{"id":2914,"date":"2008-07-23T05:27:36","date_gmt":"2008-07-23T10:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2914"},"modified":"2008-07-23T05:27:36","modified_gmt":"2008-07-23T10:27:36","slug":"coal-to-newcastle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=2914","title":{"rendered":"Coal To Newcastle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Rick Bupkus of Chicago will be leading a coalition of Second Amendment activists to Saint Paul this September to picket the Republican National Convention.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We need to convince the Republicans to join with the majority of Americans who support Second Amendment rights&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>GOP spokesperson Anna Elk responded &#8220;Er&#8230;the GOP was supporting Second Amendment rights long before it was politically cool to do so&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bupkus, undeterred, promised &#8220;A 4,000 gun salute&#8221; outside Saint Paul&#8217;s XCel Energy Center, site of the convention.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;-<\/p>\n<p>OK, I made that whole bit up.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I had to, just to illustrate how ridiculous <a href=\"http:\/\/minnesotaindependent.com\/view\/truckers-organizing\">this bit here <\/a>sounds:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When a [trucker-protest organizer Mike] Schaffner-organized truck rally comes to St. Paul on<a href=\"http:\/\/truckersandcitizensunited.theamericandriver.com\/modules.php?name=Content&#038;pa=showpage&#038;pid=28\" target=\"_blank\"> September 2<\/a>, he hopes the [currently 150-truck] convoy gets even larger, the better to send a resounding message to those assembled for the Republican National Convention: Skyrocketing fuel prices are threatening the livelihood of truckers, more than 80 percent of whom are independent owner-operators, according to Schaffner (pictured). Further, while oil companies continue to post soaring profits, it\u2019s consumers who rely on the trucking industry for shipping the food and clothing that end up paying the tab.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I\u2019m tired of the rhetoric,&#8221; he adds. &#8220;<strong>Tired of being like the little child and the government is the mother giving us a spoonful of medicine and telling us we have to take it<\/strong>.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So &#8211; you protest at the convention of the party that&#8217;s actually trying to do something to increase the supply of fuel, thus lowering prices (and, by some indications, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scsuscholars.com\/2008\/07\/bush-tax-cut-of-2008.html\">succeeding at it<\/a>, at least on an initial psychological level)&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;oh, never mind.\u00a0 The &#8220;intricacies&#8221; of the Tic mind never cease to baffle me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rick Bupkus of Chicago will be leading a coalition of Second Amendment activists to Saint Paul this September to picket the Republican National Convention.\u00a0 &#8220;We need to convince the Republicans to join with the majority of Americans who support Second Amendment rights&#8221;. GOP spokesperson Anna Elk responded &#8220;Er&#8230;the GOP was supporting Second Amendment rights long [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-08","category-convention-08"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2914\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}