What a perfect day for a protest! The weather was not too cold, not too hot and overcast most of the day but it did not rain on our parade. I heard estimates throughout the day of numbers in attendance ranging from 1.5 to 2.5 million. Our local news reported thousands on one channel and tens of thousands on another. I was told that MSNBC reported 2 million!
Archive for the ‘Education’ Category
Second Amendment March Newsletter
October 9, 2009Joe Arpaio: American hero
October 8, 2009People do what they are driven to do. Some address general issues within society, other times they are more specific, and still others sort of work along a general line but still focused within a parameter. Sheriff Joe Arpaio is one of those types. An equal opportunity Sheriff, he will arrest any law-breaker, and house them accordingly.
How to deal with such an upstart? By golly! Use the race card! It’s always worked in the past after all! So, what do the people in the obamanure administration do? They try and brand him a racist, and attempt to pull his authority that’s what they do to those that don’t fit with their political correctness agenda. Judgment Day is coming next year progressives, and when that day comes your amnesty dream plan, along with many others will be heading straight into the toilet. Where it belongs…
Hat tip to a relatively new blogger for what follows.
And that folks,was followed up by the sycophants here…
The issue is not about racism. Not at all. It is about enforcing our laws, and national security. Nothing more, and nothing less.
Butter or Guns?
October 7, 2009Butter or guns? That question is a classic when you study economics. It involves just about everything, not just guns and butter though. It is about choices, called Opportunity Cost that you and I make everyday, and all of the time. However, when it strays into the realm of Political Economics? Strange things happen.
All too often we allow others to make personal judgments on our behalf when we should be doing the hard lifting ourselves.
Read on…
In the 1856 case Dred Scott v. Sandford, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the idea that Africans and their descendants in the United States could be “entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens.” To emphasize how absurd that notion was, Chief Justice Roger Taney noted that, among other things, those “privileges and immunities” would allow members of “the unhappy black race” to “keep and carry arms wherever they went.”
The 14th Amendment, approved in the wake of the Civil War, repudiated Taney’s view of the Constitution, declaring that “no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens,” who include “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” Just four years after the amendment was ratified, however, the Supreme Court interpreted the Privileges or Immunities Clause so narrowly that a dissenting justice said it had been transformed into a “vain and idle enactment.” The Court now has a chance to rectify that mistake—fittingly enough, in a case involving the right to arms.
Last week the Court agreed to hear a Second Amendment challenge to Chicago’s handgun ban. Since that law is very similar to the Washington, D.C., ordinance that the Court declared unconstitutional last year, it is bound to be overturned, assuming the Court concludes that the Second Amendment applies not just to the federal government (which oversees the District of Columbia) but also to states and their subsidiaries.
That seems like a pretty safe assumption, since over the years the Court has said the 14th Amendment’s “incorporates” nearly all of the guarantees in the Bill of Rights. But the Court’s reasoning in applying the Second Amendment to the states could have implications far beyond the right to arms. If it cites the Privileges or Immunities Clause instead of (or in addition to) the usual rationale for incorporation, the 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause, it can prepare the ground for a renaissance of economic liberty.
Directly related to the above…
The website for all the Chicago case filings is here. For 19th century history, Stephen Halbrook is by far the most important scholar. His articles include: The Freedmen’s Bureau Act and the Conundrum Over Whether the Fourteenth Amendment Incorporates the Second Amendment, Northern Kentucky Law Review (2002); Personal Security, Personal Liberty, and The Constitutional Right to Bear Arms: Visions of the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment, Seton Hall Constitutional Journal (1995); The Right of Workers to Assemble and to Bear Arms: Presser v. Illinois, One of the Last Holdouts Against Application of the Bill of Rights to the States, University of Detroit Mercy Law Review (1999); and (co-authored with Cynthia Leonardatos and me), Miller versus Texas: Plice Violence, Race Relations, Capital Punishment, and Gun-Toting in Texas in the Nineteenth Century–and Today, Journal of Law and Policy (2001).The lead attorney in the Supreme Court case of McDonald v. Chicago is Alan Gura. He did an excellent job in District of Columbia v. Heller, so the new case is in very good hands.
Acting 101: political propaganda
October 7, 2009This looks so staged it has to be from the mind of a script writer. It is also, clearly, an act that involves a straw purchase or the attempt to do so.
The Felon Mayor Bloomberg, is above the law, at least that is what a Federal Judge ruled. If it were a common citizen pulling these shenanigans? Can you say prison..?
Onward Hopolophobe soldiers! We are onto your games.
