Archive for the ‘News/opinion’ Category

“F*ck the Fourth” among many pro-abortion protests planned for Independence Day

Posted: July 3, 2022 by John Ruberry in abortion, culture, News/opinion, opinion/news, politics
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By John Ruberry

While I was a child at the time, I don’t recall much during the politically turbulent 1960s and early 1970s in regard to protests of July 4th, that is, America’s Independence Day. 

But of course, 21st-century leftists will take things too far. And the progressives never seem to be at a loss for anger. The most egregious attack on the 4th, and to be fair, America, comes from Tucson, Arizona and in a since-deleted Tweet, captured by Libs of Tik Tok, the Pima County Democratic Party wrote, “F*ck the Fourth,” along with a graphic that included this message for the Tucson Women’s Network, “Bring comfortable shoes, water, lawn chairs, posters, and your anger.” The other group’s graphic, as you can see, doesn’t use an asterisk in the F-word.

https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1542994095001325569?cxt=HHwWgsCisYm96OkqAAAA

The “F*ck the 4th” protest is in response to last month’s US Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson case, in an expected ruling–courtesy of a leaked draft opinion–which overruled Roe v. Wade and returns the abortion ruling to the states. 

And in those states, besides Arizona, there are pro-abortion protests planned in conjunction with Independence Day. There’s a call to wear black, instead of red, white, and blue on July 4th, which is not a particularly wise idea if you plan to be outdoors a lot on the holiday. The high temperature where I live is expected to be 91 degrees on the 4th. 

Bans Off Our Bodies Florida is now in the middle of a weekend boycott on retail spending to protest Dobbs v. Jackson. Also in Florida, on the Space Coast, there’s a pro-abortion protest there, Gannett’s Florida Today reports. Here’s some irony: To reach the story I had to click through a July 4th subscription special pop-up ad, as I did for another Gannett publication, the MetroWest Daily News, to learn about a Framingham, Massachusetts anti-Dobbs protest. “Fourth of July is cancelled,” one of the organizers says.

I don’t feel compelled to mention each protest, you get the point. But here’s one more. Leave it to my state, goofy Illinois, to take thing a step farther. The owner of a Chicago children’s boutique is organizing, along with the Chicago Abortion Fund, a “Families for Abortion Access” march.

Of course, the right to free speech, which of course includes unpopular speech, doesn’t go away on July 4th, once again the far-left is being offensive and angering the persuadable center by calling for “F*ck the Fourth” and more.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit. He plans to spend part of the 4th at the Morton Grove Days festival, watching fireworks there, wearing red, white, and blue.

No Vax No More License to Own Guns. Here’s a SCOTUS Case Just Waiting to Happen

Posted: July 1, 2022 by datechguy in News/opinion, the courts
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Apparently taking the jobs of Massachusetts State Police members who did not get the vax wasn’t enough for our state:

The head of the State Police has informed troopers fired for failing to get COVID shots that their permits to carry firearms will be “expired” as of next week.

Col. Christopher Mason’s letter, obtained by the Herald, adds the ex-troopers’ ability to possess guns or ammunition will be suspended until they seek licensing through their hometowns.

All the officers were subject to the governor’s Vax mandate and were denied exemptions without the right to appeal so now it’s surrender your legally purchased guns and ammo or become a felon:

“You will no longer be permitted to have firearms, rifles, shotguns, machine guns, large capacity feeding devices, and ammunition in your possession. Possession of a firearm and/or ammunition without an LTC is a criminal offense” he wrote, with the last two words in boldface.

Former troopers have been advised, according to the letter, that they must surrender their firearms to a licensed person for the time being and that they must go through their hometown police chief in order to get a new license approved — a process that can take months.

Hey defy the vax mandate and out go your basic rights.

I think given what we’ve seen both from SCOTUS and now lower courts in response to these rulings, this is a rather winnable SCOTUS case, but if they don’t want to go through that hassle I’m sure there are Red States that would love to have trained State Police move on down and join their forces.

The race between my death from old age and Massachusetts becoming a state that is unlivable for free people continues apace.

The Left’s “I So Want it to be True” Caucus

Posted: June 29, 2022 by datechguy in News/opinion
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There are a lot of sad things that the left obsession with Donald Trump and the NeverTrump crew’s obsession with justifying their support of an administration that has brought us from power, prosperity and energy independence to impotence, rescission, shortages of basic items and soon to come rolling blackouts.

But the saddest was seeing people I had once respected looking at yesterdays testimony and acting as if it was the epiphany of a lifetime that proved Donald Trump unfit for office.

The claim itself that the president was grabbing the steering wheel to try to steer his limousine to the capital to join the crowd entering it was patently false on its face as any person who doesn’t get their info from TV movies would know even before word that the secret service was ready to testify that it wasn’t true.

But it didn’t matter, the usual suspects and the NeverTrump crowd were declaring the “bravery” of the witness and that people would “remember where they were” when she testified etc etc etc.

The real comedy was this:

For those who don’t know the “Uncle Gus Show” was a TV show on WMUR Manchester when I was six or seven which had a game were there would be a line of kids who would whisper a message to each other and then compare how it started to how it ended.

That there was a huge build up to this and secrecy around this testimony suggests after the fact that the secrecy was to keep people from laughing her off the stage before the act began.

Now this this was an actual normal congressional committee with proper representation of both sides of the aisle this witness and this testimony would not have made it past the planning stage as the majority would not that it could not stand up to anything resembling scrutiny.

