaced or repealed every time the Senate changes political hands. So why would the Democrats want to eliminate it now?

In my humble opinion, it’s a power grab. If they can push through sufficient legislation in the two years before the midterm election, legislation meant to enslave an election-significant portion of the population by making them dependent on the government (and Democrats in particular) for welfare handouts or “government” jobs, then they may never have to cede power again. Couple this with their push to reduce the security of our elections and ballot system and they might just succeed. But would that really be good for the governed, a one-party system? Wouldn’t that just eventually devolve into a regime?

Don’t let it. Contact your Senator (here’s how) and insist that they support the filibuster as a tool for building long-term legislation for all the people – not just the 50.1% who hold power.

Hypocrisy

Can you believe this level of hypocrisy?

Democrats distance themselves from previous pro-filibuster stance, citing GOP obstruction

So, the filibuster is an essential part of Senate procedure when the Democrats are the minority party, but it’s just a tool for obstructionists when they are the majority?

Talk about a true “nuclear option”….

People are gullible…

… and this fact is regularly exploited by the press and their political overlords when trying to justify extreme action, such as eliminating the filibuster in the Senate. This NPR article is an excellent example:

Biden Supports Changes To Filibuster, Returning It To ‘What It Used To Be’

For instance, the NPR article states:

Filibustering is the controversial Senate practice designed to block action on a bill, first coming into existence as a means to preserve slavery in the United States. [emphasis mine]

But many would disagree with this claim. Both National Geographic and History.com note that the one of the earliest uses of the filibuster was to prevent expungement of the Senate censure records of Andrew Jackson in 1837. Others cite additional early non-slavery uses of the filibuster. But such examples would hardly garner voter support for the elimination of the filibuster; thus, NPR conveniently distorts the facts in favor of associating the filibuster with racism. They are not the only ones: both Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass) and President Obama have falsely referred to the filibuster as a “Jim Crow relic” as a means to amass support for its elimination, even though it came into use long before that era.

As a side note, I find it interesting that so many recent opinions and articles (here and here, for example) calling for Senate Democrats to eliminate the filibuster claim racism as justification. These typically cite the the unsuccessful use of the filibuster to delay the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. What’s particularly interesting to note is they fail to identify that it was in fact Democrat senators who filibustered this bill. So, to be fair, Democrats are calling out their own abuses of the filibuster to support its demise.

The NPR article goes on in its attempt to sway public opinion by quoting President Biden pining for the days of old:

“…you have to do it what it used to be when I first got to the Senate back in the old days … You had to stand up and command the floor, you had to keep talking.”

Only it is unlikely that President Biden had to endure such a filibuster during his Senate tenure. Filibusters had the habit of grinding all Senate business to a halt, since only one bill could be considered at a time. In the early 1970’s a rule change allowed filibustered legislation to be tabled so that other legislation could be considered. Thus it was no longer necessary for an opposition party to hold the floor for a filibuster, and the kind of filibuster envisioned by President Biden largely disappeared. However, it is interesting to note that the Senate does not have to table a filibuster. If the majority party in the Senate wants to force an actual filibuster, complete with continual speech, all they have to do is call the other side’s hand; no change in Senate rules necessary.

The truth is that the filibuster has been used more than a thousand times in the past century – by both parties and for causes good and bad – to protect minority party interests and to force a consensus on legislation. A filibuster does not mean the end of a piece of legislation; a filibuster can be overcome by 60 votes in the Senate. In fact, of the 1520 filibusters that occurred between 1989 and 2009, 725 were overcome by such a Senate vote. Thus, the filibuster encourages compromise and consensus to garner the wide support necessary to pass bills in the Senate (and I would argue that this makes for much better legislation). But that’s not what the Democrats want – they want complete majority control, period. No consensus, no compromise, no consideration whatsoever for the 49.9% of the people not in the majority.

