Category: You have to be kidding, right!?!
And pray you don’t hit the rocks at the bottom.
“People close to former President Trump made preliminary overtures to Robert F. Kennedy about the possibility of serving as his running mate,” the New York Post reported Saturday.
“I wouldn’t write it off by any means,” an unidentified “insider” told the Post. That assessment said to “still be alive in Trump circles,” was shared by two large donors, one of whom asserted, “Bobby can bring new people to the polls.” And no less a prominent Trump supporter than former White House strategist Steve Bannon, “who remains close to the former president, has also pushed the idea and said in August that a Trump-Kennedy ticket would produce a ‘massive landslide.’”
Judging from reader comments, many are not just open to the idea but enthusiastic about it. And there are similar favorable reader reactions at supposedly “conservative” Fox News’ favorable report on the potential.
It would be a “yuge” mistake. Knowing the truth about Kennedy’s historic support for citizen disarmament would take the fire out of a lot of gun-owning voters’ bellies.
While he’s done respectable work exposing the corruption and bad “science” behind the government/pharma Covid cartel, Kennedy’s climate extremism (“ban fossil fuels, raise taxes, and pass a Green New Deal”), his “flip-flopping” on abortion, and out-and-out socialist embrace of “reparations” are disqualifiers by themselves.
But what about his siding with Texas on the border crisis and pledging to secure it? Assuming that is allowed to happen, how about the tens of millions already here? A “path to citizenship”? Chuck Schumer couldn’t have said it any better.
“RFK Jr. does promote some limited government, anti-establishment policies that conservatives and libertarians strongly support, but his leftist proposals far outweigh them.”
Add his personal and political affinity for citizen disarmament, and we’re talking a hard “No.” Consider a tweet he posted in 2018 – and then deleted; it’s not unfair to assume because it could hurt him politically:
“Let’s be honest. The NRA is as responsible for the MSD child murders as if they pulled the trigger. NRA has turned 2d Amendment into a suicide pact for our children. When do we deal with NRA?”
But wait, he now says, “My position on gun control is that I’m not going to take away anybody’s guns. I’m a constitutional maximalist and the issue has been settled by the Supreme Court.”
Does anyone believe him? Especially after arguing that “gun control cannot ‘meaningfully’ reduce gun violence” and then going for the Holy Grail of gun grabs:
“Kennedy said that he would get behind a bipartisan assault weapons ban, which the overwhelming majority of Democrats support, but has little chance of getting through Capitol Hill given widespread GOP opposition. ‘If we can get a consensus on it, if Republicans and Democrats agree to it and it passes Congress, I would sign it,’ he said.”
Trump has a problematic enough (and wholly self-created) record with gun owners, and putting Bobby Jr. on the ticket would only add to a growing TINVOWOOT sentiment among Americans who see that the left won’t stop pushing as long as they can do so with personal impunity. But say for a minute that Steve Bannon proves to be more politically savvy than he is principled, and a Trump/Kennedy campaign attracts enough independents to where even election interference and cheating can’t slip it to the Democrats:
Trump is getting up there in years. He’s not in the best shape. He’s been having some pretty significant slip-ups, particularly with the Haley/Capitol Security brain f*rt that the Democrat media is having a field day with as it ignores Biden’s daily dotage.
How does it benefit gun owners to put a guy who thinks NRA members are murderers and the Second Amendment is a suicide pact for children a heartbeat away from the presidency?
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
The state’s toughened voting rights restoration policy requires people convicted of a felony to get their gun rights restored before they can become eligible to cast a ballot again, Tennessee’s elections office said Tuesday, confirming a mandate that officials had been debating internally.
Last summer, election officials interpreted a state Supreme Court ruling as requiring that all convicted felons applying for reinstated voting rights first get their full citizenship rights restored by a judge or show they were pardoned. Voting rights advocates have argued the legal interpretation was way off-base.
