An armed robber was shot by an armed customer of the store the robber was attempting to rob. One more victim of gun violence for our opponents to light a candle for.
Year: 2012
Tactics on the Starbucks Boycott
Arma Borealis has a bit on how our opponents plan to drive their Starbucks Protest. Chris calls it “fake journalism.” That might be the case, but the tactic is smart. They know they can’t beat us with numbers, so they have to beat us with tactics. Their tactic, I don’t think, will change many minds on the issue. I personally don’t like being accosted and dragged into a cause when I’m on my way to do something. I think a lot of people feel the same way.
But what they hope, is that Starbucks will capitulate to them in order to make the unwanted attention go away. These are classic tactics to use in order to shake down a corporation into doing what you want them to do, and generally speaking, it’s effective. Will it work in this case? 11,000+ people on Facebook and still climbing, and this is a purely grassroots effort. I think it’s safe to say we could hit 20 or 30 thousand by the time February 14th rolls around. Those kinds of numbers talk, and what Starbucks surely doesn’t want, are those kinds of numbers turning against them.
Great Dirty Minds Think Alike
I just can’t help it. This is a great headline find by Wyatt:
I just… There’s not much else that can be said.
What is an Establishment Candidate?
I can’t tell you how many places I’ve read that have people on the farther side of the right spectrum complaining about how Mitt Romney has been “forced” on voters as the GOP nominee. He’s just what the establishment wants. Well what does being the establishment candidate who is forced on us really mean?
It’s a legitimate question to explore since I don’t particularly like him. But, I don’t think forced is an accurate term, nor do I think what is happening with Mitt an example of the establishment anointing a candidate. If you really want to see a case of that happening, look no farther than Pennsylvania.
Consider the Keystone State’s U.S. Senate race this year. There are three reasonably well-known candidates, and one really rich guy who can buy enough ads to make himself well-known. Candidate A from the state’s population center is wealthy, but he’s never run a campaign. He’s only reasonably well-known in political circles because he has tried to run before, but he never actually got any campaigns off the ground since better-known Republicans stepped in and asked him to step aside. Candidate B has run a campaign and came within a very close margin of winning in a district that had voted Democratic for the seat since 1974. He has a national fundraising list to bring to the table, and he has a record with a campaign that could put numbers on the board even in a tough district. Candidate C is a former gubernatorial candidate who really didn’t resonate with GOP voters in his last primary, but he at least has experience trying to run in a statewide race. He would have a statewide donor list, presumably, so that should count for something. Candidate D is just the rich guy who doesn’t seem to bring much else to the table.
So, given all of these factors, you’d think that Candidates B & C would be the likely strongest candidates, right? Well, the state GOP leaders decided that they liked Candidate A. They liked him so much that they will provide him with official party resources in order to win the primary so he can work against other Republicans. Voters will technically have a say in the primary, but they want to make sure that party resources are provided for shoving their choice in our faces before the general election.
That, my friends, is what I call an establishment candidate. When the party quite literally spends official resources to back their personal favorite and possibly use the resources to attack other Republican candidates, that’s not allowing voters to really decide. I had never heard of such a process until I moved to Pennsylvania. It’s not just at the state level. I’ve watched county GOP officials disparage other Republicans who aren’t in their little approved circle and take them to court for minor things. It’s absurd to waste party resources eating our own, but that seems to be the official GOP way in Pennsylvania.
So, considering this example of truly having a candidate financially backed by party resources and picked in a room of party leaders, is Mitt in the same category?
The fact is that Mitt has won 772,064 Republican votes, according to the Wall Street Journal. To me, that means that Republicans are voting for the man. I may not like him, but I’m not going to claim that those 772,000 are all secretly party leaders picking the presidential nominee for the party. They are voters.
NGVAC Ad in Times Square on Starbucks Protest
Jacob is wondering who’s paying for the ad on the Times Square jumbo-tron. My guess is that, as a 501(c)(3), they got some PSA time, meaning that PRNewswire ran it for them gratis. Not that it matters, as their boycott is still going to be made of epic fail. Last night, the Starbucks Appreciation Event topped 10,000 people on Facebook, and is now well on its way to 11,000. If everyone who went to that event spent $10 on average, that’s $100,000 more in sales Starbucks will have that day that they wouldn’t have had previously. While Starbucks grosses about 26 million in a day, this isn’t chump change for a day’s work.
