You might want to sit down in order to ease the shock of this one: California Governor Gavin “$800 Haircut” Newsom wants to slap a massive tax on the sale of legal firearms and then spend that money on things like outreach programs to LA street gangs… where for the first time, MS-13 members will have a chance to learn that murder, rape and theft are BAD and they shouldn’t do them because it’s not very nice.
Join our crack team of elite anti-elitists by becoming a member or making a one-time donation right here:
https://billwhittlecom.wpenginepowered.com/register/
33 replies on “California Schemin’”
Texas, Bill. I know you don’t like the weather in Florida. Leave. Now.
Why is it the Democrat solution to every problem is the throw taxpayer money at it, and then when it doesn’t work, claim its because they didn’t throw enough? RA is correct. The whole party is a grift. All they want is more more more. They are the Blob.
Notice that neither Democrat politicians nor their aids in the MSM ever look at the results of any policy. They only talk about the intended outcome.
When that does not occur (inevitable as that is to us with logic centers) there is no after action review, or introspection about what went wrong.
That is because fixing a problem was never the goal.
Setting up another government program to spread the wealth is the goal.
And they never end. A case in point: The US EPA
Excerpt from EPA About Us Page:
Forgetting what the full 37 points were at the moment, let’s look at a few things.
1 – US Rivers and Lakes and Reservoirs are MUCH cleaner than they were in the 70s. Even the Hudson river upon which I took sailing lessons as a teen and swam in thus giving me an absolutely amazing immune system is much cleaner than it was then.
2 – While there are occasional oil spills, they are few and far between and our ability to respond is better.
3 – The earth is greener (literally, not in a “Green” sense) than it was with more robust and fuller plant life and much less use of harmful pesticides.
4 – The air quality is far better, even in LA with tens of millions of cars traveling every day. The sky is now clear and blue, unless there is a forest fire which is the result of EPA types over stepping their bounds.
There are countless more examples.
My point is that in a sane society, where an organization was created for a specific purpose, once that goal was achieved we would eliminate the organization. (Looking at you NATO). You could always reconstitute it if needed at a later date. Oh, and every state has a Department of Environmental Quality or some equivalent. They can look after themselves.
The US EPA should be eliminated instead of having a bunch of people looking for new problems where ones don’t exist.
But that is not what Dems and RINOs do. As Ronald Reagan opined, there is nothing so permanent as a federal program. In this case a whole department.
This is all true but in my mind we need to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
If we just close down the EPA and turn our backs on industrial waste issues those rivers will become flammable again. The industrialists didn’t magically become moral at the expense of their bottom lines, they’ll take whatever route makes them the most money. That is what you get with unrestrained, unregulated free enterprise and why would it not be? Fines cut into the bottom line and act as great deterrents.
Indeed, the climate change claptrap that is so in vogue happens to be detrimental to environmental quality because so much time and money is spent on global warming that real issues of pollution are being backgrounded. Climate change is sucking all the air out of that room.
NATO is another matter. The whole point of NATO is the threat from Russia and always has been. It’s not like Zaire or Borneo are going to attack Europe. The problem with NATO isn’t that it has outlived its usefulness. NATO is what’s keeping Russia out of the rest of Europe right now. Putin would love to gobble up Poland but alas, Poland is now in NATO. If he bites that bean he eats the whole burrito.
So the issue there is one of the things Trump got right. Stop footing the bill from America and make the other members pay for their own defense too. Too many NATO members over time have slacked on their own defense because they had NATO to prop them up. Membership in NATO should be contingent on your contribution. If you don’t contribute your entire calculated fair share you get the boot.
Etc. We need the FBI because it is one of the very big reasons we haven’t seen another Oklahoma City or 9/11. There are good FBI agents out there at this very moment intercepting that kind of thing, chasing bank robbers and embezzlers and what a lot of people don’t know is that it’s the FBI that keeps your local law enforcement on the straight and narrow.
