Twitter Blocks Users From Tweeting Link To “8 Stubborn Facts on Gun Violence in America”

March 15th, 2018

I tried to Tweet out a link to this Daily Signal piece on “8 Stubborn Facts on Gun Violence in America”…when I discovered that I couldn’t.

Twitter has once again decided that there’s information its users should not be allowed to share.

Try it yourself, and see if the secret block has been lifted or not.

In the meantime, here are the eight points in the article, each backed up with supporting data:

  1. Violent crime is down and has been on the decline for decades.
  2. The principal public safety concerns with respect to guns are suicides and illegally owned handguns, not mass shootings.
  3. A small number of factors significantly increase the likelihood that a person will be a victim of a gun-related homicide.
  4. Gun-related murders are carried out by a predictable pool of people.
  5. Higher rates of gun ownership are not associated with higher rates of violent crime.
  6. There is no clear relationship between strict gun control legislation and homicide or violent crime rates.
  7. Legally owned firearms are used for lawful purposes much more often than they are used to commit crimes or suicide.
  8. Concealed carry permit holders are not the problem, but they may be part of the solution.

Read the whole thing.

Edited to add: I can now tweet this link from my home computer…but I still can’t post it from my iPhone.

Another Day, Another Muslim Child Sex Ring in the UK

March 15th, 2018

The latest Muslim-run child sex ring in the UK is bigger than Rotherham:

The Sunday Mirror blew open ANOTHER child sex abuse ring in Britain. This 18-month investigation found up to 1,000 girls, as young as 11, raped, sold for sex, and even killed for over 40 years in Telford, located 146 miles southeast of London.

The Mirror reported:

Police conducted an inquiry into child prostitution called Operation Chalice, which led to imprisonment of seven men in 2013. A report from the local Telford and Wreckin Council that same year said that “[F]rom the late 1990s professionals had concerns about the nature of some of the child sexual abuse cases presented to them.” Nothing happened, though, due to “existing procedures” and “understanding and learning at that time.”

But people told the authorities about the abuse decades before Chalice. The Mirror found out that two pedophiles started “targeting girls at a local children’s home in 1981.” One of those “abusers earned thousands a night for years trafficking girls around the country for sex with hundreds of men, according to one victim.”

The publication spoke to 12 victims who “accused more than 70 abusers and claimed that violent rapes were still taking place just months ago.” The Mirror continued:

One 14-year-old, groomed and abused after her phone number was sold to paedophiles, said: “I hated what was happening and my abusers made my skin crawl but I was told that if I said a word to anyone they’d come for my little sisters and tell my mum I was a prostitute.

“Night after night, I was forced to have sex with multiple men in disgusting takeaways and filthy houses.

“I must have been getting the morning after pill from a local clinic at least twice a week but no one asked any questions.

“I fell pregnant twice and had two abortions. Hours after my second termination, I was taken by one of my abusers to be raped by more men.

“The worst moment came just after my 16th birthday when I was drugged and gang raped by five men.”

It goes on in further nauseating detail.

Rotherham, Telford, Sheffield. All UK child sex rings run by Muslim men that police ignored for years or decades.

Almost like there’s a pattern…

SecS Rex Exed

March 14th, 2018

So Rex Tillerson is is out as Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo is in.

Pompeo will have to be nominated and approved by the Senate before he can take Tillerson’s spot in the government. Republicans can approve anyone they want in the Senate as long as they stick together, and Pompeo was confirmed for his current post in a 66-32 vote.

“His experience in the military, Congress, and as leader of the CIA have prepared him well for his new role and I urge his swift confirmation,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday, as he wished Tillerson and his family well.

Vice President Mike Pence backed Trump and urged the Senate to confirm Pompeo, “a man of highest integrity with unquestionable qualifications who will do an outstanding job.”

There were notable foreign policy improvements under Tillerson (the crushing of the Islamic State, significant reform in Saudi Arabia, the embassy move to Jerusalem, arming Ukraine, pressuring North Korea to the negotiating table, etc.), but most were attributable to either President Trump’s unique style of negotiating, or the fact the idiots in the Obama Administration were no longer in charge.

