Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
- Mueller
- Orientation
- CDC
- Gorsuch
- Species
- NRA
- Mueller. Rep. Louis Gohmert was on Hannity last week. He had a grand old time blasting away at former FIB Director and now Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller. It turns out that Mueller has been dabbling in the political world for a long, long time. Gohmert reminded us about the FIB’s involvement in the electoral defeat of Curt Weldon (R, PA) in his 2006 reelection bid. Weldon had been running around for years blasting the FIB & Intelligence community for lying, making things up, being complicit with mishandling intelligence leading to the 9-11 attacks, and generally being out control and unaccountable. Three weeks before the election, the FIB showed up at Weldon’s daughter, one of his business associates with a warrant from an investigation into whether Weldon improperly aided their lobbying and public relations business by steering contracts. Of course, due to a FIB leak, the media was in tow, and made the appropriate splash in the local media and campaign. Former Clinton national security official Vice Admiral Joe Sestak defeated Weldon a few weeks later. Mueller was shocked, simply shocked and announced an investigation into the leak a couple of months later. The investigation was dropped, and materials returned a month or two later. Mueller and his FIB did similar things with Republican incumbent Conrad Burns winning a senate seat in Montana in 2006. Once again, another very public investigation, this time with an indictment, the Republican loses, and the investigation dropped after the election. They did a similar thing with Ted Stevens two years later. That time they got a conviction, though with prosecutorial misconduct. Mueller has been doing this for a long time, and now he has his sights set on Donald Trump. Gohmert produced a 48-page long report on Mueller’s sordid history. Link to the report is at the end of this item. Among the interesting parts of the report was Mueller’s assistance to Boston mobster Whitey Bulger eliminating mob competition. In the 1980s, he and the people who worked for him framed and jailed four men based on FIB lies. They were framed for murders they did not commit. Mueller was sufficiently vindictive that he wrote letters opposing their parole. Mueller was the Assistant US Attorney in Boston at the time. It appears that O’Bama and his team knew Mueller’s reputation and that he could be counted upon to take out political opponents via extra – legal means should those become necessary. He did not disappoint. Mueller completely botched the investigation of the post-9-11 anthrax letters, hounding Dr. Stephen Hatfill for years. He then turned his attentions to Dr. Bruce Ivins, who took the suicide route. Mueller was complicit in the investigation and conviction of Scooter Libby, even though everyone involved knew that Colin Powell deputy Richard Armitage was the one who leaked Valerie Plame’s name to Robert Novak. President Trump’s full pardon of Libby was a blunt message sent to Mueller, Comey, Rosenstein, and anyone in their sights. I don’t know much, but I do know that Robert Mueller is not going to go down well in history. https://1zwchz1jbsr61f1c4mgf0abl-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Gohmert_Mueller_UNMASKED.pdf
- Orientation. Hotel California is not just a song. According to the California Assembly, it a way of life. Assembly Bill 2943 is making its way through the democrat dominated legislature. Its title is “Unlawful Business Practices: Sexual Orientation Change Efforts.” Essentially it makes it illegal for anyone in the state to engage in any practices to oppose people who want to change their sexual orientation. Like the Hotel California, you can check out, but you can never ever leave. The California Assembly is in the process of writing into law that the choice to be gay or transgender is a ratchet that only works one way. Any Californian who decides for whatever reason they are no longer straight, will be met with open arms, a happy, welcoming community, taxpayer paid medical mutilation if necessary, and counseling to ensure they are happy in their new chosen lifestyle. Medical evidence that the medical mutilation is profoundly dangerous and damaging (high suicide rates) and experience from respected medical centers like Johns Hopkins which no longer participates in gender reassignment surgeries or treatments is ignored. And if a gay or a tranny wants to exit the community, that door is not only barred, but those who would want to help (usually religious communities) are barred from even existing via the excuse of “unlawful business practices.” This includes practice, advertising, and any speech in favor of a return to a binary sexual orientation. As usual from the democrats in California, there is no religious exemption. The legislation would bar LGBT individuals from seeking help to refrain on certain inclinations. They would be denied professional personal help in California. The legislation would write into stone the ability of the government schools to recruit as many of their charges into changing their sexual orientation as humanly possible. I suppose from one perspective it makes sense, as it is very, very difficult for the LGBT community to manufacture babies. What better way to reproduce (the most basic instinct of any life form), than to have the State of California choose one side over the other rather than act as an honest broker? https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/04/a-look-at-californias-ab-2943-outlawing-sexual-orientation-change-efforts/
- CDC. Speaking of making sure people never hear the other side of a discussion, Gary Kleck uncovered a CDC study using data from 1996 – 1998 on defensive use of firearms. The study, never released to the public under the Clinton administration, documented 2.46 million defensive gun uses per year 20 years ago. Since the early 1990s, Kleck and Gertz have estimated the actual number of defensive gun uses is close to 2.5 million / year. Running the actual numbers, this means that firearms are used defensively 3.6 times as often as criminals use them defensively. Kleck and Gertz’ original estimate of a minimum 760,000 defensive gun uses per year was low by a factor of 3.2. They have defended their conclusions from critics multiple times. For its part, the “CDC never reported the results of those surveys, does not report on their website any estimates of DGU frequency, and does not even acknowledge that they ever asked about the topic in any of their surveys.” And you thought politicized science was only present with the EPA, NOAA, and the greens. https://reason.com/blog/2018/04/20/cdc-provides-more-evidence-that-plenty-o
