The Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor

President Joe Biden and CBS’ 60 Minutes got together for an interview (we use that term loosely these days) that aired Sunday night.  We believe his performance landed somewhere in between two other great theatrical performances.

On the high side, it landed just below John Belushi playing Bluto in the 1980 hit Animal House.

Bluto: “What? Over? Did you say ‘over’? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!”

Biden:  “The pandemic is over.”  We still have a problem with Covid.   But people aren’t wearing masks anymore.  People are in pretty good shape.”

On Monday the White House was power walking that utterance back.  CNN, “the most trusted name in news,” reported yesterday that the White House says that its Covid-19 policy is unchanged despite Biden’s comments that the pandemic is over.

In interviews, six administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment said the president’s statement would probably make it harder to persuade people to get shots or secure new money from Congress, noting those efforts have already lagged behind their goals.

Maybe those in the military who didn’t get the jab or four can get back to defending the country?  Maybe we can stop suspending loan payments? Another round of noninflationary covid-19 stimulus checks anyone?  Etc.

In other words, it’s hard to keep giving away money and telling the same lie if the leader doesn’t go along with it. Maybe the White House can’t handle the truth?

So, on the low side, it landed just above Jack Nicholson playing Colonel Jessup in the 1992 drama A Few Good Men.

Colonel Jessup: “You can’t handle the truth.”

Interviewer: “The stock market dove 1300 points.  People are shocked by their grocery bills.  What can you do better and faster?”  Biden: “Let’s put this in perspective.  The inflation rate month to month is up hardly at all.  It was 8.2. or 8.2 before.  You’re making it sound like it went to 8.2 all of a sudden.  It hasn’t spiked in the last several months.  It’s been just barely, um, it’s been basically even.”

It’s scary to even ask this, but “how many people in America think that if inflation hovers around 8.2% annualized month to month that it’s barely going up?”

Does Biden and the White House actually believe the math salad that they are serving the country?  Or, do they believe America is too dumb to understand, so they buy this BS line just like they’ll stand in line to pay more for groceries?

Your physical health is way better, they just don’t want you to think so.  Your financial health is way worse, they just don’t want you to think so.  The 2022 midterms loom.

When Bluto ran out of the frat house no one followed him.  Today, far too many would.

Do the history books today teach us that it was indeed the Germans who bombed Pearl Harbor?  Today, we can’t handle the truth.

 

 

 

18 Doses of Common Sense

Do you know who John Kennedy is?  Nope, not that one.  Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana.

Senator Kennedy graduated Magna cum Laude in political science, philosophy, and economics from Vanderbilt,  and was president of his senior class. He received his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law where he was an executive editor of the “Virginia Law Review” and was elected to the Order of the Coif. He earned a Bachelor of Civil Law degree with first-class honors from Oxford University in England.

Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?  It is.  But, what is more impressive is the written and spoken words that emanate from his cranium.  Add a dose of that slow southern drawl and the cat that swallowed the canary look, and you’ve got a bonafide “man of the people” personality.

Oh, and two more things.  He doesn’t bite his tongue, and he’s as funny as they come.

Sample a dozen and a half of his gems below.  Pure gold.

 

PERMIT ME TO TELL YOU WHAT I BELIEVE.

* 1. I BELIEVE AMERICA WAS FOUNDED BY GENIUSES BUT IS NOW RUN BY IDIOTS.

 

* 2. I BELIEVE YOU CAN’T FIX STUPID, BUT YOU CAN VOTE THEM OUT OF OFFICE.

 

* 3. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU HEARD OF ANYONE TRYING TO SNEAK INTO CHINA?

 

* 4. AMERICA IS SO GREAT THAT PEOPLE WHO HATE IT, REFUSE TO LEAVE IT.

 

* 5. LET ME SAY SOMETHING ABOUT THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION.  SO FAR, THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION SUCKS.

 

* 6. I DON’T LIKE TO BRAG ABOUT THE EXPENSIVE PLACES I’VE BEEN TO, BUT THIS MORNING I WENT TO THE GAS STATION.

 

* 7. I BELIEVE EXERCISE MAKES YOU LOOK BETTER NAKED. BUT SO DOES ALCOHOL.

 

* 8. WELFARE SHOULD BE A BRIDGE, NOT A PARKING LOT.

 

* 9. WEAKNESS INVITES THE WOLVES.

 

* 10. WE DON’T HAVE A GUN CONTROL PROBLEM. WE HAVE AN IDIOT CONTROL PROBLEM.

