Donald Trump

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“Donald Trump Is An Asshole”

October 10, 2016 by 9 Comments

Evan Kostreva of On Point Firearms puts out an occasional newsletter. He sent out one on Saturday afternoon. His thoughts captured what a lot of us are feeling especially after a week in which all we heard in the media was that Donald Trump is a sexist boor.

Evan graciously gave me permission to reprint his comments. It is a bit of a rant but it is on target.

Donald Trump is an Asshole

Donald Trump is an asshole. Thankfully, that doesn’t matter in a president. We’ve all had bosses or friends or family members that are assholes. And guess what, they all managed to do whatever job they’re doing. It’s of no consequence. There are plenty of assholes in the world. I’m one of them, I should know. You might be one also. I’m not going to have a beer with Trump. He’s not coming over for Thanksgiving dinner. I don’t care. People have written literally dozens of books on the Clintons. Guess what? They’re assholes too.

Donald Trump is an asshole. He has hurt some people’s feelings. In contrast, the Clintons have blood on their hands and have left a trail of dead bodies in their wake a mile long. And look what happens when you choose a president that is hip and cool. You get 8 years of Barack Obama hanging out with Jay-Z and Beyonce.

Donald Trump didn’t pay taxes. So what. Apple doesn’t pay taxes and you keep buying their shit. Lots of rich people don’t pay taxes. There’s a whole cottage industry called “wealth management” that finds creative ways to hedge the rich from taxes. I file deductions every year– as many as my poor ass can manage. I hope you do the same. Is it fair? Probably not. But you know why those loopholes are in place? Because of career politicians like Hillary Clinton. She’s been at this game for decades. What good has she done for this country? Our tax code is a joke and it’s because of crooked politicians like the Clintons. The Clinton Foundation doesn’t pay taxes. It’s nothing more than a giant money laundering scheme for their cronies.

Barack Obama has weaponized the IRS and other areas of the government to attack our Constitutional rights. Operation Chokepoint targeted firearms-related businesses. That’s why my bank of 15 years just dropped me as a client two weeks ago. Imagine the outrage if banks discriminated against the LGBT community, blacks, or Muslims. You wouldn’t hear the end of it. But because liberals hate the 2nd Amendment, it’s okay. No media coverage. No outrage. This policy literally threatens my way of life– and my ability to provide for my family.

Are you better off after 8 years of Obama? Do you want 8 more years of this bullshit under Hillary Clinton? It is impossible for Donald Trump to do a worse job than Obama or Hillary. Impossible. Our country cannot take much more. Obama preaches about low unemployment and the recovery of the economy. That’s laughable. Most of my customers cannot afford to buy a $200 knife from me– let alone a $2000 rifle. It was different a few years ago. Things are worse now. Your dollar doesn’t buy much. The entire financial system is on the brink of collapse. There is much uncertainty in the market. The failed policies of this administration have cost many folks their livelihoods– their homes and cars, their marriages. Can you afford 8 more years of this? I cannot.

My son is going to grow up in an America that is unrecognizable. The good old days are long gone. “Hope and Change” failed miserably. We need a major course correction and Trump is the asshole to do it. That’s my rant for today. I’m going to mow my yard and kick something in anger. Have a good weekend and God bless you and yours. God bless America. We need it.

— Evan

Evan runs a firearms and accessories business down in St. Pete, Florida. His website is here.

As to Trump’s comments to Billy Bush (nephew of George H. W. Bush and 1st cousin of W), they were rude, crude, and unattractive. Very few men unless they are up for sainthood have not said or thought something similar, if maybe less crudely, to other guys. I’d wager many women have said or thought the female equivalent about some guy’s buns or his “package”. The only difference is that we weren’t being recorded and it wasn’t “discovered” 11 years later in some video vault as we were running for President.

The Republican politicians who are stampeding to disavow Trump are what Trump said he’d grab. Their moral righteousness and prudishness is disgusting. Their weak spines are why our national debt is out of control and why even with majorities in both houses of Congress we still don’t have national reciprocity. The only reason to vote for some Republicans is because it would be even worse for gun rights if Democrats controlled things.

