On Oct. 13, 1775, the U.S. Navy was born when the Continental Congress authorized the arming of two sailing vessels with 80 men and 10 carriage guns in order to intercept British supply and munitions transports. The Declaration of Independence came nine months later, followed by the creation of the Department of the Navy in 1798. Today, our Navy is the most powerful in the world. We at The Patriot offer our thanks to all our sailors for a job well done and wish you a Happy 234th Birthday! God bless you and your families.
Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Happy Birthday Squidly Ones!
October 13, 2009A mayor problem
October 12, 2009The Texas Fred spitting match notwithstanding there appear to be more than a few Mayors across the country that are concerned about the Bloomberg Follies.
For example, Mayor Robert Shiner of Mentor, OH was listed as a member of MAIG, but Shiner hasn’t been Mayor since November 2008 and his office says he never agreed to be a MAIG member. Mayor Dale Strasser of Brunswick, Ohio found his name used in MAIG advertising when it was actually the Brunswick city manager, Robert Zienkowski, who signed up for the group. And Mayor Keith Hoffman of East Berlin, Ohio said his participation, which began about a month ago, resulted from a misunderstanding of the group’s objectives, and he is currently trying to get his name off the list. “It was a mistake really,” he said. “They swindle you in and then put your name on the list.”
According to the NRA, at least 30 mayors have appeared on the MAIG membership list despite the fact they were not mayors of the localities as advertised. More than 60 mayors have now removed their names. Many may have been misled by the Bloomberg organization or may have been added to the member list against their will or without their knowledge.
You can fool some of the people all of the time but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time…
Tonight, tonight, what will we learn tonight..?
October 11, 2009This will be on Oct 11th :
Sunday night at 9 PM Eastern.
This Sunday Fox news, is going to air a very important documentary about President Barack Obama, Sunday night at 9 PM Eastern.
The report will go back to Obama’s earlier days, showing even then his close ties to radical Marxist professors, friends, spiritual advisers, etc.
It will also reveal detail his ties to Rev.. Wright for 20+ yrs.
How he was participating with this man, and not for the reasons he
states!
The report has uncovered more of Obama’s radical past and we will see things that no one in the media is willing to put out there. It will be a segment to remember.
Mark your calendar and pass this on to everyone you know: Sunday night, 8 PM. CT ; 9 PM ET. Democrat or Republican, this report will open your eyes to how YOUR country is being sold down the road to Totalitarian Socialism. If you care about the direction of our country,
Pass this notice on to everyone you know.
email from poligotcha is the source
But don’t worry: Democrats know what’s best for you.
October 11, 2009Wait, it’s not a hoax? Are they serious? Early Friday morning, the Norwegian Nobel Committee announced that Barack Obama would receive a consolation prize for losing out on the 2016 Olympics — namely the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
Here in our humble editorial shop, our first reaction was, naturally, to spew coffee on our keyboards. Our second reaction was to wonder, For what? There’s been no signing of peace treaties, no ending of wars, no stopping of nuclear proliferation. Obama hasn’t stood up for human rights in China, hasn’t denounced the oppression of women in the Muslim world, hasn’t stared down brutal dictators such as Castro, Chavez, Kim and Ahmadinejad. Again, we ask: For what?
The Nobel Committee explains that it was “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” and the fact that he has “created a new climate in international politics.” Didn’t Al Gore get the award two years ago for seeking to stop climate change?
Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Nobel Committee, gushed, “Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future.” In other words, it was the Nobel Prize for Narcissism. Unfortunately, the committee did not pass out barf bags prior to the announcement.
Apparently, the fact that the community organizer took up residence in the White House less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline was not as important to the committee as being able to give a slap in the face to his resolute predecessor, George W. Bush. It certainly sends a message against actually winning in Afghanistan.
The president joins other you’ve-got-to-be-kidding winners Jimmy Carter, who is largely responsible for present-day Iran, Gore, who does nothing but scare people about global warming, and Palestinian terrorist Yasser Arafat, who assumed room temperature in 2004. Obama’s win is one more sign that the award has long since jumped the shark.
