MSNBC host: White males can’t be described as ‘hard workers’ because of privilege

During a discussion about Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) chances of gaining control of the speakers’ gavel, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles Alfonso Aguilar called the lawmaker a “hard worker.” MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry immediately berated the guest for using the term to describe a white male.
Here’s a partial transcript of the unbelievable exchange:

AGUILAR: But let’s be fair. If there’s somebody who is a hard worker when he goes to Washington is Paul Ryan. Not only works with the Republicans but Democrats. You know very well that I work on immigration issue, trying to get Republicans to support immigration reform. Paul Ryan is somebody who has reported immigration reform, has worked with somebody like Luis Gutierrez. Luis Gutierrez is very respectful, speaks highly of Paul Ryan. This is somebody who’s trying to govern.
HARRIS-PERRY: Alfonso, I feel you. I just want to pause on one thing. Because I don’t disagree with you that I actually think Mr. Ryan is a great choice for this role. I want us to be super careful when we use the language “hard worker” because I actually keep an image of folks working in cotton fields on my office wall. Because it is a reminder about what hard work looks like. So, I feel you that he’s a hard worker. I do. But in the context of relative privilege, and I just want to point out, when you talk about work life balance and being a hard worker, the moms who don’t have health care who are working —
AGUILAR: I understand that —
HARRIS-PERRY: But we don’t call them hard workers. Call them failures, people who are sucking off the system —
AGUILAR: No, no, no —
HARRIS-PERRY: That’s true.

Another Holistic Doctor Found Dead – 11 Mysterious Deaths Since June

• Dr. Gaynor’s death is a sad and tragic loss, not only to his family and friends, but also to those of us who seek alternative healing therapies.
  What makes Dr. Gaynor’s death alarming, however, is the fact that he is the 11th holistic/alternative medical practitioner to be found dead in under three months and under unusual or suspicious circumstances. Apparently, some of these doctors had recently had encounters with federal agents. Is there a connection between them all? It seems fairly likely given the high number of deaths and the similarities between the kinds of work that they did.
  Here are the names and details of the other doctors who we recently lost.
   
• Mary Rene Bovier, 65, of Sharon, Pa., who was found dead in her home in an apparent stabbing on Aug. 12. Police are investigating it as a homicide.
• Jeffrey Whiteside, 63, of Grand Chute, Wis., a physician who was found dead in Door County on July 23 with a .22-caliber gun near his body. Authorities last month ruled the death a suicide. He was reported missing on June 29.
• Nicholas Gonzalez, 67, of New York City, who developed an alternative cancer treatment, died on July 21 of a cardiac-related issue.
• Ron Schwartz, 65, of Jupiter Farms, Fla., an obstetrician and gynecologist who was found murdered in his home on July 19. The death remains under investigation.
• Lisa Riley, 34, of Northhampton, Ga., an emergency room physician, who was found dead in her home on July 10 with a gunshot wound to her head. Her husband, Yathomas Riley, 32, a professional boxer, has been charged in the death.
• Patrick Fitzpatrick, 74, of Bismarck, N.D., a retired ophthalmologist, has been missing since July 5. His truck and trailer were found abandoned near a pea field on July Fourth near Willow Creek, Mont.
• Teresa Sievers, 46, of Bonita Springs, Fla., a holistic physician who was murdered in her home on June 29. Two Missouri men, one of whom grew up with Sievers’ husband in St. Louis, have been charged in the death.
• Bruce Hedendal, 67, of Boca Raton, Fla., a chiropractor who was found dead in his car on June 21 with no explanation. Friends say Hedendal was in great physical shape.
• Baron Holt, 33, of Raleigh, N.C., also a chiropractor who was found dead in Jacksonville, Fla., the same day as Hedendal. He also was considered to be in sound physical shape.
• Jeffrey Bradstreet, 61, known for his work on Autism, was found dead in a river in Rutherford County, N.C., on June 19 with a gunshot wound to the chest. Authorities have concluded the wound was self-inflicted, though his family suspects foul play.

quotes from our Founding Fathers…

“Firearms stand next to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence. To ensure peace, security, and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensible.”
-George Washington
“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny of government.” ~Thomas Jefferson
"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." ~George Mason

The M4 Carbine at 750 Yards and Beyond

The M4 Carbine at 750 Yards and Beyond: Three Simple Things to Know

We took our 14.5-inch BCM M4 carbine upper to the Best of the West shooting range in Liberty Hill, Texas, to try our skill (and luck!) on their long-range, reactive steel targets. It may seem completely counterintuitive to all common knowledge on the Internet to take a non-free floated, 14.5-inch barreled 5.56 NATO with a mil-spec trigger out to 1,000 yards, but we live in the real world, with people crazy enough to try it.
And here are our three main conclusions after an incredibly fun day at the range.