So how to keep the baby and toss the filthy bathwater is the real dilemma.
Sadly, the solutions aren’t very simple, but that’s true about most things and no surprise.
A couple things that would help is if it were law, or better yet a Constitutional Amendment, that every new government agency formed must have a sunset clause. A sunset clause is what killed Bill Clinton’s “assault weapons ban” when a Republican Congress refused to renew it.
If an agency had to be reviewed and renewed every 10 years or so, it would be a lot more careful about how it behaves. It would know that eventually on one of those review anniversaries a political party hostile to them may be in power. So better not to tread on toes on either side of the aisle.
Another is a budgetary cap during those ten years that only allows for inflation. Mission creep and mission bloom are a serious problem.
If you want the EPA to monitor the environment and refer transgressors to the courts for pecuniary punishment and nothing more than that — Only give them enough money to do that. If they don’t have the funds to go chasing red herrings and meddling in things they should not then lack of money to do those things is a real show stopper.
Where that’s not applicable a budget cut is also a good mechanism. Speaking to the FBI as an example …
“You’re supposed to be chasing bank robbers, embezzlers, real terrorists and bad cops. If you have enough money to waste on Catholic patriots in Richmond and parents of school children across the entire nation you obviously have too much money. So we’re going to trim your budget back to allow for ONLY what you’re supposed to be doing. If you waste that money on other things neglecting your actual duties then you’re still getting too much money and further reductions are in order. The beatings will continue until conduct improves or you destroy your own agency.”
Aside from a Constitutional Amendment or Amendments, all of these things could be easily accomplished during any swing of the political pendulum when Republicans are in power. That these Republicans do not seem concerned enough to do that is the fault of the Republicans who are supposed to be in charge of that sort of thing. When they have the power to right these wrongs and do not do so, that’s on them and they should be held accountable at the voting booth.
I would argue with this to the extent that every state has an equivalent organization now to the EPA. VA DEQ are the ones who come to our plant every year, unannounced and randomly, to test the effluent coming from our plant to the sewers. I trust VA DEQ more to look after VA rivers and waterways than I do a bureaucrat in DC. If I lived in North Dakota or Alaska that would be more true.
Agreed, and I worked for one at one time who didn’t care what he dumped. The cost of removing tainted soil and the fine finally convinced him to do it the right way. Had he never gotten caught, he would have continued. But he did (it was inevitable) and had to write several big checks.
A sunset clause would be nice. Putting all of these agencies back into the very small box that they began life in would also be a good start. A quick search shows the EPA has over 17,000 permanent employees and over 18,000 when temps are included. Adding buildings, supplies etc that means they easily have a budget in excess of $2Billion.
And thanks to congress never doing a budget, that number just keeps growing. (Aside: I heard a stat the other day that since the 60s there have been 78 Continuing Resolutions rather than actual budget bills.) Just based upon that alone every member of the house should be removed from office.
Perfect: The Blob.
The Demonrat America-hating scums-of-the-Earth prove themselves as traitors once again. The problem with publicizing the collapse of CA is that it will never make it out of CA. The Leftist main-swine-media-monolith will continue to propagandize the ignorant masses into “thinking” that Demonrats are Americans and that CA is still a prosperous part of America.
I’m pretty tired of Americans claiming that Leftists “don’t understand” the value of the 2nd Amendment (and the rest of the Bill of Rights). The sewer rat Leftists “understand” it better than most Americans do. That’s precisely why they attack everything that’s American.
If you have a problwem with discerning motives, a) read your Bible, b) read our criminal code, and c) be honest with yourself as to your own sinful motivations. A little prayerful digging will reveal your own sinful motives for anything.
Right off the top of my head I came up with two “programs” that did all of this and had been doing it for years – Church and NRA. But these same far left nitwits got rid of them because they can’t hold up at all to valid competition.
