Wayne's World

Did you catch Wayne LaPierre's talk at CPAC the other day?

He talked about 'hardening' schools and making them safer, of course. He also took credit, on behalf of the NRA, for the National Instant Check System, and for fighting to make sure that all the bad people who needed to be in the background system were there. Many people disagree with those characterizations of the NRA's positions, but that's a story for another post.

What I wanted to share with you is LaPierre's vision of America; if you like the 2016 Republican National Convention or Trump's inaugural address, you'll love this stuff.

As usual, the opportunists wasted not one second to exploit tragedy for political gain. Saul Alinsky would have been proud. The breakneck speed of calls for more gun control laws, and the breathless national media eager to smear the NRA - think about that, in the midst of genuine grief, in an understandable passion, as millions of Americans searched for meaningful solutions, what do we find? Chris Murphy, Nancy Pelosi and more, cheered on by the national media, eager to blame the NRA and call for even more government control. They hate the NRA. They hate the Second Amendment, they hate individual freedom....

For them it is not a safety issue, it is a political issue. They care more about control and more of it, their goal is to eliminate the Second Amendment and our firearms freedoms, so they can eradicate all individual freedoms. 

 They fantasize about more laws stopping what other laws fail to stop. The truth is, laws succeed only when people obey them, that is what the law-abiding majority in this country practices. But once again, so many existing laws were ignored. Their laws do not stop illegal criminals from crossing our borders every single day. Their laws do not stop this scourge of gang violence and drug crime that savages Baltimore, Chicago and every major American community. Their laws have not stopped the plague of opioids and Chinese fentanyl that floods the streets and kills victims every single day in this country. No wonder law-abiding Americans all over this country revere their Second Amendment that protects them more than ever. They do not care if their laws work or not, they just want to get more laws to get more control over people. 

Hold a moment please - the "breakneck speed" with which LaPierre moved from hardening schools to protect children to accusing Democrats and the media of being responsible for, or at the very least complicit in, all of society's ills and of trying to take over the universe was truly breathtaking.

And that's not all. There's a whole cabal of America-hating bastages at work here that need to be foiled, don't you know?  You don't know?  Well, follow along.

Obama promised a fundamental transformation of our country. And you know what? It began with his own national party, a party that is now infested with saboteurs who do not believe in capitalism, do not believe in the Constitution,  do not believe in our freedom, and do not believe in America as we know it. 

Obama may be gone but their Utopian dream, it marches on and president Trump's election, while crucial, cannot turn away the wave of these new European-style socialists bearing down upon us. I'm not just talking about Bernie Sanders, I mean, he's near the end of his career. What about Elizabeth Warren, Bill De Blasio, Andrew Cuomo, Cory Booker, Christopher Murphy and Keith Ellison?  They are not Democrats in the mode of John F. Kennedy or Tip O'Neill.

They hide behind labels like 'progressive' to make their socialist agenda more palatable and that is terrifying. And that should terrify every citizen who values the American ideal in this country of individual liberty. They politicize the Department of Justice. They weaponize the Internal Revenue Service, the EPA, perhaps cripple the FBI and the Intelligence Community, and seized and embedded leadership in all of them to advance their agenda 

Set aside, for a moment, the idea that my Sonofa Gov Andrew Cuomo and New York City's mayor Bill De Blasio have anything to do with the DOJ, the IRS, the EPA or the FBI and the Intelligence Community. Note also that that Keith Ellison, as a DNC executive - and a Democrat in the House - has even less influence than do Warren, Booker and Murphy in the Senate. But again, the truth and facts are not what we're looking for here.

This is a raw meat fest, CPAC is, and everyone knows it. I was naive, I guess, as to how raw the meat was - it's still on the hoof, for Pete's sake. It's blue and mooing, I tell you. Ready to get some of that?

Absolute control in every corner of our government is their ultimate dream. These intellectual elites, they think that they are smarter than we are. They think that they are smarter than the rest of us. And they think they are better than we are. They truly believe it. And you know it. 

