King Andy

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is a fraud of the first order, anointed into the political class courtesy of his father’s fame, fortune and political muscle. Andrew’s father, three-time New York Governor Mario Cuomo was a smart, old school, self-made man. Andrew is a legacy and unlike his father, is no intellectual, having struggled academically his entire life, culminated by failing the bar exam multiple times.

The elder Cuomo was bright and articulate while his son is a reactionary and vindictive, thin-skinned blowhard. Without the name, the money and the political arsenal of the power brokers his father developed, Andrew would be just another handsome face in New York, the pretty-boy type real men hate for such stunning lack of depth. Male model looks worthy of a magazine cover, but inside a book of pulp fiction.

Cuomo isn’t even up to the standard of ordinary, but by virtue of his gene-pool luck, the kingdom perpetuates its existence while the plebes continue to believe that have a choice in the Kingdom of New York.

Man on Left: Dean Skelos, convicted felon, tossed out of office.

Man on Right: Sheldon Silver, convicted felon, tossed out of office

Man in Middle: Andrew Cuomo, King of New York, pure as the driven snow

Batteries Not Included

BatteryPic

To breathless fanfare, politicians hustled their podiums in front of whatever gaggle of media microphones and TV cameras they could find, in order to extol the wonders of business success and job creation here in the Southern Tier. Imperium3, a next-generation battery-maker has formed a consortium and plans on moving their operation to the Huron Campus in Endicott, (the former IBM manufacturing complex), sometime in 2019.

Since its creation in 2016, Imperium3 has been handed a total of $7.50 million in revitalization incentives and tax credits, with an additional $5.75 million in investment tax credits anticipated. In exchange for this largess of other people’s money, the company promises the creation of 230 jobs in the next five years. This translates to taxpayer funded support equivalent to $57,608.00 per job.

Add to this the fact that Imperium3 paid, at a bankruptcy auction only $5 million dollars for a reported $200 million dollars worth of, “nearly new” battery-making equipment from a North Carolina company named Alevo. Translation: the investors in that failed scheme were left holding the bag for a $195 million dollar loss.

How is it that a bankrupt battery maker in North Carolina finds itself in such dire straits that it is selling “nearly new” equipment for 2 1/2 cents on the dollar? Excerpts from an August 2017 article in the Charlotte Business Journal entitled; “What led to Concord Battery Manufacturer Alevo’s Demise”, might be a harbinger to the future of Imperium3:

“The company started operation in Concord in 2014 with enormous fanfare and a promise of 2,500 jobs when the plant went into full production. It never got close. It had 290 employees at Concord when it closed. All but 45 have been laid off. Those workers will remain at the plant through September as the company closes up shop in preparation for liquidation of its assets.

Alevo has struggled to produce the 2-megawatt utility-scale batteries — housed in 40-foot tractor-trailer carriers — that were central to the battery system it sought to market. More than three years after opening, it had only a single production line and little actual production. Only one battery — installed in March for the municipal utility of Hagerstown, Md. — has been delivered.”

The demise of Alevo and the impact that had on Charlotte, North Carolina ought to be a cautionary tale to New York’s elected officials, but its not. It’s too easy to experiment with someone else’s money.

If Imperium3 can’t open its doors without $13.25 million dollars in taxpayer assistance, and needs to find operating equipment for 2 1/2 cents on the dollar, it is hardly a model of the robust free-market capitalism success story. Alevo’s bankruptcy and the fleecing of those investors, combined with the necessity of NY taxpayer funding in order for Imperium3 to simply to begin operation, is today’s equivalent of compelling taxpayers in 1888 to fund Dr. Kilmer’s Swamp Root Tonic.

The important difference however, is that Kilmer built his empire on his own dime.

Drivel Versus Dribble

Conservatives in America first and foremost see people as unique and special individuals and only secondarily as groups. The Left prefers to categorize people into sub-sets of groups and downplays the concept of individuality, preferring instead to force people into categories, reducing them to a simple commodity. The Left assigns sameness to groups at the expense of their uniqueness as individuals.

Where the Left sees blacks, women, the poor, the rich, the 1%, etc., Conservatives see individuals, each with unique qualities, specific challenges and all different sorts of potentials, problems and pitfalls.

The proof of this claim is easy to establish.

For example, the Left asserts the notion that because black students in a high school makeup 10% of the student body, expulsion rates higher than 10% are de facto proof of racism. Similarly, the Left points to the fact that while blacks are approximately 13% of the US population, their incarceration rate of nearly 38% of the overall inmate population proves racism.

The only way to reach these conclusions is to view blacks as a monolithic group, no different from any other group, devoid of uniqueness, individuality or nuance. It is a simplistic analysis completely absent of consideration for the person.

