So Matt Gaetz wasn’t the principled newcomer. Turns out he wasn’t taking a stand, but was instead using the Speaker vote to gain more power for himself. Now we have a California RINO as speaker and Gaetz has a committee to weild power over.
The Republicans aren’t interested in saving America, just power for its own sake.
Many cities have rent control laws that prohibit landlords from raising rent on their property. So they are finding ways around it. Landlords do all that they can to catch tenants breaking the terms of their lease so they can remodel the rental property in order to avoid the property being regulated by rent control laws. One way that they are doing this is through the use of surveillance technology.
The tenant is violating the terms of the lease by subletting, throwing wild parties, or otherwise endangering the property and the landlord has a significant financial incentive to catch them. When they get caught, they are evicted. This somehow makes the landlord into the bad guy, because making a profit is no longer seen as the proper goal of owning a business.
The left is using government to force business owners to accept fixed pricing while at the same time costs such as property taxes, insurance, and other costs eat into and eventually eliminate profits. So the market is doing what the market does- it’s finding solutions.
Price controls never work.
The reason why I am considering a high end 1911 is my previous experience with them. I once owned four different 1911s.
Two of them, the Ultra Carry and the Eclipse were decent for being range guns. They fed and shot FMJ reasonably well, but could be picky when it came to feeding HP ammo. I consulted people that I respect on the subject, and was given a lot of conflicting advice. They told me to break the pistol in for 500 rounds and that would fix it. It didn’t. I was accused of “limp wristing” by people who hadn’t even watched me shoot. I was told to change ammo, because some 1911s are finicky. I was told to lube them more, and was also told to lube them less. Other advice was change the springs, get more gunsmithing done, and tons of other things. At the time, I just couldn’t find a place for a handgun that cost a kilobuck but wouldn’t give me 100% reliability out of the box that is required for a carry piece and saw no point in pouring money into a gun in order to make it shoot reliably when there were so many guns that cost a fraction of a 1911 that worked fine right out of the box.
That was a decade ago. Now I have several dozen handguns and have sold several dozen more because they didn’t suit my needs. I am set for the handguns I need now I am buying handguns that I want. What I want is a handgun that looks sexy, and the 1911 does. Not in a tactical or badass way, but in a way that offers clean lines. I just like the way that they look. I also want it to be reasonably reliable, and I constantly hear from 1911 fanbois about how accurate and reliable their 1911 is, if you get the right gunsmith to work it over. So now I am assuming that the custom made 1911s from a top quality gunsmith with a reputation for making the best is gong to fit that bill.
So I want to try the Ed Brown. Still, spending 4 grand on a pistol only to have it not be what you want is a bit painful, so I am looking at trying out a cheaper version for now. I misspoke before, I am not looking at an Ultra Carry, I am looking at an Ultra CDP or a Pro CDP. I don’t like the Rapide. It looks like Kimber’s attempt to make the 1911 look like a Glock. All of the unreliability of a 1911, with the looks of a Glock. The worst of both worlds. To compound the problem, they even make them in 9mm.
Sure, the Ed Brown is expensive, but that is the benefit of having a job that pays well and a wife who is understanding of your odd, expensive hobbies. At least she knows my money is going to guns and geeky stuff and not to a mistress. Not only that, but I need to have a Bar B Que gun for the unlikely event that open carry is ever legalized in Florida.
The 5th circuit Court of appeals struck down the Trump bump stock ban today, but not on 2A grounds. The appellant said that a bump stock can’t be a machine gun because the law defines a machine gun as one that fires multiple times with a “single function of the trigger” and a bump stock causes the trigger to function multiple times.
The government argued that the key is the action of the shooter, who only has to do one thing, the shooter’s trigger finger isn’t doing anything other than sitting still.
That would be a great argument if the law said a machine gun is one that fires multiple shots with a single action taken by the shooter, but that isn’t what the law says. It specifically says “single function of the trigger.”