The privileged and the powerful, they think they deserve to be in charge of every level of power but you know what? The United States Constitution makes it absolutely clear that they are not in charge. We, the people, are in charge of this country! But Washington - OH. MY. GOSH. The city likes to ignore that. Our intelligence community shrouds everything in secrecy, driving into darkness every dirty memo. And every dirty institutional secret and memory, in the name of national security. But when the leaks come, as so often occurs in the light of day, it reveals nothing about the security of our country and it reveals everything about the corruption of those in power. That is because in a captive society, the loss of transparency results in the loss of truth. 

And I'm thinking, "in the midst of genuine grief, in an understandable passion, as millions of Americans searched for meaningful solutions", the Executive Director of the NRA went off the deep end, way off the deep end, into the dark spiral of paranoia.

I can understand a bit of bad apples in organizations as large as the FBI. But what is hard to understand is why nobody at the FBI stood up and called BS on its rogue leadership. I mean, really, where was the systemic resistance that should protect every powerful institution that serves us? The lowest-ranking Marine knows to resist an unlawful order. The rank and file in every powerful institution must police its own leadership.

Do you think the membership of the NRA was hearing that call, to resist the urges of LaPierre and his bizarro world vision? And do you think LaPierre was right to co-opt the Parkland teens' rallying cry of "we call BS" for his own purpose?

But still, too much of today's Washington, nobody speaks out. Nobody challenges authority. Everyone keeps their mouths closed and their heads down. And that is exactly how socialistic societies function, when leaders do whatever they want, when resistance and repercussion disappears, and when the fundamental concept of moral behavior is expunged. 

The state rules the day and anyone who resists is smeared right into submission. Yep, you know it. - yes, the "art of the smear." 

The state rules the day, and the president, its leader, is a master of the art of the smear - it's one of the ways he vanquished his 16 opponents.

We live in a socialistic age of the art of the smear. It does not have to be true, it just has to stick somewhere, anywhere. It is designed to degrade, destroy, and it is all over the national media to serve their agenda.

Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!  Oh, sorry - I digress. I was practicing the Art of the Smear, which I'm sure will be a new Trump book now that the title has been handed to someone on a sliver platter.

And socialism is a movement that loves the smear. Racists. Misogynist. Sexist. Xenophobia and more. These are the weapons. These character assassinations scream to permanently hang on their targets and create a growing segment of victims. Because socialism feeds off of manipulative victims. You name the group and they will find a way to turn them into victims, they keep their movement growing by finding somebody to be offended every minute of every day.

You know, those 20 manipulative first graders and the six manipulative adults at Sandy Hook, and the 14 manipulative teenagers and three adults at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, and all of the other manipulative victims of other mass shootings, the bastages. 

They do not like free speech any more than they like the Second Amendment. They like only limited speech, controlled speech, controlled by them through safe zones where they can shame the outspoken or riot to shut them up. If you still think that we have full First Amendment freedom in this country, try going right now at Berkeley and speaking out in favor of conservative causes or even the Second Amendment.

Forgetting, he must be, the sad tale of Milo Yiannopoulos. You see,  CPAC's sponsor invited Milo, who was the victim of those riots-against-free-speech-at-Berkeley to speak at the 2017 gathering of this same voodoo-juice-drinking crowd -- and then disinvited him when his free speech was a little too freely offensive. How soon, how soon, the conservatives forget that CPAC is a safe zone itself!

He then talked about how the "socialist state dreams of manipulating schoolchildren" to get information from them, all kinds of information about their parents, what they watch on TV (ironic, since the NRA and LaPierre point out how violent video games cause mass shootings) and if they own guns and stuff.

And all that private information will be entered in to the ultimate list, that cloud of data storage that couldn't care less about due process and constitutional freedom and your privacy as an American citizen and then it is just a short hop to the systematic destruction of our most basic freedoms in this country and you all know what they are, but let me say them: family; faith; individual responsibility; and self destiny. A free market economy; patriotism; respect for our national flag and our national anthem. Personal liberty and justice for all... It will not take long if we stay on the path we are on to erase them completely. That is the consequence of this new socialist wave in America.  