Your rifle doesn’t really matter

A standard AR-15 with a non-free floated barrel is far more accurate than many shooters think, and it makes sense if we consider how an AR-15 is built.

Never judge a book by its cover…or an AR-15

It doesn’t have a complex, multi-faceted action to bed, operating rod or finicky top handguard like other military rifles (we’re looking at you, M14 and M1A). In theory, the AR-15 is actually configured more like a standard bolt-action rifle in terms of how the barrel is mounted to the receiver and how the handguards interact with it: straight in, with consistent outside influence. This makes the overall design inherently accurate, and the fact that an AR-15 doesn’t need bedding helps as well.
While our little gun isn’t an M4 carbine in the purest sense—it lacks a full-auto capable lower—the upper half is true to form, right down to the side-mounted sling swivel. It also has an extended and pinned flash hider, to comply with arbitrary federal barrel length laws.
The gun was configured with a standard, single-stage AR-15 trigger housed in a Rock River Arms lower. While having a crisp, lightweight, two-stage match trigger like a CMC would certainly help, it’s not a requirement to get good hits on practical targets. After all, ample practice with a standard trigger beats no practice with a match-grade unit every day of the week.
We’re not going to be shy: shooting an AR-15 without a free floating barrel at long distance isn’t easy, even off the nice concrete shooting benches at Best of The West. It takes practice, practice, and more practice. But with that practice comes ability, and the AR-15 is more than capable enough for the job… as long as the shooter is.

Your ammunition does matter

Quality ammunition will make a bigger difference at 750 yards than a match-grade rifle will. Take an off-the-rack M4 carbine to the range with excellent ammunition, and you’ll likely see better results than you would with a custom-grade rifle shooting crummy ammo.
We originally started out with standard, non-match PMC XP193 ammunition, which shoots a 55-grain ball projectile at around 2900 feet per second out of a 14.5-inch barrel. This round perfectly mimics the old military-issue M193 load, right down to the tar sealant on the case neck.
Unfortunately, making contact with the steel targets at 500 yards and further was difficult at best. The bullet simply isn’t heavy enough, and velocities aren’t consistent enough to produce a consistent group. Additionally, the light bullet doesn’t fare well in the wind. It’s just not very ballistically efficient, which, incidentally, is a big reason the military switched to the heavier 62-grain M855 round.
That being said, the XPM193 performed very well on 10-inch steel plates out to 250 yards. Missing was pretty much impossible at these close ranges; point and click accuracy was the norm. It’s still fantastic, clean ammunition for stockpiling and general target shooting.
Thankfully, we had brought the “big guns” for everything past 250 yards: Reloads carefully crafted with Hornady 75-grain BTHP bullets and a stiff charge of Varget powder, as well as factory Hornady steel match, also in a 75-grain flavor.
Switching to the higher quality bullet and hand-weighed powder charges made a night and day difference. We went from occasional hits at 500 yards to consistent performance all the way out to 750 yards.
With high-quality ammo, making contact with the 18-inch x 24-inch steel plate at 750 yards was simply a matter of calling the gusting winds correctly. The 10-inch plates were slightly more difficult, and required a precise elevation hold and exact wind call.

Your optics matter

Right after good ammo, you need to have good glass on your rifle. It’s certainly possible to hit what you’re aiming at with iron sights, but it’s going to be incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to call wind corrections without some kind of optic.

The Vortex Razor HD Gen II 1-6×24 is definitely up to the task

We were shooting the excellent Vortex Razor HD Gen II 1-6×24, and were clearly able to see 5.56 impacts at 1,000 yards. Much like the idea that a standard rifle is good enough to make hits, this is another slightly counterintuitive principal: more magnification isn’t a good thing, unless the quality is there.
I would readily choose a 6x riflescope with the quality of the Razor HD series over a 25 power optic of lesser repute. Magnification isn’t everything.
No doubt, the Vortex Razor HD II 1-6 has the resolution needed to shoot past 500 yards. It also has an appropriate reticle.
Thanks to free ballistic programs and apps, figuring out your bullet’s exact rainbow-like trajectory at extended ranges is no longer guesswork. Furthermore, this drop can be expressed in useful angular measurements like milliradians (mils) and minutes of angle.
Conveniently, the Vortex Razor HD Gen II reticle has seven mils of drop built right in, represented by hashmarks along the vertical stadia line. This made it easy to look up on a computer-generated ballistics table how many mils the bullet dropped at a given distance, and hold over at the proper mark.
Once that was accomplished, it was a simple matter to favor left or right of the target depending on how far the wind pushed the bullet. The day we went, wind holds were typically one to two target widths left.

