Politics

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Written by Michael Z Williamson

Created: 22 December 2018

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/boy-changed-trump-honored-anti-bullying-organization/story?id=59868158&__twitter_impression=true&fbclid=IwAR0GwawVdKICPsASWaGG7wgdMYhGi48a6PUa0oVZ_KkaOwuwawLMIeao-io

"The 11-year-old boy who changed his last name from "Trump" after he was bullied at school was recognized over the weekend by an anti-bullying organization for his courage."

Joshua, who lives in Clayton, Delaware, began going by his father's last name, rather than his mother's, due to the relentless bullying he experienced after President Donald Trump began campaigning in the 2016 presidential election."

 

"The bullying got so bad the school district agreed to change Joshua's name in the system when he began at Talley Middle School in the fall, WPVI reported."

"This little boy has been victim to relentless bullying simply over his last name that is associated with our 45th President of the United States," the organization wrote on Facebook after the ceremony. "Glad we cold [sic] bring a smile back to his wonderful face."

~~~
You harassed him over his NAME to the point where he wasn't safe.

You rewarded him for GIVING IN to your vile behavior. 

You told him it took "courage" to give in to your cowardly attacks.

"Tolerant" "liberals", you are DISGUSTING, SUBHUMAN NAZIS, and at some point you will be dealt with the same way the original Nazis were.

And I will fucking cheer.

FOOTNOTE:

And I don't want to hear any "We don't endorse that, but!" because the "But" is that you DO fucking endorse it. You've destroyed statues, edited literature, and acted EXACTLY like the Taliban and the Nazis and similar filth. And there's no excuse of, "Well, that's only some of us."

Because if you continue to belong to a group that acts like this, you ENDORSE it.  It's like the "non-violent" members of the Mafia who don't break legs, only run the numbers. No, they're still fucking Mafioso, and you are still fucking Nazis. 

Right now I'm sure some pathetic piece of shit is wailing on Twitter that, "I wouldn't feel SAFE with this person at a convention!"

NO ONE feels safe around YOU.  Because you are a vile, disgusting mob of subhuman Nazi shit. YOU have committed the violence, the harassment, the lies, the fake victimhood "attacks," the erasure of history, the false narratives.

Everything you claim non-liberals are (because you call all of us "right wingers" regardless of our particular philosophies, because we're "not aryan"), is a projection of your own worthlessness and inhumanity.

You are fucking FILTH. 

Details

Written by Michael Z Williamson

Created: 20 December 2018

EDIT:
Apparently, some readers are failing to read for content and ad homineming that I'm a "Sensationalist right winger."

I'm an immigrant. I'm a 25 year veteran of the US military. I supported marriage equality and gays in the military as far back as the mid 1980s. (I was a minor before that.)  I'm an active supporter of the trans community with references to prove it.  I'm pro-free speech, pro-reproductive choice.  I'm anti-big government.  I'm non-religious.

That's actually the EXACT OPPOSITE of a right winger.

Also, I own several real submachine guns and stuff that feeds ammo from belts.  So I have zero interest or need for an inferior bumpfire stock.

Now, please read for content and actually think.

~~~

Some people think they love it. Some people hate it. Some people think it's just a bit of political maneuvering.

I'm here to explain why, regardless of your feelings about firearms, this little item should utterly terrify you.

Here's the official statement:  https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1046006/download

First, notice the statement is from Jeff Sessions. Now, if you believe (as all rational people do) that pretty much everything that man did was a disaster, you shouldn't be deluded into thinking this was magically better than anything else he did in his crusade to eliminate pain killers, pot and everything except actual criminals.

I draw your attention to the phrase and the claim that a bumpfire stock, "Harnesses the recoil energy."

It does nothing of the kind.  Put a firearm equipped with a bumpfire stock in a block on a bench, pull the trigger, it will fire a single shot only. One. Then it will do nothing. There is no "Harnessed energy." An ACTUAL machine gun will continue to fire until you release or run out of ammo. The bumpfire stock-equipped rifle will, again, fire one. single. shot. And stop.

An earlier device with a spring (The Akins Accelerator) was in fact ruled to be a machine gun, by ATF, who ruled that removing the spring made it not a machine gun.  There was much outcry from the users that their $1000 (!) accessory was no longer usable.  But I wrote about that elsewhere. It's also referenced in the letter above, and the two are conflated, because Sessions is either stupid or evil or both.

