Author Archives: Tars Tarkas

FreeRepublic.com Finances

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At the TrueBlueConservative message board, former Freepers dish the dirt. BobJ, who you may recall from the History of FreeRepublic.com article we wrote was a huge player on FR for over a decade before being randomly banned in one of JimRob’s hissyfits, gives us a behind the scenes look at the numbers for cost of the site as of probably a year or so ago, which is far more recent than the numbers JimRob has posted up a few times (mostly copy/pastes of an old post he did years ago)

http://truebluefreedom.com/index.php/topic,50.0.html – moved to http://truebluefreedom.com/index.php/topic,6.285.html

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Even though Bob J is exposing the numbers, he isn’t calling JimRob a shyster, something to keep in mind
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And here is the story behind Bob J being banned despite all he has done for FR over the years:
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More on the Righthaven situation in another post, but here is a bit now:
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Big breakdown of the Freep finances begin here. Bob J knows a lot because he was in talks to buy FR at one point, so we can consider this highly probable information.
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Despite all of what Bob J has been through, he still won’t throw out unfounded information, which makes what he says even the more likely to be true.
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More info from Bob J on the TrueBlueConservative Forum coming soon. For those of us who follow FR, this is very interesting.

Freepathon 2011 – “If FR dies, that’s that.” – Jim Robinson

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FreeRepublic.com just had their latest Freepathon, where JimRob got himself another $92,000 to run FR for another three months. You read that right. Now, JimRob just got off of his latest purge, where many fine FR posters were zotted mightily for their inability to thing gay people aren’t the most evil thing that ever existed ever. The problem with purges is you purge the people who donate. So now JimRob is resorting to ever-threatening demands for donations or else FR is gone.

“If FR dies, that’s that.” – Jim Robinson
freerepublic.com ^ | 1/11/11 | paulycy
Posted on Tue Jan 11 2011 08:28:06 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) by paulycy

FYI –

Here are statements from Jim about the future of FreeRepublic.com for those who missed them. They are quite serious.

===

“Well, I can say that there are definitely two things that will never happen. 1) Banner ads. 2) Oracle [a completely new database system.] And a third is a total replacement [of the current damaged system.] Don’t have the financial wherewithal.”

“To those who wish to leave because of it, see ya.”

“If FR dies, that’s that.”

===

[To: paulycy]

Hey, you want us to get an all new system with all new software and add a few more pricey techs, system programmers and database administrators to keep it all working 100% of the time 24/7/365? Well, start coughing up the big bucks.

It’s going to take tens of thousands of donations and many with at least three zeros each after the comma to accomplish the task. And that would be EVERY month like clock work to make the payroll. Once you take on a big load of expensive overhead, there’s no going back. As it is, we get a couple thousand donations per quarter averaging about $30 bucks each and there’s no guarantees we can cover this quarter’s expenses much less next quarter. We’re on a pay as we go system and we have zero employees.We just ask for enough to pay the bills.

Throwing more money at the problem won’t solve it. [This latest glitch] was a technical issue and we just had to keep troubleshooting until we found it. And no, we’re not going to invite a bunch of strangers in to get their hands on our secure systems. John has been programming since he was 14 and he’s pushing 40 now. He built these systems and he’s an expert in them.

And no, we are not going to throw out our software and rewrite it and no we’re not going to move on to some other database system. There are no guarantees that any other system can do a better job and not without hiring a staff to build and maintain it and that’s for sure. And we don’t have the financial wherewithal to do any of that anyway. Maybe if we had a couple million bucks at our disposal and a couple years to do it in we could build an iron-clad system. And maybe not.

All I can say is, if someone else can do it better and cheaper, then please step right on up and get ‘er done!! I’ll bow out and retire. Thankyouverymuch.

Hit it boys:

https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/

And no, we have no plans of taking FR commercial. I like it the way it is. Not sure I could handle getting rich.

===

– Jim Robinson

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2653583/posts?page=168#168

Even the homeless give money to JimRob

I just donated..

I’ve been unemployed for 8 months and uneligible for unemployment….