I don’t like Donald Trump any more than I like Hillary Clinton. However, while the former is a boor the latter is the avowed enemy of my civil rights. As I said three months ago, #NeverTrump means #NeverGuns. I will vote for Donald Trump whether I like it or not. Pragmatism and my gun rights must rule the day.

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Forget 1984 – I Feel Like It’s 1964 Again

September 26, 2016 by 1 Comment
I was seven years old and in 2nd Grade when Barry Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson faced off against one another. As historians and political junkies will remember, the campaign featured the famous (or infamous) “Daisy” ad which implied a vote for Barry Goldwater might result in nuclear war.
Fast forward 52 years to now. I watched an ad attacking Donald Trump that was eerily like that Daisy ad. It was produced and paid for by the pro-Clinton Super-PAC Priorities USA.

As much as things have changed over the last 52 years, there are some things that haven’t changed. Democratic presidential nominees and their surrogates just can’t help themselves when it comes to accusing Republicans of being warmongers. As things turned out, we can thank God that we didn’t have nuclear war despite the wide escalation of the war in South Vietnam under LBJ.

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Some Of My Fellow Deplorables

September 12, 2016 by 2 Comments

Donald Trump is speaking in Asheville this evening.

I happened to be at my nearby Lowe’s Home Center which overlooks the Asheville Regional Airport when I noticed a number of people on one end of the parking lot. It turns out they were hoping to see Trump’s plane land. After I finished my shopping I joined them.

There were young deplorables there.

There were old deplorables there.

There were even some of my fellow middle aged deplorables there.

These pictures don’t capture the total number of people that had been there. I’d estimate it was over 50 during the course of an hour. Unfortunately, Trump arrived earlier than expected and most people missed seeing him arrive including me.

I did get to watch Trump’s speech over Livestream. He was introduced by former NYC Mayor Rudy Guilani. He started by having an assortment of folks on stage speak which included both whites and blacks.

The elderly black couple who had a “huge” number of combined years in education said it would be hard for them to be racist and sexist. It was kinda funny. Hillary is going to regret her description of a segment of Trump voters are both “deplorable” and “irredeemable”. They are already coming back to haunt her.

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Trying To Decide Between #NeverTrump Or #NeverHillary? Ponder This.

July 13, 2016 by 8 Comments

This presidential election may be historic if for no other reason than both presumptive nominees are grossly unpopular. Now if you like Donald Trump or you like Hillary Clinton and you object to that statement, then you are probably in the minority. Both candidates had unfavorability ratings of over 50% as of late June. Frankly, I don’t see that changing.

I’ll admit right up front that Donald Trump was not my first choice. Heck, he wasn’t even my fourth choice. At the start of the primary season, I considered Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz as potential recipients of my vote. I added Carly Fiorina to that list after I saw how she handled the press.

As to Hillary Clinton, oh, please. Her primary qualification to me seems that she married the right guy to have pulled her along with him to national prominence. Without Bill Clinton, she’d be just another Yale educated lawyer with political ambitions. It is doubtful that she would have ever been elected a US Senator from any state especially given she had held no prior elected offices. She would never have been Secretary of State as she wasn’t one of the “wise old men” like a Warren Christoper, a college professor specializing in foreign policy like  Kissinger or Madeleine Albright, or a general like George Marshall.

To those who would say I’m forgetting about Gary Johnson, I’m not. While he has gathered more support than prior Libertarian candidates, his role in this election is that of a spoiler. He will either take just enough #NeverTrump Republican votes from Donald Trump for Hillary to win or he will take just enough Bernie supporting Millennials from Hillary for Trump to win. I’ve participated in every election since 1976 and have studied American presidential politics at the graduate level. Gary Johnson being elected President just isn’t going to happen.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was interviewed by the New York Times on Friday. What she said should clarify for any gun owner or any Second Amendment supporter what this race for President is really about. This holds true for both the deer hunters in Gun Culture 1.0 with their .30-06 Remington 700s and the non-hunting concealed carriers in Gun Culture 2.0 with their Glock 19s.