I thought I was ambivalent about Tillerson’s exit, until I read this:

His profound disagreements with the president on policy appeared to be his undoing: Mr. Tillerson wanted to remain part of the Paris climate accord; Mr. Trump decided to leave it. Mr. Tillerson supported the continuation of the Iran nuclear deal; Mr. Trump loathed the deal as “an embarrassment to the United States.” And Mr. Tillerson believed in dialogue to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis, but Mr. Trump repeatedly threatened military options.

Indeed, Tillerson’s efforts to save the asinine Iran Deal appear to be his undoing.

“President Trump has been clear that the Iran deal is terrible policy and has sought ways to hold Iran accountable,” DeSantis told the Free Beacon. “With Mike Pompeo, Trump will have a Secretary of State who sees the threat posed by the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] and by Tehran in a similar light as he does.”

Alrighty then. It’s best Tillerson was shown the door…

On the Dustup Between President Trump and Rep. Waters: A Modest Proposal

March 13th, 2018

Some liberals are very, very upset that President Donald trump called Democratic California Rep. Maxine Waters “low-IQ.”

Obviously, liberals instantly denounced President Trump as a “racist” (it’s what they do):

This despite the fact that Rep. Waters

is

demonstrably

not

very

bright.

And here’s a “greatest hits” sampler of same:

Truth should be an absolute defense from charges of racism. The fact that Rep. Waters is a very dim bulb has nothing to do with her race or sex, or even her party. (The late Rep. Barbara Jordan, Democrat of Texas, was wrong about many things, but she was anything but dumb.)

But why go back and forth on the issue when there’s a simple, real-world way to resolve it?

It seems to be an article of faith among liberals that Rep. Waters is not, in fact, below average IQ.

It also seems to be an article of faith among liberals that President Donald Trump is a “dummy,” a “moron,” etc.

Therefore, I offer up a modest proposal: Let President Trump debate Rep. Waters in prime time, with an equal number of questions supplied by each of the participants.

It should soon become apparent to American voters who is dumber than who…

Advice to California Refugees

March 12th, 2018

Greetings, refugees from the formerly great state of California! I hope you’re enjoying your new home in Real America!

Sometimes it can be hard to figure out how to act in new surroundings, so here’s are a few tips from Some Random Guy On Twitter:

(Filed under: Lazy blogging.)

More of Bill De Blasio’s “Genius”

March 11th, 2018

Problem: Parents are worried about random school shootings.

Bill De Blasio’s Solution: Remove NYPD cops from schools:

The last NYPD cops assigned full-time to New York City public schools are being moved out — despite nationwide calls for heightened security in the wake of last month’s Florida shootings.

As the nation mourned the 17 victims of the school massacre at Parkland, Fla., the NYPD was removing Sgt. Raul Espinet from his post at Francis Lewis HS in Fresh Meadows, Queens — where he had worked for more than a dozen years. Parents, teachers and students are livid over the beloved cop’s departure.

“My colleagues think it’s outrageous — and really stupid,” teacher Arthur Goldstein said. “We’re not enthusiastic about arming teachers, but we liked having a cop around.”

Espinet’s position was eliminated because cops in Mayor de Blasio’s new community policing units will visit schools while patrolling the neighborhood, according to the NYPD. School safety agents are stationed at all schools, but are not armed.

The once-common practice of putting an armed cop in schools waned in the 1990s. All were gradually eliminated, but Francis Lewis, one of the biggest high schools, slipped by. Bayside and Benjamin Cardozo high schools also recently lost their full-time NYPD officers, according to parents.

Espinet is one of the last — if not the last — school cop to go.

“I’m not aware of any other school with a full-time police officer assigned to it,” said Lt. John Grimpel, an NYPD spokesman.

Parents at the overcrowded Queens school, crammed with more than 4,400 students, are protesting the change.

“The community officer is in no way an acceptable replacement,” says a PTA petition launched last week.