Blogger Eugene Volokh has started a great list of the “Top Ten Reasons Obama Won the Nobel Peace Prize.” Among our favorites are these: “For extraordinary diplomacy at the Gates-Crowley ‘Beer Summit'”; and a reader’s suggestion, “He was the 10th caller.”
As we all know by now, last Thursday, Barack Obama took time away from a raging war and a terrible economy to fly to Copenhagen to lobby in person for the 2016 Olympic Games to be hosted in his “home” city of Chicago. The Windy City was blown out of the competition in the first round, though, and the Games eventually went to Rio de Janeiro, taking the Olympics to South America for the first time.
But here’s the kicker. Not only was Obama’s own political capital spent, but he squandered taxpayers’ capital as well. The Pentagon recently estimated the cost of flying Air Force One at $100,219 an hour — without Obama on board. At that rate, Obama’s 14-hour excursion tapped taxpayers for at least $1.4 million. Other passengers jacking up the price included White House Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. First lady Michelle Obama traveled to Copenhagen separately, though she claimed she was making a “sacrifice” to do it.
Assorted leftists had a conniption over the results, with some, including the “Reverend” Jesse Jackson, going so far as to blame — wait for it — George W. Bush for the worldwide ill will that cost Chicago the Games. “The way we [refused to sign] the Kyoto Treaty, we misled the world into Iraq. The world had a very bad taste in its mouth about us,” Jackson complained. Never mind that Kyoto was unanimously rejected by the U.S. Senate in 1997, four years before Bush took office.
Fortunately, Obama can finally claim to have actually saved jobs. Nine of them, to be exact. The first-ever White House Olympic Office will stay in business, continuing to employ its staffers. Doing what, we don’t know.
Finally, if there’s one thing Obama’s Olympic Fail settled, it’s that we can’t compare him to Adolf Hitler in all things. At least Hitler brought the Olympics to Berlin.
“Hey Chicago, has it ever occurred to you that maybe the International Olympic Committee just isn’t that into you? It’s not as though the choices were to hold the games in the Windy City or cancel them altogether. Maybe the IOC delegates chose Rio de Janeiro on the basis of its merits as a venue. The notion that it must have been motivated by hatred of America reflects a most unattractive combination of arrogance and self-pity. –Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto
The normally reliable Congressional Budget Office released a report on the Democrats’ proposed takeover of the health care system this week. The report absurdly claimed that a Senate panel’s $829 billion package would not add to the federal deficit. As we reflect that George W. Bush’s Medicare prescription drug program alone created $7 trillion in unfunded liabilities, it appears that the CBO is using a lot of outcome-based math for its calculations.
The CBO’s report, however, is not exactly hard and fast. As Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) points out, “This is an estimate of a concept, not a formal cost analysis of an actual bill.” No matter. The Leftmedia are gleefully reporting the “no new debt” part of the report without that unfortunate detail. It’s all part of trying to get the so-called fiscally conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats to heel and vote for the bill.
There are other details worth mentioning. For example, the plan would still leave uninsured 16 million of the supposed 47 million currently uninsured. And Democrats claimed no one would be left behind.
According to The Washington Post, “[T]he package would raise $200 billion more by levying a 40 percent excise tax on high-cost insurance policies — the ‘Cadillac’ plans that cost more than $8,000 for individuals or $21,000 for a family.” The House plans to slap a “surtax” on income above $500,000 rather than impose the “Cadillac” tax.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) says she’s open to a value-added tax, or VAT, to help finance the plan. “Somewhere along the way, a value-added tax plays into this,” she said. “Of course, we want to take down the health care cost, that’s one part of it. But in the scheme of things, I think it’s fair to look at a value-added tax as well.”
The VAT is a tax on manufacturers and distributors at every stage based on the “value” added to a product by each additional step, and it’s largely hidden from consumers. As a result, it’s attractive to politicians — even ones who promised not to raise taxes on the middle class. Almost every European country with socialized medicine also has a VAT, and if the health care takeover is accomplished, then the same should be anticipated for the United States.
