If there is a fundamental human right that progressives detest even more than free speech, it is the right of self-defense, also known as the right to bear arms. Their agenda cannot be imposed on people who are able to defend themselves. They can’t repeal the Second Amendment directly, because Americans would not stand for it. So they attack it insidiously. To see what national Democrats will pull next, look to the state where they have achieved single-party status and are currently consolidating absolute power — California:

San Jose is now the first city in the nation to mandate gun owners to have liability insurance and pay an annual fee in an effort to curb gun violence.

“Gun violence” is liberalese for “gun ownership.” Putting the squeeze on lawful gun owners does not address actual gun violence, which tends to be inflicted by those who acquire guns illegally. On the contrary, it invites more gun violence, by rendering the law-abiding defenseless to criminals.

On Tuesday, councilmembers voted to approve the gun control rules requiring San Jose residents who own guns to pay an annual $25 fee per household and purchase gun insurance that specifically covers losses or damages resulting from “any negligent or accidental use of the firearm” in six months, according to the ordinance.

Once liberals have established that they can make you pay a fee to exercise your constitutional rights, this fee will rise sharply.

With roughly 50,000-55,000 San Jose households with guns, the annual fee is expected to bring in about $1.3 million per year.

From this humble stream will grow a mighty river of revenue, until greedy bureaucrats manage to drive gun ownership completely underground. Look what they have done with cigarette taxes. The average price for a pack of Marlboros in New York City is now $14. In the 1950s, a pack cost a quarter.

San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo has exploited mass shootings to push the legislation.

“When we think about the horrible mass shootings, I don’t pretend to know that we could have stopped it or not. But if in fact, we could have delivered some mental health services, there may have been a chance,” Liccardo said. “That’s the point of this (legislation).”

The money people pay so that bureaucrats will let them exercise a fundamental right will supposedly be spent on counseling or whatever so that the maniacs liberals allow to run free won’t commit as much violence. Fewer violent maniacs will be particularly desirable if normal people are deprived of guns with which to defend themselves.

Similarly, the money gouged mainly from working class Americans through cigarette taxes is often targeted to healthcare. However, money is fungible. It all goes into the same government pot in the end. Virtually all of it is spent wastefully.

A nonprofit to distribute the proceeds looted from San Jose gun owners has not yet been created. Just send in your money, and leftist bureaucrats will figure out what to do with it later.

As for the insurance mandate, lone dissenting Councilmember Dev Davis notes that insurance companies will not cover negligent or criminal behavior:

“I’m still not certain how we can require a specific type of insurance that does not exist.”

The mandate is not intended to be reasonable. The point is to make life less pleasant for law-abiding gun owners. People who use guns to commit crimes will be unaffected by the insurance mandate.

Fortunately, there are still enough Americans on the Supreme Court for this brazenly unconstitutional ordinance to get shot down, before it is emulated throughout the country.

On tips from Bluto and Dragon’s Lair.

Liberals denounce us for “othering” preferred identity groups. To “other” a group is to see it as alien. Taken to extremes, othering can result in bigoted attitudes and even overt hostility. For example, our ruling class has othered those who have chosen not to get a Covid vaccine — so ruthlessly that under the right circumstances, those in charge will literally subject such people to death.

From ultraliberal Boston:

David Ferguson told WBZ-TV this week that his 31-year-old son DJ Ferguson’s heart has deteriorated to the point that it will no longer work on its own. Thankfully, he was first in line to receive a heart transplant. Yet because of his unvaccinated status, the hospital ruled that he was no longer eligible for the transplant.

Even now, DJ refuses to be coerced into getting the jab out of principle. They still make people like that, although not as often as they used to.

Brigham and Women’s Hospital confirms that Ferguson will be denied the heart transplant unless he submits to the vaccine. Transfer to a less intransigent facility may not be feasible due to his advanced condition.

DJ Ferguson is a father of two children with a third on the way.