If the Left is right about this way of measuring institutional racism, the following should also be true.

The racial makeup of the National Basketball Association, (NBA) should be approximately 13% black, 18% Latino and 61% white because this is the percentage of these groups in the US population. Major League Baseball should share the same statistics, as should professional golf, hockey, etc., if we are to accept this flawed notion that groups of people are monolithic.

How then does the Left explain that the NBA is actually 74% black, 2% Latino and only 23% white? Baseball is 8% black, 29% Latino and 59% white. Of the approximately 713 active players on the National Hockey League, about 32 are black, or 4.4%.

And finally, how would the Left possibly explain Tiger Woods? Just this past weekend, golf fans all but abandoned every other player on the course to follow Woods to a second place finish. How would the Left possibly explain Woods being the most revered golfer in history and one of the highest paid athletes of all times, black or white?

The NBA is under-represented by white and Latino players because the league seeks the best possible talent and it so happens that the black players are better. While the Left is counting colors, the rest of us are seeing individuals. Rules in schools and laws in society compel behaviors and demand consequences. Whether expelled or incarcerated, if the process for determining this is applied fairly and equally, then color don’t matter.

Those who think otherwise are simply making excuses for poor performance, bad behavior and criminal activity, hiding behind the flawed and now disproven theory of racism by the numbers.

The Rule of Law

We hear this common phrase used frequently, however I question how many genuinely understand its meaning? To say one believes in the rule of law is the statement of an absolute certainty. In most speeches about law and order, you will hear along with it the phrase, “we are a nation of laws”. It is true, the United States prides itself on being governed by laws, so why is it that while almost everyone agrees with the adage that the US is a nation of laws and that the rule of law prevails, so many on the Left act in ways that completely and totally contradict lawfulness?

Laws govern immigration. Those here unlawfully are by definition law-breakers. The consequences of violating laws are spelled out in the law itself. Once charged with a violation and adjudicated as guilty, the penalty is defined. To vary from this system is the very definition of anarchy.

For those who disagree with the law, the proper and civil method of addressing that is to work to either amend, rescind or re-write that law. The idea of simply violating those laws with which you disagree and accepting those with which you do is still anarchy, totally unpredictable and dependent on the mood of the individual. The rule of law provides uniformity, conformity and calculable behavior amongst law-abiding citizens. Knowing the law and the public’s general acceptance of those laws allows others in society to make reasoned inference on how others will behave. Leaving compliance to the whim of individuals is unacceptable.

Because of an ignorance in civics and history, many on the Left are misguided regarding their philosophy on why it seems to them OK to violate immigration law. In short, the Left believes that our history is one of not only allowing, but encouraging anyone and everyone to migrate to the US. They believe that only in recent years, Conservatives have sought to close off migration in order to preserve the sameness of an Anglo America. Both assertions are false. The Left care more about illegal aliens than they do about their Conservative fellow citizens. If they could, they would gladly trade one group for the other and disenfranchise conservatism from the landscape, importing hordes of Leftist voters so they might rein in perpetuity. This is what they think; but few have the temerity to say so publicly.

American Conservatism not only believes in and celebrates our unique culture; we are dedicated to preserving that cultural history some 300 years in the making. Those risking their lives to come here are escaping their culture and seeking ours. American culture is no less worthy of protection than any other and assimilation is a requirement of participation in the American Experience.

The rule of law protects this unique and exceptional place for which rivers of blood have been shed in her creation and her defense. Lady Liberty is no less worthy of that sacrifice today.

Godless Albany

The passing of the Reverend Billy Graham recently serves to exemplify by example the height of an ethical and honorable man. Juxtaposing this are the immoral aliens that occupy today’s political moonscape in New York State.

Former NYS Senator George Maziarz recently pled guilty to a corruption charge because he spirited away $100,000.00 in campaign donations to pay off a former aid accused of sexual harassment. Add Maziarz to the list of more than 40 elected NYS officials that in recent times have been caught up in criminal, dishonest and sometimes disgusting behavior, from the former Governor Spitzer on down the line.

Today, we await the jury verdict in the Joseph Percoco case, a Governor Cuomo confidant and Albany insider extraordinaire, accused of bribery. Syracuse.com reports: “…, the late Gov. Mario Cuomo was known to describe Percoco as a third son. The younger Cuomo joked Percoco was the son his father loved best. And Percoco joked Andrew Cuomo was the bigger brother he never had…” Yet our esteemed, untarnished Governor wants the public to believe that he knows nothing whatsoever of the untoward dealings of brother Percoco.

