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It may not be long before machetes are banned in New York.  The Empire State’s Senate passed a bill, S.3199A, by a 54-5 vote margin Tuesday classifying a machete as a “deadly weapon,” making it a crime to possess one with the penalty of up to one year in prison.

Ayup.  Having already made a large percentage of their citizens into felons by passing the gun-hating SAFE Act (which hasn’t done what the gun-haters wanted as there are a very large percentage of gun owners subject to that law that have decided that being in a state of Irish Democracy is just fine with them), the Progressive who want ONLY The State to have the tools of Force are at it again.

Many of the legislation’s co-sponsors have long advocated the criminalization of machetes, and it will now head to the state Assembly, where the fate of the bill will be decided.   “Despite the obvious serious injury that can be caused by the use of a machete,” state Sen. Tony Avella (D) wrote in a memo, “such weapons have not been included in the penal law’s definition of ‘deadly weapon.’”

Well, of COURSE he’s a

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“We are going to disrupt business as usual until our demands are reached,”

Sorry, been a bit distracted – shoulda kept up on NH Rebellion’s participation in the Democracy Spring march (here, here, and here) and “get arrested-fest”.  Sure, they were all about forcing Congress to bend to their will on getting money out of politics (that isn’t going to happen given the stakes of power over others and reaping some of the trillions spent by the Fed Govt), corruption, and other Progressive nostrums.  So, how many of the NH Rebellion actually stood up to be sat down in the back of the paddy wagon(s)?  Emphasis mine, reformatted:

Local man among many arrested in Capitol demonstration against ‘big money’ in politics

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From the Concord Monitor from a little bit ago (reformatted, emphasis mine):

Will hospitals voluntarily pay $40M to keep expanded Medicaid going?

Newly approved plan relies on voluntary contributions from hospitals, insurance carriers.  New Hampshire’s newly reauthorized Medicaid expansion is riding on a hope that hospitals and insurance carriers will voluntarily help foot the bill, or else it’s doomed.  Legislation Gov. Maggie Hassan signed into law Tuesday, which continues the expansion for two more years, relies on those organizations to voluntarily donate an estimated $40 million to the state to help fund the program’s operation.

Really?  Are both Parties that insane to think that a major program is at the whim of a group of large corporations (face it, most hospitals are the biggest businesses in their regions) thinking “should we or should we not”?  Or what’s really going on under a quid quo pro?  Who really benefits?

(shush….it is never we taxpayers, btw)

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I have written about Dr. Brooks and his surprising research (to him, anyways, when he went to prove that Liberals “care” more and found out he was very wrong (here, here, and here).  Here is some updated research showing, indeed, that people of faith are happier with their extended families, more likely to volunteer…

…and just plain happy when compared to less religious people.  Strange that, for all that our secular society claims that one of the highest values is to be happy, it’s the folks they berate that are (dare I say, heh!) happier-than-thou.

and the other component that Dr. Brook’s research still held up:

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Morgan Freeman: Islam Aims for Peace BUT USUALLY HITS LONDON, PARIS, AND NEW YORK INSTEAD

(H/T: Instapundit)

Remember, “Islam” doesn’t mean peace, it means “Submit” and that is exactly what Islamists demand us to do (or be, if you prefer).  Original after the jump

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Yep, that would be Hildabeast as she runs to be Prez simply because of her lady parts (ok, a majority part of her “appeal” is based on that – and appeal is in the eye of the beholder, I guess).  Anywho, she’s been carboning up the US air as she criss-crosses the nation in her private plane preaching the utter ignominy of the so-called “female pay gap” of 77% of women to men.  We’ve talked about this before and when controlling for all variables, the gap can oft be explained by choices that men make for jobs vs those for women, the hours worked, the dangerousness of the job and the phrase “don’t become a teacher, become a chemical engineer”.

I digress.  So, what is Hillary doing to back up her campaign rhetoric?  Um, making herself into what my days as being a Sunday School teacher would call “an object lesson”:

Report: Clinton Foundation Male Executives Are Paid Much More Than Their Female Counterparts

Male executives who work at the Clinton Foundation reportedly make 38 percent more than their female counterparts, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation, which analyzed the foundation’s 2013 IRS filings.

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Taking a page out of the NH GOP Chair Jennifer Horn playbook – run away at the first hint that mud may be flying?  Yep, that’s some amount of political courage (reformatted, emphasis mine):

Top Republicans may skip GOP convention: report

A number of top Republicans may skip the Republican National Convention in July, CNN reported Tuesday.
Among the biggest names considering skipping are former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — a former presidential candidate — and Sens. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.), both of who are up for reelection this fall.