You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs. How can progressives create utopia if not everyone will reflexively obey them?

“I think my boy is fighting pretty damn courageously and he has integrity and principles he really believes in and that makes me respect him all the more,” the father said defiantly, adding, “It’s his body, it’s his choice.”

It’s nice to see that slogan used by people who understand what it means.

DJ Ferguson isn’t alone:

Last August, reports surfaced that a hospital in Washington state had removed multiple patients from its organ wait list on behalf of a vaccine requirement. Then in October, the Cleveland Clinic halted a last-minute lifesaving kidney transplant due to a vaccine requirement policy that had gone into effect only days before.

That same month, a woman was denied a kidney transplant by the University of Colorado Health System after it was revealed that both she and her donor were unvaccinated.

The medical justification is that the unvaxxed are less likely to survive the transplant if they contract Covid, so why waste organs on them?

Vaccines for those who don’t want them is a political issue. Given the increasing politicization of the medical field, denial of life-saving treatment is a tactic likely to be used again. It will come in handy if they come up with a vaccine that inoculates us against dangerous attitudes by rendering us more docile and therefore less racist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, etc.

On a tip from Henry.

A formal name for the political ideology marketed as “progressivism” is “anarchotyranny.” California progressives will force children to take a vaccine even if they don’t need it, their parents oppose it, and the long-term consequences are unknown. But they won’t prevent mobs of scumbags from looting stores. Progressives use the “anarcho” aspect of anarchotyranny to destroy cities that fall under their control.

Liberal Mecca San Francisco is a case in point. Libertarian John Stossel and (former) liberal Michael Shellenberger are appalled at what anarchy has reduced it to, as excessive regulation makes the city unaffordable to productive citizens:

On a tip from KirklesWorth.

If only all choices could be this easy. Has-been hippy rocker Neil Young — whose career peaked as he denounced Southerners for being insufficiently politically correct more than half a century ago — demands that Spotify choose between his tired old songs and podcast phenom Joe Rogan:

Young posted an open letter to Spotify, which entered into a $100 million deal with Rogan to host his podcasts, calling on it to dump Rogan over what he saw as misinformation on the coronavirus.

Barks Young:

“Please act on this immediately today and keep me informed of the time schedule.”

You would think that after all these decades a little hot air would leak out of his ego.

Rogan has been criticized by many for advocating for alternate treatments for the coronavirus. In one instance, he advised younger people to avoid the vaccine because their death and hospitalization risk was so low.

Rogan acknowledges that he is no medical expert. But that doesn’t mean his opinions are unreasonable. “Alternative treatments” like ivermectin appear to be highly effective, despite hyperventilation by the governmedia.

“I want you to let Spotify know immediately TODAY that I want all my music off their platform,” said Young to his management team and record label. “They can have Rogan or Young. Not both.”

Bye Neil. Don’t let the door whack your backside.

At least Young may have made new fans for the first time in decades, if only at CNN. “People know that they’re full of s***,” Rogan has said of CNN propagandists. They must resent that he has over 11 times the audience of CNN Primetime.

It isn’t surprising to see musicians from rock’s golden age with impressive talent like Eric Clapton and Meat Loaf line up on one side of the Covid culture war, overblown mediocrities like Neil Young on the other.

On tips from Jack Bauer and TCS III.

Pay no attention to the greatest tragedy in human history. According to the Biden Regime, which has played an outsized role in engineering the collapse of Western Civilization, our ignominious decline and fall are just Russian disinformation.

The decay of traditional values, the triumphant ascendancy of degeneracy and depravity, the rejection of Christianity in favor of nihilism, the displacement of the population through massive immigration from the Third World, whole generations brainwashed to hate their own race and history, the sacrifice of excellence and even competence to equity, the collapse of public order, the erosion of the economy through profligate government spending — all of these are illusions cast by magical Russians who have the power to cloud men’s minds.

