GOP Dumps Trump's Bump-Stock Ban
June 19: Bump stocks … Heat wave … Nvidia … Gaetz probe … Bannon prison …
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In 2017, a single gunman killed 58 people at a Las Vegas country music festival. The number he wounded was eight-fucking-hundred and fifty.
In the course of 11 minutes he fired his rifles more than one-fucking-thousand times. So if my math is right, that works out to a rate of total bullshit shots per minute. And the reason he could fire so quickly is that his rifles were equipped with bump stocks.
Bump stocks are gizmos that replace the regular stock, the part that goes up against your shoulder when only firing a rifle will make you feel like a man. Bump stocks were invented as an end run against longstanding laws against machine guns and automatic rifles.
With automatic rifles, you just keep the trigger squoze and the rifle keeps firing. Bump stocks achieve virtually the same thing: By absorbing and harnessing the force of the recoil from each shot, bump stocks (a) reduce the time-wasting muzzle jump from recoil, (b) bump the rifle back forward, up against your trigger finger, so you don’t have to squeeze again to fire each time, you just keep your finger in place and the rifle automatically moves back and forth to create the trigger-pull, and (c) expose their owners as infantile man-children suffering from delusional fantasies about the world and their own impotence.
After 17 people were shot dead in Florida’s 2018 Parkland High School massacre followed in 2018, even some Republicans had had enough.
Then-Pres. Donald Trump ordered the Justice Department to ban bump stocks, which are not guns, didn’t exist in 1791, and aren’t covered even by the right’s ginned-up, made-up, maximalist interpretation of the Second Amendment. Here’s what Trump said:
“It’s gone, don’t worry about it. It’s gone, essentially gone, because we are going to make it so tough, you’re not going to be able to get them.”
He added stupidly, like an idiot, “Nobody’s going to want them anyway.” Referring to the Vegas shooter, Trump said, again stupidly, ignorant of the reality that bump-stock users don’t give a shit about accuracy:
“The bullets come out fast, but you don’t know where the hell they’re going. That’s why nobody even really, too much, came to its defense. He used it in Las Vegas. He was using bump stocks in Las Vegas, as you know. So, I’m getting rid of them.”
Even then-Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) backed the bump-stock ban.
So, after the Supreme Court — including Trump’s own appointees — struck down the Trump ban last week1, there was a bipartisan push yesterday to enact the ban by federal law, rather than executive rule.
Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) and Susan Collins (R-ME) sponsored the bump-stock bill and Democrats called for a voice vote yesterday.
Republicans shot it down faster than a you see where I’m going here?
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) called the voice-vote attempt “a political exercise,” suggesting that he would have voted for it if only Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) were “calling people into a room who have worked on bipartisan bills” to hammer out a ban in committee. You know what sticklers Republicans are for procedure!
Objecting for the Republican Party — because Trump hasn’t told his disciples to defend his ban — was Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE). Ricketts called the ban an “overreach” because it could be applied to other gun accessories. Which are also not guns.
Other Democratic overreaches Republican senators protected us from this year include the rights to use contraception and IVF.
BULLSHIT GUN BULLSHIT Meanwhile, the right wing’s go-to for bullshit hoity-toity gun “data” turns out to be full of shit. For years, gun lawyers have been citing the findings of Georgetown University political economist William English, whose survey supported the claim that gun owners frequently use their weapons in self defense.
English’s findings were cited in the right-wing Supreme Court ruling overturning Trump’s bump-stock ban, among others. In fact, English seems to be the primary source for legal claims that the right-wing Hollywood fantasy of armed self-defense isn’t just a fairy tale for grown-up man-childs.
Well, the New York Times looked into his shit and found a money trail leading to English that starts with gun advocates including the National Rifle Association (NRA). And English’s conclusions turn out to be riddled with more holes than a Las Vegas country-music festival.
Some of the organizations funding English turn out to be no more real than his conclusions or the NRA’s modern-day revisionist interpretation of the Second Amendment. The reality, of course, is that bringing a gun into your home makes everyone in it less safe.
As the Times notes, English’s past research includes topics such as “How to lie with data science.”
It’s Still Insanely Hot. And Still Spring
Hey, y’know what’s crazy hot today? It!
That’s right, it is crazy hot today. A record-breaking heat wave is set to affect most of the people who live in this country, which is kinda fair given how much most of the people in this country contribute to global warming.
The AP reports that tons of fun summer activities were canceled yesterday even though summer doesn’t start til tomorrow. Who’s up for some scary maps?
Here are New York Times maps forecasting heat danger, with white meaning safe, and the darkest regions feeling like 103° or hotter. Here’s today:
Here’s tomorrow, the first day of summer:
And then next week, Tuesday, the southeast really gets it, including all those un-air-conditioned prisons where people are literally gonna die:
Stay cool, stay hydrated, and don’t blast the AC at super-cool when a moderate temperature will still keep you safe and save you money and reduce the risk of contributing to a power outage!
Nvidia Tops Microsoft, Apple as World’s Most Valuable Company
Once upon a time, boys and girls and non-binary people and others, you could determine a company’s value by looking at how much shit it had. How many factories? How many workers? That kind of thing.