Currently do not even have a place to live…literally homeless…yet, I gave…it was only $5.00 b/c it’s all I have….but I gave….b/c FR is valuable to me….if I ever expect to get a decent job and live in a robust economy I have to keep up w/politics and head these goons in Washington off…. FR helps w/ that…

If I can give, you all can too…just a little…if we all did it would make a difference….

372 posted on 01/11/2011 8:17:00 AM PST by DrewsMum

Someone points out that banning people left and right isn’t a good way to get them to donate, and gets called out by one of the architects of the recent DADT purge

Already said I don’t and reason why is because a) I don’t feel like this is MY forum and b) I don’t like the conservative litmus test that you have to jump thru. Why would I donate and then get banned for posting my opinion that isn’t 100% agreed to by the higher ups? All you people that want people to go AWAY with differing opinions should be forking over more of their money. Not me. Besides, posting here on a iPhone is a HUGE pain
Clearly you have an agenda, you are a troll. I hope you get the zot for being annoying.

410 posted on Tue Jan 11 2011 11:34:23 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) by central_va (I won’t be reconstructed, and I do not give a damn.)

To: central_va
So you want to drive another person away? That’s why this site is failing now. Why can’t some of you see that? A thread was started. I voiced my thoughts and BAM.

435 posted on Tue Jan 11 2011 11:43:48 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) by stuck_in_new_orleans

iPhones, the terror of all LIEberals!

This is a thread about concerns over FR’s continued existence and you’re upset that you can’t use your iPhone. You deserve to be insulted. Repeatedly.

557 posted on Tue Jan 11 2011 12:25:27 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) by DJ MacWoW (America! The wolves are at your door! How will you answer the knock?)

DJ MacWoW hates iPhones almost as much as he hates the gays.

Growup. This is about FR’s survival. Your iPhone is petty and you have been told that by other posters as well.

602 posted on Tue Jan 11 2011 12:41:53 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) by DJ MacWoW (America! The wolves are at your door! How will you answer the knock?)

Sure they are.

But yes, gears are in motion to create a hard-news site with a Free Republic affiliation. Eventual goal – a cable news network to the right of Fox.

466 posted on Tue Jan 11 2011 11:57:03 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) by Lazamataz (If Illegal Aliens are Undocumented Workers, than Thieves are Undocumented Shoppers.)

JimRob jumps in to say that they ain’t changing nothing and all the money is totally justified so shut the hell up and donate!

Thank you all very much, but there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the system other than the fact that it runs on computers and that we run on a shoestring budget with no employees. It’s just me and John, Amy and Chris. I’ve been involved with computers since 1972 starting with the Univac and the IBM/360 and Digital’s PDP and VAX generations. Amy got started a few years earlier. John started programming when he was 14 and was a commercial programmer by 16. He was our C+ guru when we were in the software business. He introduced us to the Internet in the early 90’s before the browser had even been developed. I’ve been a programmer/analyst from the 70’s and also in programming/project management and data processing management and also owned my own software company.

The one biggest thing we’ve learned in all these years is that computer systems have a tendency to crash. And when the inevitable happens, we don’t panic. We troubleshoot, find the problems, fix them and go on. Been doing it for nearly forty years. There is nothing wrong with FR. It’s perfectly normal for systems to fail occasionally.

Now there are ways to make a system more bullet proof and to build-in back ups and redundancy, etc, so there is almost zero downtime for users, but these are usually reserved for critical operations. And that’s because they cost money. Lots of it.

For example we only have one tech, one programmer, one hardware guy, one security guy, one operating system guru, one perl guru, one mysql guru, one all around computer guy and John is it. He’s also our chief procurement officer and liaison with all vendors and suppliers and in his spare time he fills in as our research and development department. Dear old dad with 40 years experience in programming and managing legacy computer systems tries to join in and help but usually just gets in the way. John is a one man shop, he’s on call, on duty 24/7/365 with no vacations or holidays unless he carries a cell phone and lap top and he likes it that way.

We could hire three or four guys to do what John does and we still couldn’t cover it 24/7/365 and provide uninterruptible service. We’d still suffer downtime.

