The "Hillary Clinton Victory Fund"

A Win For Hillary Clinton's Methods Is A Loss For Participatory Democracy

From the 18^th century to the 20^th century Tammany Hall was one of the most powerful political organizations in New York City. It was also one of the most corrupt. Among its more notorious leaders was old Boss Tweed in the late 19^th century;

William Magear Tweed (April 3, 1823 – April 12, 1878) – often erroneously referred to as William Marcy Tweed (see below),[1] and widely known as "Boss" Tweed – was an American politician most notable for being the "boss" of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in the politics of 19th century New York City and State. At the height of his influence, Tweed was the third-largest landowner in New York City, a director of the Erie Railroad, the Tenth National Bank, and the New-York Printing Company, as well as proprietor of the Metropolitan Hotel.[2] 

Tweed was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1852 and the New York County Board of Supervisors in 1858, the year he became the head of the Tammany Hall political machine. He was also elected to the New York State Senate in 1867, but Tweed's greatest influence came from being an appointed member of a number of boards and commissions, his control over political patronage in New York City through Tammany, and his ability to ensure the loyalty of voters through jobs he could create and dispense on city-related projects.

According to Tweed biographer Kenneth D. Ackerman:

It's hard not to admire the skill behind Tweed's system ... The Tweed ring at its height was an engineering marvel, strong and solid, strategically deployed to control key power points: the courts, the legislature, the treasury and the ballot box. Its frauds had a grandeur of scale and an elegance of structure: money-laundering, profit sharing and organization.[3]

Tweed was convicted for stealing an amount estimated by an aldermen's committee in 1877 at between $25 million and $45 million from New York City taxpayers through political corruption, although later estimates ranged as high as $200 million.[4] Unable to make bail, he escaped from jail once, but was returned to custody. He died in the Ludlow Street Jail.

Boss Tweed's ghost is alive and well in the Democratic Party today. Establishment political figures are backing Hillary Clinton for money and favors.

There's a reason we suddenly have so many establishment Democrat politicians backing Hillary. They want the big donor money she brings them for their own campaigns. To go into greater detail, let's read about the Hillary Clinton Victory Fund.

From the Washington Post

Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, has set up a joint fundraising committee with the DNC and the new rules are likely to provide her with an advantage.

The new rules have already opened up opportunities for influence-buying “by Washington lobbyists with six-figure contributions to the Hillary Victory Fund,” said Wertheimer, suggesting that lobbyists could also face “political extortion” from those raising the money.

From the New York Times

The move to create the “Victory Funds” – in which the money raised would be divided between the state parties and the Clinton campaign – comes as efforts to form a joint fund-raising agreement with the Democratic National Committee have repeatedly hit snags over concerns in the Clinton campaign about the current party leadership’s controlling the money in any shared account. The national committee, which is intended to remain neutral, has been accused by Mrs. Clinton’s rivals for the nomination of taking actions that could benefit Mrs. Clinton, such as restricting the number of debates.

From the Washington Examiner

According to a Wednesday night FEC filing, the states set up agreements with the "Hillary Victory Fund," ensuring that each state party "collects contributions, pays fundraising expenses and disburses net proceeds for ... the authorized committee of a federal candidate." Many key primary states and battleground states signed the agreements, such as Florida, Ohio, Nevada, South Carolina and New Hampshire. 

In addition to the 33 state agreements, the Hillary Victory fund also has set up joint fundraising agreements with Hillary for America and the Democratic National Committee. By doing so, Clinton's fundraising dollars can aid Democrats in each of the participating states and allow donors who give to the state parties to aid her campaign, thus linking the success of other Democrats to her own dollars and vice versa.

From HuffingtonPost

The Clinton campaign’s super joint fundraising committee is out of the ordinary for two reasons. First, presidential candidates do not normally enter into fundraising agreements with their party’s committees until after they actually win the nomination. Second, Clinton’s fundraising committee is the first since the Supreme Court’s 2014 McCutcheon v. FEC decision eliminated aggregate contribution limits and Congress increased party contribution limits in the 2014 omnibus budget bill.

A great example of the corruption we're seeing in this new fundraising reality is the chairwoman of the Iowa Democratic Party, Andrea McGuire. She has been a dedicated Clinton campaign operative since 2007, even going so far as to have a HRC2016 license plate:

One of the first Iowans to buy "Hard Choices" was Dr. Andrea McGuire, who was co-chairwoman of Clinton's 2008 campaign in Iowa. "I want to see what she has to say about what she did as secretary of state and how she's become the great leader she is," she said. 

It wasn't a leap to suspect McGuire would add the book to her collection. The license plate on her Buick Enclave says "HRC 2016."

"It was a Christmas gift from my kids," said McGuire, who lives in Des Moines. "They said what would their mom like best and what she would like is for Hillary to be president."

Whatpossible impact could she have had on the 2016 Iowa caucus with itsrazor thin margin?

Sanders aides asked to sit down with the state party to review the paperwork from the precinct chairs, Batrice said.

"We just want to work with the party and get the questions that are unanswered answered," she said.

McGuire, in an interview with the Register, said no.

But it's not like there was any sign of top-down incompetence and disorganization in the Iowa caucus, except for later in that article:

Democratic voters reported long lines, too few volunteers, a lack of leadership and confusing signage. In some cases, people waited for an hour in one line, only to learn their precinct was in a different area of the same building. The proceedings were to begin at 7 p.m. but started late in many cases. 