That level of ignorance would make the Governor either incompetent or a bald-faced liar and no one, even Cuomo’s detractors see him as incompetent.

By comparison, Graham was known as “America’s Preacher”, having ministered to every US President since Harry Truman. Graham personally spoke to over 210 million people in more than 185 countries during his years evangelizing. No one in the history of the world has spoken directly to more people about the gospel than Billy Graham. He was a man of honor, character and dignity because he was a man of God. Graham was married to the same woman for 64 years and enjoys a history free of misdeeds. A testament to the importance of this man to the very character of the United States is the fact that Graham’s casket sat in the rotunda of the US Capitol in memoriam of his service to our country.

While Graham sets a very high bar for us all, Albany has seemingly vetoed the bar out of existence.

The old cliché says, “You can’t legislate morality”, which is true. Instead, we attempt to influence behaviors by legislating negative consequences when immoral, unethical and illegal activities occur. Increasing the severity of punishments for the illegal acts of public officials attacks the problem after it takes place and does little to nothing to insure higher standards of performance and expectations. One could argue that the need to ratchet up sanctions indicates a worsening of the problem.

Our ordinary compass detects direction from the gravity of the earth. The only way a moral compass provides righteousness in the hearts of men is in concert with a belief, a trust and a relationship with God. Legislation is not the answer, the Almighty is. As Tocqueville reminded us in 1835, “Liberty depends on morality. Morality depends upon faith. Faith depends upon God.”

Albany exemplifies governance by the godless.

A Special Kind of Stupid

I have been writing about firearms for over 30 years with the overarching objective of educating and informing those who know little to nothing about the issue. Regardless of my best efforts, I have failed. I am disheartened to report that many in the general population of 30 years ago has morphed from ignorant and uninformed into just plain garden variety stupid today.

While it is accurate to acknowledge that the anti-gun, lying media complex has created and fortified the misinformation campaign against firearms, I lay the blame squarely at the feet of the gullible public that ingests this garbage.

Look no further than the very words of the anti-gun public in their expressions of opinion about guns. My local newspaper’s op-ed section on Sunday printed eleven letters about firearms. Nine of the eleven were negative and in each of those nine letters, provably false claims were made, not claims where thinking people can differ, but out-and-out falsehoods. Of course, the Gannett newspaper prints these because the lies justify their dedication towards the anti-gun agenda.

Don Lemon at CNN was caught on-air not knowing the difference between a semi-automatic and a fully automatic firearm and when called on it, he declared that, “it doesn’t matter.” Well it does matter Don. Rejecting the truth transforms you from ignorant to willfully stupid and whoever heard that segment with Lemon and still believes him, is stupid as well.

And worse yet, the politician’s who actually are responsible for enacting the laws seem to know less about the subject that the stupid people who elect them. California Senator Diane Feinstein, a vocal gun-hating ignoramus often mistakes a magazine for a projectile and not only doesn’t understand the differences in a bullets caliber, but clearly doesn’t want to learn because she has been in office for over 25 years, giving her plenty of time to distinguish between fact and fiction.

Political correctness, (PC), has declared as unacceptable calling anyone stupid. Those who believe this are a special brand of stupid. After we clear our head from the fog of PC, we know and accept that certain people are stupid and for this, there is no known cure, so I am finished trying to educate the illiterate. Those voices simply don’t matter anymore because they’re too stupid to bother arguing with. While these fools are entitled to their own opinions, they cannot construct their own alternative facts.

The millions of us who legally and safely own firearms have had enough lectures from stupid people devoid of facts, blabbering on with the talking points from their fellow travelers who control their small minds and forge their very opinions, useful idiots as Lenin called them.

Here is the reality. Governmental failure at all levels is to blame for almost every mass tragedy, from 911 to Parkland, yet the useful idiots focus on the firearms. Now that same government of repeated failures wants to “fix” the problem? Indeed, a special kind of stupid embraces that.

Dog-Whistles

Here’s a lesson in three popular liberal dog-whistle phrases so when you hear them, you’ll know you’re listening to either an idiot, a compete shill for the politically correct, or in all likelihood, a possessor of both.

Liberal dog-whistle phrase #1

“Gun Violence”

When libs use this, it is indicative of their close study of the assigned talking points because in the real world of actual spontaneous conversation, “gun violence” isn’t used.

By linking “violence” with the word “gun”, this is an effort to equate the negativity and nastiness of all that is this violent with the tool called a firearm.

