Voter ID has been a debate making it’s away through Minnesota for a while now. For those of you unaware Voter ID would require each person have a government issued photo identification card on them when they went to the polls. I’m against this and as I’ve found in several discussions about this topic my reasoning appears to be relatively unique. As I’ve written about this before I’m just going to be lazy and link to my previous post.
Tag: Politics
New Hampshire Hearing on Permitless Carry Today
The New Hampshire Senate Judiciary Committee is having a hearing on a bill that would turn the state into another territory where people can exercise their right to self defense unhindered. The bill in question is HB 330. The National Rifle Association (NRA) is also pushing people to ask members of the Committee to consider an amendment:
However, an important amendment is still needed. The NRA, along with its state affiliate – Gun Owners of New Hampshire (GO-NH) – is supporting the Luther Amendment, an omnibus amendment to clarify certain provisions in HB 330. In addition, this amendment would keep the existing law in place for individuals 18 years of age or younger to possess a firearm for hunting under certain conditions.
Hopefully the bill makes it out of committee and gets passed into law. It would be nice if the free state was a little more free.
Facebook Has Finally Grown Into a Mature Company
Although Facebook’s estimated market value is over $50 billion it still wasn’t a mature company in my eyes. In my opinion a company can’t be considered mature until the politicians start trying to crawl in and thus the company needs to resort to hiring lobbyist to protect itself from these government bureaucrats. Well Facebook is now looking for exactly that:
Until lately, Facebook has spent very little money in Washington, even by Silicon Valley’s frugal standards. The company’s outlays on lobbying totaled $351,000 last year, federal records show. That’s a fraction of the amount spent by other technology giants, including Google Inc.’s $5.2 million and Microsoft Corp.’s $6.9 million.
Facebook’s new Washington office, designed to look like a hacker’s lair, with walls of faux construction rubble, is a work in progress.
This is the price of running a successful business in America, you need to pay the politicians off twice. First you need to pay them taxes and then you must pay them in incentives in order to get favorable legislation passed and unfavorable legislation shot down. On a side note I found this funny:
President Barack Obama will travel to Facebook Inc.’s Silicon Valley headquarters Wednesday to hold a “town hall” meeting on the economy with users of the social-networking site.
Maybe the President should go down the the Ludwig von Mises Institute (LvMI) instead. Facebook knows how to function in our currently regulated economy so the advice they’re likely to give is going to be more of the status quo. The (LvMI) on the other hand could explain to the President how the only way to save our economy is to move to a free market where producers and consumers are able to make transactions without interference from government bureaucrats. Of course that would require the government to surrender some of it’s control and we know they don’t want to do that.
White House Tried to Stop S&P from Downgrading the Country’s Credit Rating
Standard and Poor’s (S&P) recently downgraded the United State’s long term credit rating to “negative.” This isn’t surprising really as the United States government keeps spending more and more money which only leads us to spiral into deeper debt. It’s kind of like a person who has a maxed out credit card, makes the minimum interest payments, but their credit limit keeps getting extended and they keep increasing the amount on the card.
Well the White House wasn’t too happy with the downgrade and it seems they tried to stop S&P from downgrading the country’s credit rating:
Even though the White House has publicly downplayed the credit warning issued Monday from a leading agency, Obama administration officials were privately trying in recent weeks to convince Standard & Poor’s not to lower its outlook for U.S. debt from “stable” to “negative,” Fox News has confirmed.
I guess the White House found out that they can’t make secret deals with everybody.
What Do You Do When You’re Organization Is Shown to Be Ineffective
Let’s say you’re the head of an organization that has shown to be completely ineffective in its mission. You ineffectiveness has been demonstrated so often that you can no longer hide it and now donations from believers in your cause are drying up. What is one last desperate maneuver you can make in the hopes of staving off death? Well, if You’re the Brady Campaign you claim the President is passing super secret gun control laws:
During the meeting, President Obama dropped in and, according to Sarah Brady, brought up the issue of gun control, “to fill us in that it was very much on his agenda,” she said.
“I just want you to know that we are working on it,” Brady recalled the president telling them. “We have to go through a few processes, but under the radar.”
This could be an effective strategy to drum up money because it makes it appear as though the Brady Campaign has influence with the President and the results of this influence will go unnoticed but will accomplish a desired goal. Basically this strategy would allow the Brady Campaign to make up success. Instead of having to point at newly passed laws to demonstrate success the Brady Campaign could use changing Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) regulations as “under the radar” gun control measures influenced by none other than the Brady Campaign. This isn’t as hard to do either as the ATF is rather schizophrenic about their regulations and like to change them on a whim without actually telling anybody.
Unfortunately for them pro-gun people keep a constant eye on them and call their organization out when they try to make idiotic maneuvers like this. Sorry Sarah Brady but we caught this little attempt to appear relevant.
Legislation Moving to Ban Firearms from the Minnesota State Capitol
Well that worthless piece of shit Paymar is at it again and has introduced yet another pointless anti-gun bill. This time he’s introduced a bill to ban those of us with carry permits from carrying at the state capitol building.
As it currently sits people with Minnesota carry permits are able to carry at the capitol building if they submit a letter of notification. In the years since Minnesota passed right to carry legislation not a single incident has been raised because of this yet Paymar is willing to waste our time trying to ban it because he’s an asshole. What’s his reasoning? Well he’s jumping on the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords bandwagon (rather late I might add):
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Michael Paymar, comes on the heels of a report last month that found potential threats lurking around the Capitol Complex.
That report, which did not recommend barring guns, was spurred by the attempted assassination of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson this January.
“Back when Tucson happened … I just thought if we do nothing, I just think that’s unconscionable,” said Paymar, DFL-St. Paul.
