Antigun
Tampa Bay Times
The recent court decision striking down Florida’s open carry ban prompted Publix to issue a statement stating that it would not ban individuals who openly carry firearms from its stores. Even though other stores like Aldi issued statements saying that anyone seen open carrying in their stores would be asked to leave, Publix realized that such policies don’t reduce the number of firearms in their establishment, but only cause them to be concealed. Being that the left is all about emotion and not logic, this really pissed off the left.
In typical leftie fashion, the Tampa Bay Times immediately launched an op-ed that compares apples to bowling balls. See, Publix plainly states in their policy:
Publix follows all federal, state and local laws. In any instance where a customer creates a threatening, erratic or dangerous shopping experience — whether they are openly carrying a firearm or not — we will engage local law enforcement to protect our customers and associates.
But that isn’t good enough for the communists at the Times. So they immediately launched an imaginary Q&A, comparing various items against open carry. They compare bringing pets into the store (which is prohibited by health regulations), policies limiting the number of coupons you can redeem each day, and the Publix policy against cakes with any flag that isn’t the US Flag against cakes with the Mexican, Canadian, or the flag they really want- the Fag Flag against the policy of not prohibiting open carry.
They claim that the sight of guns bother some Publix customers, so Publix should ban open carry. Do you know what else bothers some Publix customers? Seeing men wearing dresses pulling their dicks out in the women’s restroom. I would bet that the Times wouldn’t like it if a business banned that.
I can’t wait for newspapers to eventually go the way of the telegram. They are nothing more than leftie propaganda. To quote Thomas Jefferson:
The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth
However, as he rightly points out, newspapers are preferable to tyrannical government:
The people are the only censors of their governors: and even their errors will tend to keep these to the true principles of their institution. To punish these errors too severely would be to suppress the only safeguard of the public liberty. The way to prevent these irregular interpositions of the people is to give them full information of their affairs through the channel of the public papers, & to contrive that those papers should penetrate the whole mass of the people. The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers & be capable of reading them.
However, newspapers have indeed become the propaganda arm of the communists. It is Social Media, and to a lesser extent, blogs that are informing the American public. The days of newspaper editors telling us what to think is long past. That’s why the media’s influence has faded to nearly zero- most people know that it is nothing more than slanted propaganda.
Cops
Illegals as Cops
Miguel has a post about illegal immigrants becoming cops. That isn’t anything new, I posted about this back in May, and before that, April. That’s why I made this meme:
Taxes
Property Tax Cuts
The Republican Legislature of Florida is proposing changes to the state’s property tax policy. There are a number of proposals that will make it to the 2026 ballot, and I have researched them so you don’t have to. I am going to break it down for you, using my own taxes as an illustration. Then you decide which is the one you want.
In my case, I pay about $6100 per year in property taxes on a $600,000 home. It breaks down like this:
- $1700 goes to the county
- $2000 to the town
- $1900 to the school board
- $400 per year goes to police, fire, EMS, hospital, and the water authority. This part is not an ad-valorum tax.
HJR 201 (Steele): Eliminates non-school ad-valorum property taxes for homesteads entirely. This would lower my taxes to $2300 per year ($1900 for the school board, $400 to police, fire, EMS, hospitals, and the water authority). This bill doesn’t prevent taxes that are flat fee based. Localities will likely switch to a non ad-valorum tax scheme, such as charging each property a flat fee as a tax.
HJR 203 (Miller): Phases out those same taxes over 10 years by adding an additional $100,000 exemption added each year. My taxes would go down by $500 the first year, $500 the second, and so on, until my taxes were finally about $2300 per year. This bill doesn’t prevent taxes that are flat fee based. Localities will likely switch to a non ad-valorum tax scheme, such as charging each property a flat fee as a tax.
HJR 205 (Porras): Exempts Florida residents 65 and older from paying non-school property taxes on homesteads. This one won’t change my taxes a bit until I turn 65, meaning that towns will simply raise taxes on everyone else to make up for the shortfall. Since those over 65 already get major breaks, many of them don’t pay taxes, anyhow. Politicians won’t face as much voter backlash. I think this is the one that politicians will love.
HJR 207 (Abbott): Creates a new 25% homestead exemption on non-school taxes — aiding current and first-time homebuyers. This one was trickier to decipher. I believe that it would lower my taxes by about $400 per year. It doesn’t prevent rate increases. I predict that localities will respond by raising milage rates. In the end, there will be no net change in what you actually pay.