 

* 11. FREE ADVICE FRIENDS, IF GOVERNMENT TELLS YOU NOT TO BUY A GUN, BUY TWO.

 

* 12. I BELIEVE IF YOU HATE POLICE OFFICERS, THE NEXT TIME YOU ARE IN TROUBLE, CALL A CRACK-HEAD.

 

* 13. HERE’S A FREE TIP, COPS WILL LEAVE YOU ALONE IF YOU DON’T DO STUPID THINGS.

 

* 14. I BELIEVE WE NEED AN ELECTION DAY, NOT AN ELECTION MONTH.

 

* 15. I BELIEVE YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO PROVE WHO YOU SAY YOU ARE WHEN YOU VOTE.

 

* 16. I BELIEVE 400,000 BODIES BURIED AT ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY IS THE REASON YOU SHOULD STAND FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM.

 

* 17. I BELIEVE THE WATER WON’T CLEAR ‘TIL YOU GET THE PIGS OUT OF THE CREEK.

 

* 18. I BELIEVE LOVE IS THE ANSWER, BUT YOU SHOULD OWN A GUN JUST IN CASE.

 

We could use about 99 more like him in that chamber of Congress if you ask this writer.

Pure gold, we say again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If You Fall Off of a Horse

During one of the Democratic Party’s nomination debates, then-candidate and now President, braggadocious Joe Biden claimed that he was the one that Vladimir Putin wanted nothing to do with.  “I’ve stood toe to toe with him and looked him in the eye,” he said, or words similarly intended, but a bit garbled.

He also told us that he had a plan to combat the coronavirus while the sitting president did not.   Though for better or worse, Trump’s Operation Warp Speed was full speed ahead by the fourth quarter of 2020.

Soon enough thereafter, also for better or worse, 81 million votes were counted for Joe.  “The most ever,” we’ve been told.

Fast forward to today, 18 months after he took office, and take a look around.

Shaking in his boots, Putin invaded Ukraine right away.  Biden has sent well over $40 billion in aid and weapons as he continues to stand toe to toe with Putin. Then, in a late Friday news dump, the Biden administration said that it will send another $400 million in military equipment to Ukraine, including four more advanced rocket systems.

What’s the end game?  “I don’t know how it’s going to end, but it will not end with a Russian defeat of Ukraine in Ukraine,” Biden said last week.  Eye to eye, this guy is.

Just wait till we get the bill to build Ukraine back better.

On the virus front, it seems like the man with the plan has seen the plan go awry.  He’s weirdly whispered into the mic a few dozen times, though not recently, “Get vaccinated, get boosted.  Now!”

We wonder if it works, why do we need to keep taking it?  If it doesn’t, why do we need to keep taking it?

Apparently, mothers (you can still use that word in the safe space of BBR) are questioning it as well.  The approved vax for 6-month to 5-year-olds has plenty of supply and little demand, unlike baby formula.

Will we have another variant creep into our lives before the midterms?

Old Joe swears that he’s running for reelection in 2024.  Given the above and throwing in Afghanistan, Wall St, and crime he has a tough hill to climb.

An in-depth Civiqs poll now has Biden with a historic low 29% approval rating.  Only 63% of Democrats and 36% of Hispanics approve of the job he’s doing.  Artificial intelligence aside, getting back to 81 million is going to be a stretch.

But, never count the career politician out.

As the old saying goes if you fall off of a horse, you get right back on it.

It’s the same as if you fall off of a bike, you get right back on it.

Joe remembers the old saying.

He’s living the new one.

 

 

 

 

Island Getaway

Oprah really knew how to capture an audience.  Way back on December 22, 2010, her spell may have reached its zenith when she shouted out to her live audience, “you get a car, and you get a car!  Everyone gets a car!”

Just about a decade later our president channeled that giving feeling as well.  President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan(ARP), a coronavirus relief package, in the Oval Office of the White House on March 11, 2021, in Washington.

It was a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package passed without one “yea” vote from the stingy Republicans.  The Democrats, fresh off of a Capitol and Oval Office sweep felt compelled to give back.

Not everyone in America got a car to help beat that pesky virus.  But, some institutions and good citizens got more, way more, after having to shove a Q-Tip halfway to some remote island.

Take the Oral History Association for example.  They received $825,000 in ARP funds for a grant-making project titled, “Diversifying Oral History Practice: A Fellowship Program for Under/Unemployed Oral Historians,” which provided eleven year-long fellowships of $60,000 each for oral historians “from communities that have been historically marginalized in the field,” such as “Indigenous peoples, people of color, people with disabilities, and working-class people.”