The scene at precinct No. 42, the one with the final missing votes, was "chaos" Monday night, said Jill Joseph, a rank-and-file Democratic voter who backed Sanders in the caucuses.

None of the 400-plus Democrats wanted to be in charge of the caucus, so a man who had shown up just to vote reluctantly stepped forward. As Joseph was leaving with the untrained caucus chairman, who is one of her neighbors, "I looked at him and said, 'Who called in the results of our caucus?' And we didn't know."

Expect to see this repeated in other primaries and caucuses, as a political system bought by the Clintons and coerced into a symbiotic relationship where the local and state level Democratic political leaders cannot survive without the Clintons makes perfectly clear that the voices of the little people are not desired or heeded. 

The reason so many state and local level politicians have come out supporting Hillary Clinton's presidency, the reason she has so many more superdelegates this time than in 2008, is because of matching funding through the Hillary Clinton Victory Fund. They raise funds for Hillary, and they get a cut of those funds. Here's how it works:

1. Donations to the "Hillary Clinton Victory Fund" are spread out among campaigns in the participating states. 
2. Politician campaigns for Clinton and calls on people to donate.
3. Donors donate to the "Hillary Clinton Victory Fund"
4. Donations are shared between Hillary Clinton and the politician who was campaigning for her.

It's all documented. And that donation-sharing goes not just for small time internet donors but for big campaign fundraisers.

If this is successful in 2016, we won't see an end to it.

Superdelegates have been a big topic of opinion pieces recently, same as they were in 2008. They're going to be irrelevant soon. The Democratic Party can do away with them in order to create the illusion of reform.

Even though many places have gone into the history of delegates and superdelegates recently, I'll do another brief overview. The 1968 Democratic National Convention was an utter disaster for Democrats. Party leaders selected a candidate over the complaints of the base, there were protests and riots, and ultimately the election was handed to Richard Nixon. In the aftermath, the McGovern-Frazer Commission recommended reforms to the process that ensured state level party leaders couldn't simply select their own delegates, and everyone in the party would have a say in the process. This was, for a time, the end of the “smoke filled back room” and these reforms were implemented by the 1972 election.

As a result, George McGovern was selected in 1972 as the Democratic candidate, and Jimmy Carter in 1976. These selections were seen as too extreme by party leaders, and the political insiders wanted a greater say in the process so that going forward they could spike any candidate unacceptable to the Democrat political establishment. From this, the superdelegates were born.

Now that the Clintons, and their successors in 2020, 2024, 2028, and onward, can simply purchase all levels of state leadership, there's no need for them to worry about superdelegates. It'll be a pretty simple process:

1. The establishment's chosen candidate, based on whoever's “turn” it is, sets up a Victory Fund that links funding between their primary campaign and the re-election campaigns of all incumbents, as well as the campaigns of anyone chosen by party leadership to challenge a Republican
2. With the full might of the national, state, and local Democratic Party leveled against any potential challengers, the challenge becomes clearly futile (especially if Clinton's plan works in 2016) and every primary is a coronation.
3. Campaign contributors, including business interests, are able to simply buy not only the candidate they want but the support of the entire state level party. The candidates who get through the process will all be corrupt, as it will be impossible for an honest politician to survive politically.
4. Scare tactics will be used to coerce the voting base into voting for whoever is presented, no matter how bad they are, because they aren't on the opposing team.

Understand that I'm not talking about a presidential primary process made meaningless. I'm talking about every primary process made meaningless. And if this works for the Democrats, the Republicans are going to pick it up too. It will not be stopped or overturned by anyone who gets through this political process. Anybody who thinks that Hillary Clinton will appoint Supreme Court Justices, that will overturn the decisions which made the Hillary Clinton Victory Fund and Hillary Clinton's subsequent election possible, is unbelievably naive or an outright idiot.

If this becomes successful in the primary, the only way to fight it is vote against Clinton in the general. Vote for whoever else is closest to your politics. I'm 92% aligned with Jill Stein, 55% with Gary Johnson, so I'll be voting for Jill Stein if the Democrats are successful in shutting out Bernie Sanders. Voters must boycott any candidate selected using these methods, until the parties using those methods stop or are destroyed.

The alternative is a government nakedly owned by the wealthy where as voters we have no say in the process whatsoever. That means that whatever social, economic, or foreign policies you may like would be absolutely irrelevant, government would instead work exclusively for their financial backers. Participatory democracy where a voter's vote actually matters in any meaningful way would cease to exist. To be sure, we don't have much of that now, but what's there would be gone. 

Replaced by the Establishment Candidate Victory Fund.

And in an echo of Tammany Hall, we'll see a return to the days of patronage and unchecked cronyism. Government will exist purely as a mechanism to transition money from the taxpayers to the wealthy. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, the middle class gets fucked, and we finish our headlong rush into a new "Gilded Age".

PSA - either Australia has mass shootings or we don't have one a day

I see plenty of memes on Facebook that we've had a "mass shooting a day". This number originated as intentional propaganda by an anti-gun subreddit, and has been repeated by the Washington Post, the Guardian, and the New York Times.

But by the Mother Jones definition we've had 4. Their editor did an op-ed for the New York Times where he explains:

At Mother Jones, where I work as an editor, we have compiled an in-depth, open-source database covering more than three decades of public mass shootings. By our measure, there have been four “mass shootings” this year, including the one in San Bernardino, and at least 73 such attacks since 1982.

