Please go and read the article in Townhall.com entitled ATF Ignored Death Threats, Tried to Frame Whistleblower Agent to Cover Up Corruption by Katie Pavlich. A hat tip, and a big "thank you" to David Hardy of the blog Of Arms and the Law. I'll have some comments when you are done. Take your time, and just digest what has been done to both Jay Dobyns, and to Vince Cefalu et al.
Done? Good.
Look, this is what happens any time a government, whether Federal, State, or local, seeks to enforce the law by breaking it. Even with the best of intentions, eventually the government itself becomes just another criminal gang. Criminals do not, by definition, obey laws, and operate without rules. But we expect our government, on the other hand, to scrupulously obey the laws it has made, and follow due process in all matters. If the government's hands are not clean, it begs the question by what right does it sit in judgement of everyone else? Presumably, the government makes laws that advantage itself, so if they can not live within the law, who can?
Everyone should be outraged by the criminal behavior written about in the above article. While it may temporarily advantage one political party or another, everyone should want to get to the bottom of it, for it is surely a bipartisan issue. Attempts by the press to ignore this story because "their man" is currently in the White House only show up the biases of the press, but do not serve readers interests. What is displayed here, is the thugocracy in action, and everyone should recognize that sooner or later, the thugocracy will come after everybody, supporter and opponent alike. It always happens that way; read your history. If the press refuses to speak up now, there will be nobody to speak for the press when its turn comes. Its only hope it to make this an epic scandal. Remember that 200 Mexicans, and at least 18 Americans were killed. KILLED. Dead as a result of what these criminals did.
As for the citizen disarmament gang, do you really trust the government with a monopoly of power? If so, why? What has the government done to earn your trust?
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Important News You Won't Hear from the MSM
A great little piece from John Lott over at Fox News. Lott says the "Media silence is deafening about important gun news." And what news, you say? It is the lowering of the murder rates in the City of Chicago, that's what news.
Once again gun rights advocates have been proven correct. Will the Violence Policy Center be listening?
But Armageddon never happened. Newly released data for Chicago shows that, as in Washington, murder and gun crime rates didn't rise after the bans were eliminated -- they plummeted. They have fallen much more than the national crime rate.
Once again gun rights advocates have been proven correct. Will the Violence Policy Center be listening?
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Fast and Furious now coming fast and furious
I had thought to do a Gunwalker update today, to bring my generous readers up to speed on a rapidly moving story, but Mike Vanderboegh beat me to it in a post at Sipsey Street Irregulars. The big news, of course, is the Subpoena issued by Rep. Darryl Issa Monday for a staggering array of documents from the Attorney General, and his top staff. Meanwhile, Mike V. and David Codrea report that Obama apparently knew that Eric Holder knew nothing about Fast and Furious before Holder knew he knew nothing about Fast and Furious...I think. Go check out the National Gun Rights Examiner. In fact, go check it out every day.
Stories about Fast and Furious have appeared on CBS, with Sharyl Attkison, on Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Judge Napolitano. Some of the stories have gotten some of the details wrong, but in the main have gotten the overall story correct. My own completely unscientific polling on the scandal suggests that at least a dim awareness of the story is getting out to most of the people, though the proportions of it have not yet hit the general population. So let's review shall we? The ATF let an estimated 2000 guns "walk" into Mexico and into the hands of Mexican criminal gangs. Some of these weapons were purchased using taxpayer funds. As a result of this callous plan to let them go and to see where they turned up, two Federal Agents were killed, 200 Mexican civilians were killed, and an estimated 18 U. S. civilians were killed. It now appears that the FBI, the DEA, Homeland Security and the State Department may be involved. For instance, there are indications that the FBI may have allowed a prohibited person to purchase weapons by manipulating the NISC database. The Government is thereby disobeying its own laws in order, we are told, to enforce the law. How does that work?