If this happened to me, we would both be on the no fly list- him for pissing on me, me for the ass whipping I dished out.
Oddly enough, I posted the other day that I am thinking of changing to a different hospital and that same afternoon, I got two emails. The first was from my job, spelling out that all employees need to be aware that, should we decide to wear a shirt under our scrub top, it has to be white. We also have to wear white socks that cover our ankles. If we choose to wear a sweater or coat, it must be the same color as our assigned scrub color. This seems odd to me, since they can’t find shift coverage and are back to offering shift bonuses most days and are still understaffed.
We are a 50 bed ED, and we had 123 patients the other day. All of the rooms were filled, plus we had 50 patients on beds in the hallway and another 23 patients being treated in the waiting room. But our administration is worried about what color tshirt I wear under my scrubs.
The second email that I got was from a competing hospital chain. They are inviting a bunch of nurses to a free meal where cocktails will be served and we get the opportunity to meet the leadership team and learn about the advantages of coming to work for them.
Dude. Looks like I at least get a free meal out of the deal. I told my wife that I am not working that day, so I think I am going to go and at least hear the pitch.
According to figures from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the US government spent a total of $6.8 trillion in 2021. Of that amount, $4.8 trillion was mandatory spending, otherwise known as entitlements. In other words, money that has to be paid out by law: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Compensation, Refundable Tax Credits, Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), and other mandatory spending. Another $350 billion was interest on the debt that we already owe, bringing the total outlay for mandatory spending to $5.2 trillion. The government only collected $4 trillion in taxes. So without spending a dime on the rest of the things that the government must do: defense, courts, prisons, and all of the alphabet agencies, the government is already running a deficit of $1.2 trillion. Add in all of those expenditures, and the deficit rises to $2.8 trillion. Compare that to my post on this topic from a decade earlier.
What is most alarming is the deficit as a percentage of our GDP, which right now is 12.4%. Over the past 50 years, the deficit has averaged 3.5% of GDP. Think about how much spending has risen to expand the deficit to this point. The national debt is now 100% of our gross domestic product. A decade ago, it was 34% of GDP. Three years ago, it was 80% of GDP. That’s without accounting for the money we owe the Social Security trust fund. Add in that amount, and the debt to GDP ratio rises to 128%.
The US isn’t even in the worst shape. Take a look at the debt to GDP ratios of the world’s top 10 debtor nations:
In contrast, here are the ten countries with the lowest debt to GDP ratios.
Note that Russia is the only large, first world country in the bottom ten. The suspicious side of me wonders if that is why the Democrats are so keen on starting a war with Russia.
What we are seeing here is that the entire world is on the verge of an economic collapse caused by profligate spending and loose fiscal policy.
Egg prices were $1.79 a dozen in November of 2021. By November of 2022, a dozen eggs cost $3.59. As of today, eggs are now $6.17 a dozen. So they doubled in a year, now are on pace to double in three months. The powers that be are claiming that it is due to a Bird Flu pandemic amongst egg laying hens.
Poultry farmers are telling a different story. They are claiming that everything needed to produce eggs is more expensive. The price of feed is up, which would not be the case if there were fewer birds due to a pandemic. The price of egg cartons is up, having risen from 30 cents to 50 cents per carton.
No matter the cause, everything that requires eggs: from breakfast and pasta to cakes is going to be more expensive. Stand by. The price increases are going to continue.
Make up your own mind as to how you react to a Republican congressman saying that other Republicans are terrorists because they won’t install McCarthy as speaker.
If you don’t want to get into the Octagon and get punched in the face and don’t get into the Octagon, that’s how I feel about it. I mean, this is because there’s no good faith here. The good faith has been lost. We keep talking about good faith. And then they want to play victim. No. No. So now I’m not going to apologize for harsh language. You guys know me. That’s how I am. I speak boldly. You know, and this is this is. This is terrorism tactics.
Hannity is part of the problem with the Republican party. He is now coming out and saying that he “knew all along” that Trump lost the 2020 election.