 He then describes the different methods of counting used:

For at least the past decade, the F.B.I. regarded a mass shooting as a single attack in which four or more victims were killed. (In 2013, a mandate from President Obama for further study of the problem lowered that threshold to three victims killed.) When we began compiling our database in 2012, we used that criteria of four or more killed in public attacks, but excluded mass murders that stemmed from robbery, gang violence or domestic abuse in private homes. Our goal with this relatively narrow set of parameters was to better understand the seemingly indiscriminate attacks that have increased in recent years, whether in movie theaters, elementary schools or office parks.

The statistics now being highlighted in the news come primarily from shootingtracker.com, a website built by members of a Reddit forum supporting gun control called GunsAreCool. That site aggregates news stories about shooting incidents — of any kind — in which four or more people are reported to have been either injured or killed.

He explains the danger in using the wider definition:

There is value in collecting those stories as a blunt measure of gun violence involving multiple victims. But as those numbers gain traction in the news media, they distort our understanding. According to our research at Mother Jones — subsequently corroborated by the F.B.I. — the more narrowly defined mass shootings have grown more frequent, and overwhelmingly involve legally obtained firearms. Experts in the emerging field of threat assessment believe that this is a unique phenomenon that must be understood on its own.

I also see plenty of memes on Facebook saying that since Australia passed "reasonable gun control", meaning they more or less banned civilian gun ownership in most circumstances, they haven't had a mass shooting.

For example, the New York Times, same people who repeat Reddit when saying we have a mass shooting a day, claimed that Australia ended mass killings. In fact, in order to have Australia meet that criteria, the New York Times doesn't use the "GunsAreCool" definition of a mass shooting and instead creates their own:

The oft-cited statistic in Australia is a simple one: There have been no mass killings — defined by experts there as a gunman killing five or more people besides himself — since the nation significantly tightened its gun control laws almost 20 years ago.

 Well shit, that's a tighter threshold than the FBI or Mother Jones used. By that standard we would have had much less "mass killings" in the US than even those claimed by Mother Jones, and thousands less than claimed by... the New York Times.

In Australia following the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre, Australia passed strict restrictions on civilian gun ownership. Australia's former Prime Minister has said:

"We will find any means we can to further restrict them because I hate guns. I don't think people should have guns unless they're police or in the military or in the security industry. There is no earthly reason for people to have weapons. Ordinary citizens should not have weapons. We do not want the American disease brought into Australia."

When you see people supporting the Australian method, this is what they're saying. Ordinary citizens should not be arms, and guns will be restricted by any means necessary because the people pushing for gun laws hate guns. If your position is that we should have some new laws but still have citizen "weapon" ownership, realize that when you join with people pushing for Australian gun control and looking at Australia as a model.

If you're a gun owner trying to find a middle ground, realize you're working with people who hate that you as a civilian are able to own any firearm and every new law they get passed is towards the ultimate goal of ending that.

 I digress.

Following those restrictions was the Monash University shooting in 2002.

The Monash University shooting refers to a school shooting in which a student shot his classmates and teacher, killing two and injuring five.

By the GunsAreCool standard, a mass shooting. 7 people were shot.

In 2011 there was the Hectorville Siege.

It began after a 39-year-old resident of the suburb, later identified as Donato Anthony Corbo, entered his neighbours' property and shot four people, killing three and severly wounding one. An eight-hour stand-off with police followed, during which time he shot and wounded two officers.

By the GunsAreCool standard, a mass shooting. 6 people were shot.

In 2014, the Hunt Family murders.

Murder-suicide shooting spree by Geoff Hunt who killed his wife and three children before turning the gun on himself

Five fatalities, four family members and a suicide by the killer; a mass shooting by GunsAreCool **and** FBI standards. But not by the much tighter New York Times standard intended to make Australia look perfect, which would exclude the perpetrator.
 
Under the new federal definition which was ordered by Obama and lowers the number required for the FBI to declare something a mass killing from four to three, Australia has another. The 2014 Wedderburn shooting:

A shooting murder of a neighbour family (Greg Holmes, 48, his mother Mary Lockhart, 75, and her husband Peter Lockhart, 78) by Ian Francis Jamieson, 63.

On top of these four mass shootings, there have also been 171 deaths in mass arson attacks, there was a mass stabbing that killed 8, and a mass blunt instrument killing that killed 5. This shows that mass murderers will find other methods.

There's a graph by GunPolicy.org an anti-gun site, showing the rate of firearms deaths in Australia falling over time.

If that data line looks familiar, there's a reason. Here's the rate of homicide gun deaths for the US for roughly the same time.

In both countries, murders have been consistently falling, at roughly the same rate and over the same period of time. Since we have drastically different gun laws, maybe the gun laws aren't the factor.

Regardless, here's my main point. If anti-gun activists want to use their wildly inflated "a mass shooting a day!" bogus statistic, they cannot then claim that Australia hasn't had any mass shootings since they passed "reasonable gun control".
 
And these definitions are important, as discussed by USA Today:

Yet marking the death toll of mass killings in America is anything but simple. It's hampered by the FBI's voluntary reporting system that gets it right a little more than half the time, and by advocacy groups who may count only incidents that support their cause, ignoring killings that don't involve a gun or did not get heavy media coverage.