The PTA is demanding that the NYPD and city Department of Education bring back an armed cop to Francis Lewis. It has collected more than 1,000 signatures in just two days, according to co-president Linda Lovett.

“It’s ridiculous,” Lovett said. “All over the country they are telling you ‘arm the teachers, get an officer in your school.’ New York City had a designated officer and they are actually cutting the program . . . they are making us less secure.

“You are talking about 5,000 people in a one-block radius, and you’re telling me you can’t designate one officer?”

Cop were originally put into New York City schools not to prevent school shootings, but to curb the overall criminality of students that broke out in epidemic proportions in the 1960s, including one infamous incident where a student set a teacher on fire.

Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and De Blasio seems hellbent on repeating all the mistakes of sixties radicals.

(Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

Golden Interlude

March 10th, 2018

Yesterday I had to have Jigsaw, my 14-year old Golden Retriever, put to sleep due to cancer. There will be a blog post forthcoming on my other blog in a day or two. In the interim, instead of politics, here’s a video of Golden Retrievers playing.

OK, we’ll make it ever-so-slightly political. Here’s Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Golden Retriever Pancake getting a Christmas present and freaking out from happiness.

Love your doggies as much as you can while you can…

LinkSwarm for March 9, 2018

March 9th, 2018

My oldest dog is dying of cancer, which has rather put a crimp in my time and desire to blog, so posting may be a bit sparse for a few days. Enjoy an abbreviated LinkSwarm:

  • ICE conducts more raids in California. Evidently enforcing federal law is controversial when it conflicts with the Democratic Party’s goals of importing more illegal aliens… (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • The popularity of incumbent Democratic senators up for reelection this year in states Trump won is under water.
  • China: Colossus or Paper Dragon?
  • Sri Lanka Declares Nationwide Emergency After Buddhist-Muslim Clashes.”
  • Nice one, Brigid at Borepatch:

  • You’re a passenger in a light plane. Your pilot dies. Can you get the plane safely to the ground? (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Invasion of the stinkbug swarm. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Oberlin College “got woke” and now they’re going broke, thanks to declining enrollment and a variety of Social Justice Warrior idiocies, including sexual misconduct showtrials and #BlackLivesMatter pandering. Now they’re complaining that they can’t get a fair trial in their own namesake town because everybody hates them.
  • Austin American-Statesman sold to GateHouse media for $47.5 million. The sale doesn’t include the land the Statesman building sits on, which is worth considerably more than the newspaper… (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Crooked Nashville Democratic Mayor Pleads Guilty, Resigns

    March 8th, 2018

    Remember Megan Barry, the Democratic Mayor of Nashville who brought us such hits as “I’m Sleeping With My Bodyguard” and “I Hired His Daughter For a No-Bid Legal Job With The City?

    She’s now resigned. Not over the affair itself, mind you, because Democrat. But because of the taxpayer money used supporting the affair.

    Mayor Megan Barry, a one-time rising star in the Democratic Party with big plans to remake Nashville, resigned Tuesday after pleading guilty to cheating the city out of thousands of dollars as she carried on an affair with her bodyguard.

    The resignation marked a swift fall for Barry, who stunned the city in late January when she confessed to an extramarital relationship with the former head of her security detail.

    Snip.

    Barry and her former bodyguard, police Sgt. Robert Forrest, separately pleaded guilty to felony theft. Barry’s resignation was part of a plea bargain with prosecutors. She and Forrest were sentenced to three years’ probation.

    Barry also agreed to reimburse the city $11,000, while Forrest will return $45,000 that authorities said was paid to him in salary or overtime when he was not actually performing his duties as security chief.

    In court, Barry didn’t say how she stole money from the city, but investigators have said they believe she engaged in the affair while she was on city-paid trips and Forrest was on the clock.

    What was a favorite spot for Barry and Forrest to be together on the taxpayer’s dime? Would you believe cemeteries?

