Stories & Opinions Worth Knowing but Maybe Not Quite Threadworthy 6/22

[SVPete]

Celebrity Chef Bans Vegans, and the Meat-Loving Counter-Backlash Is Phenomenal

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2023/06/22/celebrity-chef-bans-vegans-and-the-meat-loving-counter-backlash-is-phenomenal-n1705409

Mountain is the well-known executive chef at Fyre, in the suburbs of Perth. He told Perth Now that “A young girl reached out to me and said she was coming to the restaurant… and asked if there were vegan options.” He explained that the lack of vegan options was his “only shortfall” at Fyre.

Nevertheless, Mountain told the woman that “I would accommodate her, I said we had gnocchi, vegetables… and that was that.”

That’s when things went south Down Under. Mountain had a private event to cater the night his vegan guest would be dining at Fyre, and he forgot to let his sous chef know ahead of time to have vegan selections ready. The sous chef — clearly embarrassed by his boss’s failure — even scolded Mountain for “not telling them about the vegan customer.”
...
Soon, Fyre’s Facebook page was flooded with one-star reviews from likely fake customers:

“You can’t call yourself a chef if you can’t even cook veggies. Owner is very arrogant and can’t take criticism.”

“Extremely rude staff & disappointing & not up to par dishes.”

“Food tastes horrible. Chef is rude when queried. Will not go back.”

Finally, Mountain had enough: “F**k vegans seriously… I’m done. At the end of the day, it’s not what I want to do, they can f**k off.”

So I have nothing but empathy for Mountain when he announced that “Sadly all vegans are now banned from Fyre” — and this is the kicker — “for mental health reasons.” ...
...
“As news of the ban spread,” according to Fortune, “a wave of support for the chef’s controversial stance has seen strangers come to the restaurant owner’s defense and flood social media platforms with positive reviews for Fyre.”

One of the sad realities of review sites such as Yelp is that often 1/3 of reviews are phony, from people who had never been customers, trying to torpedo or boost a business. It's nice, in this case, to see lying activist phonies getting push-back.

[SVPete]

Fact check: Biden makes 5 false claims about guns, plus some about other subjects

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/21/politics/fact-check-biden-guns-africa/index.html

President Joe Biden made false claims about a variety of topics, notably including gun policy, during a series of official speeches and campaign remarks over the last two weeks.

He made at least five false claims related to guns, a subject on which he has repeatedly been inaccurate during his presidency. He also made a false claim about the extent of his support from environmental groups. And he used incorrect figures about the population of Africa, his own travel history and how much renewable energy Texas uses.
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... Biden spoke of how a gun control law he signed in 2022 has provided federal funding for states to expand the use of gun control tools like “red flag” laws ... After mentioning red flag laws, Biden invoked his late son Beau Biden, who served as attorney general of Delaware, and said: “As my son was the first to enforce when he was attorney general.”

Facts First: Biden’s claim is false. Delaware did not have a red flag law when Beau Biden was state attorney general from 2007 to 2015. ...
...
...the president spoke confusingly of his administration’s effort to make it more difficult for Americans to purchase stabilizing braces, devices that are attached to the rear of pistols, most commonly AR-15-style pistols, and make it easier to fire them one-handed.

“Put a pistol on a brace, and it…turns into a gun,” Biden said. “Makes them where you can have a higher-caliber weapon – a higher-caliber bullet – coming out of that gun. ...”

Facts First: Biden’s claims that a stabilizing brace turns a pistol into a gun and increases the caliber of a gun or bullet are false. A pistol is, obviously, already a gun, and “a pistol brace does not have any effect on the caliber of ammunition that a gun fires or anything about the basic functioning of the gun itself,” said Stephen Gutowski, a CNN contributor who is the founder of the gun policy and politics website The Reload.
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At a campaign fundraiser in California on Tuesday, Biden said the National Rifle Association, the prominent gun rights advocacy organization, itself cannot be sued.

“And the fact that the NRA has such overwhelming power – you know, the NRA is the only outfit in the nation that we cannot sue as an institution,” Biden said. “They got – they – before this – I became president, they passed legislation saying you can’t sue them. Imagine had that been the case with tobacco companies.”

Facts First: Biden’s claim is false. While gun manufacturers have liability protections, no law was ever passed to forbid lawsuits against the NRA. The NRA has faced a variety of lawsuits in recent years.

CNN's "fact"-checker flubbed with the phrase "AR-15-style pistols". As for calling out LIEden's lies, CNN would need an entire department just to cover and write about the myriad lies in LIEden's speeches. OK, "myriad" is hyperbole, but "an entire department" is not. Biden and Truth have long been estranged strangers.