This election is about the Supreme Court which now stands in a four to four split between conservatives and liberals. Another way of putting it is that neither the Originalists nor the Living Constitutionalists hold a majority.

Justice Ginsburg was asked whether there were any cases of recent memory that she would like to see overturned. Here is what she said:

Asked if there were cases she would like to see the court overturn before she leaves it, she named one.


“It won’t happen,” she said. “It would be an impossible dream. But I’d love to see Citizens United overruled.”


She mulled whether the court could revisit its 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, which effectively struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act. She said she did not see how that could be done.


The court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, establishing an individual right to own guns, may be another matter, she said.


“I thought Heller was “a very bad decision,” she said, adding that a chance to reconsider it could arise whenever the court considers a challenge to a gun control law.


Should Judge Garland or another Democratic appointee join the court, Justice Ginsburg will find herself in a new position, and the thought seemed to please her.


“It means that I’ll be among five more often than among four,” she said.

Rest assured that Michael Bloomberg would spend big bucks to get a gun control case before a Supreme Court in which Justice Ginsburg was now among the five who believe there is no individual right to own a weapon of any sort (firearm, knife, sharp stick). The Wall Street Journal noted yesterday in an editorial that Justice Ginsburg thinks the Second Amendment obsolete and that there isn’t even a need for the militia anymore.

So unless something untoward happens this week or next at the Republican National Convention, Donald Trump, warts and all, will be the nominee. He is on record as supporting the Second Amendment as an individual right and is on record as opposing gun-free zones.

The coronation of Hillary Clinton will take place in Philadephia the following week. She is on record as saying she’d “change the gun culture”. To think that a President Hillary Clinton would appoint anyone to replace Justice Scalia that believed as he did that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right is ludicrous.

I still don’t really like Donald Trump. However, I am adult enough to realize that stomping my feet and saying I’m not going to vote or that I’ll vote for Gary Johnson is giving aid and comfort to Hillary. This election has become a zero-sum game for the Second Amendment. If Hillary wins, we lose.

I’ll boil it down to the essentials:  If you are #NeverTrump, then you are #NeverGuns.

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Yo, Donald! Fuhgeddaboudit (updated)

June 15, 2016 by 3 Comments

I just saw this tweet from presumptive GOP nominee for president Donald J. Trump.

You will need the gun culture if you want to be elected. You have been tough on other stuff so now is no time to go wobbly.

As I’ve written in the past, the Terrorist Screening Database, the TSA’s “no-fly” list, and the FBI’s terrorist watch list should not be used to deny an otherwise non-prohibited person from making a firearms purchase. Secret lists, even if created with the best of intentions, have no place in a free society and definitely no place in the United States.

The possibly gay Islamofascist who pledged his allegiance to ISIS during the middle of killing 49 good people had been interviewed by the FBI multiple times yet was not on any so-called watch list. Saying the addition of people on these secret lists to the NICS banned list would prevent further attacks is nonsense.

UPDATE: The NRA-ILA released this statement about meeting with Trump regarding no-fly and terrorist watch lists.

Fairfax, Va.— The executive director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, Chris W. Cox, released the following statement regarding terror watchlists:

We are happy to meet with Donald Trump. The NRA’s position on this issue has not changed. The NRA believes that terrorists should not be allowed to purchase or possess firearms, period. Anyone on a terror watchlist who tries to buy a gun should be thoroughly investigated by the FBI and the sale delayed while the investigation is ongoing. If an investigation uncovers evidence of terrorist activity or involvement, the government should be allowed to immediately go to court, block the sale, and arrest the terrorist. At the same time, due process protections should be put in place that allow law-abiding Americans who are wrongly put on a watchlist to be removed. That has been the position of Sen. John Cornyn (R.-Tex.) and a majority of the U.S. Senate. Sadly, President Obama and his allies would prefer to play politics with this issue.

If the Democrats really believe that a no-fly list and/or the terrorist watch list will stop them from obtaining the means to kill Americans, they are sadly mistaken. Gangs use straw purchasers all the time. Am I to think that ISIS terrorists are so mentally disabled that they won’t emulate this? No!

