The Trace, a supposedly independent and non-partisan newsroom, has hit a new low in its reporting on the Monterrey Park, California murders. Rather than acknowledging the failure of California’s gun laws, the most restrictive in the United States, they seek to cast aspersions upon Dr. John Lott. They say he is a “major factor” in the failure to pass even more restrictive gun laws.
After a mass shooting, people often ask why the U.S. hasn't passed stronger gun control laws. One major factor: John Lott, a researcher whose work has been used for decades to justify looser firearm regulations — despite serious concerns about his methods.https://t.co/dOg6PIuFiIpic.twitter.com/Nx6WJFEvDK
The Trace is trying to imply that the Monterrey Park mass shooting might not have happened but for Dr. Lott and his research. The thought that the Democrats supermajority in the California Assembly and Senate didn’t pass gun control laws due to the influence of John Lott is laughable. What they did do is pass more and more ineffective laws that are only obeyed by law abiding citizens. Perhaps if they had studied the work of Dr. Lott they might have passed laws to allow people in California to actually protect themselves.
That The Trace is attacking Dr. Lott and his research should come as no surprise given that it was founded and funded by Michael Bloomberg. His goal in founding it was to promote his gun control agenda (as if the mainstream media doesn’t already do it). While The Trace aka Trace Media Inc. is officially a separate organization from Everytown for Gun Safety (sic), it should surprise no one that the president of Trace Media and Everytown are one in the same. That’s correct, John Feinblatt, Bloomberg’s right hand man on gun control, is officially the head of both organizations.
The Trace owes Dr. Lott an apology but I certainly doubt that will ever happen.
The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (sic) has announced it is winding down operations. It will be merging its sister organization Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence (sic) with Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention. The new organization will be called the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.
According to CBS Baltimore, the new center will be co-led by Daniel Webster who led the Bloomberg School center and Joshua Horwitz who was executive director of CSGV.
The release from JHU’s Bloomberg School of Public Health said the new center would “bring a public health lens to reduce gun violence in the U.S., focusing on research while expanding evidence-based advocacy for effective and equitable policies. They also say the new center will be financed by foundations, private donors, and other sources. I read this to mean that they will be getting significant monies from Michael Bloomberg, his own foundations, and the Joyce Foundation.
The press release goes on to say:
The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions will focus on prevention strategies that, if implemented broadly, would significantly reduce gun-related death and injury. It will:
Conduct research to evaluate and strengthen public health approaches to gun violence such as community violence intervention programs and handgun purchaser licensing.
Advance the use of racial equity impact analysis when considering policies to address gun violence.
Advance evidence-based policies such as handgun purchaser licensing and laws to remove firearms from those at risk of harm to self or others.
Develop new approaches to curb political violence and address the misuse of personally manufactured firearms, commonly referred to as ghost guns.
Track public opinion on policy and violence-reduction programs through surveys.
“Our Center will continue to apply strong research methods to assess the effectiveness of strategies intended to prevent gun violence,” says Webster. “With our new colleagues, we will now have even more capacity to bring meaningful policy change through evidence-based advocacy.”
“Our biggest successes have come when the evidence meets the moment,” says Horwitz. “Right now is one such moment. This new Center will put the evidence-based solutions identified and developed by our new colleagues directly into the hands of the policymakers ready to make change.”
There are two major implications from this merger. First, the growth of Everytown and Giffords relegated CSGV to being a gun control bit-player with not even marginal influence. The most they could do is stomp their feet, post angry tweets, accuse gun rights activists of being “insurrectionists”, and try to get a dozen people to attend a demonstration.
They just had no future within the gun control industry. According to their Form 990, they were barely covering expenses. They had a little more than a half million dollars in revenue and about the same in expenses of which Joshua Horwitz’s salary consumed about a third. By contrast, Everytown had revenues of approximately $85 million.
The second major implication is that Michael Bloomberg is going to push the supposed public health implications of the criminal misuse of firearms in his attempt to get legislation passed. I don’t think this merger would have happened without the consent, implied or expressed, of Bloomberg. This was not a merger of equals. If anything, it was a takeover that consolidated more of the 501(c)(3) gun control world under his influence while getting rid of a bit-player that could have muddied the message.
In one sense I am sad to see CSGV go away. They provided material for many blog posts with their craziness. You could always depend upon Horwitz to be foaming at the mouth about “insurrectionism” while their former communications director Ladd Everitt could be depended upon for invective about gun rights. I was a “gun extremist” while my friend Kurt Hofmann was branded a “traitor“.
CSGV may be leaving but I still have my commemorative patch!