Concentrating on just one type of mass killing — or only on those that get a lot of attention — may be worse than just using the FBI data, because it can skew public understanding and lead to ineffective policies, says Grant Duwe, a senior researcher with the Minnesota Department of Corrections, who has written a book on mass killings based on a data set he built covering the 1900s.

USA Today also mentions that the FBI is releasing the raw data for easier review but there's a caution against misuse:

Even with better data, special interest groups or unscrupulous academics can manipulate the numbers, just as with any other data set.

"If you have a cherry-picked list of cases, it's basically garbage in, garbage out," Duwe said. "And it does have important implications to additional research we do in terms of public policy."

Careful and scrupulous review of the data by USA Today provided interesting results:

USA TODAY's data debunks common beliefs. For example, it shows that the number of mass killings has not increased in recent years; most occur among family members; and handguns, not assault weapons, are most commonly used.

Honesty and academic rigor is important. It's especially important if your goal is to enact effective public policy and to negotiate in good faith with both sides of a political issue. But they are much less important if your goal is to simply repeat phony statistics that make you feel good and that you and your friends think illustrate the bloody handed evil and greed of the "gun lobby". This can feel satisfying in the short run, it may drive Likes and Shares and Pageviews, but it doesn't do anything about violence and makes genuinely effective policy changes much harder to attain.

There's a reason why people with an agenda, and the New York Times is leading the charge on that, want to use a different definition of mass shooting for Australia than they use for the US. It's important to make it look like new gun laws work. So Australia must have a perfect record. These people with an agenda are selling a promise of safety and security. "If we enact Australia's gun laws it will end mass killings in America." But nothing is certain. And the reason they use a different number for the US is so that they can inflate the severity. Four mass shootings a year would be bad enough. But it doesn't generate enough of an unreasoning panic, so they have to change the definitions to make it look like there's a Newton or Columbine every day.

The lesson of Australia is that you don't end gun violence or mass killings just by passing a law. There's not a magic legal wand you can wave to end violence. And if somebody is offering you one, they're lying to you. Be very careful before you repeat anything they say.

It's not NRA lobbying blocking new anti-gun laws - it's grassroots voters and gun owners

Recently Obama again attacked the NRA for no new laws being passed in the wake of shootings where the shooters had no previous red flags and had passed background checks and had used handguns. It's the NRA's fault that these tragedies couldn't be exploited to expand background checks to isolated private sales and an "assault weapons ban" on semiautomatic sporting rifles.

What this ignores is that the NRA doesn't have that much money. What it has is the support of a very large section of the voters. Many gun owners aren't members of the NRA. I'm not. Many more members got their membership because it's packaged free with most new gun sales. But we're voters who care about much the same things that the NRA cares about.

We're also not lying about poll numbers. There was a poll that claimed 90% of Americans "support background checks", so how was it possible that the Manchin-Toomey bill could have failed? Well, 90% of Americans do support some background checks. Probably most background checks. I have no problem with a background check for buying a gun from a dealer or from an FFL. But it's impossible to have what are called "universal background checks", the expansion of background checks to private intrastate transfers, without a gun registry. As I've pointed out before. And that's why Manchin-Toomey failed. Gun owners knew about this problem with the bill, and called their Senators and their Representatives. That's also why support for "background checks" fell so rapidly.

But Obama and other politicians keep pushing the "90%" line, again and again and again. Obama said after Manchin-Toomey failed that "The American people are trying to figure out -- how can something that has 90 percent support not happen?" It's an easy question to answer. He's wrong. The poll is wrong. There wasn't 90% support for the bill.

This is backed up by what one of the bill's supporters said after the bill failed, "When 90 percent of the people want something, and the senator votes against them, the next election, we're going to take care of those senators, because they're not representing the people."

And yet, those Senators weren't replaced. The vote was in 2013. In the 2014 elections, the Republicans held all of their Senate seats and gained 9 Democrat seats to regain control of the Senate for the first time since the Bush Administration. Clearly 90% of the country had spoken. Those Senators weren't "taken care of", because they were representing the voters.

Politicians, pundits, talk show hosts, comedians, and rank and file democrats attack "The NRA", claiming that its lobbying and money prevents Congress from "making progress" on banning guns. But as a lobby, the NRA is a fricking joke in terms of DC money.

Getting past the obvious dripping bias of the OpenSecrets description, the numbers speak for themselves.

Top Contributors, 2013-2014
Contributor Amount
National Rifle Assn  $952,252
Safari Club International  $694,640
Gun Owners of America  $270,157
National Assn for Gun Rights  $175,650
National Shooting Sports Foundation  $169,250
Ohio Gun Collectors Assn  $35,500
Dallas Safari Club  $9,250

About $2.3 million. Compare that to the Environment sector, where the top contributor alone put in $4.3 million in the same time frame. Look at the Communications sector, Comcast lobbyists alone have put in $3.93 million. In fact, at $2.259 million, lobbying from *Microsoft alone* comes close to equaling *the entirety of lobbying done by the NRA*. In the energy sector, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association put in as much as the entire firearms lobbying sector.

Gun industry's *monetary* influence on politics is negligible. But the truth, and the thing that drives anti-gunners into a furious and impotent rage, is the fact that it's individual voters by the millions who drive gun policy. It's phone calls and emails and letters to politicians, it's election time volunteering and voting. And gun owners do it better than gun opponents. And they hate us for it. Read this angry anti-gun voter piece from Mother Jones, where they complain that they can't even win after using Bloomberg money to buy elections.