So old-fashioned! Today we assign values to companies based on guesses about their worth made by the same kind of money-guessers who just voted to pay Tesla CEO Elon Musk $47 billion in stock, even though the company is heading downhill faster than a Tesla towing a Porsche, meaning that the stock will be worth a lot less in five years, when Musk is allowed to sell it.
Now where the fuck was I? I got lost worse than someone who thinks Teslas are really self-driving. Oh, yeah…!
According to investors, who are geniuses, the AI chip darling Nvidia is now worth $3.334 trillion. That’s more than the total valuation of any other company in the S&P 500. More than Microsoft’s $3.317 trillion. More than Apple’s paltry $3.286 trillion. More than God intended when He banned interest rates.
How nuts is this? This nuts: Nvidia gained $113 billion in yesterday’s trading alone. Financially, that’s the equivalent of creating the entire annual Kenyan economy overnight. Hell, when TFN first mocked Nvidia in a much funnier rant back in February, it was “only” “worth” $1.9 trillion.
How crazy is this Nvidia nmania? This single company all by itself accounts for one third of this year’s rise in the S&P 500.
It’s true Nvidia has had stunning success, and has a huge profit rate, but the gamblers betting on Nvidia are basically gambling on its monopoly. It’s only expected to make $119.9 billion in revenue this year, which is a shit ton, but only about twice Musk’s bonus, and not enough to justify a value of $3.334 trillion. Why?
Because all of it could go away tomorrow. I’m trying to think of another recent investor-fave that’s self-driven off a cli—oh right Tesla. Nvidia seems to have amazing chip tech, yes, but even if Nvidia chip tech is actually as good as everyone thought Tesla’s car tech was, there’s no reason to think, and every reason to unthink, that no one could possibly come up with a chip to rival or even surpass Nvidia’s.
In fact, literally all it would take for Nvidia’s value to crash would be Wall Street bros falling out of love with it. My point here isn’t to bash Nvidia, but to show that the foundation of our economy is a floating casino.
Ethics Probe of Gaetz Widens
The House Ethics Committee yesterday said it’s looking at more of the crazy shit going on with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). In a statement yesterday, the bipartisan committee said it’s now looking into allegations that Gaetz “dispensed special privileges and favors to individuals with whom he had a personal relationship” (define “personal”) and that Gaetz tried to obstruct government investigations of his persistent Gaetzness.
On the other sleazy, weirdly sweaty and cold hand, Gaetz is no longer being investigated by the committee for sharing “inappropriate” images on the House floor, misusing state records, using campaign funds for his gross personal life, or taking bribes.
On the other other clammy and sniffer-dog arousing hand, Gaetz is still being investigated for “sexual misconduct and/or illicit drug use,” the committee announced like it usually never reveals except when it’s pursuing the undying vendetta of Gaetz blood enemy former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), whose speaker gavel Gaetz took away like taking candy from a baby you’re about to touch inappropriately.
Purveyor of Fake News Going to Real Jail
Y’know how rich and famous people who are somehow so bad at criming that they still get caught (by a justice system that favors rich and famous people) always seem to end up doing their prison sentences in a cushy “Club Fed” prison camp with, like, golf courses and bottle service and shit?
Not Steve Bannon!
Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to comply with subpoenas in the Jan. 6 investigation. So he was sentenced to four months in prison. His sentence starts July 1, a week from Monday.
Which means that stale, musky, skunky odor you’re smelling right now for once actually isn’t weed, it’s Bannon sweat.
That’s because CNN reports a judge rejected Bannon’s request for a minimum-security Club Fed prison camp and instead ordered him to show up at the low-security federal prison prison in Danbury, CT.
How come? Because Bannon’s also facing charges in New York for totally allegedly defrauding Donald Trump fans by fleecing them in the name of somehow paying for the border wall that Trump promised Mexico would pay for even though Mexico did not.
Bannon’s lawyers have asked an appeals court to delay his sentence, so that he can continue to (mis)inform his sad viewers and serve Trump as “a meaningful advisor in the ongoing national campaign” but mostly so he can run out the clock until re-President Trump can pardon him.
Crime Watch
TEAM TRUMP The head of former Pres. Donald Trump’s legal team pleaded not guilty yesterday to nine felony charges for attempting to steal Arizona’s 2020 presidential votes. Boris Epshteyn’s pleas continue an ongoing pattern of lying about stuff.
Epshteyn was arraigned in a Phoenix courtroom along with former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis, who also pleaded not guilty, but has pleaded guilty in the related Georgia case, expressed remorse for trying to steal the United States presidency, and said she’ll try not to do it again.
Also charged in the case are five other Trump advisors and 11 Arizona Republicans stupid enough to buy into the Trump scheme and pretend to be electors even though Arizona already had electors who were not them.
One of them, Dennis Wilenchik, also pleaded not guilty yesterday. His lawyer told the New York Times that his client only signed up as an elector on a contingency basis, to serve if Trump legitimately won. “He is not an election denier,” the lawyer said about his election-denier-denier client.
TCB
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Go get ‘em, kids…!
Somewhere there’s a smart CNN producer pitching this for a question in next week’s presidential debate; good luck, smart CNN producer!
John Stewart recently made a good point. Republicans say crime is up in Democratic run cities (it's not), but they are the ones who won't let reasonable gun control measures, e.g., assault weapons ban, bump-stocks, background checks, etc. be passed.
Love getting my news this way!