Do the Press Lie? Are they indeed the enemy of the American People?

I am constantly torn between remaining calm and principled in the face of lies that, should they be believed, will change an election, and doing as Trump is doing and "hitting" back rhetorically.  Jonah Goldberg makes some good points in his article today at Townhall.com entitled The Logic of the Vendetta Now Guides Our Politics. He is right, and he is wrong. At some point, we need to defend ourselves, and our actions. President Bush (both 41 and 43) showed us the pitfalls of being stoical in the face of constant attacks from the media. The Left just kept coming after them. Then there is the story of the Proud Boys over at the American Thinker. Go read it, and tell me, Mr. Goldberg, what are people to take away from that. Doesn't it sound like the press has taken sides, again, and rather than fairly reporting events wants to color events to the Proud Boys disadvantage?

After meeting with the police to give a statement on what I saw, I was confident that justice would be served. I could have never imagined what was next to come. A complete inversion of reality was widely reported by the press, who seized upon the incident to fabricate an "October Surprise" to damage the GOP's chances for November's midterm elections. Top Democratic officials, including the New York governor, New York City public advocate, and the attorney general all badmouthed the Proud Boys publicly and called for their prosecution for defending their rights and engaging in self-defense during other incidents that night. Antifa assailants are referred to simply as “protestors” while a multiracial and multiethnic group of Proud Boys are defamed as “White Nationalists” in the press, being simultaneously “doxxed” by the online wing of the Antifa mob. Now, the feeding frenzy has started. Our stand for freedom against leftist terror has been completely spun. Out-of-context quotes from Gavin McInnes are being used to paint him as a right-wing militant leader when he in all actuality he just runs a patriotic fraternal group who like America and beer. Antifa’s acts of terror and manifesto promising more violence were glossed over completely in nearly all reports.

The Proud Boys, it should be noted, are a group of men who are, as they say, "Western Chauvinists" who accept all men who share their philosophy. Ladies can join the Proud Boys' Girls.  They are not alt-right, which are really yet more collectivist ninnies. Instead they do not buy into political correctness, nor the reparations nonsense. In fact, if their website is any indication, they sound pretty normal.  So, its no surprise The Southern Poverty Lie ...er... Law Center has them down as a hate group, which means they don't really hate anyone.

I  have a story of my own.  We were stationed in Panama in the late 1980s, during the time George H. W. Bush was trying to extract Noriega from Panama for trafficking in drugs to the United States.  Noriega was playing the administration for a fool in the press.  To that end, he would stage "protestors" for the cameras to make a bunch of noise, burn tires, and look threatening.  The action would take place on the street on a particular block. The protestors themselves viewed this as a job, and typically went home for lunch.  They were a rent-a-mob who protested whatever someone would pay them to protest.  Meanwhile, through editing, close up shots, and other photo illusions, the reporting on CNN was that the entire city was ablaze, and Anti-Americanism was rampant.  Nothing could have been further from the truth.

We got CNN on the Armed Forces Radio and Television station, so I knew what CNN was reporting first hand.  When we would call home, my mother was frightened  for us, so I figured NBC, CBS and ABC were showing similar footage of "Panama burning."  We often explained that we had just been downtown, and everything was fine.  But to her, it looked to be true, and she probably thought we just didn't want her to worry.

I remembered going to Universal Studios, where one of the stops along the tour was "Tarzan's Jungle."  The jungle was a stand of trees about 600 square feet in extent, and the entire Tarzan series of films starring Johnny Weissmuller was filmed in that tiny area.  Yet on screen, Johnny Weissmuller's Tarzan seems bigger than life, his territory seems to extend to the ends of the earth.  That is the power of photo illusions.

Meanwhile, at the same time that CNN was inflaming the American public, they were bashing President Bush, in hopes of getting rid of him at the next election and electing instead another Democrat.  They succeeded by the way.  CNN and the rest of the MSM should use the power of photography to inform, but they don't.  Instead they use it to shape a story to fit an agenda.  In doing so, they lie.

