you seem to think the only point of owning a gun is to commit violence

You talk about a gun like you plan to open your beer with it.

Is driving a car stupid and pointless then?

If you can’t tell the difference between driving a car and firing a gun, you should be allowed to own neither.

I am convinced that the #1 problem in this country right now is the notion that having a primary challenger is somehow a sign of weakness.

I mean, it’s absolutely a sign of weakness - which is to say, it’s a sign that the incumbent isn’t popular. The institutional response to an incumbent’s unpopularity is to mask it by forcing rivals out of the primary process (as with Biden going uncontested in '24).

The House, in particular, is meant to be the body that is most responsive to the people, because they are theoretically accountable to them every two years.

In 1803, a single House Rep had a district of about 34,000 people. In 1903, a district held 193,167 people. In 1953, 334,587 people. In 2023, 761,169 people. These seats weren’t great at representing large-ish constituencies 220 years ago. They’re absolutely dogshit at it now. Members exist to represent the party on behalf of local party members not the people of the district. In many cases, a Rep is explicitly antagonistic towards minority members of their district in an attempt to curry favor with the majority.

The two year window is not about direct accountability to the district nearly so much as it is direct accountability towards the donor class that sponsors their campaigns. And the near-continuous need to fundraise in order to cover the cost of advertising and self-promotion within the district has turned House Reps into patronage positions of the most servile sort.

The problem with primaries, in the modern political equation, is that they drive up the cost for donors to hold any single seat. And for parties to control a House majority (as non-incumbents are more vulnerable to a seat flip).

So suppressing primaries, suppressing voter turnout, and suppressing opposition parties through gerrymandering are - at the end of the day - cost control measures for national parties and corporate interests.

I don’t particularly mind if there folks keep their jobs into their 70’s, as long as they really are the best person for that district.

They’re the best because at that age they’ve proven themselves to be unfailingly loyal. This is, again, an issue of cost control and risk mitigation. Nobody who has been in the Senate for 50 years is going to pitch any curveballs. Nobody who has climbed to the top of the ladder in their House Committee is going to deviate far from their proven ideology.

Unlike with freshmen who can waffle erratically from their original campaign pledges (see: Fetterman and Sinema, for instance) the 70 year old multi-election incumbent - a la Chuck Schumer or Diane Feinstein - is very predictable.

“I’ve got four years college experience and another six years of part-time work experience.”

“Do you know how to use the Flibbidty Widget?”

“No. Where would I have learned how to use that?”

“Only our company. We have a proprietary system that revolves entirely around this custom piece of hardware.”

“So…”

“We are only hiring people with five years experience. Sorry.”

“Buying a Gun” is next to nothing.

Buy a bullhorn and organize with your neighbors to scare ICE out of a hotel. Buy a camera and organize with your neighbors to tail ICE vehicles patroling your neighborhood, to keep your migrant neighbors safe. Buy masks and jackets that protect against tear gas, then park your cars in the detention center driveways so ICE can’t move people into these buildings easily.

There are people who are doing something. They are not the ones shopping at Walmart for their first glock.

They don’t want “gun control”. They want “justification for their use of force”.

Trump would have loved if Alex Pretti had actually pulled his gun and landed a few shots before he was taken down. He’d have loved if Renee Good had actually hit an ICE agent with her car. These events could have served to justify their draconian misconduct, at least within his own conservative base.

Tightening gun laws to the point where all the regulations around private ownership don’t matter is about explaining away why you can pop someone in the head while crossing the street and claim they were breaking the law after the fact. It isn’t about restricting gun ownership. There’s virtually no fear among these federal agencies that any liberal group might organize an effective military deterrence. Nobody is actually afraid of the “liberal gun owner”, because individual lone wolf gun owners aren’t an effective opposition to a well-organized and well-funded Gestapo.

you can’t win with this shit.

The dirty truth of gun ownership is that the person you’re most likely to shoot is yourself. The second most likely person you’re going to shoot is someone who lives in the house with you. The odds of you firing a gun in self-defense, much less actually harming anyone, much less harming a federal official intent on arresting you, is vanishingly small.

People with bull horns and rape whistles are doing more to shut down ICE than anyone packing heat. The campaign to blast ICE agents with noise in their hotels has had an enormous impact on where these agents can operate and how enthusiastic they are to position themselves in a given metro area. People simply crowding out ICE in their cars has gone a long way to diminish their presence in Minneapolis, LA, and Portland.

Like, if you’re worried about your safety and you want to organize in community self-defense, you can do it. You can join mobilized groups ready to take the fight to ICE in a way that’s effective. But just shoving a .22 in your pocket and having fantasies of Rambo: First Blood isn’t going to cut it. Indulging in these fantasies does absolutely raise some red flags about your political persuasion.

I swear, we see this article every six fucking months as though its news and not an ad to sell more guns.

Gotta spend money to make money.

I’ll admit $33k/year is on the low end, but in a country where the average income is $4800 that’s still pretty good.

selling secrets to the Israeli government on the side

I don’t think it was on the side. The Israelis, the Brits, and the Americans were his primary clientele.

Bob Barr’s father - one of the OG CIA guys under Dulles - was the guy who recruited him out of school. And Robert Maxwell was deep in with MI5 when he started seeing Ghislaine.

Wasn’t Epstein with Mossad?

Nonsense. North Korean movies have famously been pretty good.

I mean, fingers crossed.

Republicans have a long and storied history of fighting unfairly. And this will definitely put the fear of God in them

If you’ve got standards, sure.

But “Paddington 2 is just as good as Tron 3” leaves me questioning your rubric.

Right has the far better perspective.

Two compelling critiques of the latest Zootopia film.

First time he’s been right about something in a long while

For people living in small town is an obligation.

Broadly speaking, sure. But most people live in cities. The idea that we need an eight lane highway to accommodate the handful of people coming in from the desolate sand wastes of Bumblefuck, Nowhere is absurd.

The bulk of city traffic is city residents traveling between points in the city. They’re your priority. They’re the ones creating all the traffic

The best transportation system is a mixed transportation system

Just doesn’t seem practical