The bumpfire stock is a stock. If you are experienced and well trained, it is possible with CERTAIN weapons to slightly increase the rate at which you pull the trigger, by shoving with the other hand while pulling the trigger.  If you're a guitarist, think of a hammer-pull combination.  It's not something a noob does to any good effect.

Sessions' description is literally as inaccurate as saying "Alcohol is a narcotic."

The second claim is that, just like a machine gun, it allows firing multiple rounds with a single function of the trigger.  This is also provably false.  Again: Place it on a bench, pull the trigger, it fires one shot.  The trigger must be released before it can shoot again.

This cannot possibly be defined as a "machine gun" that fires more than one shot per pull of the trigger.  Yet, that is what Sessions has done, via a false statement--a lie.

The manufacture of machine guns has been illegal since 1986. Real ones command a high price. The finding of the Firearm Technology Branch was not only that these devices were not machine guns, but that in fact, they are not even firearms.

Sessions has falsely declared it to be a machine gun, and therefore contraband ex post facto, with absolutely no compensation for the "contraband," in complete contradiction to the experts' findings.

ATFE estimates the device and related industry are worth $200 million, which is tiny in business terms. However, every owner, seller, maker has money invested that is being stolen from them. No due process.  No legislative process.

This is an EX POST FACTO TAKING of private property via a false declaration.  You should be afraid. You should be VERY VERY afraid.

Look above again. This decision is precedent for ANY Cabinet head to declare anything...or anyone, illegal, and subject to theft or imprisonment with no due process.

And worse, it was put in place by President Trump. If this stands, then President Trump has precedent to overrule any bureau, any law, just by instructing his cabinet to draft a false statement.

"Alcohol is a narcotic. Therefore, all alcoholic beverages are contraband and the selling of them is illegal. Shut all the liquor stores at the end of the month. No one gets compensated."

Didn't we walk that path already?

"Pot is a narcotic." 

Oh, wait. The government already says pretty much that.  Great idea to have more of it, eh?

"This house is a narcotic. Therefore, it is contraband and we will seize it.  No compensation. Also, you're going to jail." 

You thought asset forfeiture was bad before?

What about when the NEXT president takes office?  What if President Mike Pence says, "All fetuses are people"?  And then after talking to someone who knows what they're talking about says, "All embryos and blastocysts are, too."

What if President Bernie Sanders says, "All income belongs to the collective"?

I bet at least one of those gives you nightmares, right?

If the courts don't utterly destroy this "ruling" at once, it is very literally the end of the legislative authority.  President Falwell will be able to order that, "Any non-Christian church is a political entity, not a religion." 

Still think it's a great idea, or even a not-terrible idea?

~~

EDIT: and apparently a lot of so-called "liberals" do think it's a great idea, because "guns are bad m'kay?"

Due process?  Separation of powers? Constitution?  Hey, this is about guns!

That's exactly the attitude that got us the War on (some) Drugs.

The Federalist agrees with me. http://thefederalist.com/2018/12/19/trump-administrations-new-bump-stock-ban-legal-abomination/ 

 