Are you wondering what exactly is an Oral Historian?  Let Google be your friend.  Oral historians document the past by preserving insights not found in printed sources. The skilled practitioner must remain impartial, listen, and stay in the background.  Got it?

One of the recipients of the 60k giveaway was Elizabeth “Beth” Castle, a “Shawnee-ancestored anti-racist educator.”  This inspired her to create “A Collaborative Oral History of the Fight Against Mineral and Uranium Mining in the Black Hills, the Origins of the Global Indigenous Movement, and the Ongoing Struggle to Protect the People who Protect Mother Earth.”

We kid you not.

Want another? And, another?

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) received $135 million from the plan and proceeded to hand out half of the handout.  The NEH awarded $50,000 in ARP funds to a nonprofit organization in the Northern Mariana Islands called 500 Sails for “reopening programs that teach Indigenous canoe-building and explore pre-colonial sea life.”

The NEH also helped the Science History Institute in Philadelphia.  They were awarded $359,097 by the NEH to create a “multiplatform project exploring the historical roots and persistent legacies of racism in American science and medicine.”

As inflation hit 8.6% in May some economists, including former Obama administration economic advisers, have blamed the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package for overheating the economy.

President Biden didn’t feel that way when he signed the bill.

“We need Congress to pass my American Rescue Plan,” the president said at the time. “Now, critics say my plan is too big, that it costs $1.9 trillion. So that’s too much. Well, let me ask them: What would they have me cut?  What would they have me leave out?”

Where are the Northern Mariana Islands anyway?

Here is a hint.

Five dollars per gallon of gas and a free car from Oprah can’t get you there.

And, the freebies should have been electric vehicles.

 

Very Interesting

Way back when people now in their seventies watched a #1 rated TV show in the early 1970s called Laugh In.  The fast-moving, one-of-a-kind show featured never-ending quick skits, one-liners, and brief physical comedy performed by a troupe of talented actors.

One such actor was Artie Johnson.  Like the others, Artie played a wide range of characters.  But, without doubt, his two most famous were 1) a soldier who emerged from a bush to utter the line, “very interesting, but stupid!” and, 2) a grown adult on a tiny tricycle who “biked” briefly until he always unceremoniously crashed.

This brings us to the 46th President of the United States- Joseph Biden.  How?  Well, he’s in his seventies.  Sunday while biking at roughly two miles per hour he fell down.  And, later that day safely away from the bike he uttered something very interesting, but some say stupid.  Actually, he uttered some things, plural.

When doting reporters following his every Delaware vacation move asked about inflation and the economy, Biden bristled.  “A recession isn’t inevitable.  We have a chance to make a fundamental turn toward renewable energy, electric vehicles, and not just electric vehicles but across the board,” Biden countered.

Inflation is at a 40-year high.   The national average of gas prices crossed over the $5/gallon threshold, the highest ever.   Second place was $4.11 back in 2008.

Post-Covid transitory inflation that transitioned to Putin’s price hike is now not leading to an inevitable recession.  Unless we are already in one we suppose.

Biden followed up this exchange in Delaware by telling a reporter that “his team” would sit down with oil executives to demand they produce more oil and question their high profits.

The great unifier, who suspended multiple domestic oil leases, is now blaming greedy oil companies. So, while none of this is his fault, at least it gives us a chance to buy an electric car with batteries made from fossil-fueled plants.

But wait!  There’s more!

The President said Monday he is considering creating a federal gas tax holiday, which could save Americans as much as 18.4 cents per gallon.  His ex-boss, former President Barack Obama, was against such a move on the campaign trail back in 2008, the last time prices were near this high.

Obama said at the time that a gas tax holiday was a “gimmick” to save Americans half a tank of gas over the summer so that lawmakers could “say that they did something.”

With gas at five bucks a gallon, the tax is not even 4% of the total cost to Americans to fill up.  Gimmick indeed.

It also suspends the collection of said tax money that is supposed to keep up the nation’s roads and bridges.  There go the roads that we can’t afford gas to drive on!

At least we printed a trillion a year ago that we don’t have to repair our infrastructure.  That trillion wasn’t inflationary either, was it?

We have windmills to fall back on.  We do unless the wind isn’t blowing.

Not to worry, in Washington the political winds are always blowing.  At the moment they’re straight out of the left.

Maybe we should all just try to ride bikes from here on out.  How about that idea?

Very interesting.

But………….