With all of these shenanigans, is it any surprise that Democrats defeated an amendment to post the bill online for the American people to read before the vote? Indeed, rather than adhering to Barack Obama’s promise of transparency, the Heritage Foundation’s blog, The Foundry, details “the four part scenario that would railroad the bill through the Senate using a very unusual closed door procedure to craft the bill with no input from the American people.” This includes some legislative tricks such as attaching it to an unrelated tax bill or using reconciliation, meaning only 51 votes, not the filibuster ending 60, are required in the Senate.
“When you cut through all the noise and all the distractions that are out there, I think what’s most telling is that some of the people who are most supportive of reform are the very medical professionals who know the health care system best.” –Barack Obama before a Rose Garden gathering of about 150 Obama-activist doctors in white lab coats — that the White House passed out, the better to stage the photo op
The truth, however, as noted in a recent Investor’s Business Daily poll, is that two-thirds of doctors oppose ObamaCare, and nearly half said they would consider leaving medicine if it passes.
“I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language [of the health care bill] because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life.” –Sen. Thomas Carper (D-DE)
The Junk Science front
October 11, 2009No, this time your tax money didn’t go to more man made global warming stupidity. But rather to a group that uses predetermined outcomes in order to bolster their failed belief that surrender is the way to go when your life is threatened.
One would think that a group of Doctors would seek proper treatment for their mental disease. There is hope for this devastating condition. Hoplobe’s resist your un-natural urges!
Now, more than at any other time in anyone’s memory, the federal government is in no position to waste taxpayer dollars on gun control advocacy “research.” Nevertheless, the National Institutes of Health recently gave anti-gun researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine $639,586 to conduct a survey intended to prove that possessing a gun doesn’t benefit assault victims.
Criminologist Gary Kleck calls the resulting survey “the very epitome of junk science in the guns-and-violence field—poor quality research designed to arrive at an ideologically predetermined conclusion.”
Here’s how it was done. The Pennsylvania researchers surveyed only those assault victims who were shot, limited in the last six months of the survey to victims who were fatally shot. It did not consider the far more numerous gun owners who used guns for self-defense successfully without being shot, nor crimes that were not even attempted because the criminals feared that prospective victims might be armed.
The survey was further limited to residents of urban Philadelphia who, according to the research, “were significantly more often Hispanic, more frequently working in high-risk occupations, less educated, and had a greater frequency of prior arrest,” compared to the rest of the population. Victims who were shot in Philly, but who were not from Philly, were excluded too. The survey considered a victim to be “armed” even if his gun was “in a nearby vehicle, or in another place.”
As Kleck says, “none of the evidence presented by the authors actually has any relevance to the issue of the effectiveness of defensive gun use, for the simple reason that at no point do they ever compare crime victims who used guns defensively with victims who did not.” Kleck notes that other published research “reached precisely the opposite conclusions” reached by the NIH-funded survey.
What Kleck had in mind were the results of the federal government’s annual National Crime Victimization Survey, covering tens of thousands of assaults. Kleck and others have reviewed those surveys and found that people who use guns to defend against assaults are less likely to be injured than people who use other means, or no means, of protection.
Bloomberg sycophants
October 10, 2009The Bloomberg sycophants are marching along like good little serfs as usual. Read on…
Bathed in camera flashes during a “news conference” on October 7, 2009, New York City’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg was in his element in announcing “a wide-ranging undercover investigation by the City of New York into illegal gun sales” that revealed “a willful disregard of the law” by “74% of gun show sellers.”
Or, so he claimed. The ego-driven multi-billionaire’s publicity stunt was neither “wide-ranging” nor representative of what occurs at gun shows, nor was it intended to be. And it determined nothing about “74%” of all gun show sellers.
Instead, as Bloomberg’s report on the stunt openly admits, his “investigators” attended gun shows only “in states . . . that supply crime guns trafficked across state lines at the highest rates,” only in neighborhoods with the highest incidence of “federal prosecutions for straw buying and trafficking, and proximity to urban areas experiencing gang violence,” and ultimately focused their attention on only 47 individuals who, based upon their comments and actions, seemed the most likely to violate a gun sale law.