You may have heard of Daniel Webster of Johns Hopkins University. He is the Bloomberg Professor of American Health and heads Johns Hopkin’s Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy. It is a research center within the Bloomberg School of Public Health. The name Bloomberg in all of this is because Michael Bloomberg has donated big time and continues to donate big time to the school and Webster’s research.
As you would suspect, Webster is no friend of gun owners, constitutional carry, or the Second Amendment.
The Complementary Spouse caught a story on NPR regarding the passage of permitless carry in Texas this past Wednesday. What caught her ear on the All Things Considered story was a comment by Webster that said, in essence, before violent armed criminals committed their acts of violence, most had been legal gun owners at one time. He blamed the loosening of gun laws for prodding them
Listen for yourself. The intro to Webster’s comments begin at the 1:15 mark in this short clip and it goes on from there.
By Webster’s reasoning, every criminal was a good kid at one time and every porn star was a virgin. If only those pesky gun rights advocates hadn’t convinced the evil Republicans into loosening the law then those formerly law abiding gun owners probably would not have committed their acts of violence.
That this argument is given any public forum makes me shake my head.
There are a lot of voter guides out there. I’ve posted the one from Grass Roots North Carolina-Political Victory Fund earlier. If you are a NRA member you have gotten their voter guide in your last magazine. GOA has one out there as well rating candidates.
However, if you ever needed a guide to candidates that never, ever should get your vote, Michael Bloomberg’s billions have come through!
That’s right – four thousand four hundred seventy-five candidates who believe sucking up to Michael Bloomberg is more important than defending your Constitutional rights. This year in 2020, we have seen that they are not only satisfied with curtailing your Second Amendment rights but your First Amendment rights as well.
Here is a screen shot from my district in North Carolina. They want you, of course, to vote for Biden and Harris, Cal “Jody” Cunningham, and the incredibly angry Moe Davis who wants to stomp on your neck.
So, if you haven’t already voted, get out there, stand in line as long as you must, and vote to preserve all your rights.
Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown rolled out their first round of endorsements today. In an “exclusive” to The Hill, they listed 58 incumbents and challengers in districts across the country. Some are names you’ve heard of before and some are newcomers with a boatload of money behind them. It is expected that Everytown will spend at least $60 million of Bloomberg’s money to get them elected to promote gun control.
Not surprisingly, there is only one Republican (in name only) on the list along with 57 Democrats.
The group’s senior political adviser, Charlie Kelly, said Everytown’s priority is to defend a number of incumbents facing contested races in an effort to defend the pro-gun control majority in the House.
“Time and again, this gun sense majority in the House has made it absolutely clear, and made gun safety a priority,” Kelly said. “It’s important that we keep the leadership of the chamber and that gun sense majority.”
They say they plan to plan to spend big bucks in Texas as well as at least $5 million in Arizona to help elect Mr. Gabby Giffords (Mark Kelly).
The full list is below:
The full list of Everytown’s House endorsements is Rep. Tom O’Halleran (D-Ariz.); Hiral Tipirneni, who is running in Arizona’s 6th District; Rep. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.); Rep. Josh Harder (D-Calif.); Rep. TJ Cox (D-Calif.); Rep. Gil Cisneros (D-Calif.); Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.); Rep. Harley Rouda (D-Calif.); Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.); (Jason) Crow (D-CO); Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-Conn.); (Debbie) Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL); (Lucy) McBath (D-GA); Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D-Iowa); Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa); Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.); Betsy Dirksen Londrigan, who is running in Illinois’s 13th District; Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.); Christina Hale, who is running in Indiana’s 5th District; (Sharice) Davids (D-KS); Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.); House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.); Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.); Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.); Dan Feehan, who is running in Minnesota’s 1st District; Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.); Jill Schupp, who is running in Missouri’s 2nd District; Kara Eastman, who is running in Nebraska’s 2nd District; Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.); Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.); Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.); Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.); Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.); Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.); Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.); Jackie Gordon, who is running in New York’s 2nd District; Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.); Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.); Rep. Max Rose (D-N.Y.); Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.); Rep. Antonio Delgado (D-N.Y.); Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.); Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.); Rep. Matt Cartwright (D-Pa.); Eugene DePasquale, who is running in Pennsylvania’s 10th District; Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.); Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-S.C.); House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.); Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-Texas); (Wendy) Davis (D-TX); Sri Kulkarni, who is running in Texas’s 22nd District; (Gina) Ortiz- Jones (D-TX); Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas); Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.); Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.); Rep. Kim Schrier (D-Wash.); and Carolyn Long, who is running in Washington’s 3rd District.