So tell me, are the media the enemy of the American people as President Trump says?  it is difficult to see where he is wrong.  So sad.

Guns are in America's DNA

Over at Bearing Arms, Tom Knighton has a post entitled The Gun and How It Made America Great, that in turn refers to a Daily Signal interview with the David Harsanyi, author of a new book First Freedom: A Ride Through America's Enduring History With the Gun. David Harsanyi also blogs at Townhall.com.

I suggest you read both links, then come back here for a short commentary.

Have you read them both?  Good. Now, I have not read the book yet, but will be purchasing it soon.  The book sounds like one that should be on the book shelves of every shooter.

Harsanyi makes two points that I want to emphasize.  The first is that the right of self defense, and the right to bear arms precedes other rights such as free speech and freedom of religion.  Indeed, it can be traced back at least to the Roman law, and the Bible itself makes clear that you have the duty of self defense.  Second is that the Second Amendment directly supports and defends the rest of the Bill of Rights.  We have seen how the Left has attempted to undermine the other rights listed in the Bill of Rights.  Due process has been undermined, as well as Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights in their pursuit of the President and their maniacal focus on guns as opposed to the people who wield them.  We can not let the left near the levers of power. 

The 50th Anniversary of the GCA 68

David Codrea of the War on Guns reminds us that today is the 50th anniversary of the Gun Control Act of 1968, aka GCA68. I was in high school at the time, but even then, as a very young conservative, who would spend many years reading, thinking, and formulating the principles that under gird my conservatism, I realized that GCA68 represented a great loss of freedom for the people of the United States, and that the gun grabbers would not stop with GCA68.

Be sure to go read Codrea's Rights Watch column at Guns Magazine for some interesting historical data.  For those who remember a time before GCA68, this is the anniversary of a sad loss.

Not one more inch.   

Leftists Go Berserk After Trump Promises To Go After Voter Fraud

Voter fraud is a problem in our election process because in a number of key districts, it often doesn't require that many illegal votes to make a significant difference nationally. I am reminded of the Al Franken election where after counting the votes, and finding that he was short, a Franken operative suddenly "found" some uncounted Franken votes in the trunk of his car. What luck, right?  But, it gave the Senate to the Democrats, and sealed the Obamacare bill's passage in the Senate.  A few votes in a key district gave us yet another socialist law that we likely will never be able to get rid of.

Scott Morefield has an article discussing voter fraud at Townhall.com entitled President Trump Takes Aim at Voter Fraud, Liberals Go Berserk. Morefield writes:

From decrying illegal immigration to espousing an America First trade policy, from denouncing “angry mobs” to taking jabs at “Crazy Maxine” and “Pocahontas,” few would disagree that when it comes to triggering lefties, President Trump is the ultimate Zen master. And given the president’s almost superhuman ability to drive the Left insane with the push of a few buttons to his Twitter account, one might be forgiven for being surprised that one seemingly ubiquitous Saturday tweet topped all or most of the rest, not by calling someone “Horseface” (although yeah, that was hilarious) or taking another well-deserved jab at Robert Mueller’s “witch hunt,” but by bringing a key issue to light that the Left desperately wants to hide.

Namely - voter fraud.

“All levels of government and Law Enforcement are watching carefully for VOTER FRAUD, including during EARLY VOTING,” Trump tweeted. “Cheat at your own peril. Violators will be subject to maximum penalties, both civil and criminal!”

And of course, the Left has gone berserk. They have accused the President of "voter suppression." What voter suppression? If you are only voting once, under your own name, and you are registered to vote, why should you feel fearful of voting? As for presenting your identification, what's the big deal.  You do it all the time for lesser things like writing a check at a grocery store.  They have also claimed that voter fraud doesn't exist, so the President is wasting law enforcement's time going after it.  But, having law enforcement track down voter fraud seems like small beer compared to the billions wasted elsewhere in the budget.   But Morefield has an explanation:

Now if you’re a normal person reading this, you might think - ‘What’s the big deal? Isn’t Trump basically saying law enforcement will be looking out for, uh, those who, you know … BREAK THE LAW?’ And you’d be entirely correct, but remember when it comes to liberals we aren’t talking about “normal” people, not on any intellectual or moral level. We’re talking about people whose entire lives revolve around obtaining power, retaining power, and using that power to pound the rest of us into submission. By any means necessary. So when Trump or anyone else to the right of center talks about an issue like voter fraud, liberals don’t hear ‘law and order’ or ‘fair elections,’ but instead they see it as mean-old-Trump trying to take away one of their primary tools for stealing elections.