Is the Bill of Rights toilet tissue?
October 7, 2009The Bill of Rights places restrictions on what government may, and may not do. A pretty simple concept really. However, big government types and lawyers over the years sound a lot like economist’s do. As in making something that is fairly simple to understand into something utterly unfathomable. It’s understandable, after all. Lawyers need to make a living, as do bureaucrats. Politicians for the most part are driven by inner forces and recognition needs, that are for the most part noted by Maslow.
That’s all well and good as far as understanding what drives people to do what they do. In fact, I think that a lot of the people who I mentioned above are well intentioned. However, a well intentioned rogue is still a rogue, and unintended consequences may not be all that unintended.
By example, we are more than aware that the current administration is filled with people who are not only hostile to the Constitution but also are outspoken enemies of the Bill of Rights.
Across this nation the States are taking on the Federal Government over the usurpation of States Rights in numbers not seen since the War of Northern aggression.
Just short of secession many states are telling the Federal Government to just plain back off. Enough is enough if you will. Perhaps if the Supreme Court had issued a blanket ruling that incorporation of the Bill of Rights applied to all of the states, all the way down to the smallest level of government this would not be happening. But, they didn’t, and things are getting a bit dicey as a result.
Montana is leading the charge, and the people that brought you Ruby Ridge and the American Holocaust are, like good little serfs fighting back.
Don’t fall into the trap that this is about gun control even if that is in fact the direct issue at hand. It is about your freedom and liberty.
Failed States: No not Somalia
October 7, 2009California, the golden state, the land of American dreams, the place where I was born. What was once a land of milk and honey in the eyes of many is taking a hard dive into reality. I left there in 1978 after the passing of Proposition 13 made two classes of citizens a matter of law. It sealed me and so many others into a group of never will haves. It was big government mob rule democracy at it’s worst.
People are saying that unemployment is the worst it has been in sixty years. I beg to differ. During the Carter fiasco real unemployment in San Diego County was in reality well over twenty percent among the non government sector. I had people with advanced degrees pumping gas along side me at University City Arco.
The answer, at the time, was more socialism, and higher taxes. At least that was the solution offered up by Governor Moonbat and crew. New laws on Gun Control were being passed faster than most Californians could keep up with. New laws on vehicle emissions made it all but impossible to keep your vehicle running. At least legally.
The police concentrated on those dope smoking hippies and anyone that didn’t wear a crew cut while allowing white collar criminals the run of the state. The elites, when they were prosecuted, were given a slap on the wrist, or allowed to post bail and run across a border like Polanski did.
While at the same time a friend came home and found two thugs raping his wife. They then beat him to a pulp, until he was able to get to his 357, and put an end to their nefarious ways. The California response to that home invasion and sexual assault was to imprison him. He died there, and his wife later committed suicide. So much for the California dream, and that was many, many years gone by.
Lead by a RINO California is still in trouble up to it’s nose, and may very well be going down for the third time. I blame the people for the states demise. They keep on electing big government authoritarians. People who believe that others are too stupid for their own good. People who believe that government has the answer to every problem. People who are better than thou, and that will show you the error of your ways.
The Guardian wrote a really swell piece about all this. The grammar and spelling are magnificent. Worthy of superior marks in English Composition. But, the article misses the point completely even as they do such an eloquent job of describing the situation unfolding in California.
I started this blog a few years ago, and, as I stated in one of the earliest pieces. Government most often creates problems, or makes them worse. While Freedom, and Liberty find solutions. My thoughts have not changed.
Warfighter 101: The Taliban lamentations
October 6, 2009“Information, the first principle of warfare. Know thine enemy, but first you must know yourself.” Was that Sun Tzu? A later strategist? Who cares really, it is fundamental knowledge, and GWB blew it. The other day I started reading a rather long article. One that should be required reading for every Officer and NCO in our entire Armed Forces as well as the Commander in Chief.
In war, it is, and has been for some time a well understood tactic that winning the brain game can ensure a victory. Sometimes even without bloodshed, or minimized actual violence. Destroy the enemy’s will to fight; demoralize him, make him believe in his heart and soul that he cannot be victorious. Target any leaders that will spring up among them, and destroy them, utterly. To drive the point home. Let them hear the lamentations of not only their women, as Conan would say, but of their fellow warriors as well. Make them believe that even their God has forsaken them… Victory will be assured.
We, as in the allied forces were about to make history. The Taliban were on the ropes and a real win, by outsiders, had never before been done in Afghanistan.
