Last Call For Welcome To Gunmerica, Con't

I honestly have come to the conclusion that the gun-humpers on the right want to refight and win the Civil War and reconstitute slavery, and they keep telling us that this is what they want to do.

Conservative activist Rogan O'Handley argued over the weekend that the government should provide firearm subsidies so that people can protect themselves from "looting, violence and murder" that he blamed on Black Lives Matter.

O'Handley made the remarks while appearing on OAN, a conservative news channel.

"America owns more guns than 50% of the planet," O'Handley said. "There are more guns than people in this country. God bless the Second Amendment and our Founding Fathers. I am absolutely loving seeing these huge, huge gun numbers."

The conservative activist went on to praise first-time gun buyers who fear Black Lives Matter protests..

"People that have never owned a gun in their life are looking around and seeing BLM and antifa burning down courthouses, police stations... looting, violence, murder," he said. "And they're saying, you know what? Maybe I have to look at protecting myself and my family. Maybe I should start exercising my constitutional right to keep and bear arms."

O'Handley added: "And I will say I'm in the camp where I think we should actually have subsidies for gun ownership in this country. You know, we subsidize schools, housing, everything. Why are we not subsidizing guns? That's a constitutional right and one of the most important. Very happy to see these huge numbers."

 

To reiterate, we're at the point now where the white supremacists are openly saying the government should give people guns to stop Black Lives Matter and Antifa. 

 

This is their idea of utopia.

 

Millions of people agree with this lunatic. My "The Second Civil War" tag is not an exaggeration, folks.

 

This will only end in catastrophe.

The Kids Are Alright (And Voting)

The Silent generation and Boomer generation are now well into AARP territory while Millennials, now firmly in their 20's and 30's are becoming the new electoral majority. That's helping to push the country to the left finally, but there are some major caveats, mainly that white Millennials still favor Republicans across the board, and that Boomers are living longer and voting more conservative as they age.

More members of the millennial generation and Generation Z voted in the 2020 presidential election than in any prior election, according to several studies of the electorate that have taken place in recent months.

And for the first time in American history, a majority of eligible voters under the age of 30 cast a ballot in an election.

As the oldest millennials creep toward their 40th birthdays and more members of Generation Z age into the electorate, the data show those two groups became substantially more powerful within the electorate, as occasional voters cast ballots more regularly and first-time voters began their voting careers in greater proportions.

“Basically 40 percent of the electorate are essentially Gen Z and millennials and some young Xers in there,” said John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics who helped the Biden campaign survey younger voters. “They are replacing the Silent Generation and the Baby Boomers. For every one of those who are exiting the electorate, they are being replaced by someone more progressive.”

About 21 million voters between the ages of 18 and 29 cast a ballot in 2020, up from 18 million in 2016, according to data from the Democratic firm TargetSmart. And 23 million voters between the ages of 30 and 39 cast ballots, an increase of almost 3 million from the last presidential contest.

In both cases, those voters made up a slightly larger share of the overall electorate — up 0.5 percent among 18 to 29-year-olds and up 0.2 percent among 30 to 39-year-olds.

Their gains came as voters between the ages of 40 and 65 declined as an overall share of the electorate. Turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds jumped 9 percent, and by 7 percent among 30- to 39-year-olds. Turnout among those between the ages of 40 and 65 rose 6 percentage points.

“In a pandemic election, where many young Americans found their lives uprooted by college campus closures, the youth vote still expanded over the 2016 benchmark,” said Tom Bonier, TargetSmart’s chief executive.

For the first time, the millennial generation and Generation Z combined to make up a greater share of the electorate than Generation X.

And more of those younger voters are getting more comfortable casting their ballots: Among those between the ages of 30 and 39, almost half are frequent voters, up from just over a third four years ago, a sign that a generation long dismissed for its apathy is engaging in politics more habitually.

There are signs that the emerging younger electorate is likely to provide a windfall for Democratic candidates. In states where voters are allowed to register by party, 52 percent of voters 18 to 29 are registered Democrats, compared with just 35 percent who are registered Republicans. Among 30- to 39-year-olds, the gap is even wider: 53 percent are registered Democrats, while just 34 percent are registered Republicans.

“Young voters were a critical component of the Democratic coalition that formed the Blue Wave in 2018, and will be perhaps even more central to Democratic hopes in the 2022 midterm elections,” Bonier said. “Meanwhile, as the electorate grows increasingly younger and more diverse, Republicans are left clinging to hopes of higher turnout among older and less educated white voters.”