HJR 209 (Busatta): Offers an extra $100,000 exemption to homeowners who carry property insurance, intended to ease overall housing costs. This one won’t make a huge difference. It would cut taxes by about $500 per year, but it would be an effective subsidy to insurance companies, who will happily raise insurance costs in response. It honestly looks like it was written by insurance companies.
HJR 211 (Overdorf): Eliminates the cap on “portability,” allowing homeowners to transfer their entire Save Our Homes benefit to a new property, even if it’s of lesser value. This one only lowers your tax liability if you sell your house and buy one of lesser value. I just went through this when I moved two years ago.
HJR 213 (Griffitts): Adjusts caps on taxable value growth — limiting increases to 3% over three years for homesteads (currently 3% annually) and 15% over three years for non-homesteads (currently 10% annually). This one won’t help now, it will just keep taxable value from growing as quickly as it does now. The loophole here is so large, you can drive a truck through it- there is nothing here that prevents localities from raising rates, the only cap is on taxable value. The net effect is that this won’t change your taxes a single cent.
In my opinion, HJR201 is the only one that will change anything, since a person owning a $200,000 house will wind up paying the same taxes as a person owning a million dollar house. To me, that is fair, since both are nominally receiving the same government services. Same services should mean same taxes.
Anti American left
No Kings
The left is gathering today to say “No Kings!”
Except when the government orders you to remain indoors.
No Kings! We oppose fascism!
Except when your business is ordered closed. Unless your business is a Megacorporation like WalMart, Target, or Starbucks. Then it’s fine, because you can get your PSL.
No Kings!
Except when the government arrests people for going to the beach. Or when the government forces people to wear cloth masks to prevent a viral infection, even while we know that the holes in the fabric are thousands of times larger than the virus.
No Kings!
Oh, but when your side protests, they are exempt from having to stay home OR wear masks, because protest is patriotism.
The governor is exempt from all of this as well, because he must dine with his ass-kissing friends. Because he isn’t a king.
No Kings!
Except when the government orders that you take an experimental drug while exempting the company that makes it from any legal liability in the event the drug turns out not to work and actually is dangerous.
Then people who protest in the same manner as the left are tossed in jail for years over minor criminal charges.
No Kings!
Unless we forcibly take your money under the guise of fair taxation, so we can give it to people we import into the nation so we can pay them slave wages to build our homes, tend our gardens, and do other work that we consider beneath us.
No kings!
It’s a shame that the left lacks a level of basic awareness, so they don’t even realize that they are supporting actual tyranny and despotism. Of course, the ones in charge know, but they also realize that they are in command of an army of drones who will do whatever the media and TikTok tells them to.
We should have realized how much trouble this would cause when so-called challenges on TikTok had teens eating laundry soap. Oh by the way, that trend was in 2018. The teens who were doing that are the same ones out protesting today.
Government
Rigging the Vote
SCOTUS heard arguments this week in favor of creating Congressional districts that are predisposed to get specified, predetermined results in elections. Those aren’t my words, they are actually the words (paraphrased) of Justice Sotomayor. She pressed the need to districts that are purposely designed to have a majority of black voters, because in her words: “white voters won’t vote for black candidates.”
Nevermind that white voters elected a black President. No, what she is saying is that democratic processes must be rigged so that the results favor one particular political minority (in the democratic, not racial sense). The Democrats are simply illustrating that they are NOT in favor of Democracy. They are in favor of power, and they know blacks overwhelmingly vote for Democrats.
There are 26 congressional districts where blacks are the majority, and a further 14 districts where they are the plurality. That is, they are the largest demographic, even though they are not the majority.
GA-02 — 49.3% Black (Rep. Sanford Bishop).
NY-09 — 48.9% Black (Rep. Yvette Clarke).
AL-02 — 48.7% Black (Rep. Shomari Figures).
IL-02 — 48.4% Black (Rep. Robin Kelly).
NY-08 — 48.2% Black (Rep. Hakeem Jeffries).
NY-05 — 47.2% Black (Rep. Gregory Meeks).
SC-06 — 46.9% Black (Rep. Jim Clyburn).
MI-13 — 46.9% Black (Rep. Shri Thanedar).