Violence is violence. Things aren’t violent, people are violent. To the person beset upon with actions of violence, it hardly matters the instruments used in the administration of that violence. Guns are inanimate tools, incapable of action without human intervention. Will does not exist in objects. Will or intent, only exists in the hearts and minds of men. How they carry out that will or intent does in no way inflict vilification on the objects they choose to use. Just as a hammer is great for nails, it is not so great for skulls. And just like no one equates evil and violence with a hammer, it is no less rational to expect a difference when describing a firearm. Box-cutters, butter knives and beehives have all been involved in killing. None of these have intent or evil built into them; it was the violent intent of a person that used these things.

When the Lakeland Florida kids went back to school yesterday, surrounded by 50-armed police officers, no one was equating those armed officers as purveyors of gun violence. But think about it, if guns were in and of themselves evil and violent, that must be the case regardless of who possesses that gun, right? It just does not make sense.

“Gun Safety”

All firearms are equipped with a safety. Most firearms have several safeties. Modern firearms are safe against accidental discharge. When the libs use the phrase “gun-safety”, they don’t mean anything useful; it is simply a rouse to again equate a lack of safety with firearms. By repeating the words gun and safety repeatedly, eventually the libs hope to convince the idiots of the world that guns are just plain not safe and again, the concept of being safe is reserved to the actions of people not objects.

And finally, the mother of all Dog-Whistle phrases:

“Common-Sense Gun Laws”

Another classic lib tactic, use a phrase like “common-sense”, tie it to gun laws, and then challenge anyone to be against what is only common-sense. The problem is that this requires one to believe that the tens of thousands of gun laws on the books are somehow devoid of common sense.

The reason this particular dog-whistle gets so much traction, is that the propaganda that has been spread for years, courtesy of a complicit media, has lied about the topic for so long and in so many ways, that the low-information citizen that has chosen to receive his news from these sources, has been brainwashed into believing that the country is completely lacking in firearms regulations when nothing could be further from the truth, but then again, if you keep your head up your ass, wonder not why you’re stupid.

NRA

The National Rifle Association, (NRA) has saved more lives and done more good in the civil rights arena than any other organization in modern America. Whenever you hear an individual, a group or a corporation deride the NRA, or otherwise vilify or distance themselves from them, it is a sure fire indicator that they know nothing about the issue. If they did, they would consider this:

These are facts:

The NRA was formed in 1871, making it the longest standing civil rights organization in America. Ever since, the NRA has trained millions in marksmanship, hunter safety and the proper handling of firearms. In 1940, the NRA supplied Britain with 7,000 firearms so civilians could defend against a Nazi invasion. In 1960, the NRA became the first and only national trainer of law enforcement officers. Today, there are more that 13,000 NRA-certified police and security firearms instructors. More than 125,000 NRA certified instructors teach 1 million civilians annually the safe and proper handling of firearms. NRA

The Eddie Eagle program has reached more than 28 million kids in kindergarten through 4th grade, teaching them that if they see a firearm in an unsupervised situation, they should “STOP. DON’T TOUCH. RUN AWAY. TELL A GROWNUP.”

The Don’t Be a Victim seminars have reached over 100,000 women and men in assisting them to develop their own personal protection program.

The NRA has over 5 million members focused on training, proficiency, safety and most importantly the preservation of their Constitutional right to keep and bear firearms. Those who believe that the NRA is in any way culpable for the actions of maniacal murderers are themselves morons of the first order, gobbling up all of the propaganda the mainstream media can shovel into their empty heads. The only possible way that one can link the NRA to mass shootings, is to remain so resolutely devoted to a false narrative in order to reinforce the failed premise they had to begin with, clinging to a complete lie.

When nationally recognized companies scramble to severe their ties with the NRA, this speaks more about their culture and ways of doing business, than it does of actual substantive objection. Those who play politics and take advantage of the emotional turmoil of murdered schoolchildren in order to seem enlightened and holier-than-thou are beneath contempt.

It is particularly distressing to hear Ed Stack, CEO of Dicks Sporting Goods jump on the bandwagon because Dick’s was founded right here in Binghamton and now I’m not only ashamed of Stack, but I’ll not do business with Dick’s because of it.

The NRA is a convenient target because hating on them leads to no particular repercussions while demonstrating the required political correctness these organizations feel the need to demonstrate to the progressives of the world. It is not only stupid, it is cowardly.

Today, all the kids at the Florida school went back to class with 50-armed police officers surrounding the campus. I don’t hear anyone calling for the banning of those guns…

Nero Fiddled, Kids Color

The elite American Left is finally waking to the fact that not only is the world a dangerous place, but increasingly, so is the United States. While the radical academically liberal campuses are incubating entitled snowflakes, coloring in their “safe spaces” after a rigorous class in gender studies, the world must seem perfectly formed in their image. But that is not the world in which most Americans live.