We could also build redundant systems. But that just doubles the cost, doubles the maintenance and doubles or triples the capital requirements and ongoing expense. And unless they were located in different parts of the country on different providers, the redundant systems would not guarantee 100% uptime. Guess what? Even multi-million dollar fail-safe systems fail occasionally. Computers crash! It’s a fact of life and we deal with it every day.

FR was started on zero capital. It was a hobby that has grown terribly out of control. It was a one man shop when I set it up. Amy came in later to help me administer it, then John took over the programming a couple years later and redesigned and rewrote it all at least three times since. He built the servers it runs on. Now it may be that if we had the money we could order all new equipment and redesign and rewrite the software again with an eye for making it all bullet proof, but that would require lots of money and probably hiring some additional talent and it would require time. But we have no money and no access to money. And we are reluctant to take on any additional debt.

Now we could go commercial. We could sell ads. We could sell subscriptions or memberships, We could sell t-shirts and hats. But the moment we do, we invite scrutiny and copyright lawsuits. Before going commercial we would have to scrub our archives of any possible copyright violations. And we’d have to tighten up our current operations to make sure no one posts anything that could get us into trouble with any publisher of stories, photos, images, etc. And with sharks like Righthaven swimming around, there will always be room for trouble. And going commercial still wouldn’t guarantee enough income to build and maintain a paid staff, bullet proof software, redundant systems, etc.

I’m an old dog and I like to keep it simple. We have a nice little system here. We are comfortable with the hardware and our software and our providers and it works fairly well. Actually, very well. We have some occasional problems and have been down a few times but as I said, there are no guarantees that if we had double or triple the size of our hardware or our staff that we still would not suffer some downtime occasionally. It happens.

And we’re perfectly comfortable with donor funding at a shoestring level. I’d hate to complicate the thing by going commercial. We are grassroots and it makes sense to me to keep it all grassroots and uncomplicated if we possibly can.

I see no reason whatsoever to panic about our systems our staffing or our funding.

And I really wish to thank all of YOU who make it possible. Your donations provide the capital we need to keep it all going and your continued participation on our forums makes FR the premier God and Country CONSERVATIVE site on the Internet!!

Thank God for the FReepers!! God bless you all.

588 posted on Tue Jan 11 2011 12:37:01 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time) by Jim Robinson (Rebellion is brewing!! Nuke the corrupt commie bastards to HELL!!)

But is what JimRob saying accurate? Does it really cost $92,000 a quarter to run this website? That’s $368,000 a year! Where does the money all go? Stay tuned, dear readers, because the next post will explain where the money all goes!

Rush Limbaugh listeners are classy!

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Check out this class:

California State Senator Leland Yee (my state senator, btw) stood up to Rush Limbaugh’s latest racism and mocking of the Chinese language, and that ticked off Rush so much that someone isn’t putting up with his crap that he made fun of Yee on his show. And then suddenly Senator Yee got all these racist faxes and phone calls from “patriotic” Americans of the type who listen to Rush while massaging themselves with baby oil.

And check out this awesome voicemail that you should totally not listen to at work:

I’m sure one of the rightwing trolls will be by later in the comments to explain how this totally isn’t racist and also it was done by a liberal plant.

—Multiple Choice Quiz: A to Z —

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—Multiple Choice Quiz: A to Z —

Liberals / progressives / socialists / marxists / communists ( synonyms: the
agenda is the same no matter what they choose to call themselves )
are: ( pick one)