 

 

Get Your Popcorn

Lights!  Camera!  Action!

That’s what is going down tonight up on the hill.  The curtains go up at 8 pm EST.  It’s a political play directed by James Goldston, a former president of ABC News.  Prime Time.

It’s not really very different than what happened on 1/6/2021- a day that will live in infamy according to some.  It’s been compared to Pearl Harbor, Watergate, and 9/11 as one of the darkest days in our country’s history.

The House convenes tonight for its committee hearing on Insurrection Day.

What happened on 1/6 was bad for America.  It was ugly, too.  But, insurrection?  Busting through the doors and windows of The Capitol Building was dumb and unlawful.  But, it wasn’t an insurrection.

Usually, malcontents bring guns to an insurrection.  You know the ones- weapons of war as the Democrats now collectively and harmoniously call an AR-15 and the like.  And, they usually put up more of a fight.  Often they try to stay longer.

Nonetheless, it was stupid when it crossed a line.  And, tonight’s hearings, led by the Dems and Dem wanna-be Liz Cheney will cross a line or two as well as they try to deliver a line that makes it to the evening news as a favored sound bite.

Grab the remote, relax in your favorite recliner, and pop some kernels.

Cameras will roll just like the body cameras on the police officers did during Paul Pelosi’s DUI arrest.  The difference is that you’ll see today’s video.

All of this has but one purpose.  It’s to take center stage and tell you how our democracy is at stake here and Donald J Trump is a bad guy.

Trump was a bad actor on that day as he could have done more to ensure that the crowd did less.  But, it was bad acting, nothing more and nothing less.

There will be more of that today-bad acting.

The further you suppress/impeach/impugn Trump and his followers the more likely you are to remain in power you see.  Dems fear people like Trump and DeSantis.  Why?  It’s because they actually appeal to what a lot of Americans want, not what the gullible are told what they want.

Dems embrace people like McConnell and Graham.  They’re really Dems acting like Republicans. They are necessary, good, obedient bit-part actors of a great production.

And they enjoy a good show.

Get your popcorn.

Swim Fast

Here at the world headquarters of BBR.com is a rather attractive 175-gallon fish tank.  Mature fish of all shapes and colors are plentiful.  And, now we have the tiniest of babies.

It’s so small you can see straight through it.  Peril awaits behind every rock and plant.  So far so good for the young un.  You watch in wonder with each passing day as the odds are quite slim.

The odds for the average American human baby born in 2022 aren’t as slim, but you have to wonder if the big fish are out to get them as well.

The first obstacle is, of course, being born at all.  In 2019, the most recent year that we have a semi-accurate count, nearly 1 million abortions were performed in the U.S.   Apparently we count abortions as expeditiously as we count votes in Pennsylvania.

And, now we have a baby formula shortage.  President Biden, responding to questions yesterday about how quickly the administration acted, claimed: “I don’t think anybody anticipated the impact of one facility — of the Abbott facility.”

Pressed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on the comments from manufacturers that they knew immediately what the impact would be, Biden responded: “They did, but I didn’t.”  Apparently we react to formula shortages as quickly as we do oil and gas shortages.

When the infants reach school age at least they can begin to learn which gender they are, aren’t, might be, or want to be one day when they grow up.  Our public school system sees to it.

That public school system, which you pay for, does not allow you to choose which school your children attend, however.  Apparently pro-choice and school choice have little in common in these 50 United States.

At least we took the worthless masks off of the little ones(except NY which knows better than the rest) late this spring semester.

We teach them science.  We follow the science.

And, we have a better science-based solution right around the corner.  News broke this AM that both Pfizer and Moderna have applied for final approval of their three and two-shot vaccine series for children aged 6 months to five years.  Science tells us that they aren’t actually vaccines, but we digress.

How timely?  How worthless you ask?  It’s estimated that 0.001 percent of children under 12 have any serious symptoms from the dreaded Covid-19.  That’s 1 in 100,000 if you do the math of the science.

Roaring ahead to middle and high school we have a safety problem that no one wants to address with any old school logic.  We have gun-free zones where only criminals have guns.  And, we have armed police officers who want no part of criminals with guns.  Uvalde wasn’t the first time for the men and women in the blue.

Well, at least we can take comfort that if the very young adults make it all of the way to and through college that they can emerge from the other side debt-free and ready to contribute to society.

How’s that you ask?  Prez Biden, “I am not considering $50,000 debt reduction, but I am in the process of taking a hard look at whether or not there will be additional debt forgiveness.”