A few stories have popped up citing a Bush era plan, similar to Fast and Furious, to let straw buyers purchase weapons, which were then outfitted with RFID tags. The ATF had planes overhead following the weapons as they made their way to the border. The RFID tags were poorly placed, often limiting the range of the tags, and the gun runners would wait until the planes had to return for fuel, and then dash across the border. The embarrassed ATF lost track of the guns. 500 weapons were involved, and the ATF shut it down pretty quickly when they were unable to keep track of the guns. Lesson, supposedly, learned. Along comes the Obama administration, with an even bigger plan to let guns walk. More, they didn't even try to track the guns, just see where they turned up. So why are these stories popping up now? Well, it has to do with Lefty thinking, which is often childlike. Remember as a kid, when you wanted to do something, and your mother said no? Often you would cite another child who was allowed to do it. In your mind, at the time, that should have ended the argument. But you mother came out with something like "And if (name of child) jumped over a cliff, would you do it?" Of course you wouldn't, but the point is that because others may or may not have gotten away with something does not excuse you. But Leftys, being rather childlike, will say "But Bush...." It wasn't the same, but even if Bush "got away with it" doesn't excuse this administration.
Multiple laws, both domestic and international were broken. As a result, people were killed. Those who broke the law, or sanctioned breaking the law, should be punished. If our elected officials are not subject to the laws they make for the rest of us, then the United States can no longer be said to be a representative republic. Instead, it will have become a dictatorship.
Update: CBS is reporting that we can add grenades to the things being smuggled across the border. Now, to be clear, grenades are not something a U. S. citizen may buy or posses. The fallacy that gun shows are a flea market for buying military hardware is myth kept alive by the gun grabbers for political points. But if you want to see for yourself, go to a gun show. There's no secret handshake, and everyone is invited. Ask around about machine guns, or grenades, grenade launchers, or what have you. Go ahead.
Stories about Fast and Furious have appeared on CBS, with Sharyl Attkison, on Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Judge Napolitano. Some of the stories have gotten some of the details wrong, but in the main have gotten the overall story correct. My own completely unscientific polling on the scandal suggests that at least a dim awareness of the story is getting out to most of the people, though the proportions of it have not yet hit the general population. So let's review shall we? The ATF let an estimated 2000 guns "walk" into Mexico and into the hands of Mexican criminal gangs. Some of these weapons were purchased using taxpayer funds. As a result of this callous plan to let them go and to see where they turned up, two Federal Agents were killed, 200 Mexican civilians were killed, and an estimated 18 U. S. civilians were killed. It now appears that the FBI, the DEA, Homeland Security and the State Department may be involved. For instance, there are indications that the FBI may have allowed a prohibited person to purchase weapons by manipulating the NISC database. The Government is thereby disobeying its own laws in order, we are told, to enforce the law. How does that work?
A few stories have popped up citing a Bush era plan, similar to Fast and Furious, to let straw buyers purchase weapons, which were then outfitted with RFID tags. The ATF had planes overhead following the weapons as they made their way to the border. The RFID tags were poorly placed, often limiting the range of the tags, and the gun runners would wait until the planes had to return for fuel, and then dash across the border. The embarrassed ATF lost track of the guns. 500 weapons were involved, and the ATF shut it down pretty quickly when they were unable to keep track of the guns. Lesson, supposedly, learned. Along comes the Obama administration, with an even bigger plan to let guns walk. More, they didn't even try to track the guns, just see where they turned up. So why are these stories popping up now? Well, it has to do with Lefty thinking, which is often childlike. Remember as a kid, when you wanted to do something, and your mother said no? Often you would cite another child who was allowed to do it. In your mind, at the time, that should have ended the argument. But you mother came out with something like "And if (name of child) jumped over a cliff, would you do it?" Of course you wouldn't, but the point is that because others may or may not have gotten away with something does not excuse you. But Leftys, being rather childlike, will say "But Bush...." It wasn't the same, but even if Bush "got away with it" doesn't excuse this administration.