Even that amount of deliberate skewing of Bloomberg’s sample of the nation’s “gun show sellers” did not work as he expected. Only 35 of the 47 (hence, the fraudulent “74%” claim) ultimately exercised poor judgment with respect to a gun sale law or, in perhaps some of the cases, may have been willing to break a law, and thus be subject to prosecution.
Anti-gun groups and politicians immediately heralded Bloomberg’s effort as definitive proof of the need for more restrictions on guns. “Thanks to Mayor Bloomberg and the New York City Police Department, the public can see firsthand what goes on at these weapons markets,” said the Brady Campaign. “This investigation reveals how easy it is for criminals and even terrorists to purchase firearms at gun shows,” said Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.).
And, since the day of fair, hard and objective reporting has apparently passed into journalism’s history, newspapers went along with Bloomberg’s charade like shills at a carnival game of chance, reminding us why public confidence in “the press” has dropped to 15% in annual polls.
“[I]n almost three out of four instances, undercover investigators were able to purchase guns illegally,” the New York Times dutifully reported. Bloomberg’s investigators “repeatedly bought guns from unlicensed dealers at gun shows even though they disclosed they probably couldn’t pass a background check,” said the Washington Post. “Bloomberg’s sting documented that these transient marketplaces for guns, ammunition and accessories are a multibillion-dollar business that is funneling weapons directly into criminals’ hands, in plain sight,” said the New York Daily News. “Any doubt that stricter regulation would be helpful was removed last week when the results of an undercover investigation of gun show sales in Tennessee and two other states was released by the office of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg,” the (Memphis) Commercial Appeal editorialized.
Bloomberg’s bottom line? You guessed it. Congress should adopt S. 843 and H.R. 2324 to “close the gun show loophole by requiring background checks on all firearm sales at gun shows.” Bloomberg and his media friends failed to mention, of course, that both bills also propose that gun show promoters be registered, be required to pay unspecific fees, and be required to maintain ledgers of all non-dealers who bring firearms to shows (even if they bring them to sell only to dealers). H.R. 2324 further proposes that promoters be required to provide such ledgers to the Attorney General. For more information about anti-gun show legislation, see our facts sheets on S. 843 (www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?id=229&issue=014) and H.R. 2324 (www.nraila.org/Issues/FactSheets/Read.aspx?id=252&issue=014).
Reporters worthy of the name would have pointed out that buying a gun for a family member or friend as a gift is not a straw purchase. It’s a violation of the law only to buy a gun for a prohibited person. And competent reporters would have also noticed that Bloomberg’s “investigation” actually undercuts his call for requiring background checks on non-dealer sales at gun shows. The most common gun sale violation, Bloomberg says, is that straw purchasers defeat the background check. Requiring more sales to be run through checks would not alleviate the straw purchase problem one whit.
Individuals—dealers and non-dealers alike—who knowingly break the law should, of course, be prosecuted, as NRA has long advocated. Obtaining and providing a gun for a prohibited person are both federal felonies, each punishable by 10 years in prison.
However, enforcing gun sale laws is the responsibility of the BATFE, and state and local agencies. Bloomberg has no jurisdiction in other cities, let alone outside New York State. His periodic interstate escapades, of which “Gun Show” is but the latest, are not only possibly illegal (in that they may violate firearm sales laws), but risk compromising federal, state and local law enforcement agencies’ investigations.
At the bottom line, Bloomberg’s effort shows that even when you work very hard to find law-breakers at gun shows, you find that such individuals are few and far between.
Once again, Hizzoner demonstrates his true priority—media grandstanding.
Obamacare = Anti Liberty and Freedom
October 9, 2009You heard it here first! Obamacare (caps only for grammar purpose’s) The devil, is ALWAYS in the details! Well, the details are starting to roll in, and, as I warned. The obamacare assault on personal freedom and liberty will be a back door attempt at gun control.
Recently, a good friend and fellow bloger has gotten into a spitting match with a Texas Mayor. I have refrained from commenting, as I intend to allow this…. So-called Gun Rights supporter to spew enough rope to hang His-self… And? You knew it was coming! 😀
Most of the comments at my friends website, as well as at a local MSM outlet call for enforcement of all existing laws… Friends, Americans, Liberty Countrymen across the world!