Scott at 14:32 – “It’s a shame we have to waste so much time and money to …: I believe that is the point of the exercise. Issues like abortion, guns, and how to deal with them, race and so on …these issues are never going to be resolved because they are guaranteed fund raisers. Solving or resolving them stops the $$$ flow and so, will not happen.
Navin Gruesome only (gleefully) signed the legislation that was provided by the legislature …. which is actually the larger problem!
Gun ownership and purchase-ability is already seriously compromised and reduced in Kaliphoney, by way of gun safety standards and drop test requirements that few weapons can actually pass.
Yes,Bill, it’s insulting. And it’s meant to be. This is the form of humiliation that appeals to Evil.
How ’bout teaching gang kids how to shoot? Maybe then, they’ll do a better job of killing each other without hitting so many innocent bystanders
My wife, who’s a nurse, was talking with a county sheriff in Utah while she was delivering his baby a number of years ago and he made the same exact statement to her. Luckily the discussion was between his wife’s contractions!
The real conundrum, the truly baffling thing about Leftist politics, is not the Leftist agenda or the Leftist politicians that push it. There’s nothing baffling about them at all. They just want power, prestige and exemption from the consequences of their policies.
What’s baffling is that people will support that agenda to their own very real detriment.
If you make guns and ammo more expensive then people on the poorer end of the economic scale with be the most adversely affected. A person making six figures just grumbles about the added cost to the transaction of buying guns or ammo. A poor person simply cannot afford to buy these things and must do without.
Strangely enough, the former probably lives in a low risk area and the latter lives in a place where the likely need for self defense is much, much greater. So this has the practical effect of disarming or denying arms to the people who need them most. The consequence then being that more criminals will kill more innocents because a drug dealing thug can afford to buy his weapons on the black market and doesn’t pay a penny in tax anyway.
So what happens politically? The very same people who now stand a much greater chance of being murdered vote for those who put laws in place to make being helpless to avoid their own murders more certain. While rich elitist Democrats tell them this is helpful to them.
The really weird thing about this is that Kalifornia does not have a body politic that is preponderantly rich elitist Democrats. The rich elitist Democrats are a very tiny minority of the voting population in Kalifornia and a very small minority of those who vote Democrat. The people voting Democrat who are being suckered by the rich elitists they put in office could change this easily if they wanted to.
You’d think they’d want to.
It’s not just the topic of guns and ammo where this applies. This approach is de rigueur all across the policies and platform of the Democrat Left. Another example is …
Poor people can’t afford the higher energy costs that are being artificially inflated to support making “green” energy, which is not really ecologically sound nor a bit “green”, more competitive with cheap hydrocarbon energy. Poor people cannot afford to buy needlessly expensive gasoline and poor people cannot afford to pay for the upgrades to an aging, failing electrical power grid via their electric bills either. Poor people cannot afford to scrap their low cost third or fourth hand gasoline powered vehicles to buy a new electric vehicle. Etc.
Yet this is the default position of the Democrat Left and for some weird reason poor people keep voting the Democrat Left into power.
The Democrat Left has created a class of virtual slaves both ideologically and through economic dependence on entitlements. The Democrat Left KNOWS they’ve done this. They not only don’t care that they’ve done this, it is in fact the mechanism by which they gain the power, prestige and exemption from their own policies which is their actual goal. This is not a difference of political viewpoints, it is true Evil with a capital “E”.
Slavery in America is back and it’s very real. It’s a different form of slavery than the chattel slavery we abolished a century and a half ago but it is slavery nonetheless. In both the case of chattel slavery and modern virtual slavery the enslavement was accomplished by the Democrat Party. The only significant difference being that in chattel slavery the slaves were taken by force and compelled to do the will of Democrats under threat of severe physical punishment or death. Now the slaves are voting for their own enslavement.
Slavery at its most basic root is simply finding a way to compel people to act in your own interest and against their own interests. It doesn’t have to take the form of chattel slavery, any form that accomplishes that goal is still a form of slavery. Any form of slavery is counter to the American Way of personal liberty. The more subtle the more evil.