But this is not such a committee, the only two GOP members allowed on it were NeverTrumpers who have been denounced by their own party and neither of who will be serving in the next congress. It’s job was never to produce facts, it had two purposes in mind:

  1. To damage the Trump brand to the point where he would not be a viable 2024 candidate for President
  2. To distract the nation from our current situation and to provide justification for the nevertrump establishment for supporting the conversion of the United States from a prosperous energy independent world power to an impotent nation with an economy in recession, with shortages of basic items from Tampons to Baby formula whose energy situation is so critical that we have to entreat other nations for help

The really sad thing is the people in Washington, in media etc all actually understand that all of this is show and games, because they know that the targets of this drama, the people who fancied themselves as the “Resistance” during the Trump Years who will shortly be facing rolling blackouts, who can’t find basic items that were once common, who can’t pay for gas and whose retirement savings have gone away so want this to be true, in fact they need it to be true because the alternative is to acknowledge that they did this to themselves, cue Niven & Pournelle:

“First we must cross the river,” Benito was saying.  “Do you believe me now when I tell you that you must not attempt to swim it, or even get wet from it, or must you try that too?”

“What happens if I just dive in?”

“Then you will be as you were in the bottle.  Aware and unable to move.  but it will be very cold, and very uncomfortable, and you will be there for all eternity knowing that you put yourself there.”

Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle Inferno 1976

The alternative to this show for the left is knowing that they put themselves and our country in the mess it’s in. That frankly is too much for them.

Closing thought via instapundit:

 “If the Ds are doing so awesome with the abortion issue, why did they change the news cycle with the bogus Trump steering wheel stupidity?”

Reasons to oppose Pritzker for governor and president

Posted: June 26, 2022 by John Ruberry in crime, elections, News/opinion, opinion/news
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Blogger at the border

By John Ruberry

There is speculation that Illinois’ Democrat governor, J.B. Pritzker, is considering a run for president. A visit last week to New Hampshire is his first clue. 

But Pritzker, a billionaire scion of the family that owns the Hyatt Corporation, faces reelection for governor this fall. I’ll be voting for the Republican candidate, and I of course dearly hope whoever the GOP entry is in November will make Pritzker a one-term governor. 

There are many reasons to be against Pritzker for governor–and president. Let’s get started on why.

Gerrymandering. As a candidate in 2018, Pritzker vowed several times to veto gerrymandered legislative maps. He lied. Unless you are an aficionado of Cubist art or a Democrat activist, the 2021 census remaps, are a disgrace to democracy.

Budget. Illinois hasn’t had a balanced budget since 2001, when Republican George H. Ryan–yeah, Ryan was a bad guy–was governor and there was a GOP majority in the state Senate. In one of his first ads for his reelection campaign, Pritzker claimed the Prairie State’s budget is balanced. It’s not, unless you figure in trickery and federal COVID-19 bailout money. With a Republican majority a near certainty in the US House, Pritzker and the Democrats can’t count on bailout cash for Illinois’ next budget. 

Crime. While I’ll concede that governors don’t have much control over local law enforcement, if you think crime is bad in Illinois now, just wait until New Year’s Day, when Illinois’ no-cash bail law goes into effect–after the general election votes are counted this autumn. There are still instances when judges can lock up accused criminals. But of course, big time crooks also commit small time crimes. Petty crooks often move on to become big-time crooks. Cook County’s state’s attorney is Kim Foxx, a George Soros-funded pro-criminal so-called prosecutor. If Pritzker has ever criticized Foxx, I missed it. Pritzker signed the no-cash bail bill into law in February of 2021. If it’s such a good bill, then why didn’t no-cash bail go into effect immediately?

Last year Cook County, which included Chicago and it’s where I live, recorded over 1,000 murders for the first time since 1994.

COVID. The lockdowns in Illinois were among the longest and most severe. But his wife, M.K., and his daughter spent two months in Florida in the spring of 2020. Florida’s lockdown policies were less stringent. Pritzker claims that his family were in Florida before the pandemic was declared. But the governor didn’t reveal that information until two months later.

Stagnant population. Illinois had lost population, according to the US Census, every year since 2014. Or had it? But like late night ballots arriving in big-city polling places, the Census Bureau said, wait, no, Illinois gained population between 2010 and 2020. But growth, such as it is, can rightly be called anemic. 

Corruption. Until it appeared that the US Attorney’s office for Northern Illinois was finally closing in on Boss Michael Madigan, who was for decades the most powerful Democrat in the state, Pritzker was silent on the Illinois Democratic Party chair and longtime state House speaker. Only after a surprisingly lackluster 2020 general election for Prairie State Democrats did Pritzker issue a half-hearted call for Madigan to resign as speaker. The Boss failed to win reelection as House speaker last year and then he quickly resigned as Illinois Dem party chair. 

Three months ago, Madigan was indicted on numerous racketeering charges by the feds. Illinois is generally considered one of the most corrupt states in the Union. Even the Washington Post agrees. What is Pritzker doing to fight criminality by Illinois public officials? I can’t see any evidence that he is doing anything.

Toilets. Pritzker and his wife own two mansions on Astor Street on Chicago’s North Side. Allegedly looking for a property tax break, M.K. had the toilets removed from the one that Illinois’ future first couple didn’t live in. Then she had that mansion declared “uninhabitable,” so the Pritzkers could score that tax break. The Pritzkers later paid Cook County back the money from that sleazy move.

In 2019, Chicago’s NPR affiliate reported that the toilet scam was under federal investigation.

John Ruberry regularly blogs at Marathon Pundit.

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