You know, I hear a lot of quiet in this room and I sense your anxiety. And you should be anxious and you should be frightened. If they seize power, if the so-called new European socialists take over the House, and the Senate, and God forbid they get the White House again, our American freedoms could be lost and our country will be changed forever.

I wonder, was the anxiety coming from LaPierre's ranting and raving?  Mine sure was.

And the first to go will be the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. History proves it. Every time, in every nation, in which this political disease rises to power, its citizens are repressed, their freedoms are destroyed, and their firearms are banned and confiscated. It is all backed in this country by the social engineering and the billions (billions of dollars, he means) of people like George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer and more, and gleefully promoted by those who have risen to power in the so-called national news media and seized control of social media to spread their propaganda.

They do not tell us news, you all know it and people know it all over the United States. They say it to me every day, they do not tell us news, they tell us what we need to think... 

You know, some people out there think that the NRA should just stick to its Second Amendment agenda and not talk about all our freedoms, but real freedom requires protection of all of our rights, and the Second Amendment isn't worth its own words in a country where all of our other individual freedoms are destroyed...

Forewarned is forearmed -- the NRA TV channel is looking to be way more bigly involved, and way more bigly accessible, just like NBC and CNN. Which are fake news. And Fox, which is real news, except that it does exactly the same thing as LaPierre just described the media doing, which was bad, in case you didn't catch that.

And now, the big finish - and yes, he does talk about guns again. I forgot that he was the Executive Director of the NRA for a second there - as, I think, did he.

Let's be clear. We are never talking about an armed resistance against the socialist corruption of our government. We are always talking about a resistance armed with the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights in our country. The genius of those documents, the brilliance of America, of our country itself, is all of our freedoms are for every single citizen and there is no greater personal individual freedom than the right to keep and bear arms, the right to protect yourself, and the right to survive. 

It is not bestowed by man, but granted by God to all Americans as our American birthright. So I call right now today on every citizen who loves this country and who treasures freedom to stand and unflinchingly defend the Second Amendment, the one freedom that protects us all in this country.

And yes, in case you were wondering, LaPierre did close with the "the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.

And yes, in case you were wondering, CPAC, according to several reports, including this one, and this one, is a gun-free zone.

My Middle-aged White Lady Perspective: Free Speech

Ann Coulter, the long-standing outspoken conservative, she who was Tomi Lahren before there was a Tomi Lahren, she who may have tossed out a brief Nazi salute at the Republican National Convention (although we know she really didn't), was planning on speaking, in a public square or a triangle park or a traffic circle or something like that on or near the campus of the University of California at Berkeley.

No, seriously, she was going to speak at Sproul Plaza, the site of iconic free speech protests back in the 60s, when free speech was all the rage.

Coulter was invited to speak at Cal-Berkeley by two groups, Bridges USA (politically moderate) and the College Republicans. That invitation was rescinded -- too dangerous, bad, not safe -- but then the University offered her a different date but Coulter was not having it. She wanted Thursday and she was going to take Thursday, whether the university wanted her to or not And whether the police wanted her to or not.

As it turned out, the groups that had invited her backed away, not wanting to be associated with the promised violence and protests. And Coulter, after noting that it was "up to the police to keep her safe" backed down and decided not to show up. Interestingly, she also reminded us that former Homeland Security Security Janet Napolitano is the president of the University of California. And that

She had to keep the entire nation safe. I think she can keep a college campus safe. 

She's got a point there. And of course she's got a way with words, which is why she would make an interesting speaker, whether you agree with her or not.

What the hell is wrong with us that we cannot allow her to speak her mind, at Berkeley of all places? Yes, she's a provocateur; yes, she's opinionated; yes, she's brash, and surely, she's not a lefty. But does that preclude her from speaking anyplace other than on conservative TV and radio shows?

Do her words justify violent protests? Of course they don't. Neither did Milo's, really - and yet, he too was shut down and not allowed to speak at Berkeley, even before the videos suggesting he 'supported' pedophilia were brought to light -- by conservatives -- with the purpose of keeping him from speaking at CPAC.