As it progresses, slavery will always become more drastic in application. In ancient Rome slaves were treated like members of the household. In antebellum America slaves were treated like beasts of burden. As this virtual slavery progresses in America the slaves must become ever more dependent on their masters for their very existence. That’s the only way to make inherently free people accomplish their own enslavement.
This is a facet of the Evil that our Founding Fathers attempted to suppress with the form of government they handed down to us. That form of government actually works so Evil has been working to dilute and destroy it since the last signature was affixed to the U.S. Constitution.
If slavery is evil, and it certainly is by our American way of looking at things, then this modern slavery is as evil as any other. Which means that it is being driven, supported and maintained by Evil.
That doesn’t mean that every American who votes Democrat is evil. The thing about Evil is that it must be amazingly expert in the Art of Deception or people would recognize it for the Evil it truly is and reject it. It must always find a way to present itself as Good. Evil is very, very skilled at doing that, it’s had the entirety of human history to hone the skill of lying.
People in general are first fooled, then duped, then locked in step with Evil by coercive means. The average Democrat voter is not evil, he is a victim of Evil. He supports Evil at first truly believing himself doing Good. By the time it should be obvious that he’s not doing Good he’s sunk enough investment in his own vanity that he cannot turn back. Or he’s snared in an intentional web of crippling economic parasitism. Or some other means that Evil uses to advance itself. Evil is no slacker. It is diligent and purposeful and so has many means of propagating and perpetuating itself.
We should resist and oppose such people but we should not condemn them because they are not where the blame lies.
The blame belongs solidly on the shoulders of those truly evil people who know they’re doing this. Who have seared their consciences, betrayed their own intellects, intentionally abandoned the principles of our Good Republic and sold their souls to Evil for power, prestige and exemption from their own policies.
Gavin Newsom is a perfect example of this type of evil person.
In order to defeat these truly evil people, their evil must be exposed for what it is. The Democrat Left has no problem at all in demonizing us, falsely naming us as evil. It’s not harsh, excessive or unwarranted for us to turn the tables on that deception by vigorous application of the truth.
Any politician on our side that wants to nullify this true evil must make an emphatic effort in pointing it out. Evil cannot stand being dragged into the light and exposed. Lies don’t work when people know the liar is false. This is an ancient truth and until the people who claim to be on our side start doing this they’re not going to start winning. Which means they’re not really on our side at all.
This is an impressive article. Do you publish anywhere? I’d love to read more of your essays…
Thank you Jennifer, but no, I don’t publish anywhere. I wouldn’t even know where to start with something like that. I come here because Bill and Co. are the closest to my views, and I think the most potent agents for real Conservatism, of anyone I’ve ever seen.
I stay here for that reason and because they let me say anything, pretty much, that I want to. And they let me say it the way I want to.
With the exception of some attention-deficit sufferers with small minds among the membership who think that anything more than a 256 character tweet is someone being “full of themselves” — I can say what I want even when that’s not comfortable to everyone, nor particularly polite. That’s valuable to me.
These essays, and you are absolutely right that they ARE essays, are my way of thought processing. It’s all spontaneous and I try to stick to or at least weave in the topic under consideration. I start with an idea, I generally have no idea where it’s going to end up when I start. I cover that idea, then I explore the ramifications and arguments in support of that idea.
I don’t just fire off a short comment of what I think about some issues because in my mind that’s just an empty opinion devoid of support. Opinions are cheap as dirt and just as common. Supported, well thought out opinions are a much rarer thing. An opinion may be right but if you can’t explain why it’s right it does not tend to propagate. I try to explain why I think a certain way. And why other people should think that way too.
I don’t post these essays on the member blog because far fewer people read those blogs than watch the videos and read the comments here. Here is where I get the best exposure for my efforts and I’m always ready and willing to discuss, defend or modify my opinions as may be appropriate.