Money alone does not equal political power. Supporters of the background check bill and new gun control laws have lots of money. Bloomberg alone has spent tens of millions of dollars through Mayors Against Illegal Guns and his self-funded super-PAC, Independence USA, to counter the influence of the gun lobby. He ousted NRA-backed congressional candidates in the 2012 elections and again this year in Illinois, where he spent more than $2 million to defeat Debbie Halvorson, a Democrat who'd previously received an A rating from the NRA, in the special primary to replace disgraced ex-Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Bloomberg declared that his money was a warning sign for pro-gun lawmakers: Shill for the NRA and I'll drop big money to bounce you out of office. That threat wasn't enough to persuade a handful of Democratic senators from red states and Republican senators who were once thought of as possible votes for gun safety measures.

Shilling against gun ownership is fine. SuperPACs are fine. Using big money to throw elections is fine, so long as you further the political goals of the anti-gun movement*.

The double standard for anyone concerned about money in politics is stunning and repulsive.

They also found that their own lobbying group couldn't get it done.

Obama's political machine could not overcome the NRA's might. A database of tens of millions of voters and the best political technology on the planet do not equal political power. The background check fight was the first real test for Organizing for Action, the advocacy group spawned from of the president's massively successful reelection campaign. Former Obama aides created OFA to mobilize Obama supporters during legislative fights like this one, hoping to use all the names, data, and other finely honed technologies during the 2012 campaign to create the outside pressure needed to push contentious pieces of legislation across the finish line.  

OFA executive director Jon Carson wrote that more than 22,000 people called the Senate on Wednesday demanding passage of Manchin-Toomey. But there were no reports of crippled phone lines or a massive surge of public interest similar to what was seen during the legislative debates over health care reform or financial reform. OFA devoted time and money organizing its members, but it wasn't enough.

Note the author's crowing over the database of "tens of millions of voters" as a positive, and how that database only translated to 22,000 calls in support of more gun control laws. This is key because of later in the article when they go after the NRA:

Here is what political power looks like: It's the combination of money, intensity, and influence when it matters most. The NRA boasts all of the above. LaPierre and his NRA colleagues around the country know how to whip their members—4.5 million of them by the NRA's count—into a frenzy. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 1 in 5 gun owners had called, written, or emailed a public official; only 1 in 10 people without a gun in the household had done the same. In the same poll, 1 in 5 gun owners said they'd given money to a group involved in the gun control debate; just 4 percent of people without a gun in the home previously gave money.

It's bad that the NRA boasts 4.5 million members because the author disagrees with them. It's good that OFA has a database of tens of millions of members because the author agrees with them. But there are an estimated 80-100 million gun owners in the United States. That means "1 in 5 gun owners" translates to roughly 16 to 20 million voters. That's 4 times the number of members of the NRA.

To the anti-gun movement* it's good that a billionaire throws elections that further their goals, and it's bad that millions of voters donate to politicians in opposition to that one billionaire. The thing that so frustrates the luminaries of the anti-gun movement* is the simple and unavoidable fact that their new laws fail because of democracy. There are no new laws because the democratic process is working, because millions of voters speaking out to their elected officials and donating to their political causes does indeed have more swing than few lobbying groups and wealthy individuals.

Obama wants to paint these millions of voters as being uniformly irrational conspiracy theorists. Which, by the way, is a fucking fantastic way to win people over.

“There is a very passionate group of gun owners who see a conspiracy around any new legislation and have an absolute belief that the Second Amendment means nothing would in any way constrain them from having whatever weapon on the market and modest additional steps are the camel’s nose under the tent to take away their guns,” 

The Second Amendment has already been extensively restricted. Gun ownership now is to the furthest limit of what the Supreme Court has ruled constitutional. And gun owners aren't stupid, we can look at Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, New York, Illinois, and California, and see that these news laws are always the camel's nose. In the same interview Obama praises the anti-gun laws of Australia, which are incredibly restrictive and which have not caused their murder rate to drop significantly.

There is no pressing need for these laws, and the proposed new laws wouldn't have done anything about the recent mass shootings where background checks have been passed, and handguns used instead of "assault rifles". Which means that obviously they wouldn't stop mass shootings, and so the camel's nose would keep going under that tent and result in more laws being passed, and more, and more. As has happened in those previously mentioned fiercely anti-gun states. Anti-gun activists know this, just as surely as gun owners know this. Gun owners aren't** conspiracy wackos, we just aren't idiots either. Ask anyone pushing new gun laws, whether they're a random liberal on the internet, or a politician, or a comedian, anyone who says "nobody is coming for your guns!", if there is a gun law they would oppose. Ask them if there is a single point past which they would say "That's enough new gun laws, I oppose any further laws."

I have. And the answer is always the same. They want gun ownership to end.

Gun owners aren't idiots. We also aren't all conservatives, we aren't all straight, we aren't all white, we aren't all men. We're not easily put into the boxes that they try to put us into. And this, too, infuriates the anti-gun movement. The backlash against Colion Noir, an African-American gun owner, when he became a paid commentator for the NRA was virulent and patronizing. He can't like gun ownership for its own sake, he must be a "shill". Everyone getting paid to post anti-gun articles, they aren't shills, they're just honestly expressing their opinions.