Multiple laws, both domestic and international were broken. As a result, people were killed. Those who broke the law, or sanctioned breaking the law, should be punished. If our elected officials are not subject to the laws they make for the rest of us, then the United States can no longer be said to be a representative republic. Instead, it will have become a dictatorship.
Update: CBS is reporting that we can add grenades to the things being smuggled across the border. Now, to be clear, grenades are not something a U. S. citizen may buy or posses. The fallacy that gun shows are a flea market for buying military hardware is myth kept alive by the gun grabbers for political points. But if you want to see for yourself, go to a gun show. There's no secret handshake, and everyone is invited. Ask around about machine guns, or grenades, grenade launchers, or what have you. Go ahead.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
OWS Just Gets Better and Better
I wasn't going to do another piece on the "Occupy Wall Street" (OWS) crowd, because I believe it is a disgusting temper tantrum put on by children who don't have to gumption to get a degree in mathematics, physics, chemistry, or engineering. They didn't have the gumption to go to trade school and become a machinist, a carpenter, a brick layer, or one of thousands of jobs that need doing. No, instead we have a bunch of kids who major in some sort of "studies" like transgendered studies, womyn studies, or black studies, or, well, pick an irrelevant topic. Or they go to film school. How many film school graduates do we need? Hasn't anyone noticed that the most successful films were done before there were film schools? Has anyone noticed that today the movies consist of a lot of remakes of older classic films? I refer to such wastes of time and money as getting a degree in basket weaving.
Mark Steyn, writing at the National Review Online has a piece, American Autumn written in his usual pithy style with all the irony and sarcasm he is noted for when commenting on the cultural scene. Mark Steyn:
The problem is that too many people see nothing wrong with mooching off the "system," indeed, demanding more. But the "system" consists of you and me. If you take, it necessarily comes out of my pocket. That is theft, pure and simple. Oh, and by the way, I include corporate welfare and subsides in my condemnation. The "too big to fail" banks and auto companies, the Solyndras, Big Oil, the sugar growers, the corn growers, and on, and on, and on. What is wrong with America is not "the corporations" per se, but the fact that governments have insisted on picking winners and losers. Nobody needs to pick a winner in the case of iPad; the market picks it for you. To the degree that some bankers have committed crimes, I believe some of them should be serving time. But I also believe there are a few Congressmen who also should be serving time with them. Just sayin'.
Now, it appears that at least some of the protesters at OWS maybe paid to protest by a political party. Ms. Pelosi, call your office...
Update: Francis Porretto, over at Eternity Road has more on the evil being paraded before the American public at The Writing on the Wall. Porretto paints a picture of the United States once again returning to a pre-industrial age. Romantics think that such a way of life would be peachy. In reality, it would be quite horrific. In the pre-industrial period, and indeed right up to the closing years of the 19th Century, most children did not live to the age of three. Those that survived that long could look forward to a hard scrabble life in which most people were used up by age 35. Girls as young as 10-12 had babies (because they if they didn't, they probably wouldn't live long enough to raise them), and huge numbers of women died in child birth. Boys of 15 years a age were already working and had little time for an education. Just think of Afghanistan, only worse. To give you a standard by which to measure, consider that today, the poorest American lives a materially better life than George Washington or Thomas Jefferson did. Now consider what it will be like if these cretins have their way.
Mark Steyn, writing at the National Review Online has a piece, American Autumn written in his usual pithy style with all the irony and sarcasm he is noted for when commenting on the cultural scene. Mark Steyn:
Who was Steve Jobs? Well, he was a guy who founded a corporation and spent his life as a corporate executive manufacturing corporate products. So he wouldn’t have endeared himself to the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd, even though, underneath the patchouli and lentils, most of them are abundantly accessorized with iPhones and iPads and iPods loaded with iTunes, if only for when the drum circle goes for a bathroom break.