And of course not everything I post on this site is an essay either.
I confess, I learned this bad habit from Bill Whittle. Because Bill is very adept at putting ideas together in a way that not only makes sense but resources people with arguments for our side of the political conflict. Knowledge is power but understanding is ammunition.
One of the things I greatly admire about Bill Whittle is his adamant refusal to be censored or coerced into more politically correct speech. One of the things I’m most grateful to him for is that he also grants us that same prerogative here on the site.
Bill has said he rarely reads comments and when he does he prefers short ones to the sort of essay I often post. I don’t know if that’s a function of available time or just a personal preference. I know Bill tends to take things to heart more strongly than is good for his own peace of mind and I suspect his stoic demeanor the last couple episodes has less to do with an encounter with a germ than it does with a post an old biddy put up demanding he apologize to her because of a clearly harmless joke.
A thicker hide would be good for Bill but … A good man doing good work who has something stupid like that thrown in his face can suffer damage from such things too. Like it or not, that’s an indication of a good man, that he internalizes such things. That said, it’s not a particularly good thing for someone with a broad exposure to any and all sorts of people to deal with. People can be mean for their own selfish reasons. I can be mean too, but rarely over something selfish, or at least I’m aware enough to try to avoid doing that.
All of that being the case, if I ever say anything that Bill, Scott or Steve would like to use, they’re most welcome to do so with my hearty permission and I would consider that a great honor. I’m in this for the fight so anything that advances our side I’m all for. And …
Anything that hurts our cause, especially if it comes in the form of friendly fire from our side, I’m going to attack vigorously too. We have enough problems without people nominally allied with Conservatism to go shooting us all in the foot and crippling our cause.
Flopping Aces (where I’m a contributor) accepts guest posts. Drop a line some time – it’s a good way to amplify your voice!
It’s odd to me more people don’t know about “Rules for Radicals” by Saul Alinsky. It’s right out in the open. One of the best tricks they have is accusing us of what they themselves are doing. Thus, we are the evil power grabbers. If I could get a copy without paying for it, i would and read it. Knowing your enemy is crucial.
Knowing evil is important. One of the reasons I read the Bible constantly. Also why I read “The Prince” by Machiavelli, and “1984” by Orwell. I read “The Art of War” for strategy. And for the rules about our Republic, I look to our Constitution
“Rules for Radicals” ends by referring to Lucifer. Prince of lies. The Bible is Truth.
I read somewhere that the members of the Secret Service who deal with counterfeiting look at and handle real money first before they look at counterfeits. That way, just looking and feeling at counterfeits gives them a “Something is off here” feeling. Then they can figure out what is wrong.
We should do the same.
“If I could get a copy without paying for it…”
Find a counter-culture bookshop that carries it, and steal it. That way, you deny Alinsky the profits from his ‘evil capitalistic venture’ and strike a blow for the proletariat!
Just be sure to disguise yourself in Birkenstocks and a hair shirt with ratty jeans (Levis, if you want to add additional support for the Leftists) when you make the “Liberation”.
It’s the ultimate “Playing by their rules” act…
I like your approach but I’m betting Harry being Harry is not an accomplished thief and would get himself caught. Your post gives me a chuckle but I’d hate to see our good friend Harry get himself in hot water.
As it turns out, Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals” is an open source publication available for free here …
https://archive.org/details/RulesForRadicals
The various formats in which it is available are on the right side of the page and includes several common file types including EPUB, Kindle, PDF, Full Text and Torrent.
It’s probably better if Harry goes there and gets a legitimate free copy rather than defile himself impersonating a morally deficient deviant scumbag. I don’t think he can pull that off.