This is why there's no movement on new anti-gun laws. We don't like having our opinions invalidated, we don't like being insulted, we don't like having lies endlessly passed off as truth, and we don't like when a big money SuperPAC with a handful of wealthy donors tries to force their preferred laws to pass. And it's only in the field of gun ownership that the left accepts these things from authoritarian politicians.

This needs to stop, because as the Republican Party self destructs, this is the only thing that could cause the Democrats to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, not just in 2016 but in 2018 and possibly even 2020. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, even Bernie Sanders are attacking firearms ownership. Democrats have, or had, a significant advantage in the electoral college. Few things could shake that advantage, but this is one of them. It's not because gun owners are "single issue" voters, but because many of us don't support being lied to and lied about. If you have Hillary Clinton running on an anti-gun platform (she should talk to her husband about how the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban cost the Democrats control of the House) against a Republican, she loses Ohio, Florida, Virginia, probably Pennsylvania, and almost certainly the Presidency.

Anti-gun publication Mother Jones describes the failures and fallout of when the Democrats forced the 1994 AWB through Congress:

As Obama assumes this tough mission, he can look back to the 1994 episode for guidance on how to win the politics and how to avoid screwing up the policy. Clinton savvily enlisted the law enforcement community and made good use of his Cabinet. Obama could emulate both moves. (He has instructed members of his Cabinet to help craft recommendations for Biden's task force.) Yet to make sure his efforts yield real-world results, the president will have to be mindful of policy particulars and not repeat the errors of 1994. "If you're going to be effective, you have to have a broad-based ban on weapons and on ammo," the former Justice Department official says.

...
One conclusion that can be drawn from the 1994 battle was that the weak ban that emerged might not have been worth the cost. And there was a stiff cost. When Congress passed the assault weapons ban, the NRA vowed vengeance. Months later, the Republicans, backed by the still-outraged NRA, romped the Democrats in the midterm election, gaining 54 seats and control of the House for the first time in 40 years. Clinton, for one, believed that voting for the the assault weapons ban had cost about 20 House Democrats their seats—meaning that the measure had caused a political backlash that led to a GOP the majority in the House. If Obama and others confront the NRA, they had better expect—and prepare for—a battle that will reach a crescendo on November 4, 2014.

Obama, unconcerned with leaving a winning legacy, has said that the Democrats should go ahead and become single issue voters and lose a few elections in order to fight gun ownership.

“You have to make sure that anybody who you are voting for is on the right side of this issue. And if they’re not, even if they’re great on other stuff, for a couple of election cycles you’ve got to vote against them, and let them know precisely why you’re voting against them. And you just have to, for a while, be a single-issue voter because that’s what is happening on the other side."

Imagine the backlash if you or I said the same thing about any other issue, like the Obama Administration's wiretapping, or its drone airstrikes against civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen. He's willing to let the Republicans win, in spite of things like gay rights and reproductive rights, if gun ownership is fought.

The question is, will left wing gun owners and voters tolerate this? Will the voters let the Democratic Party leaders take the party down with them in their pursuit for more authoritarian anti-gun laws?

*Can't even say the "anti-gun left", because I am certainly much further left than former Republican mayor Michael Bloomberg.
** well not all of us, not even a majority of us, but that minority is really really loud and it's politically expedient to lump the rest of us in with them

What a shock, white supremacists lie

I've seen a list endlessly reposted on facebook by white supremacists of white people killed by black people recently, and how supposedly none of these made national news or caused riots. The implication being that it was those subhuman racist darkies who riots when a cop kills a thug. What this list does is present data in an incredibly biased way, intended to further fan the flames of white racist anger. One copy of the list was posted by the Armslist.com facebook page. Another has over 2000 likes on a Fox News facebook page. The original appears to have come from Ted “I shit my pants to get out of Vietnam and adopted an underage girl so I could give myself permission to marry her” Nugent. This makes it a racist piece of shit from a racist piece of shit. 

 Key points:

1. Many of the items on the list are outright fabrications. Nearly every date is inaccurate, as they refer to the conviction or sentencing dates for crimes committed years ago.
2. Of the actual crimes and actual suspects, not all of them have been convicted. There is a question of innocence or guilt still. There is no question that Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown. The question is whether or not it was justified.
3. Nearly all are convicted or in jail awaiting trial. Darren Wilson is not. 
4. The list, being intended to stoke white anger against blacks, does not list blacks killed by whites in the same time frame, whites killed by whites, etc. It focuses on presenting the image that White America is under assault by the Black Thugs infesting it. 
5. The outrage behind the Ferguson protests, in addition to frustration at years of systematic and documented racism, is because the police officer involved has not been arrested and (prior to the outcry and national attention) likely would not have faced charges. Meanwhile Michael Brown's body lay in the street for hours.

Here's the list

7/18- Jimmie Norman, white male murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/18- Terry Taylor, white male murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/17- Cindy Raygoza, white female murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/11- Luis Aguilar, 91 year old hispanic male murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/10- Brittany Simpson, white female murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/6- Sarah Goode, white female murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/6- Jeffrey Westerfield, white male murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/5- Perry Renn, white male murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/3- Laurey Kennedy, white female still in coma from beating by black male. No national news 

7/3 Eric Mollet, white male murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/2 Rupert Anderson, white male murdered by black male. No national news. 