The above is a somewhat obvious point, although the fact that it’s not obvious even to protesters with an industrial-strength lack of self-awareness is a big part of the problem. But it goes beyond that: If you don’t like to think of Jobs as a corporate exec (and a famously demanding one at that), think of him as a guy who went to work, and worked hard. There’s no appetite for that among those “occupying” Zuccotti Park. In the old days, the tribunes of the masses demanded an honest wage for honest work. Today, the tribunes of America’s leisured varsity class demand a world that puts “people before profits.” If the specifics of their “program” are somewhat contradictory, the general vibe is consistent: They wish to enjoy an advanced Western lifestyle without earning an advanced Western living. The pampered, elderly children of a fin de civilisation overdeveloped world, they appear to regard life as an unending vacation whose bill never comes due.
The problem is that too many people see nothing wrong with mooching off the "system," indeed, demanding more. But the "system" consists of you and me. If you take, it necessarily comes out of my pocket. That is theft, pure and simple. Oh, and by the way, I include corporate welfare and subsides in my condemnation. The "too big to fail" banks and auto companies, the Solyndras, Big Oil, the sugar growers, the corn growers, and on, and on, and on. What is wrong with America is not "the corporations" per se, but the fact that governments have insisted on picking winners and losers. Nobody needs to pick a winner in the case of iPad; the market picks it for you. To the degree that some bankers have committed crimes, I believe some of them should be serving time. But I also believe there are a few Congressmen who also should be serving time with them. Just sayin'.
Now, it appears that at least some of the protesters at OWS maybe paid to protest by a political party. Ms. Pelosi, call your office...
Update: Francis Porretto, over at Eternity Road has more on the evil being paraded before the American public at The Writing on the Wall. Porretto paints a picture of the United States once again returning to a pre-industrial age. Romantics think that such a way of life would be peachy. In reality, it would be quite horrific. In the pre-industrial period, and indeed right up to the closing years of the 19th Century, most children did not live to the age of three. Those that survived that long could look forward to a hard scrabble life in which most people were used up by age 35. Girls as young as 10-12 had babies (because they if they didn't, they probably wouldn't live long enough to raise them), and huge numbers of women died in child birth. Boys of 15 years a age were already working and had little time for an education. Just think of Afghanistan, only worse. To give you a standard by which to measure, consider that today, the poorest American lives a materially better life than George Washington or Thomas Jefferson did. Now consider what it will be like if these cretins have their way.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Poor Little Rich Kids at the Occupy Wall Street Rally
A Dana Summers Cartoon says it all.
I have been watching, with a jaundiced eye, the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters, while watching the Gunwalker scandal and the other news with the one eye that is good. I remember the similar protests, or "sit-ins," or whatever they were variously called in the 1960s. I remember the so-called "Rap sessions" where students sat around in a circle sharing their ignorance with each other, and feeling smug that they were getting a better education that way. What a waste of their parents' money! But that's the point. A lot of these kids are relatively well off, or even rich, and are spending money they didn't earn on a lark. They will have great memories when they are old, and who knows, some may find love and marry.
As today, so it was in the 1960s, that people did not spontaneously arise and become a mob. Every instance of protest was invariably led by professional agitators behind the scenes. Of course Occupy Wall Street is no different. And the demands produced by the protesters of Occupy Wall Street are meant to give our students something to make them feel like they are really doing something. What pikers! For instance, look at the lousy minimum wage demand. If a minimum wage actually worked, then why not demand $100 per hour minimum? Or how about this: Uncle Benny over at the Fed could print up $100,000...no, $200,000 and send it out to each of us! Then we'd all be rich, eh...eh? Yeah, that's the ticket! But of course the organizers know that the higher they make the minimum wage, the more people will be shut out of the job market. If the minimum wage were $100 per hour, then anyone not producing a net $250 per hour, with benefits included, would not be hired. Similarly, if Keynesianism actually worked, then sending out $100, 000 to everybody would be a great idea. But everybody in Washington knows what a disaster that would be. If they know that, then they also know that they have been lying to everybody for decades.
Daniels Greenfield, of the blog Sultan Knish had a particularly pointed take on the Occupy Wall Street protesters the other day in a piece entitled Days of Rage, Hours of Opportunism. Go read the whole thing. It is instructive.