- Gorsuch. SCOTUS Justice Neil Gorsuch joining the liberals in a 5 – 4 opinion a couple weeks ago worried conservatives that he was already “growing in office.” The opinion overturned deportation of an illegal for burglary because “…the law’s definition of a crime of violence is so indeterminate that deportation would violate due process.” Gorsuch’s opinion was treated as an “uh oh” moment for Trump’s first SCOTUS appointee. Upon closer reading, Justice Gorsuch is laying the foundation for an attack on the administrative state, grabbing back power ceded to it for judicial action, and going after congress for ceding their power by writing vague laws. One of the great political games of the most of last century, most certainly the last half century has been for congress to write vague laws, full of muzzy, feel good words, with little specificity, and send it to the Executive Branch to execute. The Executive has happily played along, growing the administrative state necessary to execute all this good stuff. Along with that power, comes the power to write new law (rules and regulations) and adjudicate violations of those laws. The SCOTUS played along for a long, long time, deferring to the agencies in their rulings. In recent years, Justice Thomas has started fighting back. And it appears that Gorsuch is taking this one on. If he can convince the liberals on the court to stop ceding their judicial power to the administrative state (yes, they are liberals and do like the agenda being pushed, but as SCOTUS Justices, they like their power more), and the conservatives to start bouncing these cases back to congress, he will set the stage for dismantling the Beltway swamp the likes none of us ever expected. https://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/supreme-court-gorsuch-immigration-case/
- Species. A great study out of the Heritage Foundation detailed significant problems with the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Species that are not endangered were listed as endangered. Species declared as recovered are not recovered. There has been significant data error through the entire process. In 45 years, only 40 species listed as endangered have graduated from the ESA as “recovered.” 18 of them were never endangered. Even if listed species were to be recovered at 10x the current rate, it would take nearly two centuries to work through the current list, which is still growing as greens use it to obstruct development and resource extraction. The ESA is so ineffective that taxpayer dollars are used to fabricate successes. The FWS and NMFS routinely declares that a species should have been delisted because of original data error and declares it as “recovered.” This deceitful practice is used as justification for the feds to attribute delisting to their habitat protection and other intrusive actions. The report concludes that little meaningful data exists or is used to support both listing and delisting of species as threatened and / or endangered. Today, there are 2,340 species including 1,661 US Plants and animals on the Endangered Species list. 81 species have been removed from the list over the last 45 years. 13 of those were foreign species. 11 were removed based on extinction. 19 were removed because of data error. The remaining 38 were removed on the grounds they were “recovered.” Almost half of those recoveries were false. 20 of those 38 were delisted based on events or causes not attributable to the ESA. These include DDT restrictions and commercial whaling shutdown. Some cases involve simple recategorization of so-called subspecies that are otherwise abundant. Clearly, the ESA is not only broken but never worked in the first place. As it is approaching half a century old with this awful track record, perhaps it is time to repeal it and replace it with something that actually works, protects property rights, and is cost effective. https://www.heritage.org/environment/report/correcting-falsely-recovered-and-wrongly-listed-species-and-increasing
- NRA. A couple of NRA stories last week make for entertaining reading. First is the Yeti vs NRA. Yeti is a high-end cooler manufacturer based in Austin, TX. They declined to do any future business with the NRA Foundation a few weeks ago, saying they no longer with to be an NRA vendor. They will no longer sell products to the NRA Foundation. For an outdoors product manufacturer, this is a pot shot taken right at the heart of their clientele, people who spend more than a little time outdoors. And those people tend to own and use firearms in their recreation. Yeti makes very good cooler. They are also very expensive coolers. Their products are a huge staple at NRA related banquets and other conservation related non-profits. So far, other than denying the report, Yeti has not responded to the report. In response, a pro-firearms #BoycottYeti campaign is making its way through Twitter. Looks like Yeti is going to join ESPN, NFL, Target, among others learning the harsh lessons of “Get Woke, Go Broke” in the modern marketplace. I would also point out the drawback of basing your business in very liberal Austin. Second bit of news comes out of Sturm – Ruger, who reported a threatening letter from one of their shareholders, union owned Amalgamated Bank. The bank, with a history of supporting leftist causes is demanding Ruger adopt corporate policies for gum makers recommended by Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety. Doing such would be suicidal at best. But the letter came nonetheless. The letter also singled out a Ruger Board member who also sits on the NRA Board for conflict of interest. Turns out that Amalgamated is not listed as one of the top 20 investors in Ruger. The only surprise with the bank is given its leftist investment history that it held any Ruger stock at all. Though being a shareholder does give it standing to pursue its leftist agenda. The shareholder’s meeting should be lots of fun. (/sarc). https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2018/04/24/bank-threatens-ruger-nra-support/
More later –
– AG