Let me get this straight. You are worried somebody might come to the capitol building to shoot a “representative.” Somehow you believe if a law is passed that prohibits people with issued carry permits from carrying there this kind of scenario is impossible. You believe this even though the number of shootings committed by permit holders in Minnesota is almost non-existent. You also appear to believe somebody willing to commit murder is just going to ignore a law prohibiting them from legally carrying a firearm. In other words you’re an idiot.
Oh, by the way Tony Cornish is a pretty stand up guy:
One of them is Public Safety Committee Chairman Tony Cornish, R-Good Thunder, who called the bill a “terrible idea” and “dead on arrival” during an interview on the House floor Monday.
“It’s a longstanding practice to carry guns at the Capitol,” said an armed Cornish, who is also a police chief. “And we’ve never had any problems with it.”
He has a brain, unlike Paymar. Oh, did also I mention this bill presented by Paymar is going to cost Minnesota more money even though we’re already in debt up to our eyeballs?
The bill appropriates $6 million in bonding money for tunnel improvements and an unspecified amount for metal detectors. The report said the state should consider metal detectors at the Capitol, but did not explicitly recommend them.
Yeah because that’s a good idea. Let’s spend money we don’t have to fix a problem we don’t have. That’s your government at work.
Important Self-Defense Bill Introduced in Minnesota
I guess it’s my turn to utilized the activism page. The Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance has just dropped word that H.F. 1467 has been introduced into the Minnesota House. The bill is a sweeping reform to Minnesota’s self-defense laws and would enact the following changes:
Enacts Stand Your Ground – Stand your ground legislation removes the requirement for an intended victim of a violent crime to flee the area where you have a right to be.
Enacts Castle Doctrine – Similar to the above except this applies specifically to your own property. As it currently stands if somebody breaks into your home you have a legal obligation to attempt to flee before using force to defend yourself. A person should not be required to flee their own home because a malicious person has illegal broken in.
Prohibits the Confiscation of Firearms in a State of Emergency – This would prohibit the government from confiscating the firearms of gun owners when a state of emergency has been declared. During Hurricane Katrina the National Guard confiscated the firearms on New Orleans residents leaving them defenseless. A time of emergency is one of the most important times to have access to a means of self-defense.
Extends the Validity of Purchase Permits to Five Years – In Minnesota you are required to get either a permit to purchase or a permit to carry in order to buy a handgun or a military style semi-automatic rifle. A permit to purchase is only valid for one year while a carry permit is valid for five. This would make a permit to purchase valid for the same period of time as a carry permit.
Recognition of All Out of State Carry Permits – This would make the state of Minnesota recognize carry permits from all other states. A person shouldn’t be barred their right to self-defense just because they entered our fine state.
The members of the House Public Safety committee need to be contacted and asked to support this bill. This numbers and e-mail addresses are located on the first link.
Interior Design is Serious Business
I didn’t realize interior design was such a serious business. Did you know that Florida, Nevada, and Louisiana require a state license to practice interior design. That seems like pointless licensure requirements if I’ve ever heard of them. It seems as though Florida is getting smart about this and are moving to deregulate the interior design market but abolishing the need to get a state license in order to work as an interior designer.
As with any government protected cartel the interior designers are fighting back with some very interesting claims. My favorite on? That improper interior would contribute to 88,000 deaths every year. How did they come to that number? No idea but it sure sounds scary if not completely far fetched. Maybe all those deaths come from people not having enough “zen” in their living room because a couch is 0.05cm too far to the left.
Government licensure is nothing more than a means of creating cartels. In order to protect themselves from competition people working in a specific field will make up a reason why there needs to be a requirement for government oversight and licensure of their field. This creates a barrier against entry for new employees and thus reduces the potential competition they may be facing. These licenses usually carry an arbitrary number of pointless restrictions that make the barrier to entry even higher.
Anti-Gunners Finally Win One
Apparently the anti-gunners are rather desperate for victories and are cheering their latest one… in a few years. They managed to get a rider removed that would have abolished all funding for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to establish any form of long gun registry:
The amendment, offered by Reps. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) and Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), would have prevented federal funds from being used by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to track bulk sales of long guns in southwestern states. Up until late moments in the negotiations, sources familiar with the discussions say, it remained in the text of the final continuing resolution.
It’s sickening but honestly I don’t feel it’s that big of a victory. As it currently sits federal laws prohibition the establishment of a long gun registry anyways so this would have simply been extra insurance. What I did find hilarious was the following:
“ATF is already chronically underfunded and has been without a confirmed director since 2006 as a result of inaction by past sessions of Congress,” New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a co-chair of the coalition Mayors Against Illegal Guns, said in a statement. “We welcome this sign that leaders in Washington may be ready to step up and help law enforcement save lives.”
Yeah the ATF is underfunded, especially with the cost of fuel going up. Soon they aren’t going to be able to afford driving down to gun shops sitting on the border and telling them to sell guns to sketchy individuals in order to supply the drug cartels with money. How will the ATF be able to function if they can’t afford to help run guns?
Doctors Who and Brown Banned from China
I guess the Chinese government has gotten sick of constant Dalek invasions and guys named Biff because they’ve made a move to ban references to time travel:
In a statement (available here in Chinese) dated March 31, the State Administration for Radio, Film & Television said that TV dramas that involve characters traveling back in time “lack positive thoughts and meaning.” The guidelines discouraging this type of show said that some “casually make up myths, have monstrous and weird plots, use absurd tactics, and even promote feudalism, superstition, fatalism and reincarnation.”
Isn’t socialism great? What other system of society has so much vested interested in controlling what its people think that it makes a rule prohibition the idea of time travel? Seriously Doctor Who and Emmet Brown never hurt anybody… OK maybe a few people. But those people all had it coming!