So, power is what motor voter laws are about. It is what same day registration is about. It's what early voting is ultimately about. Go read the entire article. Voter fraud is only getting worse, and will continue getting worse until it is taken seriously. It really does make a difference, sometimes a big difference. Go read the whole article by Scott Morefield.  Also check out Project Veritas, who has this this recording up from 2015. but things haven't changed.

Operation Choke Point: Yet another Obama era attack on normal Americans

Recently, several banks including Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citibank, and J.P. Morgan  have taken actions to deny firearms related business banking services from their institutions.  According to Tony Oliva at Bullets First these banks are also the most complained about. Indeed, the list of things pulled on their customers makes one think they should be charged under the RICO statute.

Yet, not only do these four banks rate as the most complained about financial institutions in the country but they also all have policies in place to punish, deny and/or harrass American’s who DARE to exercise their 2nd Amendment rights. I don’t mean that these banks simply hide under the naive cloak of gun free zones in their establishments. No, these banks have systematically and aggressively attempted to undermine the business of firearms in this country.

Bank of America has twice attacked gun manufacturers with monetary terrorism in recent years. McMillan Firearms Manufacturing were forced to close their accounts last year and transfer their business infrastructure elsewhere simply because they manufactured firearms...

...snip...

During the Christmas season of 2012, when guns are often purchased as Christmas and other Holiday Gifts, the sales from American Spirit Arms went up. In response to this Bank of America FROZE Spirit Arms accounts for THREE WEEKS starting on December 18th. For nearly a month American Spirit Arms could not access that money and the financial impact nearly sent them under at a time when they should have been the most profitable.

When Joseph Sirochman, owner of American Spirit Arms, contacted BoA he was told by a manager at the bank that the accounts and deposits would be held under “further review” and that, as a policy “we believe you should not be selling gun and parts on the internet.”

I don’t know about you but I don’t think that Bank of America should be allowed to use the word America in their name as their actions are about as un-American as they come.

As always, please go read Mr. Oliva's post.

Now, these banks did not start this directly because of the Obama Administration "Operation Choke Point," but they were certainly emboldened by it.  And now, we have Proof of authoritarianism in the form of:

A lawsuit against federal banking regulators filed last Friday in Washington D.C. may appear at first blush to be a simple case of due process violation but, according to at least one legislator and a former ambassador, documents released in the case actually prove an Obama-era program, long thought to prevent some businesses disfavored by that administration from operating, was doing exactly that.

You can read the article, written by Sarah Lee at Townhall.com under the title Proof of authoritarianism: Operation Choke Point Revisited. In the modern world, the extending of credit to businesses is a requirement. A business will hire people to produce a product, and others to sell that product. There is typically a lag between when the product is produced, and when the business receives funds for the sale of its products. The middle man here is the bank, which extends credit to keep the employees paid, the lights on, and the businesses creditors paid until the business receives the funds from the sale of its product and pays the bank back the money it has borrowed, with of course, interest. They may also seek funds as capitol for expanding the business, building new facilities, or buying new tooling. Such is true of all businesses. Thus, banking services may be seen as a utility. Utilities may not deny services to any legal business, which are businesses producing legal products.

 In the case of American Spirit Arms, B of A essentially withheld the funds American Spirit had earned, and with which it would have paid off its loans, thus forcing American Spirit out of business based solely on a philosophy.  Of course, our A rated by the NRA Congress should have done something to stop this, but I am glad at least one victim of these arrogant banks are taking them to court.  Perhaps with a more Constitutionally minded Supreme Court we will finally get some relief.