If you’re not sure how you can spend ten bucks at Starbucks, Barron Barnett came up with a great idea of buying a few bags of Starbucks for the troops overseas. Follow the link for details if you’re stationed overseas or know someone who is stationed overseas that might like a little taste of home.
California Shall-Issue Ballot Controversy Resolved
And update from Gene Hoffman on the issue mentioned yesterday. It would seem all parties, including Dave Clark, the initiative sponsor, and Ignatius Piazza, founder and director of Front Sight, have come to an agreement that the measure will be pulled this cycle so that court cases can proceed. We are pleased that everyone managed to come together and do the right thing here.
Recent Conversations with Tech Support
As many of you may recall, I quit a job from hell approximately one month ago, after being there only a month. Best decision I ever made. I don’t have patience for companies that use and abuse their employees, and I certainly won’t tolerate employers doing that to me. I started working for a friend’s company on a contract basis while I awaited the results back from a dream job. After a successful on-site interview with the dream job people, I haven’t heard a peep from them since. In my experience, this always meant there are other candidates. I’m really enjoying the work I’m doing now, so I decided just to accept a full time role at my friend’s company, as Director of Infrastructure Services. The fun part about this is that there’s no business unit to direct yet; I am to be a key person in building this business unit, the genesis of which is currently humming upstairs in my loft (I work from home 3 days a week, and at his office two).
(I’ll hide the rest unless folks want to read it. It’s rather long, and I didn’t want it to crowd the main page.)
MAIG to Run Super Bowl Ad
Jacob is reporting on Mayor Mike and Mayor Mumbles appearing in locally targeted Super Bowl advertising time for MAIG. When evaluating how serious a threat our opponents actions represent, I try to ask myself whether I’d think NRA was wasting their money if they were to do the same thing. I think if NRA were taking out Super Bowl ads, I would say it’s a waste, so my impression is that this is flushing money down the toilet for MAIG.
Have They No Shame?
CSGV has initiated a vicious and mean spirited attack against Emily Miller of the Washington Times. Just when I think the cretins at CSGV can’t possibly stoop any lower, I am proved wrong. Their string of vile and unprofessional behavior just continues to get worse. My guess is that what Emily did to upset them so much, is to be very effective in her testimony in front of DC City Council:
No, CSGV does not like having an attractive, educated and independent woman standing up to them and demanding the District of Columbia respect her and her rights. I have to wonder if half their anger is over gun owners not living up to the prejudices and stereotypes they have in their minds about the kind of people we are.
You see, they are supposed to be up against the kind of stereotype CSGV featured in their video. They can laugh, poke fun, and pass it around, safe in the smug satisfaction they obtain believing they are better and smarter than we are. They can remain safe in the notion that the right of those kinds of people don’t matter, and those folks are being done a favor, regardless, by limiting their access to objects that they are too incompetent to use without hurting themselves or others. But that’s not the case is it? Not with Emily, and not with the vast majority of the dedicated activists who have pounded CSGV’s political and cultural influence into the fatuous pagent of irrelevance that CSGV now parades in front of the public on a daily basis.
The 5 stages of grief in the Kubler-Ross model are worth mentioning, because I think it can be applied to watching their anti-gun movement slowly die on front of them. The Brady Campaign is still in denial. CSGV has clearly moved on to anger. The next step is bargaining, but there will be no bargaining; we are dedicated to their political extinction, and there will be no bargain. My advice to them is to quickly drink their way through depression, and get to acceptance as quickly as possible.
Taser Use Poll
Based on the information, that he was tearing down the signs and littering the streets with them, the police arguably had probable cause to arrest him for a crime. He resisted. So what’s the choice? Especially given two female officers and one male officer? The women certainly aren’t going to out wrestle an angry male. In my view, use of the Taser is appropriate, and you’ll notice it was quite effective at bringing about compliance.
The alternative is wrestling the guy to the ground, which is far more likely to result in injury to both officer and suspect.
UPDATE: A lot of folks seem to go with this:
I’ll buy that overwhelming force can sometimes be safer….but tasking can KILL someone…is that really a good idea?
Very rarely, yes. But wrestling people to the ground and using a baton can kill someone too, and is far more likely to result in injury than using a taser.