I call for fewer laws that restrict any persons ability to defend themselves…
I call for the repeal of laws that take away anyone’s unalienable rights save conviction of classic felony’s or demonstrated mental incompetence. No more Lautenberg, period. He is a proved traitor to his oath to uphold our Constitution. No more Schumer; he is Lautenberg’s Page. No more Pelosi. We are not her grandchildren. Ex post facto law is immoral, and I don’t give a damn if the Supreme Court endorsed it being the cowards that they are. The list goes on, but those are the main players in the drum roll to abolish freedom and liberty. Not just here, but world wide. The obaminaion is their lap dog.
Read on…
— Important vote to occur on Tuesday
Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has something to say to gun owners: “Own a gun; lose your coverage!”
Baucus’ socialized health care bill comes up for a Finance Committee vote on Tuesday. We have waited and waited and waited for the shifty Baucus to release legislative language. But he has refused to release anything but a summary — and we will never have a Congressional Budget Office cost assessment based on actual legislation. Even the summary was kept secret for a long time.
But, on the basis of the summary, the Baucus bill (which is still unnumbered) tells us virtually nothing about what kind of policy Americans will be required to purchase under penalty of law — nor the consequences. It simply says:
* “all U.S. citizens and legal residents would be required to purchase coverage through (1) the individual market…”;
* “individuals would be required to report on their federal income tax return the months for which they maintain the required minimum health coverage…”;
* in addition to an extensive list of statutorily mandated coverage, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius would be empowered to “define and update the categories of treatments, items, and services…” within an insurance plan which would be covered in a policy constituting “required minimum health coverage.”
ObamaCare and gun control
It is nearly certain that coverage prescribed by the administration will, to control costs, exclude coverage for what it regards as excessively dangerous activities. And, given Sebelius’ well-established antipathy to the Second Amendment — she vetoed concealed carry legislation as governor of Kansas — we presume she will define these dangerous activities to include hunting and self-defense using a firearm. It is even possible that the Obama-prescribed policy could preclude reimbursement of any kind in a household which keeps a loaded firearm for self-defense.
The ObamaCare bill already contains language that will punish Americans who engage in unhealthy behavior by allowing insurers to charge them higher insurance premiums. (What constitutes an unhealthy lifestyle is, of course, to be defined by legislators.) Don’t be surprised if an anti-gun nut like Sebelius uses this line of thinking to impose ObamaCare policies which result in a back-door gun ban on any American who owns “dangerous” firearms.
After all, insurers already (and routinely) drop homeowners from their policies for owning certain types of guns or for refusing to use trigger locks (that is, for keeping their guns ready for self-defense!). While not all insurers practice this anti-gun behavior, Gun Owners of America has documented that some do — Prudential and State Farm being two of the most well-known.
The good news is that because homeowner insurance is private (and is still subject to the free market) you can go to another company if one drops you. But what are you going to do under nationalized ObamaCare when the regulations written by Secretary Sebelius suspend the applicability of your government-mandated policy because of your gun ownership?
All of this is in addition to something that GOA has been warning you about for several months … the certainty that minimum acceptable policies will dump your gun information into a federal database … a certainty that is reinforced by language in the summary providing for a study to “encourage increased meaningful use of electronic health records.”
Remember, the federal government has already denied more than 150,000 military veterans the right to own guns, without their being convicted of a crime or receiving any due process of law. They were denied because of medical information (such as PTSD) that the FBI later determined disqualified these veterans to own guns.
Is this what we need on a national level being applied to every gun owner in America?
Incidentally, failure to comply would subject the average family to $1,500 in fines — and possibly more for a household with older teens. And, although a Schumer amendment purports to exempt Americans from prison sentences for non-purchase of an ObamaPolicy — something which was never at issue — it doesn’t prohibit them from being sent to prison for a year and fined an additional $25,000 under the Internal Revenue Code for non-payment of the initial fines.
ACTION: Contact your two U.S. Senators. Ask him or her, in the strongest terms, to vote against the phony Baucus bill.