The change, instituted by elections officials in July, has since halted almost all voting rights restorations: More than 60 people were denied and just one person approved. In the nearly seven months before it was implemented, about 200 people were approved and 120 denied, according to data from the secretary of state’s office.
State Elections Coordinator Mark Goins revealed the gun rights decision Tuesday when asked about it by The Associated Press. Pointing to the court’s ruling, he reiterated that someone’s full citizenship rights must be restored before they can regain the right to vote, and added, “Under the Tennessee Constitution, the right to bear arms is a right of citizenship.”
As recently as last month, Tennessee election officials expressed uncertainty about restoring the vote to convicted felons who hadn’t regained their gun rights, saying in court depositions that they were holding up 12 such applications while consulting with the state attorney general’s office.
All Tennessee felony drug crimes and felonies involving violence specifically strip away someone’s gun rights, and high-level action such as a pardon by a governor is needed to restore their voting rights, according to the Campaign Legal Center.
The center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy group, had already filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the state over its previous voting rights restoration process — before the new rules even took place — arguing that it amounted to the suppression of Black voters.
The suit argues that the state fails to make clear which officials can sign the necessary forms, provides no criteria for denial, and offers no avenue for appeal. Tennessee also requires that applicants are up to date on restitution, court costs and child support payments. The state also already bars voting rights restoration for certain categories of crimes, if they were committed within certain date ranges.
The lawsuit was scheduled to go to trial last November. The policy change sparked by the high court’s decision spurred delays in court, making it unlikely that a trial will take place until after this year’s elections.
Despite the Tennessee legislature’s clear intent to create meaningful pathways for voting rights restoration, the Elections Division, with help from the Attorney General’s office, continues to twist the law into tortured knots to prevent the 475,000 Tennesseans, including over 20% of voting age Black Tennesseans, with past felony convictions from voting,” said Blair Bowie, director of Campaign Legal Center’s Restore Your Vote.
In its June decision, the high court ruled against a man who sought to register to vote in the state after receiving clemency for a crime committed decades ago in Virginia. The court ruled that he still had to go through the process of restoring his voting rights.
Though Tennessee elections officials have acknowledged that the court ruling applied only to the specific circumstances of that case, they have said the wording was close enough to the requirements under state law to necessitate the broad policy change.
Even as lawmakers returned to work at the Capitol early this month, it remained unclear whether supermajority Republicans would push to return to the old reinstatement system. Senate Speaker Randy McNally, for one, would prefer even more restrictions, showing how tough it is to sell the issue in Tennessee.
“Overall, I’m not in favor of felons voting. I think they’ve committed a serious crime, serious offense against the state,” McNally told the AP earlier this month. “And until they’re out of jail and either been pardoned or exonerated for what they did, then they forfeit that right.”
The only person approved for voting rights restoration under the new system didn’t hit any snags in court, at least. A judge restored his “full rights of citizenship” in September, and the state elections office restored his voting rights in November.
Criminal defense attorney John Pellegrin said he helped his client get a judge to reinstate his citizenship rights, but wasn’t involved in helping him submit voting restoration documents. The new stricter requirements were news to him.
“I didn’t really find out about the change until after we had already done it,” Pellegrin told the AP.
Lets see now. A snub nose pistol, a running away fugitive and about a 100 plus yards distance or so. Like some of my real hard nosed friends would say about it, “Yeah right!” and other adult language. But it was a good movie. Grumpy
Veterans are mostly proud of their service. And rightfully so, it’s no small thing to take the leap into the…
Veterans are mostly proud of their service. And rightfully so, it’s no small thing to take the leap into the military and all that it entails. But there are some veterans who, well, they’re like that one 50-year-old dude for whom high school was the highlight of his entire life and who references every situation back to “the good old days.” Like that, but, you know, with guns.