We should be thanking Everytown for providing this list of anti-freedom, anti-gun, and anti-self defense candidates. If you ever needed to know just whom should never get your vote, this is it.
Mike Bloomberg ended his quest for the Democrat presidential nomination yesterday. He found that his “Super Tuesday Strategy” didn’t work and that his ubiquitous ads were not enough to convince primary voters to support him.
As it was, Bloomberg only won American Samoa. The big winner on Tuesday was “Slow Joe” Biden followed closely by Bernie Sanders. Between them, they split the majority of the delegates up for grabs.
Perhaps the best comment on Bloomberg’s huge expenditures for his campaign came from Kyle Kashuv on Twitter.
Trump got Bloomberg to infuse 700 million into the economy..
Bloomberg has now endorsed Joe Biden. I think it will be reasonable to expect to see Bloomberg’s Independence USA PAC plus the Everytown Action Fund spending heavily in support of Biden and other Democrats throughout the rest of the election cycle.
The bottom line is that Bloomberg and his money will continue to remain a threat to our freedoms and our rights.
So to end, here is a little Beatles to brighten up your Thursday.
Soon enough, Mr. Bloomberg ramped up his spending on politics beyond New York. Frustrated at the flow of firearms from Virginia, a state with lax gun laws, Mr. Bloomberg tried to buoy candidates in the state’s 2011 elections who shared his views.
Then, in 2013, he received a visitor in New York: Mr. McAuliffe, by then a candidate for governor of Virginia. He proposed to Mr. Bloomberg that he make the state a decade-long priority, with an eye toward empowering Democratic supporters of gun regulation.
“I walked out with a multimillion-dollar commitment that day,” Mr. McAuliffe recalled.
Mr. Bloomberg spent more than $3 million in Virginia that year through his super PAC, helping propel Mr. McAuliffe to the governorship and electing a Democratic attorney general supportive of gun control, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. He has plowed millions more into the state since then, culminating last fall with a takeover of the state legislature by Democrats who are now seeking to pass a series of tougher gun laws.
I address this to all the women (and men) who wear their red Moms Demand Action t-shirts. I realize that you think, though misguidedly, that you are doing something to promote gun control so as to stop the criminal misuse of firearms.
How does it feel to learn that you are nothing but a useful pawn in Mike Bloomberg’s quest for more and more political power?
Everytown is managed directly by one of Mr. Bloomberg’s close lieutenants, John Feinblatt, a former New York deputy mayor whose wedding Mr. Bloomberg officiated in 2011. Numerous people connected to the group said it channeled Mr. Bloomberg’s priorities, including his strong preference for working with both parties.
The organization came into existence through an almost corporate-style merger: Mr. Bloomberg already had a gun control group, Mayors Against Illegal Guns, but he needed a grass-roots army to compete with the National Rifle Association. So it joined forces with an existing activist group, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, to form Everytown.
People involved in the group described being forced to communicate exclusively in canned talking points. Kate Ranta, shot twice by her ex-husband in front of her young son, was a member of Everytown’s network of survivors. She was asked to address a rally on the steps of the Capitol, along with her son. Standing beside Nancy Pelosi, then the House minority leader, and Representative John Lewis, she found herself stumbling over the text she had been given.
“Someone from Everytown wrote my speech. It was pushing their legislative agenda versus my authentic voice,” Ms. Ranta said. “I couldn’t say ‘gun control.’ It was moderate messaging — ‘gun safety’ and ‘gun violence prevention.’”
Other members greatly appreciated the new direction from Everytown. “A structure began to be put into place, and we could avail ourselves of the data that was offered so we could speak more intelligently,” said June Rubin, a Moms Demand Action volunteer in New York. “So we’re focused and single-issue and highly recognizable and speaking with one voice, and it’s powerful.”
The policy agenda was to be focused on tightening background checks; more radical ideas like banning assault weapons were off the table. “There were people who were very, very troubled by that,” Ms. Rubin said. “I became very pragmatic.”
More confrontational tactics were also rejected. After the mass shooting last year at a Walmart in El Paso, Tex., other groups organized protests to pressure the retailer to change its policies. But Moms members were discouraged from attending and told not to show any affiliation if they did. One Moms official told volunteers in a closed Facebook group that doing otherwise could “undercut our relations with responsible gun owners whose support we need.”
“Our goal is always to get results, and sometimes that means playing the outside game and sometimes it requires playing the inside game and working with partners who have shown themselves to be amenable to change,” said Maxwell Young, chief of public affairs for Everytown. “We’ve found Walmart to be an ally on gun safety and an example of a leader always willing to engage in productive conversations.”