The Left creates public service announcements about bullying, drugs, guns and child abuse, feeling the effort alone is the solution. Instead, their cavalier attitude actually encourages these things by trivializing the complexity of real solutions. Victims are the secret sauce to sustain purpose for progressives. Profiting from victimhood is the primary reason liberalism exists.

Tragically, victimhood requires the individual’s capitulation of self-worth, confidence and personal accountability. Accepting victim status is to secede from participating in the greatest arena designed for personal success ever conceived by mankind; the United State of America. The greatness of America can only mean that victimhood is a choice. While millions have risked life and limb to not only come here, but to also defend our freedom and our shores with their very lives, how can those already a part of the greatest nation on Earth claim helplessness when so many resources are available? The Left has led them to a pasture where the grass looked greener from a distance and no one noticed the fence and the gate that closed behind them.

School shootings have exposed the soft underbelly of the world the Left has created. Those who conceptualized “Gun Free Zones” are as bloodily culpable as those who believed them.

God, guns and goodness have been tossed out of our schools and along with it common sense. Societal failings have decimated families with welfare programs that reward single parent households over intact, traditional nuclear families where fathers domesticate boys into men. Without such guidance, look at these mass shooters and tell me which ones had dads in their lives.

Evil propagates in a godless society. You can’t reject God and expect that the evil that is always at odds with Godliness won’t manifest itself. The struggle for all of mankind is that between Goodness and Evil. That struggle happens internally for all of us within our hearts. That same struggle, with the same evil, also exists and needs to be addressed in our external lives, our relationships, our governance, our policies, our nation’s very foundation built on goodness, virtue and God.

President Lincoln guided us through a civil war. His words can guide us today, if we only heed them.

“Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty”.

Those with a coloring book collection would find no safe space in the world of Lincoln, and they’ll find no such space in today’s or tomorrow’s world without God and good men with guns.

Child Abuse

Assigning authority to schoolchildren in defining a nation’s firearms policy is as idiotic as elevating movie stars to voices of wisdom when neither have any subject-matter expertise. Exploiting traumatized teenagers into a nationally televised spectacle was nothing more than a hate-fest orchestrated by CNN to further their own rabidly anti-gun agenda; shameful using kids to humanize their deplorable fake-news track record. The Left foments emotion to overcome thoughtfulness and logic because in the arena of ideas, they are clueless, underwhelming and woefully unarmed.

The Wall Street Journal reported that since 1990, a total of 150 people lost their lives in school shootings in the US. This means students are statistically 6 times more likely to be struck by lightning than from a bullet. During that same 28-year period, approximately 2.5 million teens were killed in auto accidents. 100,000 kids will die in car crashes this year. The Center for Disease Control, (CDC), reports that today, texting while driving is the leading cause of teen deaths.

There are over 50 million students in 100,000 school districts in the US and today, not one was shot. However, 32 of those students will die today, and another 32 tomorrow, and another 32 every day in auto crashes, the overwhelming majority of which are the result of distracted driving. In an average school week, more of these kids will die in car crashes, than the sum total of all school shootings since 1990. These deaths will be just as awful for those left behind as were the murders in mass shootings, but these everyday deaths get no notice from a nation overwhelmed with information and tragedy.

Kids do have the specific subject-matter expertise to address this issue. Their efforts to organize and march to influence their peers to behave responsibly while driving would have a far greater impact on saving lives, instead of being unwittingly used by the Left to be reactionary and symbolic in advancing their agenda.

While these kids are quick to call on their government to “do something”, the facts tell us that it is government itself that has failed those kids and by extension all of us. The government failed to place the Texas church killer into the background database that would have prevented him from having weapons. The government failed to address the multitude of instances that the Florida shooter could have been detained. Government seldom shows us quality by example.

School shootings are preventable. Celebrating political correctness by proudly proclaiming ones school to be within the so-called “Gun Free Zone” is an attractive invitation for cowardly maniacs to become tantalized with the thoughts of killing. Unarmed, soft-targets in a confined space offer the killer opportunity with little resistance.

With no indication that society anytime soon will become softer, it is wise that we move quickly to become harder. Hardening our softest targets should be our immediate priority. Deadly force is deterred with the certainty of a deadly response. The uncertainty of who might be armed in a school deters a coward.

I wish the social scientists the best in addressing the underlying causes of our societal failings, but in the mean time, the reality of the situation is that these are the times in which we live. We can hope that somehow, things change or at least don’t get worse, but we can also, simultaneously harden ourselves and our surroundings knowing that in a violent and uncertain world we must protect ourselves and our children.

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Perspectives from the INTJ angle

Thinking Trumps Emotion