But then, we took our eye off the target. It was as if we were at a Trap Shoot and shifted from singles to doubles without taking out the first clay first…
Doubt my words? Read this, in it’s entirety. Yes, it is a long read. Nothing of true value is ever easy though. This is however invaluable , if you are to understand the psychology of warfare. Of victory, and war-fighting.
FCC strikes at those that Blog: endorsements under fire
October 6, 2009We told you that the FCC was about to begin regulating the internet, and no, not just about child porn and terrorism. It seems that endorsements will be targeted, and yes, by means of force and / or fear. For the moment, it appears that only money making is targeted. Soon though I can see them going after political blogs as well. The devil will be in the details to be sure, the new FCC Czar notwithstanding. To be sure, this has been in the works for some time, and in all honesty I simply cannot blame the current administration for dreaming up this authoritarian camels nose.
So? Full disclosure: I looked at my blogroll and sidebar and found, right there at the top, Front Sight Training. Yes they do charge for their services. They also have more give away programs than I can keep track of. Including a certificate that I was sent that is for a free course, of my choosing which to date I have not availed myself of. Then there is the Gun Owners of America, and the National Rifle Association. Both of which collect dues, and accept donations. I receive nothing from them other than using their “contact my representative” tools, and use some of their works on this blog, or in citations. On occasion I receive a hat or some other trinket. But never any actual money.
So there you have it. How long before the FCC uses the IRS to become their attack dog? How long until a pattern emerges where it will become obvious that Conservative, Libertarian, or Constitutionalists blogs are being targeted while left wing hit sheets like Moveon.org and the notorious Hufpo are allowed to spew hate and vindictive unabated?
Read on…
Bloggers who offer endorsements must disclose any payments they have received from the subjects of their reviews or face penalties of up to $11,000 per violation, the Federal Trade Commission said Monday.
The agency, charged with protecting consumer interests, had not updated its policy on endorsements in nearly three decades, well before the Internet became a force in shaping consumer tastes. The new rules attempt to make more transparent corporate payments to bloggers, research firms and celebrities that help promote a product.
“Given that social media has become such a significant player in the advertising area, we thought it was necessary to address social media as well,” said Richard Cleland, assistant director for the division of advertising practices at the FTC.
Bloomberg Follies: 450 Mayors Petition Obama To Adopt Broad Gun Reform
October 5, 2009It would figure that a Straw Purchase Felon and his cronies would seek to get even more money for a rouge agency to hammer their agenda home. Using the same old lies and misrepresentations to forward their warped plan for hegemony over you and yours.
We, the people, need to put a stop to these renegades that have committed treason to their oaths.
Read about this latest threat HERE
To Arms! To Arms! The Canucks are coming!
October 3, 2009At least that sure appears to a major concern of the impostor in chief. Granted, in this day and age we need secure borders more then ever. Will there ever be a President with the balls to actually do it though..?
The U.S. Border Patrol, part of the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection, is responsible for securing a total of 8,607 miles of border, including the U.S.-Mexico border, the U.S.-Canada border and some sectors of coastline. Each year, the Border Patrol sets a goal for “border miles under effective control (including certain coastal sectors),” defined as an area in which the Border Patrol detects an illegal border crosser and can be expected to succeed in apprehending that person.
In its May performance review, DHS said the Border Patrol’s goal for fiscal 2009 was to have 815 of the 8,607 miles of border — less than 10 percent — under “effective control.” The goal remains the same for fiscal 2010, meaning DHS does not plan to secure a single additional mile of border in the coming year. On Aug. 31, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report to Congress on the effectiveness of the Border Patrol. Its findings were not exactly encouraging.
For example, the Border Patrol established three performance measures to report the results of checkpoint operations, and while they provide some insight into checkpoint activity, they do not indicate if checkpoints are operating efficiently and effectively. Second, GAO found that a lack of management oversight and unclear checkpoint data-collection guidance resulted in the overstatement of checkpoint performance results in recent reports, as well as inconsistent data collection practices at checkpoints. Furthermore, individuals GAO contacted who live near checkpoints generally supported their operations but expressed concerns regarding property damage that occurs when illegal aliens and smugglers circumvent checkpoints to avoid apprehension.
Here’s the kicker: The U.S.-Mexico border is 1,954 miles long, with only 697 miles under “effective control,” but the Border Patrol plans to decrease the 17,399 Border Patrol agents on that border by 384 agents in Fiscal 2009. Some 414 will be added to the Canadian border for a total of 2,212. Maybe BO is concerned about the Canucks crossing the border for U.S. health care — at least until ObamaCare ruins that option.
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