Via Fox News: Elon Musk promotes free speech at Twitter all-hands meeting, says the media ‘almost never’ gets it right

“I think it’s essential to have free speech and … be able to communicate freely,” Musk said in an edited video of his remarks released by Project Veritas. “If there are multiple opinions … just make sure that we’re not sort of driving a narrative.”

Side note, notice how Project Veritas videos are always described as “edited”, as if they didn’t edit this article and everything else they present. That’s what they are suppose to do, in order to reduce it to the point where people will actually read, watch or listen. The difference is that Project Veritas will always release the rest of the uncut footage.

Elon Musk is rapidly becoming a hero to me, in his fight for absolute free speech. I do know that my heroes have warts and that just because somebody is doing good in one field it doesn’t mean they aren’t my opponent in another area.

“How many times had the media gotten it right? I would say almost never,” Musk said. “Not never, but almost never.”

And here is the wart:

The billionaire then stressed the difference between “freedom of speech” and “freedom of reach,” suggesting that he is open to allowing “outrageous things” to be said on the platform that “doesn’t get amplified” and get “a ton of reach.”

If they are allowed to put a cone of silence around speech they dislike then it is still a form of silencing offending voices.

And note that Fox News has “edited” Elon’s statement to pull out two and three word quotes and strung them together with their own words. What did Elon actually say?

Via WLBT Jackson, MS via WLOX.com: Lawsuit filed alleges two bills would send public money to fund private school, violating state constitution

“This is the most brazen attempt to give money to private schools that I have ever seen,” said Will Bardwell, senior counsel at Democracy Forward. “Once public money starts going out the door, the injury is going to occur, so we’re going go to be asking the chancery court to put the program on hold until we can establish that it’s unconstitutional.”

So everybody that is hurt by the pandemic lockdowns and panics were able to apply for grants and loans. Public schools were able to get money. But those darn private schools can’t get any relief from government inflicted damages.

From 90 Miles From Tyranny

Via Fox News:Liberal Virginia DA hit with bar complaint following judge booting her office from criminal case

It was reported a few days ago that the Loudoun Country, VA prosecutor was kicked of a case by the Judge. The Judge said that she had lied to the court in under reporting the criminal history of the defendant in attempting to “sell a plee deal”.

It is now being reported that there is a formal complaint against Buta Biberaj asking for her to be disbarred.

“Ms. Biberaj’s conduct is completely unbecoming of both a prosecutor and an officer of the Court. Judge Plowman’s order is a damning indictment of the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s ethics and her low regard for the integrity of the justice system. We hope that the Virginia Bar recognizes the severity of this misconduct and Buta Biberaj is disbarred and removed from office immediately,” Sean Kennedy, the president of Virginians for Safe Communities, said in the nonprofit’s press release Thursday.

With luck this story will have a very happy ending with Biberaj disbarred and trying to learn to code. I don’t think she’ll do well in any hard science or engineering profession.

Via The Tampa Bay Times: Longtime NRA Florida lobbyist Marion Hammer retiring

“I have fought for Second Amendment rights and the rights of gun owners for many many years, and that’s my legacy,” Hammer said in an interview Thursday. “I stood tall against a wall of people who wanted to destroy the Constitution and punish law-abiding people for the acts of criminals.”

Different people have different views of Marion. I think Miguel summed it up best with this picture of her being the only guns right person in a meeting with representatives while a half dozen Mom’s Demanding sat in their red t-shirts across the aisle from Marion.

She has been in the fight for a very very long time. She has been there when nobody else took the time to speak on our behalf.

There are others that look at her huge salary from the NRA and wonder if it is worth it. They wonder if she is part of the group keeping Wayne in power.

Regardless of what she is getting paid, regardless of how much she took from the NRA, the place where Florida is today regarding Stand Your Ground, Shall Issue and many other issues are because of her efforts, her lobbying.

Because of Florida, many other states moved to shall issue. When I got to my home state it went from a multi-month task with a low probability of success with hundreds of dollars involved to $10 and 10 days. My state went to Shall Issue because Florida went there first and proved that blood would not fill the streets.

So thank you Marion Hammer.

Via CNBC: Lego to invest over $1 billion in first U.S. brick plant

Lego is going to open a brick plant in Chesterfield County, Virginia. It is the first Lego plant in the US.

Toymaker Lego said on Wednesday it will invest more than $1 billion in its first factory in the United States, which will be carbon-neutral, to shorten supply chains and keep up with growing demand for its colored plastic bricks in one of its biggest markets.

The factory in Chesterfield County, Virginia, will be the Danish company’s second in North America and seventh worldwide, after it announced a new factory in Vietnam last year.

Don’t any of you tell me this isn’t gun related… Those Legos make the best caltrops ever. Just ask any parent that’s found one with a bare foot at oh dark thirty

Via AP News: Tentative Senate gun deal has surprises, and loose ends

The outline of a bipartisan Senate agreement to rein in gun violence has no game-changing steps banning the deadliest firearms. It does propose measured provisions making it harder for some young gun buyers, or people considered threatening, to have weapons.

The deadliest weapon is a man with nothing left to lose. The tool he uses does not matter.