As to the efficacy of no-fly lists, this CNN story details some of the people who have been prevented from flying due to the list including Democratic icon Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA).

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The NRA Endorsement Of Trump

May 24, 2016 by 8 Comments

I posted an article from Politico on Facebook yesterday. The article said the NRA was facing member backlash from their endorsement of Donald Trump on Friday. I noted that I thought Politico was stretching to find NRA members who were opposed to the Trump endorsement. I compared it to finding people at the Annual Meeting who were in favor of universal background checks. You would find them if you looked hard. I went on to add that Politico was a part of the mainstream press whose job it seems is to get Hillary elected even if she does treat them like something she found on the bottom of her shoes.

I thought what I said was fairly uncontroversial.


I was wrong.

I have lost track of how many comments and replies pro and con the Trump endorsement that I have received. Some of the comments have up to 50 replies to them. Much of it is back and forth between people who oppose the endorsement and those who thought the NRA right to do the endorsement. To get a true feel for it you need to read the comment and then the back and forth replies.

The comments on both sides of the argument have come from people within the gun culture whom I respect for their devotion to the Second Amendment. Given that, I do see that the endorsement of Trump was more controversial than I thought.

My take on why the NRA-ILA and NRA-PVF made the endorsement now is that it was pragmatic politics. The NRA is nothing if not a practitioner of realpolik. The pragmatic consideration is that an early endorsement at a time when it would get lots of media attention cements the NRA as one of the inner circle of organizations who will have the ear of a President Trump. It is already a given that the NRA will have no seat at the table under a President Clinton. She has already declared us as one of her prime enemies.

The NRA could have waited to make the endorsement later in the campaign season but they would have risked that endorsement getting lost among other endorsements. Moreover, as some have suggested, they could have just foregone an endorsement of Trump as they have done with some past Republican nominees. Given Trump’s past pro-gun control comments, they could have been excused for going this route. That said, 2016 Trump is very pro-gun, has made very pro-gun statements throughout the campaign, and has very pro-2A positions posted on his website. It could be posited that the NRA endorsement is a reward for coming over the from the dark side.

As I said above, I do see the endorsement of Trump as being more controversial than I thought. However, pragmatically, I don’t see that the NRA had any other choice than to do what they did.

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“Heartless Hillary”

May 21, 2016 by 2 Comments

I listened to Donald Trump’s speech at the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum yesterday. Two things stood out for me. First, and most important, I really do believe that Trump understands the issues surrounding the Second Amendment and gun rights. In his speech he referenced the makeup of the Supreme Court, judges, concealed carry permits, the threats to the Second Amendment, self-defense, and gun free zones.

The latter two, self-defense and gun free zones, are two areas that he really highlighted. Noting the Paris Massacre in a gun free zone, Trump said he doubted that it would have gone on long if held at the Annual Meeting due to the number of armed citizens. (As a sidebar, due to the Secret Service and their protective rules, Trump *was* speaking in a gun free zone.) Trump spoke of single moms in Florida and grandmothers in Ohio that would be left defenseless if Hillary was elected. That lead to his newest nickname for Clinton as “Heartless Hillary”. Though, he admits, he still really likes “Crooked Hillary.”

Second, listening to a Trump speech is an exercise in patience. This is not because of what he says but how he says it. The man has a severe case of attention deficit disorder when it comes to public speaking. He’d start out on a topic and then …SQUIRREL! and he’d be off on a tangent. He makes some good points but he can be damn hard to follow.

I read some discussion yesterday on Sebastian’s blog on whether or not the NRA should have endorsed Trump. In my opinion, the NRA did not have much of a choice. They deal in realpolitik. Their avowed foe Hillary Clinton has doubled down and made gun control, the Second Amendment, and the NRA her number one target.

This is a two-person race unless Bernie decides to run as an independent which Trump encouraged in his speech. The NRA has to pull conservatives who supported other candidates and gun owners who don’t trust Trump back into the fold. Without them, Hillary most likely will win and the Second Amendment will be lost as an actual civil right. It will become a historical artifact. That is something the NRA can’t live with and I certainly won’t live with.