7/2 Jennifer Kingeter, white female murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/30 Jim Brennan, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/29 Paul Shephard, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/27 Shirley Barone, white female, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/27 Penelope Spencer, white female, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/27 Inga Evans, white female, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/26 Jake Rameau, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/25 Gina Burger, white female, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/24 Nathan Dasher, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/22 Jonathan Price, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/20 John Whitmore, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/18 John Yingling,white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/17 Allyn Reeves, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/15 Michael Beaver, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/11 Angela Cook, white female, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/11 Nathan Hall, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/7 Harry Briggs, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/5 Laura Bachman, white female, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/2 Robert Mohler, white male, murdered by black male. No national news. 

6/1 William Headley, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

Anytime you see this list, just ask "are the suspected killers in jail"? I did ask that, and I went through the entire list, and briefly researched each incident. 

 7/18- Jimmie Norman, white male murdered by black male. No national news.

 Harlem Lewis is on trial for the murder of Bellaire Police Sergeant Jimmie Norman and MAACO service shop owner Terry Taylor in 2012.
http://www.click2houston.com/news/dash-cam-video-played-at-trial-of-man-accused-of-killing-bellaire-officer/26969150 

 7/18- Terry Taylor, white male murdered by black male. No national news.

 Harlem Lewis is on trial for the murder of Bellaire Police Sergeant Jimmie Norman and MAACO service shop owner Terry Taylor in 2012.
http://www.click2houston.com/news/dash-cam-video-played-at-trial-of-man-accused-of-killing-bellaire-officer/26969150 

 7/17- Cindy Raygoza, white female murdered by black male. No national news.

 Michael Reams -- who was shot by a Fresno police officer Monday after he stabbed a woman to death
http://www.fresnobee.com/2014/07/15/4025743/man-killed-by-fresno-police-woman.html 

 7/11- Luis Aguilar, 91 year old hispanic male murdered by black male. No national news.

 Luis Aguilar was a Border Patrol Agent killed by a Mexican drug runner, who was then sentenced to life in prison. I can’t find *anything* on a “91 year old” Luis Aguilar that was murdered.
http://www.fbi.gov/sandiego/press-releases/2011/man-convicted-in-the-death-of-u.s.-customs-and-border-protection-border-patrol-agent-luis-aguilar-receives-life-sentence-in-federal-prison 

 7/10- Brittany Simpson, white female murdered by black male. No national news.

 Brittany Simpson was killed by two Hispanic men, who are in custody awaiting trial.
http://www.wsmv.com/story/26050981/2-men-charged-with-perry-co-murder 

 7/6- Sarah Goode, white female murdered by black male. No national news.

Taylor faces life in prison without parole if convicted of killing Sarah Goode, 21.
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/dante-taylor-pleads-not-guilty-to-first-degree-murder-in-sarah-goode-s-death-1.8882811 

 7/6- Jeffrey Westerfield, white male murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspect is being held and is awaiting trial.
http://abc7chicago.com/news/man-charged-in-gary-cop-jeffrey-westerfield-killing/216557/ 

 7/5- Perry Renn, white male murdered by black male. No national news.

 The suspect is in custody pending trial, and the prosecutor is seeking the death penalty.
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2014/08/19/prosecutor-seek-death-penalty-murder-suspect-impd-officer-perry-renns-death/14301075/ 

 7/3- Laurey Kennedy, white female still in coma from beating by black male. No national news

 I can’t find any local news story on this. Could be fabricated. Only google returns are reposting of the list. 

 7/3 Eric Mollet, white male murdered by black male. No national news.

 I can’t find any local news story on this. Could be fabricated. Only google returns are reposting of the list. 

 7/2 Rupert Anderson, white male murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspect is in custody pending trial/extradition. Also an Ethiopian national, and not a U.S. citizen.
http://whotv.com/2014/07/03/elderly-man-killed-in-home-invasion/ 

 7/2 Jennifer Kingeter, white female murdered by black male. No national news.

 “A jury found 36-year-old Jamaal Anthony Prince guilty of first-degree murder just before noon Thursday in the slashing and stabbing death of Jennifer “Jessica” Kingeter on Dec. 28, 2012.
http://www.berkeleyside.com/2014/07/11/berkeley-woman-to-push-for-stiffer-penalties-after-brutal-stabbing-death-of-daughter/ 

 6/30 Jim Brennan, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspects are in custody pending trial.
http://www.newsnet5.com/news/local-news/oh-cuyahoga/4-suspected-of-murdering-cleveland-heights-restaurant-owner-jim-brennan-plead-not-guilty-in-court 

 6/29 Paul Shephard, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 I can’t find any local news story on this. Could be fabricated.

 6/27 Shirley Barone, white female, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Shirley Barone and Penelope Spencer were stabbed but they both survived. The suspect is in custody. 
http://www.wpxi.com/news/news/local/report-2-women-stabbed-springdale-manor-high-rise/ngTw3/ 

 6/27 Penelope Spencer, white female, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Shirley Barone and Penelope Spencer were stabbed but they both survived. The suspect is in custody.
http://www.wpxi.com/news/news/local/report-2-women-stabbed-springdale-manor-high-rise/ngTw3/ 

 6/27 Inga Evans, white female, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Inga Evans was robbed. By a woman. She’s fine.
http://www.myfoxdfw.com/story/25920067/ft-worth-grandmother-robbed-attacked-in-walmart-parking-lot 

 6/26 Jake Rameau, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspect is in custody pending trial.
http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/index.ssf/2014/07/robert_earl_gee_30_charged_wit.html

6/25 Gina Burger, white female, murdered by black male. No national news.