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Yes, he’s proving that Socialism is not about shared wealth, it IS about shared misery.  If it were the former, a real workers’ Utopia that Socialists and Communists are always lying bragging about, who would have to wait in a line to get bread.  I am of the generation that saw “citizens” of Socialist governments queuing up in lines in order to buy the necessities of life and we all get to see them yet again in Venezuela where the government has to guard foodstocks because it has so bungled the economy, it is turning the entire country into a man-made disaster.

And Bernie thinks this is OK?

“Vermont’s Democratic socialist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has sought to separate his views from those of tyrannical socialist regimes throughout history. The problem is that back in the 1980’s Sanders was outspoken in his support of communist dictator Fidel Castro as well as the Soviet-aligned Sandinista government in Nicaragua.

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I don’t do this enough – we talk about a lot of stuff on GrokTALK! and throw in all kinds stories when we talk about the main story of that particular segment.  But, being the “ADD blogger bunch”, we do it a lot because we all read a lot and each of these “extras” give a little but more of a nuance or detail to that main story.

• PayPal and their reaction to the recently passed law in NC about bathroom.  I wrote about it here but Katrina Trinko has questions about Paypal’s hypocrisy as well which comes down to “Hey, if you are all up in arms about limiting men to mens’ bathrooms and women to womens’, how come you still do business in countries where they just don’t insist you use the bathroom your equipment says you should, they kill you“?

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The average American’s electric bill has gone up 10 percent since January, 2009, due in part to regulations imposed by President Barack Obama and state governments, even though the price of generating power has declined.

President Obama openly ran in 2008 on a platform of making electricity rates ‘skyrocket’ and bankrupting anyone who dared to build a coal plant in the United States,” Travis Fisher, an economist at the Institute for Energy Research, told The Daily Caller News Foundation. “Now, more than seven years into his presidency, it should come as no surprise that his efforts have taken a widespread toll in the form of higher electricity rates for nearly every state in the union.”

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I have always been skeptical on the Libertarian stance that if the US just concentrated on Free Trade with all other countries, military incursions will be greatly reduced and maybe to zero as you don’t fight with your trade partners.  So for them (former Ron and to a less extent, Rand Paul supporters), we really could shrink our military and bring them all home.  However, one night during a political event I had a discussion with such a supporter and asked the very simple question: if you don’t like the US being the world’s policeman, tell me which country you trust to guard the ocean trade routes like the US has during “Pax America”? Cluelessness and then a mumbling of “er, perhaps you’re right”.  It has, since the middle of the Dark Age, the case that he who controls the seas controls the trade.

Now we see this from the other side of the spectrum – and Obama is abandoning that vital foreign policy fact: Behind Closed Doors, Top U.S. Commander Frustrated With Obama.

This isn’t the first we’ve heard of major disagreements between the White House and the Pentagon over U.S. Asia policy. Two weeks ago, the well-connected David Ignatius indicated that top Defense officials would like to see the U.S. take a tougher line in the South China Sea. But this Navy Times report is pretty remarkable. It’s difficult not to assume that although Harris’ office declined to comment on-the-record, someone close to the Admiral has been disclosing Defense’s frustrations off-the-record.

It’s easy to see why Defense officials would be exasperated. China is slowing but steadily taking control of one of the world’s critical shipping lanes, and the U.S. President doesn’t want to try harder to stop them because he’s focused on nuclear non-proliferation and non-binding climate agreements. Yes, the United States needs China’s cooperation on many issues. But America has, since the end of World War Two, defended freedom of the seas as a cornerstone of a peaceful world order that has largely benefited the world.

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This was in relationship to a conversation that US Senator Mike Lee had with General Milley about Fort Hood’s slaughter of American soldiers going through the process of readying to deploy overseas when US Army Major Hassan Nidal became an Islamic Jihadist and started firing away with his sidearm killing 13 and wounding 30.  Now I readily admit that I did not serve and only have visited four military bases in my lifetime but after I thought his stance a bit off.  There is a reason why the phrase “when seconds count, the police are minutes away”.

“In terms of carrying privately owned weapons on military bases … that is not authorized, that is a DoD policy and I do not recommend it be changed,” he said. Law enforcement on bases is more than adequate, he said, explaining that during the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, the police responded ‘pretty quick.’

“You take the Ft. Hood incident … those police responded within 8 minutes … so that’s pretty quick, and a lot of people died in the process of that, but that was a very fast evolving event and I am not convinced from what I know that carrying privately owned weapons would’ve stopped that individual,” he said.

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