A. people who may be victims of an ivy league brain laundry.
B. self appointed elites who know better than the rest of us who are too dumb
to choose for ourselves.
C. people who have the talent to ignore facts that they don’t like.
D. people who believe “free speech” is the right so say only what they
agree with.
E. logicians who believe true is false and vice versa.
F. people who believe that charity is donating other peoples money.
G. people who like to make rules for other people to obey.
H. people who believe that taxes are for others to pay.
I. people who afraid that others with guns may shoot them.
J. people who think that we have the best government that money can buy.
K. brats who never grew up due to lack of spankings.
L. people who want atheism to be the national religion.
M. people who believe that Islam is a peaceful religion.
N. people who think that Muslims are good since they hate the U.S. too.
O. people who believe the U.S.Constitution doesn’t apply to them, except when
convenient.
P. those that believe in global warming even when standing up to their ears
in snowdrifts, but still fly in their private jets.
Q. believers in buying chinese made windmills saving American jobs.
R. people who think that buying oil from Venezuela and Arabia is better
than drilling for our own oil.
S. believers in printing more money to spend will solve our problems.
T. people who think that borrowing money for our children and grandchildren
to repay is not a form of identity theft.
U. people who believe that all criminals must be conservatives or Tea Partiers.
V. those who think that fermenting our food supply to create auto fuel is a
good idea.
W. the ones that believe murderers like Mao and Che are heroes.
X. those that think that unemployment insurance is a job stimulus.
Y. people who think that government bureaucrats deserve twice the pay of
the average American worker.
Z. ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Feel free to add to the list of choices.

Drain Clogs – 01-19-2010

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NBComcast is a reality. God help us all.

Maine Governor Paul LePage told the NAACP to “kiss my butt” then started rambling on about his “black son”. His full grown black son. Who moved into the house in 2002. After LePage used his dad as a caddy in Jamaica. The grown man has never been adopted by LePage. FYI, LePage ended up going to the NAACP event regardless of his butt kissing fetish.

Teabaggers are stupid.

Alabama Governor Robert Bentley get inaugurated, declares all non-Christians aren’t his brothers and sisters. But he didn’t mean to insult anyone.

Bomb at a MLK Day parade.

Conservative Pundit Glenn Beck stands against violence. Look out! Glenn Beck’s got a gun!

RedState’s Erick Erickson is quitting his city council job that he never shows up to to become a radio show host!

Tom “The Hammer” DeLay is going to jail for three years. It’s all liberals’ fault!

Cartoon of the Day:

More conservative fan fiction

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“Winston, come into the dining room, it’s time to eat,” Julia yelled to her husband. “In a minute, honey, it’s a tie score,” he answered. Actually Winston wasn’t very interested in the traditional holiday football game between Detroit and Washington. Ever since the government passed the Civility in Sports Statute of 2017, outlawing tackle football for its “unseemly violence” and the “bad example it sets for the rest of the world,” Winston was far less of a football fan than he used to be. Two-hand touch wasn’t nearly as exciting.

Yet it wasn’t the game that Winston was uninterested in. It was more the thought of eating another Tofu Turkey. Even though it was the best type of Veggie Meat available after the government revised the American Anti-Obesity Act of 2018, adding fowl to the list of federally-forbidden foods, (which already included potatoes, cranberry sauce and mince-meat pie), it wasn’t anything like real turkey. And ever since the government officially changed the name of “Thanksgiving Day” to “A National Day of Atonement” in 2020 to officially acknowledge the Pilgrims’ historically brutal treatment of Native Americans, the holiday had lost a lot of its luster.

Eating in the dining room was also a bit daunting. The unearthly gleam of government-mandated fluorescent light bulbs made the Tofu Turkey look even weirder than it actually was, and the room was always cold. Ever since Congress passed the Power Conservation Act of 2016, mandating all thermostats-which were monitored and controlled by the electric company-be kept at 68 degrees, every room on the north side of the house was barely tolerable throughout the entire winter.

Still, it was good getting together with family, or at least most of the family. Winston missed his mother, who passed on in October, when she had used up her legal allotment of live-saving medical treatment. He had had many heated conversations with the Regional Health Consortium, spawned when the private insurance market finally went bankrupt, and everyone was forced into the government health care program. And though he demanded she be kept on her treatment, it was a futile effort. “The RHC’s resources are limited,” explained the government bureaucrat Winston spoke with on the phone. “Your mother received all the benefits to which she was entitled. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Ed couldn’t make it either. He had forgotten to plug in his electric car last night, the only kind available after the Anti-Fossil Fuel Bill of 2021 outlawed the use of the combustion engines-for everyone but government officials. The fifty mile round trip was about ten miles too far, and Ed didn’t want to spend a frosty night on the road somewhere between here and there.