Or maybe our rulers are lying again:

On a tip from KirklesWorth.

Blackness is sacred in the religion of wokeness, but that does not mean a black guy is safe from white mask militants if he tries to ride an elevator without a suffocating muzzle on his face. The hysterical harpies defend themselves against charges of racism by shouting “Black Lives Matter!” as they assault him and try to kick him off the elevator:

On tips from R F and Biden Is Dementolph Hitler.

Kudos to Fox News reporters. They must be asking the right questions, to get the Most Powerful Man in the World so rattled.

First Jacqui Heinrich asked him about preemptive sanctions on Russia before it exploits Biden’s haplessness to invade Ukraine. Unable to formulate a coherent answer, he was reduced to sneering that her legitimate question was “stupid.”

Then came yesterday, when Peter Doocy asked him about the runaway inflation his spending and energy policies have caused. The result was total meltdown. Biden responded by calling the reporter a “stupid son of a bitch.”

Someone is certainly a stupid SOB, to let himself go like that on a live mic right in the White House. It isn’t getting any easier to pretend that Biden is presidential material.

It’s ironic that Biden’s go-to schoolyard insult is “stupid,” give his own conspicuous cognitive challenges. There is good reason he was known as the Dumbest Man in the Senate. He is very sensitive about his low IQ, to judge by the way he lies about his academic record.

Also ironic is this Biden quote from early in his farcical administration:

“I’m not joking when I say this: If you’re ever working with me and I hear you treat another colleague with disrespect or talk down to someone, I promise you, I will fire you on the spot — on the spot. No ifs ands or buts,” Biden said. “Everybody is entitled to be treated with decency and dignity.”

If ever Biden was to keep a promise, this would be the time.

Biden’s sophomoric and obnoxious behavior comes as no surprise to those who have observed him over the years. His sneering disrespect for Paul Ryan during the 2012 vice presidential debate was especially appalling. As he succumbs to dementia and loses his inhibitions, he is unlikely to become less of a jerk.

On tips from Wiggins, Varla, ScrewyPuppy, Dragon’s Lair, and KirklesWorth.

Even with Biden still in office, there can be good news. Leftist streaming service Netflix, which has gone out of its way to poison American culture with moonbattery and degeneracy, is listing astern and taking on water:

Shares of Netflix — which has a production deal with former President Barack Obama — were down nearly 12 percent in morning trading Monday after the stock plummeted more than 20 percent Friday after the streamer reported weaker-than-expected subscriber results for the fourth quarter and a pessimistic outlook for the first quarter of the new year.

Netflix stock has lost 40% of its value since the start of the year. At this rate, it will be worth nothing whatsoever by March.

Hundreds of thousands of subscribers are expected to bail out of Netflix as popular shows migrate to other streaming services.

This might set you laughing even harder:

Netflix has blamed the recent quarter’s weak subscriber growth on the COVID-19 pandemic…

If any company stood to benefit from the insane lockdowns almost as much as Amazon, it would be Netflix, as Big Government spent the country into oblivion paying people to sit home watching television instead of working.

As usual, the company didn’t address consumer disenchantment with its increasingly woke, left-wing content, including the climate-change satire Don’t Look Up and the titles produced under the Obama’s production banner.

The show Cuties, which raunchily sexualized prepubescent girls, was particularly egregious. Subscribers to Netflix are once again encouraged to consider cancelation.

On a tip from Varla.

Peter Schweizer’s Profiles in Corruption provides documentation that Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, et al. are as slimy as they seem. Schweizer’s Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win is scheduled for release tomorrow. Looks like it will clarify to what extent Joe Biden has been purchased as an asset of the hostile communist Chinese government that bestowed Covid upon us:

No wonder the government has no interest in pursuing the likelihood that the ChiComs leaked Covid from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where they had engineered it.

The new book also promises insight into the extent to which Silicon Valley has sold out the USA to help communist China in its ambitions. Definitely recommended reading.