 A Mahoning County grand jury indicted Ricki D. Williams IV of Lansdowne Boulevard on Thursday on a charge of aggravated murder with death-penalty specifications in the June 23 stabbing death of Gina Burger in the Compass West apartment complex in Austintown. - See more at: 
http://www.vindy.com/news/2014/jul/11/jury-indicts-suspect-in-teen-killing/ 

 6/24 Nathan Dasher, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspects are in custody pending trial.
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/crime/2014/07/02/montgomery-homicide-arrests-crime-12/12017441/ 

 6/22 Jonathan Price, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 These suspects are still at large. The only ones on the list that weren’t in custody.
http://www.lex18.com/news/more-details-released-in-shooting-death-of-marine 

 6/20 John Whitmore, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 John Whitmore was a black man fatally beaten by two black women. Police are still looking for the women, who simply blended back into the crowd and escape without anyone trying to stop them.
http://ktla.com/2014/07/22/police-offer-reward-for-help-finding-of-those-who-allegedly-beat-killed-man-at-metro-station/ 

 6/18 John Yingling,white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 The teen convicted of a 2013 Southside crime spree that resulted in the death of an Indianapolis man has been sentenced to 59 years in prison.
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2014/07/11/southside-crime-spree-suspect-sentenced-years-prison/12528229/ 

 6/17 Allyn Reeves, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 I can’t find any local news story on this. Could be fabricated. Only google returns are reposting of the list. 

 6/15 Michael Beaver, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspect is in custody.
http://www.10news.com/news/police-arrest-suspect-in-connection-with-death-of-michael-beaver-in-gaslamp 

 6/11 Angela Cook, white female, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspect is in custody and has been indicted.
http://www.northescambia.com/2014/07/man-indicted-for-murder-after-body-found-in-his-home 

 6/11 Nathan Hall, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspects are in custody. But, to use the terminology used when Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown were killed, Nathan Hall “was no angel”.

 “Early on the morning of April 16, around 1 a.m., Nathan Hall pedaled his bicycle to a designated spot along North Adams Street, carrying an eighth of an ounce of marijuana and $80 cash.”

 http://www.southbendtribune.com/news/second-arrest-made-in-nathan-hall-shooting-death/article_8b63c02c-f184-11e3-87f5-001a4bcf6878.html 

 6/7 Harry Briggs, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Suspect is in custody pending trial.
http://fox59.com/2014/07/16/police-make-arrest-in-gas-station-clerks-fatal-shooting/ 

 6/5 Laura Bachman, white female, murdered by black male. No national news.

 Laura Bachman died unexpectedly of apparently natural causes. In 2010. 
http://www.twincities.com/ci_16643963 
http://www.startribune.com/local/east/109537674.html 

 6/2 Robert Mohler, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 The prosecutor is seeking aggravated assault charges, not murder charges, and the suspects are in custody.
http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/No-Murder-Charges-in-Homeless-Mans-Death-261528441.html  

 6/1 William Headley, white male, murdered by black male. No national news.

 I can’t find any local news articles on a “William Headley” murdered by anyone. There are two obituaries for William Headleys that died in the last few years, one of a long illness and the other of cancer. 

As you can see, a lot of these are questionable. Many are openly dishonest. Why would somebody distribute racially charged dishonest information, either knowingly, or intentionally? 

The Rescuers Down Under as Marxist Allegory

Theory: Disney film "The Rescuers Down Under" is an allegory of the evils of capitalism and how the proletariat can rise. 

Broadly, the humans represent the ruling class, while the animals represent the working class. 

The kid, Cody, is born into the ruling class but he helps protect and free the working class using the abilities gained by the privileges of his birth, and also his ability to communicate with the working class animals. 

The poacher, McLeach, represents the worst of capitalism, eagerly consuming the animals of the working class for his own enrichment with no thought for them.

Joanna, the goanna lizard, represents members of the working class who are class traitors, who turn on their own class and serve the ruling class faithfully, despite mistreatment by their rulers, who they can never become.

When the animals are caged in the poacher's basement along with Cody, it represents the chains of wage slavery and how the ruling class will cheerfully enslave members of its own class if they can. The escape shows how the working class can free itself through solidarity and cooperation.

The giant golden eagle represents the heights to which the working class can soar when free, bearing everyone up together equally. Additionally, the ability of the eagle to fly, but not Cody unless he is on the eagle, shows how even members from the ruling class can't succeed without a working class, but the working class can succeed and soar without needing a ruling class.

The crocodiles are the lumpenproletariat. They will turn on and consume anyone who gets close to them, without a thought for the class struggle, happily eating working class animals or ruling class humans.

Disney realized just before releasing it that the movie had this subtle Marxist message, but they'd already sunk too much money and time into it to just abandon it. Instead they released it opposite movies like Home Alone and Rocky V, and then shortly thereafter pulled TV advertising for it, in hopes the message would not be widely heard.

Or maybe I'm reading too much into it. 

Also, thanks for 17,000 pageviews because that's pretty cool.