According to this report, Milo is not done with Berkeley yet. He's planning to "occupy the public plaza" and to host free speech rallies this fall, protesting how the university is handling appearances by folks like him, and Coulter. And, he blamed liberals for the fear of violence.

It's happening because the left knows it's losing. It's losing the political battle and losing the free speech battle. And like a dog being kicked to death, it is lashing out.

He, like Coulter, has a point.

We have a problem, whether it's because the left lost, or because the right thinks everyone on the left is a snowflake. Or, because we have become intolerant of anyone and everyone who does not agree with us.

From my middle aged white lady perspective, threatening violence in an effort to keep someone with whom you disagree from exercising their constitutional right to free speech is not brave, or strong. It's cowardly, and nothing to write home about. And how it got to the point where we interpret our rights to apply only to us and those who agree with us, and not to those who disagree, is beyond me.

Is it our intractable politicians, their heels dug so far into their own ideology that they can barely walk upright?

Perhaps it's the Internet, which encourages anonymity and stokes slowly burning embers of hate?

Or maybe our president, who employed a take-no-prisoners approach to winning, and who, when faced with statements of fact from an opponent, simply yelled "wrong" over and over and over and then moved on to verbally assault the next one?

Or fear, real fear, of being 'taken over' by the other side, by the other guy, by "those people" - you know, the ones who don't look like you or think like you or talk like you or pray like you?

Or patriotism? Are these folks all acting out of some deeply held belief that their vision of America is the only vision, and that only those of the same ilk are allowed to speak?

Former Maryland Senator Barbara Mikulski, who served in the House for ten years and the Senate for 30 before retiring this year, once said

America is not a melting pot, it's a sizzling cauldron.

I don't know the specific context for her remark, but it seems so true, and so sad. Is rage our new identity?

Above I pointed the finger at five possible 'causes' of this, to show how easy it is to blame someone, or some thing, for the actions of others. We're told to do that, we're taught to do that, it seems that's one of the first things we learn.

But we all know where the answer lies - and we know who to blame.  We just have to look in the mirror.

Wondering on Wednesday (v87)

Well, well, well. It's Wednesday again, already. Time for some healthy wondering.

Ann Coulter will not be speaking at Berkeley after she was going to be speaking after she wasn't going to be speaking after she was going to be speaking, at the invitation of Bridge USA and the College Republicans. The two groups (the former a bunch of moderates, the latter a bunch of conservatives) professed an interest in having an open conversation about ideas.

What that all turned into was an open conversation about threats and protests and safety; the first two were guaranteed had Coulter spoken; the third could not be guaranteed in the face of the first two. I wonder, though, would that have been the case had the speaker been more pleasant? We know that Milo wasn't pleasant enough, and now Coulter. Is there anyone on the right would could pass?

Speaking of things that could pass, I hear president Trump has signed another decorative order, um, sorry, Executive Order setting the stage for all kinds of carnage to occur at our national monuments. That's right -- drillbabydrill and minebabymine and digbabydig and blastbabyblast and burnbabyburn and all the rest.

Trump's plan is to put the states back in charge, let them control what happens on the lands within their borders, and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has 120 days to issue a full report on 30 sites created over the past couple of decades, and 45 days to issue his report on what to do with Bears Ears. designated by President Obama in December 2016.

I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one wondering how long before we see Trump hotels, Trump spas, Trump golf courses, and the like where we used to see unspoiled natural resources? Or, will the developer-in-chief decide to stay away, once we have our oil derricks and sawmills and pipelines and the rest crisscrossing our formerly protected sites?

I mean, we say how well he took the idea of wind turbines off the fairways of his golf course at Aberdeenshire, right? According to this report, Trump sent 16 letters to the government complaining about aesthetics, and advising that the turbines would cause economic and political problems.

Don't destroy your coastlines and your countryside with these monstrous turbines. Your economy will become a third world wasteland that global investors will avoid.

I wonder, does he remember saying this? And would not the same thinking apply to pipelines, derricks, fracking rigs and mines? Or does that only happen in Scotland?