View through the Vortex Razor HD at 750 yards. Targets at 1,000 yards can be seen to the left.

Most of our time was spent on the 750 yard targets, with only a handful of shots taken at 1,000 yards. Winds were fluctuating wildly, and our heavy 75-grain bullets had definitely crossed the sub-sonic threshold at that distance.
It’s not that the 1,000 yard targets were impossible to hit; they were merely improbable. Lighter weight match bullets in the 62-69 grain range would probably help this.
It was far more fun to shoot at 750 yards with reliable results, so that’s what we did most of the time.

Give it a try!

The 5.56×45 cartridge should definitely not be your first choice if you’re going to be shooting at long distances, especially at the reduced velocities that a compact 14.5-inch barrel brings. There are far too many ballistically superior chamberings currently available, if your primary goal is hitting tiny targets ten football fields away.
That being said don’t stay home from the range if you don’t have a fancy match-grade rifle or a non-free floating barrel. Load up some quality ammo from Hornady, Winchester or Prvi Partisan, grab the gun you already own, and get out there!

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Clinton, O’Malley Say Americans Are Their Enemies

In the days since last week’s debate between candidates for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, some commentators have suggested that Americans have seen enough, that no additional Democrat debates are necessary. In one respect, those commentators are right. In just a few seconds during the debate, the two candidates who harbor the most extreme views on guns showed why they shouldn’t be entrusted with our country’s highest elected office.

It happened when the candidates were asked, “which enemy are you most proud of?”

Of the five candidates onstage, the only supporter of the right to arms, former U.S. senator and Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb—who had already answered a question about gun control by saying that people have the right to defend themselves—said that the enemy he was most proud to have had was the one who wounded him with a grenade during the Vietnam War. Webb didn’t elaborate, but he was referring to an occasion on which, as a Marine Corps 1^st Lieutenant, he led an attack against a communist bunker system, an action for which he was awarded the Navy Cross “for extraordinary heroism.”

However, the other four candidates—gun control supporters one and all—reflexively associated the word “enemy” not with America’s overseas adversaries, but with other Americans.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.) and former Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee tempered their answers, at least, Sanders saying only that “Wall Street and the pharmaceutical industry . . . do not like me,” Chafee saying that the “the coal lobby” is a group he’s “at odds with.”

By stark contrast, however, Hillary Clinton and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, far and away the most extreme gun control supporters running for president, showed no such restraint. O’Malley said his enemy is the five million member “National Rifle Association.” Clinton went further, naming not only “the NRA,” but also the health insurance companies, the drug companies, Republicans, and only one group of people who are not Americans, “the Iranians.”

How things have changed. In 2004, during the keynote speech at the Democratic Party National Convention, then-Illinois state senator Barack Obama said, albeit with questionable sincerity, “We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the Stars and Stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.” In 2007, presidential candidate Obama claimed that he wanted to unify the country and break it out of what he called “ideological gridlock.”

Today, tempted with the opportunity to indulge herself in the deadly sin of hate before a national TV audience, the leading candidate for the same party’s presidential nomination did so without hesitation or remorse. She gleefully said that she considers tens of millions of Americans to be the “enemy.” She equated the NRA, American business interests, and Republicans with those whose signature chant is “Death to America.” And the party faithful in the debate hall cheered her with the same enthusiasm Obama’s “one America” speech received 11 years ago.

It was an ugly moment, but it shouldn’t define the character of our political disputes going forward. In deciding to whom to entrust the presidency of the United States between now and Election Day 2016, all Americans, regardless of viewpoint, should hold candidates to a standard higher than what Hillary Clinton appears capable of delivering.

