Props to BabylonSister


https://twitter.com/i/status/1534161467288670208

This is too important to not go viral.
I don't think the rules allow Babylon Sister to post in both Gen Discussion AND in Video & Media - so I am.



[link:https://twitter.com/i/status/1534161467288670208|

The American Firearms Association warned of “tens of thousands of Bloomberg-funded, red shirt radical, commie mommies all over the Capitol complex.”


The far-right American Firearms Association is telling its supporters to prepare for “battle” at the U.S. Capitol this week amid Senate talks on potential legislation for relatively small gun safety reforms.

“They’re coming after us right now,” warns the subject line of a Monday fundraising email, signed by AFA president Christopher Dorr.

Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action, noted the veiled threat by AFA on Twitter on Monday.

“I love that we scare men who can’t go on a toilet paper run without guns,” she tweeted.


AFA’s wildly overheated rhetoric doesn’t match what senators are considering doing, which is very little in response to the ongoing epidemic of gun violence. The bipartisan package currently being negotiated by senators, which could still fall apart, would include provisions to narrowly expand gun background checks, enhance school safety, incentivize states to implement so-called red flag laws, and provide resources for new mental health programs.

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Gun nuts are... mental defects.

https://taxfoundation.org/historical-income-tax-rates-brackets/

Okay, it's difficult to be exact in subject of economy but there are definite trends and results that can be traced.

In the early 1960's when America Was Great ( minus the equal rights issues.. ahem) the top tax bracket was 90% !!

In the 70's the top tax was still 70%.

These high taxes and the allowable write offs encouraged the high earners to INVEST their money into buildings, products, developments and other businesses that created all kinds of jobs and the system functioned well make the U.S. the best economy in the world.


Now, at a paltry 35% on the top earners, the wealthiest now stash their cash away in banks or foreign countries or stock buy backs.
Our current tax rate is closer to where it was in the 1920's ( 25% top) just before the Great Depression hit than to the 70% top tax when the U.S. was doing well.

Today's big money is now out of circulation among wage earners.

The U.S. was in debt at approx 120% of GDP after WWII, the high taxes and reinvestment into our own economy brought us out of that huge debt.

We used to be more of a socialist country.

We could use some more of that now.

Bookmark and share the link above.

The Salton Sea, which lies roughly in the middle of the massive geologic low point, isn't really a sea, at all. The largest inland lake in California, it's 51 miles long from north to south and 17 miles wide, but gradually shrinking as less and less water flows into it. At one time, it was a thriving entertainment and recreation spot, business that has also largely dried up. It's left behind abandoned buildings and shallow, gray beaches.


Over the past few years, companies have been coming here to extract a valuable metal, lithium, that the car industry needs as it shifts to making electric cars. Lithium is the lightest naturally occurring metal element on Earth, and, for that reason among others, it's important for electric car batteries, which must store a lot of electricity in a package that weighs as little as possible.

What's more, with the Salton Sea Basin's unique geography, engineers and technicians can get the lithium with minimal environmental destruction, according to companies that are working there. In other places, lithium is taken from the earth using hard rock mining that leaves huge, ugly scars in the land. Here, it exists naturally in a liquid form, so extraction doesn't require mining or blasting.

Over thousands of years, floodwaters from the Colorado River, carrying minerals pulled away from the Rocky Mountains, the Ruby Canyon, Glen Canyon, the Grand Canyon and more, have washed into these lowlands. Time and again the water has come and evaporated, leaving behind metals that have ended up deep in the ground.
Lithium is abundant in the Salton Sea Basin. In fact, people working to extract it say there could be enough to make batteries for all the electric cars expected to be built in this country for many years, freeing the United States from reliance on foreign lithium suppliers. That's been a priority for the Biden administration.


https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/11/business/salton-sea-lithium-extraction/index.html


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A few weeks old, but REALLY interesting!

If anyone previoulsy posted this, I missed it and I apologize!

Source: HUffPost

Jun. 4, 2022, 12:54 AM EDT |

The flags and flag imagery are prohibited to "protect the safety of our fans and ban discrimination," according to a CMA statement.


The Country Music Association has banned all Confederate flags and Confederate “flag imagery of any kind” at its upcoming festival for the first time.

The four-day CMA Fest in Nashville, one of the largest of its kind in the nation, will be held June 9-12 after a two-year suspension due to the COVID pandemic

Barring the Confederate flag was part of the CMA’s updated policy to protect the safety of fans, the organization said in a statement to the Tennessean newspaper.

“This year’s CMA Fest is our first major fan-facing event in nearly three years. We have always had policies in place that protect the safety of our fans and ban discrimination, but we felt it was important to further refine our language to explicitly outline what will and will not be tolerated,” the statement said.

The statement didn’t go into detail about safety issues concerning the flag, but the battle flags can be be intimidating and infuriating, and a flashpoint for conflict and violence.