[SVPete]

Moms Who Objected to CRT File Suit After Being Harassed by School

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/lincolnbrown/2023/06/22/moms-who-objected-to-crt-file-suit-after-being-harassed-by-school-n1705379

Two years ago, Amy Gonzalez and Andrea Gross, two Ohio moms with children in the Columbus Academy, had had enough of the school’s CRT and DEI policies. And like moms across the United States, they decided to take a stand and even gathered a coalition of like-minded parents to demand answers and solutions. In the video below, you can see why they spoke up and how the school tried to exact punishment and enforce compliance.
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The pair were accused by the school of “false and misleading attacks” and later informed them that their children would be denied re-enrollment that fall. The school also took the extra step of informing other families of the expulsion. In that letter, Head of School Melissa Soderberg claimed that Gross and Gonzalez  had “pursued a course of action that has been anything but civil, respectful, and faithful to the facts.” She also accused the pair of causing pain and fear for physical safety among the faculty, staff, students, and even their families. The station said that the pair made an appearance on a podcast. One parent who supported the school’s position listened and commented:
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On June 12 of this year, Gonzalez and Gross filed an official complaint in the Court of Common Pleas in Franklin County. Fox News notes that the pair are seeking damages from the academy. The complaint states in part, “One teacher stated, on the first day of class, that he would not communicate with any student who supported President Trump. Politically charged issues were regularly taught and discussed in the classroom without opposing viewpoints presented.” The complaint also alleges that Latinos were not offered inclusion to the extent that other minorities enjoyed. The head of the academy’s security filed a report with the local police department and the school told faculty that it had reported the pair to the FBI. That portion of the complaint reads:

FWIW, this is a non-religious private school, the tuition being $20K-$31K.

[SVPete]

Police uncover hate hoax in San Diego

https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2023/06/22/police-uncover-hate-hoax-in-san-diego-n559915

... A 39-year-old man in San Diego named Scott Rowin said he was harassed and then set on fire by a couple of men who targeted him because he is gay.
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Rowin says he yelled back and then heard footsteps coming up behind him.
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Rowin suffered second-degree burns on his side and back, photos of which he shared with news outlets. He said he was absolutely convinced the attack was a hate crime and added that the only people who would be walking around with “flammable liquid” would be someone out to target “the LGBT community.” He filed a police report and said he wanted to raise awareness that “There are still a lot of haters out there.”
...

According to San Diego Police, officers received calls about a man attacking a pregnant woman on the 900 block of 6th Avenue just after 10:40 p.m. on June 12.

“Officers were dispatched and arrived within minutes, but the suspect had already fled the scene,” the department said.

The department said the woman was bleeding and suffering from injuries when officers arrived. She was taken to the hospital for treatment.

About an hour later police got a call from Rowin claiming he’d been set on fire by two men. But they were pretty quickly able to work out that Rowin was the suspect in the attack on the pregnant woman. And there’s apparently no doubt what happened here because police found video showing the attack.

[Eupher]

Fact check: Biden makes 5 false claims about guns, plus some about other subjects

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/21/politics/fact-check-biden-guns-africa/index.html

CNN's "fact"-checker flubbed with the phrase "AR-15-style pistols". As for calling out LIEden's lies, CNN would need an entire department just to cover and write about the myriad lies in LIEden's speeches. OK, "myriad" is hyperbole, but "an entire department" is not. Biden and Truth have long been estranged strangers.

Point of order, Pete. There are pistols that fire the 5.56x45mm NATO round and look remarkably like an AR-15. The fundamental difference is the AR-15 pistol has a shorter barrel - somewhere around 10-11 inches or so - than even an AR-15 carbine, which legally can't be any shorter than 16" (if it's going to be called a rifle). Barrel lengths shorter than that must be classified as a pistol.

A pistol brace can also be fitted to an AK, which fires a much more potent 7.62x39mm round.

I don't have a pistol brace at all since I'm not incapable of handling a standard AR-15 rifle, so it's a moot point for me. But the article is not wrong. Pistol braces facilitate handling a weapon, particularly for those who are disabled or handicapped.

https://www.pewpewtactical.com/best-ar-pistol-braces/

[SVPete]

A pistol firing 5.56 NATO? That's an interesting combination of small diameter, long chamber, light weight, and larger (?) powder charge.

A pistol brace would definitely make shooting a pistol steadier and probably more accurate. OTOH, it makes the pistol a bit less handy, and would complicate concealment.

IMO as a non-shooter, the whole pistol brace controversy is bureaucrats hating something that doesn't fit their neat little innovation-crushing ivory-tower categories. I doubt many mall, drive-by, or building-balcony mass shooters would use a pistol brace.

[Old n Grumpy]

There are pistols that fire a number of rifle rounds 7.62 x 51, 30-30 and 5.45x 39 to name a few I have owned several

AR pistols use all the same components of an AR rifle except for the stock and buffer tube.The barrel assembly is the same except it’s under 16” in length .