That’ll usher the new graduates into a world of even higher inflation.  Biden’s plan to cancel student loan debt could lead to higher inflation and perceived inequality, several experts warned.

Inflation?  It’s likely transitory.

Inequality?  Jeez.  We’ve done so much good there, haven’t we?  Haven’t we?

If you paid off your loans you get nothing back except a pat on the back.  If you didn’t go to college but learned a valuable trade, you get to pay off the debt of those who did but haven’t paid it back.

If you haven’t paid a silver dime back, or are delinquent, you get a free pass.  That’ll teach them responsibility, won’t it?

That little fish has a lot of swimming to do.

At least fish swim in schools that aren’t controlled by the government.

Not yet, anyway.

 

The Public Sentiment Pendulum

For the public sentiment pendulum to ever so slightly move in a direction opposite of its current one it takes only one net change of opinion. This move is barely discernable to the eye much less the national polls.

For the public sentiment pendulum to reverse course and begin an accelerating descent for the opposite side of the bottom/center “it takes a village” as Crooked Hillary used to say.

This course reverse is always aided by influencers.  They’re the ones that millions listen to and follow.

Ninety-five percent of our population are followers.  They want to be led.

Almost daily more coals are being dumped into the steam engine.  One big one was Elon Musk when he started speaking his mind and decided to buy Twitter so others can freely as well.   Make no mistake about it, the left inside and outside of the company has roared its collective concern.

It’s two for one.  Elon is an influencer.   Twitter and its shaping algorithms, bots, and suppression of expression are another.

But looky here, last week Netflix told its employees matter of factly that they had a choice.  They could work on the content that they don’t approve of, or they could leave the nest.

And, of all people, a now buffed Jeffery Bezos started pulling a bit right. In a tweet, Bezos accused Biden of ‘misdirection’ in response to the President saying inflation could be tamed by making wealthy firms ‘pay their fair share.’  “Raising corp taxes is fine to discuss. Taming inflation is critical to discuss. Mushing them together is just misdirection.”

Like Twitter and Netflix employees, the White House full of Biden handlers didn’t like the pushback from a man who they thought was bought and paid for.

“It doesn’t require a huge leap to figure out why one of the wealthiest individuals on Earth opposes an economic agenda for the middle class that cuts some of the biggest costs families face, fights inflation for the long haul, and adds to the historic deficit reduction the President is achieving by asking the richest taxpayers and corporations to pay their fair share,” deputy WH press secretary Andrew Bates said.  That’s a WhataSize bite of a nothing burger.

When your presidential approval rating is at a first term low of either 33% or 39% depending on which of the latest two polls you prefer, you see the pendulum coming right down the track at you.

Other presidents’ ratings have sagged early on including young Bush, Obama, and Trump.  What to do?  Fight back.  Regain the nation’s confidence.  Call it the war with words.

Roe v Wade is a firestarter.  But PR agencies are strongly advising major companies to go quietly into the night on this.  They saw the Disney melt.

And, now unfortunately so is the Buffalo mass shooting.  As with all mass murders, this one is uncalled for and terrible.

But, Biden sees light where others see darkness.  And, he’ll tell you so today from Buffalo.  He’ll wax on about the progress made against racism during his 40 years of public service(as if he had something to do with it), but tell you how far we still need to travel.  He didn’t travel to Waukesha, but we digress.  He’ll castigate Congress, demanding a call to arms to call some arms too dangerous to be sold anymore in the US.

Then, he’ll board Air Force One and be back at the big house in time for dinner and Matlock reruns.

The nearing midterms will be the ultimate judge of where the sentiment pendulum is.  But, for Biden and the left that pulls his strings, if they want a last two-year rerun of the first two years, they have a lot of ground to make up.

And, dangerous big guns like Musk and Bezos are firing in the wrong direction.

 

A Leak Like No Other

In 1973 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled on the case of Roe v Wade.  The majority opinion of the court made abortion legal nationwide.

Emotions about abortion ran high.  It was and is a nasty word for many.  So abortion was rebranded as pro-choice.  Pro-choice morphed into woman’s health.  Woman’s health was then repackaged as woman’s wellness.  It’s harder to debate woman’s wellness.

Eventually, the government was so concerned about women’s wellness that Planned Parenthood (founded in 1916) became a partially federally funded abortion, and woman’s wellness clinic.

Since we’re changing what we call things, should that part of the organization be renamed Not Planned Not Parenthood?