“Our event policy ... states any behavior that causes one of our attendees to fear for their personal safety will not be tolerated, and that is inclusive of any displays of the Confederate flag,” the statement said.

The move comes amid increasing criticism of displays of the flag and of Confederate monuments.

The flag has been viewed in the past as a symbol of the Southern roots of country music with little sensitivity about the Confederacy’s fight to preserve slavery. But that acceptance of racist emblems has changed as more artists of color have become involved in the genre, and as artists and industry leaders push for racial equality in country music.

Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/country-music-association-fest-confederate-flag-ban_n_629ad34de4b0c184bdd14f6b

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A move in the right direction.

https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/cops-educators-denounce-ohio-gops-wild-plan-arm-teachers-rcna31907

Cops and educators denounce Ohio GOP's wild plan to arm teachers
Ohio's Republican governor is preparing to pass a law allowing teachers to carry guns on campus with minimal training. Cops and educators hate the idea.

The Ohio Fraternal Order of Police opposes the law as well. When Ohio Republicans introduced a similar bill last year, the order’s director of government affairs, Mike Weinman, testified that the organization “strongly disagrees” with the law. Weinman reiterated the need for high-level training to effectively handle situations with guns. “Teachers and students will not receive this training level during an eight-hour concealed carry class or a weekend-long training class,” he said.

None of this will come as a surprise to people with common sense. It’s not a teacher’s job to combat gun violence, so many teachers in Ohio don’t want to do it. It is a police officer’s job to combat gun violence, and, knowing the difficulty of the job, they also don’t want teachers to do it, especially if they lack proper training.

But the GOP is more concerned with looking like they’re coming up with solutions to gun violence than presenting actual solutions to gun violence, which they and their base might not like. With Americans nationwide calling for lawmakers to do something about gun violence, House Bill 99 is Ohio Republicans’ attempt to check a box and keep moving. Even when there’s a widespread, justifiable belief this bill will do far more harm than good.

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NOT FROM THE 'ONION'.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ken-buck-ar-rifles-chickens-raccoons_n_629a2531e4b0b1100a644842

The Colorado Republican appears to care more about chickens than children.

Please, think of the children chickens.

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence Thursday, Republican Rep. Ken Buck (Colo.) dismissed a proposal to regulate AR-style rifles, the weapon of choice for mass shooters, as “small-minded.”

Why? Because without them, Buck claimed, ranchers would be completely defenseless against varmint.

“Blaming the gun for what’s happening in America is small-minded,” he said.

“In rural Colorado, an AR-15 is a gun of choice for killing raccoons before they get to our chickens,” Buck added. “It is the gun of choice for killing a fox, it is a gun that you control predators on your ranch, on your farm, on your property.”

If it sounds preposterous, that’s because it is. As this NRA story detailing a prolific raccoon hunter makes abundantly clear, a small caliber, lever-action rifle is more than capable of keeping the animal at bay.

Buck’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment regarding how many chickens the life of one child is worth.

“Oh — Why didn’t y’all just say so? We have to protect the chickens from the raccoons. Cool cool,” tweeted Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.). “So that’s why our kids have to die in their classrooms. So we can protect the chickens. Makes total sense now.”


Take the poll!

What is worth more to the average person?

Before a man killed at least four people Wednesday at a hospital in Tulsa, there had already been 231 mass shootings this year in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive. It is the twentieth since last week’s shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Tex., left 19 children and two teachers dead.

Mass shootings, where four or more people — not including the shooter — are injured or killed, have averaged more than one per day so far this year. Not a single week in 2022 has passed without at least four mass shootings.


Mass shootings have been on the rise in recent years. In 2021, almost 700 such incidents occurred, a jump from the 611 in 2020 and 417 in 2019. Before that, incidents had not topped 400 annually since the Gun Violence Archive started tracking in 2014.


2014 thru May of 2022

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More and more, it sounds like the GOP is using the 2nd Amenment as an excuse to do nothing.

The Constitution is a LIVING DOCUMENT.

DO SOMTHING !!

[link:|


Jun. 2, 2022, 02:51 AM EDT | Updated 4 hours ago

A powerful new video is urging Americans to demand action on gun control amid a wave of mass shootings in American schools.

Eleven Films, the Oregon-based production company that made the video, listed the title on YouTube as “WARNING: This video will change you.” It shows the aftermath of school shootings going back more than two decades, along with gut-wrenching comments from anguished parents as well as presidents, athletes, entertainers and media figures.

“This is not a movie,” the text on the screen notes. “This is real life.”

Other text in the video also notes that guns are the leading cause of death among American children, surpassing auto crashes, drugs and cancer.

“No more thoughts and prayers,” the text says toward the end. “Only action will save our kids. Only real gun reform will restore America’s future.”