You can use the Gun Owners Legislative Action Center at http://www.gunowners.org/activism.htm to send your senators the pre-written e-mail message below.
—– Pre-written letter —–
Dear Senator:
You already know that the phony Baucus bill:
* Is predicated on $283 billion in phony “cuts” which have never, never ever been realized since a similar commitment to cut Medicare costs in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 — and will never, never ever be realized under the Baucus bill;
* Requires massive numbers of Americans to have government-approved insurance which the CBO predicts will be more expensive than current policies;
* Refuses to provide a cost for these policies, making it almost certain that more and more Americans will find insurance beyond their reach;
* Has no legislative language and nothing but a CBO “guesstimate” of the cost and benefits, based on a summary.
On the basis of the summary, the Baucus bill tells us virtually nothing about what kind of policy Americans will be required to purchase under penalty of law — nor the consequences. It does say that the “Secretary of HHS [Kathleen Sebelius] would be required to define and update the categories of treatments, items, and services…” within an insurance plan which would be covered in a policy constituting “required minimum health coverage.”
This could spell trouble for gun owners.
It is nearly certain that coverage prescribed by the administration will, to control costs, exclude coverage for what it regards as excessively dangerous activities. And, given Sebelius’ well-established antipathy to the Second Amendment — she vetoed concealed carry legislation as governor of Kansas — I presume she will define these dangerous activities to include hunting and self-defense using a firearm. It is even possible that the Obama-prescribed policy could preclude reimbursement of any kind in a household which keeps a loaded firearm for self-defense.
This is, of course, in addition to the certainty that minimum acceptable policies will dump my gun information into a federal database — a certainty that is reinforced by language in the summary providing for a study to “encourage increased meaningful use of electronic health records.”
Incidentally, failure to comply would subject the average family to $1,500 in fines — and possibly more for a household with older teens. And, although a Schumer amendment purports to exempt Americans from prison sentences for non-purchase of an ObamaPolicy — something which was never at issue — it doesn’t prohibit them from being sent to prison for a year and fined an additional $25,000 under the Internal Revenue Code for non-payment of the initial fines.
Please oppose the Baucus bill.
Sincerely,
Living with Wildlife: Elk Rut in Estes Park
October 9, 2009If ever a town could be called a tourist trap Estes Park would be the poster child of any marketing class. Nevertheless it does have its attractions. Watch, and enjoy this thrilling piece dealing with the elk rut. Many other very good videos are located HERE as well. Managing wildlife encounters has become a way of life for the people of Colorado, as well as the DOW.
America’s Top 20 Trophy Elk Counties
October 9, 2009I’ve been blessed living in Colorado and Wyoming in many ways. Not the least of which would be the excellent hunting offered in both states. What of the history involving what is my favorite big game species? As in big racks, not the spiritual connection with nature when one is out in the wilds.
Read on
MISSOULA, Mont.—America’s top 20 trophy elk counties have produced a combined 602 record-book bulls, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has invested millions to keep habitat in those counties in top condition.
Elk Foundation projects in trophy counties have included prescribed burns, treating noxious weeds and thinning overgrown forests to enhance forage for elk and other wildlife, restoring riparian zones, constructing wildlife drinkers, brokering land deals that improve public access, many kinds of research, public and youth education, and more “all funded primarily through our network of volunteers and system of fundraising events,” said David Allen, RMEF president and CEO.
Of course, RMEF funds identical projects all across elk country, not just top trophy counties. Nationwide, at a cost of over $448 million, RMEF has completed 6,371 projects that have protected or enhanced more than 5.6 million acres. The effort has helped U.S. elk populations grow by over 40 percent since 1984.
Trophy statistics below were compiled from Boone and Crockett Club (B&C) records. The club recognizes four categories of elk records. Those categories, along with their respective minimum scores for inclusion in B&C all-time records, are: American typical elk—375, American non-typical elk—385, Roosevelt’s elk—290, and tule elk—285.
Here are America’s top 20 trophy elk counties with RMEF conservation activities*:
Shoot Straight & Be Safe!