Fifty years later, there is a public debate as to who actually is a woman at the same time that we put a woman, Justice Kentaji Brown Jackson on the Supreme Court.  Brown Jackson testified before Congress that she couldn’t define what a woman was either.  When pressed, she said, “I am not a biologist.”

So last night’s bombshell, the SCOTUS leak of the first draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito for the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization., has vaulted the issue to the front page of American discourse all over again.  Alito writes, “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

That there is a leak is a bombshell unto itself.  And, is a very dangerous threat to a very important pillar of US democracy-the Justice System’s impartial operational sanctity.  Start the investigation today.

So why the leak?  It’s pretty obvious, and serves a dual purpose, doesn’t it?

Can enough pressure be applied to those siding with Alito to swing votes the other way to maintain the status quo?  And can the current political landscape be reshaped with this polarizing issue to the extent that the party in power can maintain that power by inciting and galvanizing its base?

Inevitably, the leak will spur Democrats to push for the passage of a bill to codify Roe.  To do so they would need to bust the filibuster rule or lower the threshold to end a filibuster from 60 yes votes to 51. That means all attention will immediately turn to, you guessed it, Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.

The midterm vote is on 11/8/22, or six months and five days from today.

If you’re the party from the left would you like to run on inflation, food shortages, Ukraine, Afghanistan, the southern border, crime, Biden’s poll numbers, and Kamala’s incompetence? Or, would you like to run away from all of that?

Or, would you prefer to watch “mostly peaceful protests” in this coming summer of love to combat that nasty “war on women?” You could then bank on that being the galvanizer to get the vote out and turned in your favor.

Is it a coincidence that Kamala Harris is the featured speaker tonight at the 30th Annual We Are EMILY National Conference and Gala, a pro-choice event?  Is it a coincidence that President Biden is scheduled to deliver his thoughts from the White House today on Roe V. Wade?

Or, is all of this well planned by the party that plans well?

One thing is for sure, the Supreme Court has reunited the nation on the question of which gender gets pregnant and gives birth.

Or, chooses not to.

For now.

 

Basic Common Sense

A make-believe President Andrew Sheppard (actor Michael Douglas) interrupted a press conference in the movie An American President filmed in 1995 and said, “You cannot address crime prevention without getting rid of assault weapons and handguns. I consider them a threat to national security, and I will go door to door if I have to, but I’m gonna convince Americans that I’m right, and I’m gonna get the guns.”

“Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,” shrieked Beto O’Rourke to roaring applause from a crowd at Texas Southern University during a Democratic Debate for a want-to-be President in 2015. “We’re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore.”

Yesterday, our real president, though some would argue in title only, Joe Biden told us that he wants to rein in the use of untraceable firearms known as ghost guns that turn up frequently at crime scenes.  This attempt targets privately made firearms that can be assembled from purchased do-it-yourself kits.  The weapons lack serial numbers, which makes it difficult to trace the owner.

Commercial manufacturers of the kits will have to be licensed and must add serial numbers on the kits’ frame or receiver.  Commercial sellers of the kits will have to become licensed and will be required to run background checks on potential buyers.  It makes some sense as conventional retailers must do the same.  It just won’t stop anyone who wants a gun to find a way to get one.

“These guns are weapons of choice for many criminals,” Biden said in a Rose Garden ceremony attended by victims and families of gun violence. “We are going to do everything we can to deprive them of that choice and, when we find them, put them in jail for a long, long time.”  Sounds like we’re not as interested in defunding the police as we were pre election.

Biden called the not call to arms “basic common sense.”  Except, it’s not.  Or, at least it’s not enough.

Well, it makes as much sense as Twitter employees who worry that Elon Musk, now Twitter’s largest shareholder, may turn their free speech platform into a platform that actually allows free speech, but we digress.

All together now- guns don’t kill people.  People kill people.

Adding serial numbers to parts will make illegal gun owners take a bit longer to file down the additional numbers to make them untraceable.  Also, stolen guns are stolen guns regardless of who cleared a background check originally.

There are over 330 million guns in this country that we can count. It’s the second amendment right.  If you don’t make another one, or file down another serial number, that’s enough for every man, woman, and child, regardless of their choice of pronouns, to pack heat.

Illinois and New York have the strictest gun control laws in the nation.  Ask the residents of Chicago’s south side or the Bronx how much that helps.

Criminal behavior starts way before someone puts a gun in their hand.  Once Veep Kamala figures out the root cause of illegal immigration maybe she can turn her attention to the root cause of criminal behavior.

Until then we can continue paying lip service to the problem as we do with China, Russia, inflation, debt, and the border.