Month: June 2022

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Sign Of The Times

It is almost certain that this far right biased Supreme Court will be loosening most regulations we have regarding guns in the upcoming sessions and with loosening restrictions already going into effect in places like Ohio, guns will be everywhere. While this is a gun lovers wet dream there will be and in fact have already been increasing consequences.

First off , more guns in the wild most certainly will mean more guns getting into the hands of criminals. And more people carrying guns mean more incidents caused by “law abiding” gun toters that have severe impulse control. For evidence of this one only needs to look at the shooting at a Subway in Georgia yesterday. A 24 year old employee was shot and killed apparently because she put too much mayonnaise on a guys sandwich! If that isn’t a crime punishable by death I don’t know what is!

Here in the Milwaukee area where I live, we hear about road rage incidents pretty much weekly where some “law abiding citizen” takes issue with someone’s driving and instead of honking their horn like a normal asshole they pull out their gun and shoot them.

These are but a few examples and the number of occurrences currently pale to the number of overall shootings in the country but just imagine how bad this will get when every “law abiding” hothead is carrying a gun. This will happen and we will have Trumps Supreme Court and of course the NRA to thank.

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A Tale Of Two Decisions

The Supreme Court had an eventful week. First they overturned a New York law that made gun owners justify why they should be given a concealed carry permit with the majority saying it was unconstitutional. Then this morning the same Conservative majority decided that the 50 year old Roe V. Wade Supreme Court decision was not a Constitutional issue and that it should be up to individual states to decide.

These decisions make it obvious at least to me that a 233 year document written by wooden teeth wearing slave owners with wigs whose most dangerous weapon was a single shot flint lock rifle hurling round balls at you is hardly something to base your modern societies laws on. In fact our founding fathers thought the same thing when they wrote into that document a procedure to update it, something that has been done 33 times.

Admit it or not, the Supreme Court has become a legislative body interpreting issues that they somehow twist and turn into fitting some obscure writing usually with a partisan bend setting precedents on issues that our founders could have never considered and we are left with the results.

The problems in our society today can not longer be solved referring back to a piece of paper so old that it cannot be handled without falling apart.

Since it is obvious that a rewrite will never happen it is time for us to start taking our political system more seriously. The fringes of our society have shown more energy and willingness to put people like Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, Andrea Ocasio Cortez, Majorie Taylor Greene, and Lauren Boebert into office not only making us a laughing stock but also giving the lunatic fringe a voice.

Democrats and others upset at Roe V Wade being overturned should first look at their legislators. Constitutionality aside, the pro-choice supporters had 50 years to codify Roe which would have made this court decision moot. That did not happen and a new plan now needs to be formulated.

To prevent this in the future we need to recruit and find honorable, intelligent people willing to work with everyone to legislate our future. People willing to put the country ahead of their party and who are willing to listen to their constituents and stop listening to those that have the most money. This needs to happen at the local, state and national level and needs to start now!

If it doesn’t happen you need look no farther than in the mirror.

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Welcome To Crazy Town

Every year around this time the state’s GOP party’s get together to decide what their platform is going to be going forward. Most years the state party’s choose similar items suggested by the nation party platform, CPAC, and other movers and shakers like the Koch brothers and other high dollar donors.

This year though, the Texas GOP dropped the politically correct veil and went all MAGA crazy town when putting their platform together. The 53 page document covers just about every far right item from teaching kids in public school that life begins at conception, to claiming that Biden is illegitimately in office, to prohibiting the teaching of sex education and sexual health at any age and restricting the distribution of condoms and contraception through public schools.

Even more disturbing is the GOP’s attack on LGBT rights outright stating that homosexuality is “an abnormal lifestyle choice” and opposing same sex marriage and repealing the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision. 

And if you thought other minorities were safe, they also want to overturn the 1965 Voting Rights Act which made it easier for minorities to vote by outlawing the burden of literacy tests, poll taxes, and intimidation at voting centers, etc.