Via American Thinker, on a tip from Mr. Freemarket.

Americans can still be found in this country. Yesterday you could even spot them in the District of Corruption:

The “Defeat the Mandates” march took to the streets and monuments of Washington, D.C., as protestors and speakers called for an end to COVID-19 vaccine mandates nationwide.

This “My body, my choice” message may sound familiar:

Dr Robert Malone, a pioneer of the mRNA technology used in the vaccines who was recently suspended by the Twitter thought police, took the opportunity to lay waste to the Democrat-driven mandates:

“If there is risk, there must be choice.” Sounds reasonable — and even more so where kids are concerned, if only because the benefits of vaccination are minimal for children and the long-term risks more worrying.

In the interests of fairness, let’s provide time for leftist rebuttal:

On a tip from StephaneDumas.

After habitual criminal Darrell Brooks was released on $1,000 bond despite having just jumped bail, he deliberately drove through a Christmas parade, killing six and injuring 62. The liberal establishment might have taken this opportunity to reappraise its policy of releasing violent criminals onto the streets. Instead, it downplayed and then buried the story. The insanity continues.

From Michigan:

Devonne Marsh has been charged with a particularly heinous crime: setting fire to his girlfriend who is pregnant with twins.

Like civil rights icon Jacob Blake, Marsh appears to have a penchant for domestic abuse.

The woman, who could barely move, suffered burns to over 60% of her body, according to police. … Authorities say the soon-to-be mom was 27 weeks into her pregnancy with twins.

No doubt the root cause of Marsh’s behavior is racial inequity, so there is no point locking him up. After all, criminals are the real victims, according to progressive doctrine.

Marsh, 42, was arrested and charged with kidnapping/abduction, aggravated/felonious assault, and violation of the controlled substance act. Despite having a lengthy criminal record, his bond was set at $50,000 or 10%, meaning he could get out of jail if he is able to post $5,000 bond.

Like Darrell Brooks, Marsh is likely to jump bail:

According to the Michigan Department of Corrections, the suspect has been hiding out since he absconded from probation out of the Macomb/Mount Clemens office in March 2020.

Nonetheless Marsh, was allowed to walk out of jail on Friday after posting $5,000 bond:

Marsh’s girlfriend, 26, remains hospitalized in critical condition, and it is unclear whether the babies will survive. She was reportedly too afraid to come forward and report the crime but a tip led authorities to the scene and she is currently cooperating with the investigation.

Now might be a good time for her to take out life insurance.

Letting maniacs like Devonne Marsh loose on minimal or no bail is consistent with the policy of liberal DAs throughout the country (e.g., Alvin Bragg [Manhattan], George Gascon [Los Angeles], Kim Foxx [Chicago], Larry Krasner [Philadelphia], Chesa Boudin [San Francisco], Kim Gardner [St Louis]).

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has previously supported bail reform, although she did try to get Marsh’s absurdly low bail increased.

When he inevitably kills someone, the media will hush the story, no matter how lurid it may turn out to be. Devonne Marsh doesn’t fit the liberal establishment’s profile of a menace to society.

On a tip from Wiggins.

In a shocking reversal, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has come out against government interfering in private medical decisions, despite California Democrats pushing to vaccinate children against their parents’ wishes, and despite the Biden Regime continuing to fight in court to impose vaccination mandates even as Omicron and natural immunity render vaccines largely pointless for an increasing number of people.

It is ever more difficult for Democrats to blaze new ground when it comes to hypocrisy. Yet they always manage.

Barks the DCCC:

Republicans have no business interfering in your private medical decisions. Period.

It should go without saying that killing another person is not a “private medical decision.” But there is no need for propagandists to be reasonable when they can work the mob into a frenzy with liberal archetypes like the Evil White Guy Wearing a Tie and the Put-Upon Woman of Color.

On a tip from Anonymous.