To B of A and the rest, please note: the money deposited in your banks by us is not your money.  It is ours.  We have a fiduciary relationship with you, but you may not tell us how to spend our funds, no matter that you disagree. 

Fed Up? #MeToo!

I don't write much about feminists, screaming harpies, or whatever bad behavior passes into the public realm.  Like a lot of men, I don't like it, but the fact is that the only reason it is allowed at all is because we men tolerate it.  We wouldn't have to, you know.  If we were to adopt Islam-like practices, we could keep women, as they like to say, barefoot and pregnant.  And yet, the fact that women are allowed to say these things, to scream at their husbands, cause them public shame, to make outlandish claims, and otherwise make asses of themselves belies the claims themselves.  For have you ever heard that Muslim men are pigs, and treat their wives badly from the wives themselves?  No?  It is because in the Muslim world, they do not tolerate it.   In the West, we do.

We have recently witnessed the #metoo movement suck up a bunch of piggish men who used power in a particular field to obtain sex.  I say to obtain sex because the word "seduce" implies more naivete on the part of the women than is believable.  The women in each case wanted something the man had, and the man wanted something the women had.  It seems to me that in the Harvey Weinstein case, and others like it, that what we are actually talking about is prostitution.  The women wanted stardom, and were willing to give up sex to get it. Not exactly the story the #metoo movement wants to tell.

Now, women are sometimes mistreated.  Women who are genuinely raped, or beaten by domestic partners, do indeed need the protection of the law.  Protection orders are all fine and good, but they are only worth whatever the government can afford, which isn't much.  So, a woman in this position should obtain a gun, and learn how to use it.  The "men" who do these things need to be punished, and the women need to be treated with respect, but we should in no way relax the legal standards of evidence, or of giving the defendant the right to confront his accuser.  But of course this is not what the #metoo movement is about.  In saying to believe all women, it wants to destroy the legal underpinnings of our society. They want one half the population to be able to simply say what they want and have it obeyed, on pain of a false claim.

Sorry, "ladies."  We men will tolerate much, and much more than we perhaps should, but but you and your pajama boy toys don't get to do that to us.  Now run along a play, and allow us men, and the REAL women out there, to get back to work.

Cowering Before the Party of Evil

Ben Shapiro at the Daily Wire tells us that Political Correctness and its enforcers are not really all that popular.

Huh!

Shapiro writes that:

On Wednesday, Yascha Mounk, lecturer on government at Harvard University, wrote a fascinating piece for The Atlantic regarding a new study from Stephen Hawkins, Daniel Yudkin, Miriam Juan-Torres and Tim Dixon, titled Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape. There’s a lot of fascinating material in the report, but Mounk picks out the biggest gem: Americans hate political correctness. Or at least nearly all Americans do, the only exceptions being far-Left progressives.

And who are these far-Left progressives? They’re disproportionately white and upper class.

Yep, their the young people who, rather than feeling grateful as they should, feel guilty that they have so much. But instead of doing what they should if they feel this way (hint: give it away to the poor and make your own way in the world) think the rest of us should give up what our fathers and mothers have bequeathed us. My mother and father worked hard to get out of poverty and give us a better life than they had. Sorry if you rich kids feel guilty about it, but I ain't givin' it up. Go peddle your crap somewhere else.

And please, gentle readers, go to the link and read the whole article. Then go out an enjoy breaking some so called "rules" of PC. It's fun to piss off a liberal snowflake on occasion.

And while your at it, go look at a scene from one of my favorite anti PC movies here.

Meanwhile, Michael Reagan, son of the great President Ronald Reagan writes a piece at Townhall.com entitled The Party of Evil. Now, you may be wondering what ties these two pieces together. And here it is: the enforcers of PC often feel guilty for having more than others, but the Democrat politicians do not. Instead, they manipulate these poor misguided people for their own ends. It is like someone taking advantage of a mentally disabled individual to take his lunch money.  Go read also the Party of Evil.