You thought you could leave. You thought you could go your own way. You thought you and Everytown/Moms Demand were done with one another.
Not so fast.
Former members of Moms Demand Action, who had been cut off from private Facebook groups and blocked by leadership on Twitter, were surprised when they received emails from Mike Bloomberg 2020. Then they learned his campaign had rented the group’s email list, for $3.2 million, two days before he announced his candidacy in November.
It is like one of those messianic-led, off in the ozone cults. You try to leave but they will always come looking for you…because no one is allowed to leave.
But don’t feel too bad as you debate should you burn that red Moms Demand t-shirt. You aren’t alone. There aren’t many progressive or liberal constituencies that Mike Bloomberg hasn’t tried to buy on his way to grab for political power.
Climate change activists? Ask the Sierra Club.
Women’s rights? Ask Emily’s List.
Education policy? Ask NC’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Mark Johnson.
Abortion? Ask Planned Parenthood.
And the list goes on. Mike Bloomberg may engage in sexist and racist behavior and fly in a fleet of private jets but his money buys willful ignorance and useful pawns.
The headline quote came from a Bloomberg staffer to Grass Roots North Carolina volunteers who were protesting Michael Bloomberg’s appearance in Greensboro yesterday. The staffer went on to claim that they were trespassing (!) on a public sidewalk.
Courtesy of Chris Oates
If you work for an egomaniacal billionaire running for President, of course you think all his money makes you entitled to whatever you want.
Courtesy of Andy Stevens
With regard to his appearance in Greensboro, Bloomberg mentioned he had opened a number of offices in North Carolina including one there.
Early in his speech, Bloomberg got the city’s name wrong: “We have eight offices, including one here in Gainsboro,” he said, prompting a murmur among the crowd correcting his gaffe. He later correctly used Greensboro when referring to the city.
That was something worthy of a Joe Biden.
He also stated, “I know how to deal with New York bullies.” He was referring to President Trump but when you consider his actions and those of his staff you would think he was talking about himself.
The Greensboro News Record did make note of the Grass Roots North Carolina volunteers protesting Bloomberg’s appearance. The story also included a short video comment from Andy Stevens.
Andrew J. Stevens, director of legislative affairs for Grass Roots North Carolina and the protesters’ spokesman, said Bloomberg is trying to buy his way into the Democratic presidential primary. Grass Roots North Carolina is a nonprofit that primarily focuses on the Second Amendment right to bear arms.
“He’s trying to spend $60 million of his money to turn state legislatures blue like he turned the state of Virginia blue, taking gun rights and turning them into gun crimes,” said Stevens, who lives in King in Stokes County. “North Carolina will not be allowed to be bought by Michael Bloomberg’s money.”
Courtesy of Andy Stevens
Andy Stevens reports that the Greensboro Police Department was very accommodating to GRNC and the police commended GRNC for their behavior. When asked about why no one just walked around the Bloomberg staffer, he said the picture itself was worth it.
I think most people want recognition and respect. Even the protesters, I always walk up to the protesters. Excuse me. I heard you. I’m Mike Bloomberg, we don’t necessarily have to agree with each other but I respect you and I respect your right to express yourself.
Umm, really.
From the pictures I saw he avoided all the volunteers from GRNC and slipped in the side door.
A recent poll by High Point University puts Bloomberg in 3rd place in North Carolina. Given he has spent $300 million so far on his campaign and his TV ads are incessant, you’d think he’d be further ahead. It is also reported that Bloomberg is hiring so many staffers and political consultants that state and local candidates nationwide are having a hard time hiring qualified staff.
I think even North Carolina Democrats are smart enough to know that Bloomberg is trying to buy their votes and they, for the most part, aren’t buying it. selling them.
I know the Cadillac Service Garage is a wedding and event venue. However, for the 9th richest person in America to hold a campaign event at something that has “Cadillac” in its name, shows a degree of tone deafness that is hard to comprehend. I know Cadillac has lost a bit of its allure but it is still fairly synonymous with wealthy.
As to why the venue keeps changing, perhaps they have become aware that a warm North Carolina welcome is planned for Mini Mike by Grass Roots North Carolina and they are trying to confuse those planning to attend the protest.
As if!
So if you plan to “welcome” Mini Mike to the Gate City, remember it is at 304 East Market Street.
Also, his 7:30am Winston-Salem location has been changed from Campus Gas to Footnote Coffee & Cocktails at 634 W. 4th St, Ste 120 for those who can’t make the Greensboro “welcome”.
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