Although not an expert thief, you might be surprised what i have gotten away with. (But stealing only if absolute necessity, and this isnt. And thank you for providing the source. Going there soon.)Mainly being somewhere where I shouldn’t have been. I have found looking like you belong and acting casually people ignore you. And with a fast mind (and often preparation) I can lie convincingly. But what I’m really good at is telling the truth in such a way that it is not believed. “Oh, of course I’m not supposed to be here. That’s why I’m right in your face and not trying to hide.” With a tone and face that suggests the opposite. … For an example.
Do I lie a lot? Nope. Was where I was not supposed to be in any way harmful? Nope. Otherwise I would not be there.
Yes, I’m am basically an honest person. Good thing too, being as devious as I can be.
See my reply to Phil LeMay in this thread. Remember, you have a friend who has spent a significant portion of his life in the Information field. That would be me. If you need some information all you need do is ask. If it’s available, and even in this Information Age not all things are, I can find it.
Glad I caught your eye, and I hope that post gave you a chuckle. It was finely crafted with tongue firmly in cheek!
I also don’t wish to see our friend Harry in the hoosegow, so I endorse your linkage to the OS text.
(BTW, got a copy of the Anarchists Cookbook lying about? I’m thinking that might come in handy ITNF)
I used to have an original copy of the Anarchists Cookbook but it got lost somewhere along the many moves over the years. Or more likely stolen, now that I think about it.
You can get it online but frankly I’m a bit worried about going looking for it. Even with a compound VPN connection. Which is a browser VPN stacked on a Windows NIC TAP full system VPN.
I like my peace and quiet a lot so hate the idea of suits coming for a visit. I get nor want many visitors. Like the damned flies from neighboring livestock dung piles, I’m pretty sure they’d just ignore my “Go Away” mat in front of the door, too. Then there’d be unpleasant complications I’d sooner avoid. Mostly I’m not real worried about those guys, they know exactly where to find me if they want to talk to me. I’d just as soon not give them any reason to come talk to me.
My days of excitement and adventure are long past and good riddance to them. I’m just a mostly harmless old phart with no intentions of hurting anyone. 😉
I really doubt I will but … If I ever need something like that the more likely scenario is that I’d just “acquire” real um … stuff … from people who for whatever reason don’t need it anymore. Or plan and direct the events that would accomplish that. I’m getting old so that’s a game for younger people. I kind of doubt there will be a need in what remains of my lifetime but you never know. Better to plan for the worst and hope for the best.
That’s sort of my default position on just about everything. It’s why I have 3 large generators and two small ones that I hardly ever use and are a PITA to keep in a constant state of readiness. Mostly they sit around sucking up my time and resources but when they’re needed, they’re really needed.
I take “Better to have and not need than need and not have” to extremes most people don’t. I’m peculiar that way.
Ok. One more thing we have in common… The motto, not quite your extreme. Motto number 1 (Chronologically) “I’d rather have it and not need it, than need it and not have it” is my wording.
In my opinion, my most important motto is “If you can laugh at yourself, you will never cease to be amused”.
I find myself amused a lot😏
I had a friend who had it. He said I could add a couple of helpful notes. For example, making thermite an easier task. Among other things😏
ACTS'(tm) comment about attracting the wrong sort of attention was part of the reason for my asking if there was an old copy lying about. Soft or hard copy, I would have expre$$ed interest in gaining a copy.
I guess I’ll have to hit up my other shady friends to request…
Again thanks. If I you think I can be of service, ask.
And I hope you get that bacon jam fairly cheap and get addicted… Ooops….. Really enjoy it😬
(Shoot. Typed the silent part in plain sight.)😆
A numbskull like Gavin Newsom
Perhaps Scott Ott’s best throw away line ever.
Careful guys. You might be insulting the guy who will be the next president installed in 2024
He is pretty easy to insult.
Frankie Avalon called, he wants his hairstyle back.
Justin Trudeau wants his Premier Socialist Dictatorship status back.
(He may not be insulted by that! 😉 )
He’d probably be pleased with being compared to Trudeau. After all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Vultures of a feather reek together and all that sort of thing.