MO-01 — 45.4% Black (Rep. Wesley Bell).
VA-03 — 45.4% Black (Rep. Bobby Scott).
IL-07 — 43.0% Black (Rep. Danny Davis).
FL-24 — 42.2% Black (Rep. Frederica Wilson).
TX-30 — 41.9% Black (Rep. Jasmine Crockett).
TX-09 — 38.6% Black (Rep. Al Green).
Assuming that Sotomayor is correct, blacks are guaranteed 40 congressional seats, making skin color the single most important factor in electing representatives.
How many other demographics get that privilege? The fact is that she is admitting blacks only vote on skin color and not for the candidate that best represents their interests. What Sotomayor is saying is elections are only valid if the electorate votes the way that they want you to. How about this- we go back to the original ratios from the nation’s founding? It’s time to get rid of the artificial limit of 435 Representatives that dilutes the power of the people.
Each state gets at least one Representative. No single Representative can represent more than 100,000 people. That would mean 3,380 representatives, give or take. I would even say Washington DC and other territories should have voting representatives under this plan. If it’s done like this, the number of representatives would range from 394 for California. Texas would get 313, Florida 234, Georgia 112, New York 199, and so on.
The lesser populated states would see similar numbers- Hawaii would have 15. Alaska 8, Wyoming 6, Vermont would have 7, Maine would get 14.
We could even allow representation for territories- Puerto Rico would get 32, Guam would get 2, the US Virgin Islands would get 1, Samoa 1, the Mariana Islands 1, Washington, DC gets 8.
It would be much more difficult to arrange factions to game the system, and each representative would be more likely to actually represent the interests of their constituents instead of party leadership. That’s a feature and not a bug. Congress can meet in a domed stadium. We can build them for concerts and sporting events, we can surely do the same for a legislative body.
Of course this creates a large amount of power in the most populous states. That’s why the Senate exists- to represent the states. Each state (not territory or DC) gets 2 Senators, just as they always have.
economics
Don’t Look Now
Gold is now selling at over $4250. That doesn’t mean that gold is worth more. It means the dollar is worth less. Oh, and silver is now selling at more than $52. The dollar is quickly crashing.
The dollar has lost 3/4 of its value in the past decade, 90% of its value in the last 20 years, and 98.5% of its value since we went away from being a gold based currency in 1973. That isn’t the greed of the banks, that’s the greed of our government.
People
Bunny Warriors
Let me start by saying that I don’t hunt. The last time I went hunting, it was for lobster (Florida has a lobster season, but I haven’t been in about 8 years or so). Still, I understand the important role played by hunting in the preservation of animal populations.
Florida, like every other state, has used hunting as a way to control populations of animals. For the first time in a few years, the state announced a lottery where 172 black bear tags would be issued to cull some of the animals, who are becoming overpopulated in the state. The tags would be given out through a random lottery system, with each ticket costing $5. Winners must then buy a $100 hunting license to harvest the bear, with nonresidents having to pay $300.
Animal rights groups bought thousands of tickets, pledging to not use them. The groups managed to win about a quarter of the available tags. They claim this will save the lives of bears.
They are also wrong.
Hunting is a way of controlling populations to sustainable levels, but nature has its own way of doing it. Overpopulated animals starve, die of disease, or are hit by cars. In the meantime, the overpopulated bears ravage other populations like deer, pets, your trashcans, and even people (although rare).
Still, to me there is a way to derail those plans for sabotaging the system: Make a rule saying anyone who wins a bear tag has 14 days to purchase the hunting license. If they fail to do so, the tag goes to someone else. If the cost goes from $5 to $305, you will see people less likely to try and game the system.
Anti American left
Compromise
The Democrats are upset that Republicans won’t compromise.
I have two points:
1 When Republicans went to Obama and wanted to compromise on Obamacare, it was Obama who famously said, “Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.” Then refused to compromise and steamrolled the Republicans in passing
2 The left has been saying for years,
- “Let’s pass gun bans.”
- The right says no.
- The left says “Why won’t you compromise? You’re being unreasonable.”
- The right caves and allows a little gun control.
- Then the left goes back to wanting another gun ban
- repeat ad nauseum
We are done with the left’s version of compromising in order to move the Overton window. Any Republican who doesn’t have spine enough to use the power the voters have given them can just get the fuck out of the way.