But the obvious question is: why would the Democrats want to change the rules now? Don’t they know that once the Republicans get control they could use this same rule change against them? The only reasonable explanation for the Democrats to petition for such a change is that – once they have control – they expect to pass laws that will prevent them from ever having to cede power. And, given their drive to pass H.R. 1, the “For the People Act of 2021” – which effectively eliminates Voter ID laws, makes mail-in balloting without authentication permanent, codifies nationwide ballot harvesting by political operatives, and makes it nearly impossible to guarantee the security of our elections – it seems that this is exactly their plan.

So, if you’re a Democrat – swing away. In the end, you’ll get exactly the socialist utopia you deserve. But if you’re a freedom-loving American of any political persuasion, please insist your Senators keep the filibuster and learn to compromise. We’ll all be better off for it in the end.

Another one bites the dust

Cancel Culture:   2,134,974
Common Sense: 0

‘The Talk’ going on hiatus following Sharon Osbourne’s defense of Piers Morgan

So remember: if you as a third party do not enthusiastically agree with a first party’s claim – no matter how little proof or detail is provided – that a second unnamed party is racist then you must be a racist, too.  And, apparently, if your friend as a fourth party does not enthusiastically agree with the label of “racist” being assigned to the you the third party for not enthusiastically agreeing with the first party’s assertion – no matter how little proof or detail is provided – that the second unnamed party is a racist then you, too, are a racist…

Where does it end? I don’t know. The whole mess is kind of like a trick question: “Have you stopped being racist?” Replying “I am not racist!” is unacceptable because the question categorically states that you are (Duh!).

We will never conquer racism by accusing each other of being racists. People can disagree and not be racists, even when discussing racism. Really.

For once, Bernie is correct

The average American is more interested in getting “free” money than having all voices considered in our legislative deliberations. But it only proves that the average American is stupid.

Sanders: Americans Care More About $1,400 Checks From Aid Plan Than Lack Of GOP Votes

I’ve said this before but it’s worth saying again (and again, and again…): the typical voter believes that someone else will be forced to eventually pick up the tab for these payments (and the associated pork-barrel spending). They believe that Sanders and Warren will eventually make good on their threat to tax the rich to pay for their socialist utopia (an oxymoron). But it won’t work, as the people will eventually discover. They’ll pay directly or via unintended consequences, but in the end they will pay.

There is no such thing as free money. Get used to it.

Kill the messenger

The claim is that a professor made a racist statement about her black students, but I’m not convinced. She instead seemed to be sharing her worry that, at the end of the course, the students at the bottom of the performance curve would be black. It was not a disparaging statement meant to denigrate a race, but rather a statement of concern based on previous observation. For verbalizing this observation, the university fired her.

Georgetown Law fires professor who made ‘reprehensible statements’ about Black students on viral video

Here are the highlights of her conversation with another professor, from the above linked article:

Professor Sandra Sellers speaking to Professor David Batson over Zoom about students’ academic performance. 

“You know what? I hate to say this, I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are Blacks,” Sellers says. “Happens almost every semester and it’s like ‘oh come on.'”

“I get some really good ones but there are also usually some that are just plain at the bottom, it drives me crazy… so I feel bad.” 

But what if her observation is true? What if black students really are under-performing in her classes? Would the correct response be to ignore it and blame the professor for making the observation, or to investigate and – if necessary – fix the root cause?

If her observation is true, it could simply be that she is a racist and thus grades her black students more harshly than others. If so, maybe replacing her is the right response. But it could also be that years of affirmative action have effectively lowered the bar for black students, and they’ve simply risen to the level expected.

Unfortunately, the real-world is not so forgiving. Sending under-prepared students into the workforce will result in their not being able to obtain or keep gainful employment. What will we do then? Force employers to hire people of color commensurate with their representation of the population, even if they are not as competent as their education suggests? How do you think this will affect their performance in the workplace, or the public’s opinion of their capabilities? Do you think this will reduce racism, or increase it?

In any event, the correct response is to investigate and find the root cause of her observation. Only then can meaningful change be implemented to insure the true long-term success of these students.