Thankfully, Winston’s brother, John, and his wife were flying in. Winston made sure that the dining room chairs had extra cushions for the occasion. No one complained more than John about the pain of sitting down so soon after the government-mandated cavity searches at airports, which severely aggravated his hemorrhoids. Ever since a terrorist successfully smuggled a cavity bomb onto a jetliner, the TSA told Americans the added “inconvenience” was an “absolute necessity” in order to stay “one step ahead of the terrorists.” Winston’s own body had grown accustomed to such probing ever since the government expanded their scope to just about anywhere a crowd gathered, via Anti-Profiling Act of 2022. That law made it a crime to single out any group or individual for “unequal scrutiny,” even when probable cause was involved. Thus, cavity searches at malls, train stations, bus depots, etc., etc., had become almost routine. Almost.

The Supreme Court is reviewing the statute, but most Americans expect a Court composed of six progressives and three conservatives to leave the law intact. “A living Constitution is extremely flexible,” said the Court’s eldest member, Elena Kagan. “Europe has had laws like this one for years. We should learn from their example,” she added.

Winston’s thoughts turned to his own children. He got along fairly well with his 12-year-old daughter, Brittany, mostly because she ignored him. Winston had long ago surrendered to the idea that she could text anyone at any time, even during Atonement Dinner. Their only real confrontation had occurred when he limited her to 50,000 texts a month, explaining that was all he could afford. She whined for a week, but got over it.

His 16-year-old son, Jason, was another matter altogether. Perhaps it was the constant bombarding he got in public school that global warming, the bird flu, terrorism or any of a number of other calamities were “just around the corner,” but Jason had developed a kind of nihilistic attitude that ranged between simmering surliness and outright hostility. It didn’t help that Jason had reported his father to the police for smoking a cigarette in the house, an act made criminal by the Smoking Control Statute of 2018, which outlawed smoking anywhere within 500 feet of another human being. Winston paid the $5000 fine, which might have been considered excessive before the American dollar became virtually worthless as a result of QE13. The latest round of quantitative easing the federal government initiated was, once again, to “spur economic growth.” This time they promised to push unemployment below its years-long rate of 18%, but Winston was not particularly hopeful.

Yet the family had a lot for which to be thankful, Winston thought, before remembering it was a Day of Atonement. At least he had his memories. He felt a twinge of sadness when he realized his children would never know what life was like in the Good Old Days, long before government promises to make life “fair for everyone” realized their full potential. Winston, like so many of his fellow Americans, never realized how much things could change when they didn’t happen all at once, but little by little,
so people could get used to them.

He wondered what might have happened if the public had stood up while there was still time, maybe back around 2011, when all the real nonsense began. “Maybe we wouldn’t be where we are today if we’d just said ‘enough is enough’ when we had the chance,” he thought. Maybe so, Winston.
Maybe so.
AUTHOR – UNKNOWN

FreeRepublic purges have consequences….

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Well, someone got ticked off they got zotted in JimRob’s latest purge over DADT:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2657890/posts

Hello. You don’t know me under this name. For reasons that are going to be obvious soon, I didn’t wish to send you this message with my usual Free Republic account. This message is an invitation, a welcome to a new forum called TrueBlueFreedom.com

While I love the people who make up Free Republic, I have many complaints about Jim Robinson and his cronies who run the actual website. Over and over again, whenever somebody has complained or offered suggestions, they have been told by JimRob and others to go and start their own website if they know so much. Well, I’ve decided to take them up on that offer.