Hillary Adopts the 40% Myth to Argue for Gun Control

Hillary Adopts the 40% Myth to Argue for Gun Control Among the many issues standing between Hillary Clinton and the White House is what various media outlets have delicately labeled a “credibility problem.” Politico was more blunt in an August 27 article, asking, “Can Hillary overcome the ‘liar’ factor?” That piece went on to cite a Quinnipiac University poll, in which 61% of respondents indicated they did not believe Hillary was honest and trustworthy. Worse, when voters were asked the first word that came to mind about Clinton, the top three replies were (in order of popularity) “liar,” “dishonest,” and “untrustworthy.” According to the article, “Overall, more than a third of poll respondents said their first thought about Clinton was some version of: She’s a liar. … [T]he striking reality is that, for Clinton, a lack of trust is the first thing many think of.” Count us in on that.

NEWS Trustworthiness Issues? Politifact Calls Out Clinton Deception That there are apparently still people (though, increasingly few) that find Hillary Clinton at all trustworthy is becoming more and more incredible. Late last week, Politifact took Clinton to task over comments she made about the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA). According to Politifact, at a campaign event in Iowa, Clinton remarked “[p]robably one of the most egregious, wrong, pieces of legislation that ever passed the Congress when it comes to this issue is to protect gun sellers and gun makers from liability… They are the only business in America that is wholly protected from any kind of liability.” Politifact properly branded the statement “False.” That Politifact has been known to skew their work in favor of gun control advocates, shows just how patently false Clinton’s characterization of the PLCAA was.     NEWS  LEGAL & LEGISLATION Tell Your Congressional Lawmakers: No New Federal Gun Control! Recently, we reported on a partisan gun control rally on the Capitol steps that sought to exploit recent tragedy and loss to build momentum for a longstanding agenda. Anti-gun members of the president’s party, always quick to do his bidding, have been emboldened by Obama’s own not-so-thinly-veiled call for confiscatory gun control. This week, the air on Capitol Hill remains thick with rumors of the impending gun control debate. Word is that it may come in the very near future. With local elections days away in several states, the anti-gun, anti-constitution wing of American politics is looking to activate its base.

How refugees from terror strongholds could bring tragedy to the homeland

State Department and Homeland Security officials are putting American lives at risk by ignoring the fact that violent extremists will exploit the U.S.’s compassionate immigration policies and infiltrate refugee camps within the nation’s borders.
That’s according to a letter sent to Secretary of State John Kerry and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson Wednesday by Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Rep. Randy Weaver (R-Va.).
The Republican duo acknowledged that the U.S. “is a compassionate country and has a role to play” in alleviating the refugee crises sparked by violence in the Middle East. But the lawmakers added that U.S. officials can’t let that compassion put American lives in danger.
“We must be aware that groups like ISIS will infiltrate refugee camps and try to seek admittance into the United States. As you move forward with the process of admitting more refugees into this country, it is critical that rigorous background checks and security measures are in place,” they wrote.
Kerry, in September, announced, “The United States will significantly increase our numbers for refugee resettlement in the course of this year and the year after … We are going to go up to 85,000 with at least, and I underscore the ‘at least’ — it is not a ceiling, it’s a floor — 10, 000 over the next year from Syria specifically even as we also receive more refugees from other areas.”
Kerry added that State Department officials are aiming to bring in excess of 100,000 refugees into the nation’s borders during the next fiscal year.
Lankford and Weaver said that in addition to conducting rigorous background checks on refugee applicants, the federal government should prioritize applications from members of religious minority groups — such as Yazidis and Christians — most at risk of persecution by ISIS in conflict-torn regions Middle East.
Despite the lawmakers’ recommendations, it isn’t likely that the government is going to do a better job vetting refugees any time soon. Top officials have admitted that decisions to let more refugees into the nation have been made without consideration of limitations in the vetting process.
Kerry, who directed State officials to open the refugee floodgates over the next year and a half, recently admitted that there’s no way the vetting process can keep up with the onslaught of refugees.
“We have new [post-9-11] laws and new requirements with respect to security background checks and vetting, so it takes longer than one would like and we cannot cut corners with respect to security requirements.”
Even if federal officials don’t “cut corners” in vetting refugees flowing into the country from terror hotbeds, many will still never have their backgrounds, affiliations and beliefs scrutinized because they don’t already exist in government databases.
FBI director James Comey said as much during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing Wednesday.
“We can only query against that which we have collected,” Comey told lawmakers Wednesday.
“And so if someone has never made a ripple in the pond in Syria in a way that would get their identity or their interest reflected in our database, we can query our database until the cows come home, but there will be nothing show up because we have no record of them,” he added.