Some Republicans acknowledge the growing generational challenge their party faces.

“The big problem that we have is that we’re not putting forward policy proposals that people are willing to listen to, particularly in those generations,” said Evan Siegfried, the author of "GOP GPS: How to Find the Millennials and Urban Voters the Republican Party Needs to Survive." “Instead of reacting to proposals and statements by Democrats with mockery and memes, which only appeal to the base and voters you already have, it would benefit Republicans to respond with alternatives and thoughtful debate.”

 

But that goes to show you how fragile our country is right now: without record-shattering numbers of voters age 18-45 going to the polls, Biden would have been crushed and we'd be locked in the hell of a Trump second term with Republican dominance of Congress. If those voters don't show up in 2022, we're going to lose the House and Senate.  If they don't show up in 2024, well...

A lot is riding on motivating people to care about voting, and as a whole, we barely give a damn.

Especially younger voters.

We need all of us, folks.

The Village Gets Used Again

One of the main reasons the Israeli/Palestinian conflict has gone on so long, longer than my entire life and nearly as long as the Zandarparents have been alive is that both sides fully understand that the war is being fought in the global public opinion battlefield as well as in Gaza and the West Bank, and always has been. The international press ends up getting drafted in this fight, and it never turns out well for them.

Israel shared intelligence with the US showing how Hamas operated inside the same building with the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera in Gaza, officials in Jerusalem said on Sunday. 

Officials in more than one government office confirmed that US President Joe Biden’s phone call to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday was, in part, about the bombing of the building, and that Israel showed Biden and American officials the intelligence behind the action. 

“We showed them the smoking gun proving Hamas worked out of that building,” a source close to Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said. “I understand they found the explanation satisfactory.” 

Another senior Israeli official admitted that the fact that the bombing took place two days after a tweet by the IDF misled some foreign media into reporting that ground troops had entered Gaza made the situation more difficult from a public diplomacy perspective.
But in government-to-government diplomacy, Israeli officials felt that the situation was still good. 

The US was the only country to inquire about the IDF strike on the building, which the military said housed Hamas military intelligence offices, as well as AP and Al Jazeera, other news outlets, and other offices and apartments. 

“From an analysis the Foreign Ministry did [on Sunday], 80% of the 90 countries we spoke to in recent days released official statements supporting Israel’s right to defend itself. They aren’t calling to stop the operation,” the ministry source said. 

Ashkenazi also spoke to over 30 foreign ministers around the world. 

“We’re still in a positive place when it comes to our legitimacy to act,” the Foreign Ministry source added. “There is very clear support for the Israeli stance that the terrorism crossed a line.” 

The IAF struck the 12-story tower in Gaza on Saturday, giving a warning an hour in advance. 

“The building housed the offices of civilian media, which the terrorist organization Hamas hides behind and uses as human shields,” the IDF said in a statement. "The terror organization Hamas deliberately places its military assets in the heart of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip. Prior to the attack, the IDF warned the civilians who were in the building and gave them sufficient time to evacuate.”

 

Even if the intelligence is BS, and using the Associated Press as pawns is the IDF's master stroke to evacuate all the international press out of Gaza "for their own safety", or whether Hamas really was running intel operations from the building, betting that Israel wouldn't touch the place, the point is that the Associate Press, Al Jazeera, and other media outfits in Gaza not only allowed themselves to become the story, but to become part of the conflict itself.

That alone necessitates AP CEO and President Gary Pruitt's resignation, and that of the AP's Gaza staff. Maybe that's not fair, but AP's been in that building for 15 years. Perhaps they should have known, being a news-gathering organization in a war zone. Things aren't fair in war, especially this war.

Either the IDF is terrible or Hamas is terrible (and both being terrible is the most likely outcome) but again, the AP allowed themselves to get pulled into this.

We need better media run by better people.

StupidiNews!

• At least one person is dead and four injured after a mass shooting in Toronto on Sunday, the shooting took place near the Pearson International Airport in the Ebitocoke neighborhood.
• Embattled Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu is ruling out a Gaza cease fire, saying the IDF will pursue Hamas terrorists "for as long as necessary" as fighting there enters a second week.
• A new WHO study finds that stroke and heart disease deaths caused by overwork in 2020 rose 30% from 2000, claiming nearly three-quarters of a million people worldwide.
• Ireland's government is confirming a second cyber attack on the country's health system in three days as hackers continue to shut down hospital and heath care computers.
• Archaeologists in Italy believe a naval officer's body found near Mount Vesuvius may have been part of a failed rescue mission 2100 years ago.