More goodies from their vote on Saturday:

  • Requiring Texas students “to learn about the humanity of the preborn child,” including teaching that life begins at fertilization and requiring students to listen to live ultrasounds of gestating fetuses.
  • Amending the Texas Constitution to remove the Legislature’s power “to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime.”
  • Deeming gender identity disorder “a genuine and extremely rare mental health condition,” requiring official documents to adhere to “biological gender,” and allowing civil penalties and monetary compensation to “de-transitioners” who have received gender-affirming surgery, which the platform calls a form of medical malpractice.
  • Changing the U.S. Constitution to cement the number of Supreme Court justices at nine and repeal the 16th Amendment of 1913, which created the federal income tax.
  • Ensuring “freedom to travel” by opposing Biden’s Clean Energy Plan and “California-style, anti-driver policies,” including efforts to turn traffic lanes over for use by pedestrians, cyclists and mass transit.
  • Declaring “all businesses and jobs as essential and a fundamental right,” a response to COVID-19 mandates by Texas cities that required customers to wear masks and limited business hours.
  • Abolishing the Federal Reserve, the nation’s central bank, and guaranteeing the right to use alternatives to cash, including cryptocurrencies.

Like other years were states often adopt many similar plank items, it will be interesting to see if other states adopt any of these far right ideals essentially throwing us back a 100 years though they did agree on one possibly good platform item. They plan to urge lawmakers to put a referendum on the 2023 general election ballot to allow Texas to vote to secede from the US.

We can all hope.

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Closing The Barn Door

A group of 20 bi-partisan Senators announced earlier today that they had reached an outline on a gun control bill they believe would get enough votes to pass.

The agreement would provide incentives for states to pass so-called “red flag” laws, which the group calls “state crisis intervention orders;” boost mental health resources; provide funding for school safety resources; clarify the definition of federally licensed firearms dealer; and crack down on criminals who illegally straw purchase and traffic guns.

It would also expand background checks for firearms buyers under 21, by requiring an investigative period to review juvenile and mental health records. Convicted domestic violence abusers and people subject to domestic violence restraining orders would also now be included in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, closing what is called the “boyfriend loophole.”

They spent the time patting themselves on their collective backs for doing something on gun control while preserving 2nd Amendment rights. Of course nothing announced today would have prevented the latest mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde which were perpetrated using legally purchased guns so as usual nothing is really going to change.

To be honest what they accomplished was more than I expected but I would put forward that nothing our government would agree to as currently constituted would be effective in stopping our ever increasing murder rate or mass shootings. As long as America’s hard on for guns continues to be encouraged by our courts unexplainable interpretation of the 2nd Amendment and groups like the NRA etc. buying of members of government, guns will continue to sell like hotcakes and eventually fall into the hands of those that could care less about human life.

I believe that at this point in history anything that we try amounts to closing the barn door after the horse escaped and the only effective means of stopping all the gun violence would be to get rid of all guns which has long since been an impossibility.

So going forward I foresee more and more guns being sold , many of them out of fear, which in turn will put more and more guns into criminal’s hands and the cycle will continue to lead us down a path that few will like. But hey at least you’ll be able to shoot that varmint with your AR-15.

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The Supreme Court’s Image Problem

Chief Justice John Roberts recently complained that the leaked draft opinion that would overturn Roe V Wade had tarnished the image of the court. He is so incensed, he has taken to starting an invasive investigation of the clerks and others working in the court in an effort to find the leaker.

Now I would certainly agree with Justice Robert’s view that the courts image is damaged, I would suggest though that it has been going down hill for years and the leak is just the latest in a string of issues

Growing up I always looked at the Supreme Court as a non-partisan institution that was beyond reproach. To me they were 9 individuals that looked beyond partisan politics and interpreted the law based strictly on the Constitution. As the years went by it became more and more obvious to me that the Supreme Court was just another partisan organization who decisions revolved not on the law but on which party had been able to load the court with their judges.

Anyone who still believed that the court was non-partisan even after watching the majority of decisions being made along the lines of which President had nominated the judge, could no longer deny this after President Obama nominated Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court in early 2016.

Soon after Garland was nominated, the Senate led by Mitch McConnell announced that they were not going to consider Garland’s nomination and would instead wait for after the election 8 month’s later in hopes that a Republican would win and therefore be able to choose his nominee. Of course this happened and Donald Trump selected Neil Gorsuch and the rest is Supreme Court packing partisan history.

So Justice Roberts, yes your court has an image problem but no, finding the leaker will do absolutely nothing to fix it. If and until the court actually rises above partisanship, it will continue to be looked at no better than the rest of our political system. If you don’t like a decision, just work to stack the court in your favor and eventually you’ll get the decision you want regardless of its Constitutionality.