Because of this, we all know those service members and veterans who so prominently display photos of themselves on social media in uniform that all we can muster is a heavy eye roll or an “unfollow.” We get it, you served, thanks for the daily reminder. Not sure how Arbor Day is all about veterans, but somehow you made it out to be. You know, that kind of veteran. To some extent, we’re all guilty of this in some capacity. Because out of the millions of photos out there, they can all be boiled down to fall into about seven distinct categories of obnoxiousness.
1. The Basic Trainee
Imgur/tinychampion
This photo gets whipped out whenever a vet feels nostalgic, and it’s often accompanied by some remark such as, “It was harder at back in than it is for these soft kids today who get coddled!” It’s also a popular photo for those individuals for whom basic training was the only point in their career, because they didn’t really make it any further. The poster bears some risk in doing this because if they’re discovered they are apt to be covered in a deluge of ridicule.
2. The Mirror Selfie
Imgur/kcool951
This one is firmly the property of the younger generation these days. And with all mirror selfies, we have to say: Please police up your backgrounds before you post these things. We can clearly see the pile of Bud cans behind you and — worse — your messy pile of moto t-shirts. We get it, you love your job, but we don’t need a daily reminder of what you in uniform and your shower curtain look like. Give it a few years until you are managing troops like yourself and you’ll be singing a different tune.
3. The ‘Look How Responsible I Am’ One
U.S. Navy/Capt. Ronald L. Ravelo
Clad in dress uniform or serviceable camo, maybe even cracking a clean-cut smile, we can see that you’re a responsible service member — probably an officer. Your feed is full of positive stories about the military and your family. Frankly, boring, but we’re glad you’re around to provide order and point out uniform violations online.
4. The DGAF
This one is a bit more nuanced, because it can be divided into two categories: the DGAF (don’t give a fuck) military and the DGAF ETS/EAS’d. The DGAF military is usually a bunch of grubby troops out in the field with all manner of uniform violations, exercising their ability to cram a vast quantity of tobacco products into one shot. These photos often include some kind of animal or mascot. Apparently there are bonus points if you incorporate one of many stages of inebriation and the vagaries of uniform adjustment that come with it. The DGAF ETS/EAS’d veteran demonstrates how quickly one can lose one’s military fitness after leaving the service while still letting everyone know that you served. It takes skill, really.
5. The Shooter
National Guard
This variant shows the service member or veteran in some sort of a shooting pose: staring grimly down the barrel of a rifle, putting lead downrange with a machine gun, or dramatically going toe-to-toe with a 25-meter target with a 9mm handgun. Added bonus points if there’s a blank firing adapter attached so that we know that you’re a real hardcore killer. And for those of you who tried to pose to make it look like you’re engaged in a brutal firefight with Tommy Talib, it begs the question: Who do you expect us to believe it was that took the picture? Now go think about what you’ve done.
6. The Band of Brothers/Sisters Shot
Imgur/MrMacy
One of the most common, this one shows the veteran posed with a group of their buddies in front of their vehicle/track/combat outpost/helo/vessel/aircraft. Usually there’s an American flag somewhere in the picture. It’s often a phone photo of a hardcopy photo to get that vintage feel. There’s bound to be a mix of those who really want to take this seriously and are at parade rest or at responsible low ready, and those who really don’t care and who are throwing up all manner of obscene gestures.
7. The Operator
U.S. Army
And the most common of all: The guy standing in front of a desolate backdrop, or one of Saddam’s many palaces, holding a weapon. By the obligatory law of veteran social media, the weapon has to be held at a 45-degree angle, either at the low ready or in the air Rambo-style. This one lets everyone know that you’re a hardcore combat killer since you also seem to be wearing half of Ranger Joe’s tacticool product line. The zip ties are a nice touch, what with all the detainees that your convoy protection team will be processing. Again, bonus points for a blank firing adapter. Same for a belt of linked ammo draped artfully across your shoulders, because as we all know, ammunition always feeds better if it’s covered in dirt.