I’ve started TrueBlueFreedom.com for three simple reasons, and once you’ve read those reasons, I’m sure you’ll agree that we need to make a few adjustments if we want this powerful bastion of conservatism to remain. The first reason is simple: Free Republic is too important to left in the hands of JimRob. Jim and his son John have repeated stated that if just one Freepathon goal isn’t met, that’s it – “Free Republic will be dead.” I can’t stand the idea of America without Free Republic. Imagine if we hadn’t been there when Dan Rather was passing around his forgeries, how different things would be today. Now realize that, as things are going, we won’t be around when the next Rathergate happens. We can’t allow that to happen, and since JimRob has publicly refused to deal with this issue, we have to take matters into our own hands. My solution is TrueBlueFreedom.com

The second reason is that I believe that free market capitalism has made America great, and that attempting any other system will lead us to ruin. A belief JimRob apparently doesn’t share, since he continues to refuse to place ads on Free Republic and instead depend on a PBS-esque donation system. We are not NPR, and we are not a charity – why do we raise money like one? For this reason, I’ve developed TrueBlueFreedom.com to depend on advertisements. TrueBlueFreedom.com will not depend on donations, instead, we will depend on the opportunities provided by the free market to create a self-sustaining version of Free Republic – without the constant Freepathons.

The third reason is that JimRob is, in my opinion, a petty tyrant. How many of you know somebody who was purged? How many wonder if you may be next on the list? If you’re neither of these people, consider this: Giuliani was America’s Mayor in 2008. That didn’t stop JimRob from purging all his supporters without warning. How do you know that whoever you support in the Republican primaries won’t raise JimRob’s wrath? How do you know the next purge group won’t be Mormons, Jews, Birthers, Pro-Palin, Anti-Palin, and so on? I believe that purging the non-believers and demanding total mental agreement with the “Dear Leader” is the exact opposite of conservative values, regardless of where JimRob stands on abortion and homosexuality. And for that reason, I’ve set up TrueBlueFreedom.com as a place where conservatives who follow the rules will not be banned, no matter how much I disagree with them. Regardless of your politics, religion, or favorite sport team, you will only be banned for breaking the rules. TrueBlueFreedom.com is a purge-free zone.

So, I hope you’ve read all this, and will accept my invitation. If this seems like something you can believe in, come to TrueBlueFreedom.com, sign up, and start talking. And if you like it, spread the word. Because Free Republic is too important to just let die.

This may bet interesting, so stay tuned!

Arizona Shooting leftover bits

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Blood Libel? Are they serious? They are serious. Either Palin is insane or she eats babies. Why would you use that term? Also she used a teleprompter in her YouTube video!

Today is the memorial for the Arizona victims, but Palin has now ensured we’re just gonna be talking about her.

Giffords shooter Jared Loughner is nuts. We already knew that, but this lets you know how nuts he is.

Jared also posted crazy stuff on a conspiracy website.

The Tea Party Express is shocked, SHOCKED, that their violent rhetoric is being criticized in wake of the Giffords shooting. Also, give them money!

These giant bulls eye targets aren’t gun sights, they are surveyor’s symbols! Lock and reload your surveying tools!

Gateway Pundit then photoshopped his own bulls eye photo trying to smear DailyKos. Here is a link to the original DKos post.

Remember that conservatives hate violence

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Now buy this “You Lie!” commemorative AR-15 gun part! It’s the perfect thing to celebrate…the State of the Union…or…your son shooting his first congresswoman!

Free Times sez:

A South Carolina gun and accessories company is selling semi-automatic rifle components inscribed with “You lie” – a tribute to the infamous words of 2nd District Republican Congressman Joe Wilson when he shouted at President Barack Obama during a congressional speech about national health care reform in the fall of 2009.

“Palmetto State Armory would like to honor our esteemed congressman Joe Wilson with the release of our new ‘You Lie’ AR-15 lower receiver,” reads a portion of the company’s website.

The product “is neither endorsed nor affiliated with Joe Wilson or his campaign,” according to a line of text at the bottom of the page. A picture of Wilson holding a rifle and standing in the company’s gun shop appears on the same page. The company offers the components, marked “MULTI to accommodate most builds,” for $99.95 apiece.

“Only 999 of these will be produced, get yours before they are gone!” the website reads.

FYI, the page on the website is now mysteriously missing…

Here is Joe Wilson himself in the Palmetto State Armory store!

But remember, liberals are just as violent as conservatives! Also the sky is green.