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Your Tax Dollars At Work

Trump’s “Stop the Steal” bamboozle has been prevalent in GOP controlled Wisconsin since the 2020 election. Last year our House Speaker Robin Vos commissioned former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman to investigate claims of election fraud in Wisconsin. To date Gableman has yet to provide any evidence to prove fraud and has spent over $900,000 out of an initially approved amount of 676,000 in tax payer funds for that investigation.

Earlier today Gableman was called to testify over his refusal to produce records requested by an open records request. Some of these documents were reportedly deleted by Gableman and during his testimony Gableman shows what our tax dollars have gotten us.

Remember, this is coming from a former Supreme Court justice.

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Hyper Partisanship

The January 6th committee has been the target of Republicans from day 1. They complain that it was a sham and that it was a partisan witch hunt aimed at Donald Trump. Of course they never mention that when it was being formed, Democrats begged Republicans to be a part of the process but yet only 2 stepped forward much to the detriment of their future political aspirations.

Last night the January 6th committee held a primetime event where they laid out much of their findings and showed interviews and never before seen video of the events of that day which painted a pretty clear picture of what happened. Interviews included Trump’s Attorney General, his daughter Ivanka, and the documentary film maker embedded with the Proud Boys who was responsible for much of the video evidence that the committee used.

Most of the presented evidence pointed to the “Steal”, Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen, being a figment of Trump’s imagination and that his claim was directly responsible for much of what transpired on January 6th. Unfortunately for the GOP, they dismissed the committee and were therefore not able to present any evidence they might have had to the contrary.

Now I did say that the GOP’s refusal to participate was unfortunate, I should have probably said that it would have been unfortunate if this had occurred in the past.

Today’s hyper partisanship has people on both sides of the spectrum believing only sources that they agree with. Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, Facebook buddies, all present an extremely slanted view of the news and if their preferred source says it isn’t true, they automatically believe them.

In this case Fox News has slanted their reporting towards the far right’s claims of stolen elections and even went so far as to not even televise one of the bigger news events of the year. Their loyal viewers therefore continue to dismiss anything that might tarnish their Lord and Savior Donald Trump’s image and could care less what the committee presents.

This is where I meant that the fact that Republicans refused to participate might not have been that unfortunate. I believe that the Democrats could have produced video evidence of Trump leading the charge up the Capitol steps on January 6th and the Trump supporters would have spun it into Trump was trying to save his pals in Congress from the Democrats false flag operation led by Hillary Clinton.

Hyper partisanship in action…

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Gun Control And Hunter Biden?

Wisconsin’s own Ron Johnson is a favorite interview for both the left and the right. The right gets their talking points regurgitated without fail and the left gets stupid personified. One of Johnson’s latest interviews was with a reporter from CNN who asked him his thoughts on waiting periods for gun sales for individuals under 21.

So how did Ron Johnson respond? Well it certainly didn’t have anything to do with waiting periods!

“My main point on any kind of gun control is, let’s enforce the laws that we have. And let’s do it within a justice system that applies the laws equally. Maybe we should start with what Hunter Biden did in terms of his own background checks.“

Maybe a new drinking game where one drinks each time Johnson mentions Hunter Biden?

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It’s Lonely In The Middle

The Lone Independent is a diary of sorts documenting my thoughts on the current state of politics in our country and since I currently reside in Wisconsin, our local politics will be fair game as well. After all who could resist writing about our local embarrassment, Ron Johnson?

I have spent time in both parties wetting my teeth as a Republican back in the days of Reagan eventually moving away from the party after seeing how bad it was becoming. This became especially apparent after moving to the political wasteland of South Dakota where the Democratic party goes to die. I briefly turned to the Democratic Party during the Bush years but soon discovered that that was just as bad. 15 years ago I finally realized that our 2 party system had been corrupted by money and radicalism and haven’t looked back. Party before country is not for me.

This site’s purpose is mainly to provide me a place to vent but I do welcome your comments as long as they add to the discussion and don’t disparage someone else who feels the need to comment here. First time commenters will be sent to moderation but once your comment clears moderation you will be free to comment without moderation going forward. Even with that said I will not tolerate rude or disparaging comments at any time even from those that have commented before.

Anyhow, welcome to the Lone Independent!