Details

Written by Michael Z Williamson

Created: 19 December 2018

I got a "Thank you for contacting me regarding poor Mr Khashoggi" letter.

~~~

I actually hadn't contacted you on this matter, or any other matter recently.  I'm not sure how this came about.  However. 

 

Details

Written by Michael Z Williamson

Created: 28 November 2018

I'm seven years older than my sister. In between us, when I was five, my mother had an ectopic pregnancy.  Ultrasound wasn't common back then, if it even existed--1971ish.  The first we knew was my mother waking up late at night screaming in obvious agony, pause for a few moments, scream again.  I heard a door slam, then movement, then the door again.  I think I remember my father coming through to tell me things were okay and something about a doctor.

When I woke up, our neighbor Mrs Seton was in the house, told me my mother was in the hospital, made sure I got fed, kept me occupied--it was school break.  I remember my father coming home, and cooking breakfast the next morning, but he didn't say more than three words.  I remember liking his breakfast better than my mother's, and feeling a bit guilty. Then he was gone again. This lasted several days.

Then my mother came home and had daily visits from the nurse.

So, what had happened was the ectopic pregnancy burst the fallopian tube, destroyed an ovary, and left her dead on the table for almost four minutes before being revived.  Part of it was some cultural legal BS at the time that the doctor wouldn't do what he had to without the husband's permission. Part of it was they didn't know what it was and didn't want to start cutting until they did.

Then they screwed up and used non-dissolving sutures internally, leading to abcesses, hence the home nurse visits. On the one hand, the NHS made those visits possible. On the other hand, their screwup made them necessary. This wasn't our first run-in with the incompetence of state-run medicine, either, but that's for elsewhere.

Jumping forward, on Thanksgiving Day this year my wife started complaining of some pressure and pain on her left side, lots of discomfort, and feared a possible miscarriage. She arranged a blood test for Friday morning, which showed things mostly normal.  "Mostly."

The following Tuesday was previously scheduled ultrasound appointment.

And of course, the universe has to kick things around.

Our four year old daughter woke up gagging and threw up, mostly bile. She was fine until she got on the bus for preschool, then threw up again, then again at school.  So we had to pick her up and take her with us to the appointment.

The clinic and doctor are absolutely first rate. They obviously didn't want a four year old, especially sick, in the clinic area, so the clinic manager herself came out to watch her in the waiting room, since they knew Jess needed me along for support.

The senior tech did the probing, and the doctor was present himself.  I knew that wasn't a good sign, after three previous kids.

And yes, that fuzzy sonar image looked wrong. Too small, too stringy.

The doctor was very gentle and diplomatic, but the end result was that it was an ectopic pregnancy, and at 7 weeks along had to be terminated NOW, before I got to see the other side of a woman screaming in agony as her body rips chunks of itself apart.

The process is chemical:

Methotrexate and vaginal misoprostol. Methotrexate (Otrexup, Rasuvo, others) is rarely used for elective, unwanted pregnancies, although it's still used for pregnancies outside of the uterus (ectopic pregnancies). This type of medical abortion must be done within seven weeks of the first day of your last period, and it can take up to a month for methotrexate to complete the abortion. Methotrexate is given as a shot or vaginally and the misoprostol is later used at home.

~~~

Get that?  The medical treatment for an ectopic pregnancy that might kill the mother is a chemically induced abortion. It's not "because she's lazy" or "because she couldn't keep her legs together."  It's because she might die.

So, in the currently civilized US, the discussion was basically,

Doctor: "We have to do this. Very sorry."

Mother:  "This is terrible, but yes."

Doctor: "Come in first thing tomorrow and we'll get the procedure started."

~~~

Now, in quite a few countries with more restrictive laws than the US--much of Europe, some of South America, Canada before abortion was legalized in the late 1980s--the process is much the same, except the doctor has to file an official note as to what and why.

And in quite a few other nations, they have to wait for the screaming agony, and then do more tests, and then surgical work, and a lot of women die.

This related case is a textbook example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar

THAT is what happens in nations where they obsess over "The life of the unborn." The mother is legally an incubator with no rights.

And as I've referenced here before http://www.michaelzwilliamson.com/blog/index.php?itemid=433 we live in a nation where the Dept of Education has a fucking SWAT TEAM to collect on arrears student loans.  So I'm not taking a bet that if a law here said that "only if the mother's life is in danger," there'd be too few, or too procedural, or too assholish of bureaucrats, and we'd have to wait for my wife to scream in agony and start hemorrhaging before anything was done.

This is one of many reasons I support absolutely unlimited abortion access, discussed between doctor and patient (and pretty much no doctor will perform the largely mythical just-before-birth abortion unless the mother really IS going to die, because doing so is very dangerous and worse than delivery, if delivery is an option at all, and there's no fucking time to have a bureaucrat sign papers).

Because today a late stage embryo, barely a fetus, dies before any brain to speak of exists, and my very much alive little girl will still have a mother, and my very much alive wife will stay that way, and have a lot of emotional anguish, because we really wanted another child and we're both reaching age limits.

And not to put too fine a point on it, it's also one of the many reasons I support the 2nd Amendment, because if it comes down to my wife's life vs dead bureaucrats and politicians, you get one guess how I vote.