Its adverse visual impact on my development and the beautiful Aberdeen coastline will be disastrous and environmentally irresponsible. 

Or, more likely, I'm thinking. does it only matter where Trump has skin in the game?

And finally, speaking of having skin in the game, rumor has it that Trump himself would be a big beneficiary of his tax plan, which will cut the corporate tax rate from 35%  to 15%, even for billionaires like him who file their multinational corporate taxes under their personal returns. The fact that lots of data, such as this example, suggest that US corporations don't pay the 35% top rate but in fact pay something considerably less, with major corporations paying $0 year over year.

It's disingenuous to pretend that the rate on the books is the one that is paid; Trump knows it, Congress knows it, and so do most Americans. That said, I wonder if there's any plan to ensure that corporations, including Trump himself, actually pay that percentage? And if not, why bother making the change?

Is that enough wondering for one night? Well, let's do just one more, circling back on free speech.

Did you hear about Ilie Nastase and his (alleged) delightful comment about Serena Williams' baby, due in the fall?

Let's see what color it has. Chocolate with milk? 

Um, Berkeley, would you have Nastase speak on campus, I wonder?

You Can Say Anything...

On the subject of disliking someone and not want to do business with them, have you met Milo Yiannopoulos, and heard about his incredibly bad adventure?

Milo, the flamboyant, trouble-making, free-speech-advocating, banned-from-Twitter-for-life former senior editor at Breitbart (the Trump Administration's 2nd most-loved news network), was a fave of the alt-right. He'd say anything for the conservative cause and he was the guy the Right sorta kinda hated to love - I mean, he's a pearl necklace-wearing gay man, after all - but they did love him, sorta kinda, because he was a conservative, and that's all the matters. You remember - party over country and all that, which made Donald Trump an acceptable President.

Among the groups Milo has insulted or offended? Women. Lesbians. Fat people. Ugly people. Muslims. Blacks. Whites. Gays. Native Americans. Liberals. Rape victims... the list goes on.

Milo was invited to speak at Cal-Berkeley until the riots let to cancellation of his appearance, causing our alt-President to threaten the University of California.

Soon, Milo was invited to speak at CPAC, that annual clutch of cackling crony-capitalist conservatives. Here was the American Conservative Union's announcement, from Matt Schlapp:

We realize that this invitation will be accompanied by controversy which we think the conservative movement and our CPAC attendees can handle. Each will use his or her individual judgment as to the worthiness of each speaker, including Milo. ACU has publicly taken on racism and the alt-right and will continue to do so aggressively, like ACU's founders before us. We look forward to hearing Milo's message and having him sit down with Scott Walter to answer some tough questions. We believe that all of us are up to the challenge at a time when political correctness is properly being discarded. 

And of course, there was the tweet, too. The one about free speech, and Milo's "important perspective" on conservatism and political correctness and all the rest, I'm sure is what they were hoping for.

If only.

What happened next? Conservatives got upset with the CPAC invitation, and some among them apparently dug up some old videos of Milo's comments on sexual relations between adults and children, in which he seemed to defend pedophilia, or at least that's what it was made to look like.

The troll was trolled, as self-respecting conservatives took control of the narrative.  The CPAC invitation was rescinded in a tweet saying, in part:

Due to the revelation of an offensive video in the last 24 hours condoning pedophilia, the American Conservative Union has decided to rescind the invitation... We realize that Mr. Yiannopoulos has responded on Facebook but it is insufficient. It is up to him to answer the tough questions...

Which is sort of ironic, since the invitation itself was made based on the premise of Milo answering "tough questions" (albeit a different set of them, I'm sure).

And then, Simon and Schuster cancelled his book deal. And then came his resignation from Breitbart.

Milo is far from done 'being Milo.' His book will come out this year as planned, he said -- other publishers have expressed interest, and he'll of course add a chapter on this most recent part of his life. His "important perspective" will continue to be heard, somewhere, I'm sure.

Whether or not he rises from the fire he himself created, his name will live on, along with the rest of the folks who have been taken down by using their free speech rights to purposely, or accidentally, offend others.