They are proposing allowing juvenile records to be part of a NICS check. This seems to be a reasonable path, if we have NICS make sure it includes the records of the animals that have juvenile records. “Well known to law enforcement until they turned 18” seems a poor tactic.

They are talking about extending the time till a NICS check defaults. Currently a NICS check either gives a “proceed”, a “deny” or “wait.” After three days an FFL can proceed after a “wait.” The proposal changes that from 3 days to 7 with the ability to proceed after 10 days. So instead of half a week, two weeks if the government does a slow down.

When I first moved here I found that every time I did a NICS check I got a wait. Turns out that Maryland just never responded to NICS check requests that would result in a “proceed” thereby adding a 3 day waiting period for anybody that moved out of state.

This went on for nearly 5 years. I can easily see them doing an intentional slow down. All you have to do is look at how long it takes to get permission to by ear protection devices that attach to your firearm. (Suppressors)

There are proposals to increase the removal of firearms without due process. Unlikely to have any punishment for those that abuse the system. The biggest push is to allow casual relations to result in the ability to get an EPO. So you might want to not stick it in crazy.

They claim that they aren’t going to ban semi-automatic rifles, but keep an eye out. There is no reason to trust these people.

Via BBC: Why is inflation in the US so high?

Inflation is at a nearly all time high in the US at 8.6%. This is amazingly high, higher than in most other countries in the world.

In an attempt to protect the socialist policies put in place, the BBC points the finger firmly at the people of the US spending so much.

A recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco concluded that pandemic relief packages probably contributed to 3 percentage points of the rise in inflation until the end of 2021 – a factor that goes a long way to explaining why US inflation outpaced the rest of the world.

Oscar Jorda, senior policy adviser at the bank and one of the people who worked on the study, cautioned against reading too much into the exact percentages, but said the overall picture is clear.

“These programmes… were a considerable infusion of liquidity into consumers’ pockets at a time when perhaps industry wasn’t quite ready to respond to an increase in demand,” he said in an interview in May. They “signified a big push of what I would call demand push inflation”.

There you have it. Because you were out of work because of shutdowns and the government handed you a few dollars, YOU caused the inflation when you spent it.

If you had just saved that money then inflation wouldn’t be so bad.

Historically, when inflation gets bad, people spend money as soon as they have it to convert money into hard goods. To put this in perspective of today, people are moving to keeping their vehicle gas tanks mostly full.

The cost, to me, of filling my tank last week vs filling my tank this week was about $8.50. That’s a $0.50 increase in the price of gas. When you are afraid your money will be worth less tomorrow, you want hard goods now. We bought a 1/2 cow because we know the price of beef is going up. We bought more chickens, we know that the price of eggs is going up and making our own eggs reduces our weekly food bill.

In addition to all of the above, the demand continues to grow for hard goods. This also increases prices.

If you are interested in a good introductory book on economics:
Basic Economics, Fifth Edition: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell

Via Yahoo Finance: More than half of U.S. teachers are considering leaving the profession: Survey

Can we get the politics out of the classroom?

–Randi Weingarten

My wife is a teacher, she applied for an online teaching job this year. She wants out of the brick and mortar schools. And it isn’t the money. Nor is it ungrounded fear of “school shootings”. It is violence within the schools.

For the last school year they have had two or three students that have controlled the school. These are kids that refused to stay in class. Refused to obey instructions. Threw things, broke things, vandalized classroom, attacked and teachers. One teacher had her arm broken by one of these children. (Grades k-5).

All the teachers are tired of the alert messages that tell them that the good students have to be held inside their classrooms because the animals have taken over part of the school again. (For the liberal bleeding hearts, race doesn’t come into this question.)

But according to Yahoo it is that teachers don’t get paid enough.

But the real reason that teachers are thinking of leaving the profession is:

“What [teachers] really want is they want us to do the common sense gun safety precautions that are being talked about in Washington right now, that Governor Hochul did in New York state with the legislature just a few days ago, that GOP Governor Baker did in Massachusetts a few years ago, what the overwhelming number of Americans — Republican, Democrat, Independent — want us to do: They want something done,” Weingarten said.

Weingarten said this while trying to get politics out of the classroom. Maybe she should keep politics out of the classroom too?

Yes, there are teachers in the local school system that are terrified of school shootings, but hardening the schools with armed guards is not acceptable. It will frighten the children. I don’t understand how that is more frightening than doing lock down drills.

Evaluating Teacher Pay

If some teacher or teacher’s representative tells you they don’t get paid enough, make sure you do the actual math. You need to know the teachers salary, the value of the benefits package and the number of contract hours. A nominal contract is for 185 days per year.

So compare a teacher making $50,000/year and a nurse making $50,000/year. Ignoring benefits.

The nurse makes $24.03/hour. The teacher makes $33.78/hour. If the teacher worked full time, year round like other employees, then they would be making the same $24.03/hour. The difference between being paid $50k/2080hrs and $50k/1480hrs

Via Roger Williams University Law Review, Spring 2006:
The Obfuscation of Rhode Island’s Clearly Expressed Constitutional Right to Bear Arms: Mosby v. Devine

Claudia J. Matzko does a great job of going over how the courts abuse RKBA. Trying to conflate group rights with individual rights.

It never ceases to amaze me that “The right of The People” seems to mean “the right of the state” or “the right of the militia” to so many people.