    And cheers to Ace of Spades HQ for this: “Mayor Barry holds as a central religious principle that sex is intended by God to be a covenant between a mayor, her bodyguard, several tens of thousands of dollars of public money, and maybe some of the honored dead as spectators.”

    Texas 2018 Primary Election Results

    March 7th, 2018

    With over 99% of the Texas primary vote in, there were no alarms and no surprises. All the statewide Republican incumbents won their primaries, though George P. Bush and Sid Miller garnered less than 60% of the vote against underfunded challengers.

    Greg Abbott pulled in 90% of the vote, handily beating Barbara Krueger and Larry SECEDE Kilgore, the later of whose 1.3% of the vote gives lie to the theory that Texas is currently a hotbed of secessionist fervor.

    Ted Cruz garnered 85% of the vote against four underfunded opponents.

    On the far left side of the the aisle, conventional wisdom also triumphed. Lupe Valdez (43%) and Andrew White (27%) are headed to a runoff, leaving Cederic Davis Sr., Grady Yarborough and Seth Payne (and my own runoff prediction) in the dust.

    As expected, Beto O’Rourke won over two underfunded challengers, but at a mere 61.8% of the vote, he was hardly the juggernaut Democrats were making him out to be. Liberals have been talking up the chances for their fair-haired boy to take Ted Cruz, but I wouldn’t bet the mortgage on it; O’Rourke garnered less than half the votes Cruz did.

    Other Democratic race results: For Lieutenant Governor, Mike Collier edged Michael Cooper 52% to 48%, and for Comptroller, Joi Chevalier eeked out a 52% to 48% win over Tim Mahoney.

    Other races:

  • Texas Second Congressional District: Republicans Kevin Roberts and Dan Crenshaw head to the runoff separated by less than a thousand votes in a 9 candidate field. (Previously.) On the Democratic side, lawyer Todd Litton won outright.
  • Texas Third Congressional District: As predicted, Republican state senator Van Taylor stomped his primary opposition with 85% of the vote, and lesbian-rights lawyer Lorie Burch and “the other” Sam Johnson are headed to a runoff for Democrats.
  • Texas Fifth Congressional District: Republican state Rep Lance Gooden and former Jed Hensarling fundraiser Bunni Pounds head to the runoff, leaving former Rep. Kenneth Sheets and Ted Cruz regional director Jason Wright behind. Democratic candidate Dan Wood was unopposed in his primary.
  • Texas Sixth Congressional District: as predicted, Tarrant County Tax Assessor-Collector Ron Wright went into the Republican runoff leading Jake Ellzey 45% to 21%. The top two Democratic contenders, Ruby Faye Woolridge and Jana Lynne Sanchez ended in a dead heat, each with 36.9% of the vote, setting up a bruising black vs. Hispanic runoff.
  • Texas Sixth Congressional District: As expected, Republican John Culberson won handily, but the real interest there is in the Democratic Party match, where the DCCC-targeted Laura Moser (yes, the DCCC went out of their way to attack a progressive political candidate in their own primary) made the runoff five points behind Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, but way ahead of the establishment-recruited Alex Triantaphyllis. Expect a nasty, no-holds-barred runoff.
  • Texas Twenty-First Congressional District: As expected, Chip Roy heads into the Republican runoff with a significant lead. However, his runoff opponent is not the expected William Negley, but Matt McCall. (I wonder if name confusion between Matt McCaul and adjacent district Republican incumbent Mike McCaul benefited McCall here.) However, on the Democratic side, Mary Street Wilson came out of nowhere to edge the well-heeled Joseph Kopser by two points going into the runoff, leaving AFL-CIO endorsed former Nancy Pelosi staffer Derrick Crowe on the outside looking in.
  • In State Senate District 9 Republican primary, which got a lot of attention, Ken Paxton’s wife Angela Paxton beat Don Huffines’ brother Phillip Huffines.
  • Texas 114th State Congressional District: Lisa Luby Ryan defeats Jason Villalba!

  • Sadly, both Charlie Geren and Giovanni Capriglione survive to bedevil conservatives.
  • Maybe more analysis tomorrow…