What Occupy Wall Street and similar staged events around the country are intended to do is allow Obama to declare martial law and suspend elections, because otherwise the President and his party are going to have another pounding at the polls come November 2012. The unions who support this administration have seen the handwriting on the wall when they tried to recall those Wisconsin legislators. Now they have to get really dirty. So far, the protests have been relatively peaceful, but I can't help but believe that they have worse planned. Looking at Gunwalker, it is also clear that this administration has no compunction about killing people for the cause. So keep a jaundiced eye on the protests that are no doubt coming your way soon.
I have been watching, with a jaundiced eye, the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters, while watching the Gunwalker scandal and the other news with the one eye that is good. I remember the similar protests, or "sit-ins," or whatever they were variously called in the 1960s. I remember the so-called "Rap sessions" where students sat around in a circle sharing their ignorance with each other, and feeling smug that they were getting a better education that way. What a waste of their parents' money! But that's the point. A lot of these kids are relatively well off, or even rich, and are spending money they didn't earn on a lark. They will have great memories when they are old, and who knows, some may find love and marry.
As today, so it was in the 1960s, that people did not spontaneously arise and become a mob. Every instance of protest was invariably led by professional agitators behind the scenes. Of course Occupy Wall Street is no different. And the demands produced by the protesters of Occupy Wall Street are meant to give our students something to make them feel like they are really doing something. What pikers! For instance, look at the lousy minimum wage demand. If a minimum wage actually worked, then why not demand $100 per hour minimum? Or how about this: Uncle Benny over at the Fed could print up $100,000...no, $200,000 and send it out to each of us! Then we'd all be rich, eh...eh? Yeah, that's the ticket! But of course the organizers know that the higher they make the minimum wage, the more people will be shut out of the job market. If the minimum wage were $100 per hour, then anyone not producing a net $250 per hour, with benefits included, would not be hired. Similarly, if Keynesianism actually worked, then sending out $100, 000 to everybody would be a great idea. But everybody in Washington knows what a disaster that would be. If they know that, then they also know that they have been lying to everybody for decades.
Daniels Greenfield, of the blog Sultan Knish had a particularly pointed take on the Occupy Wall Street protesters the other day in a piece entitled Days of Rage, Hours of Opportunism. Go read the whole thing. It is instructive.
The last time I passed the Days of Rage protesters in downtown Manhattan, amid their litter of expensive camping equipment, iPhone chargers, mobile hotspots and handwritten cardboard signs, they reminded me of people who walk up to you in bars pretending that they just discovered a new brand of beer they want to share with you. Those people are plants, so are the people with torn cardboard signs surrounded by a few thousand dollars of equipment.These people call themselves the "vanguard." You won't find actual out of work "working people" at the rally. Instead, what you have is rich young people who have convinced themselves that they are the voice for the poor and downtrodden. If only the "working people" could shake themselves out of their "false consciousnesses" and realize their true power. Our intrepid vanguard of course needs to raise peoples awareness. Such are the pipe dreams of people who have never had to figure out where the next meal is coming from, whether to buy shoes for the kids or pay the mortgage, never had to eat beans and rice, or rice and beans. These soft hands have never actually handled a wrench or a screw driver, and wouldn't know a bolt from a nut.
There are people who have reason to be enraged at Wall Street, but they rarely show up at rallies. They are too busy working a second job in their seventies or sitting outside a factory that was shipped off to China. And the people who do show up at rallies invariably have nothing to do with Wall Street and are financed by billionaires who made their money, directly or indirectly, in the stock market.
What Occupy Wall Street and similar staged events around the country are intended to do is allow Obama to declare martial law and suspend elections, because otherwise the President and his party are going to have another pounding at the polls come November 2012. The unions who support this administration have seen the handwriting on the wall when they tried to recall those Wisconsin legislators. Now they have to get really dirty. So far, the protests have been relatively peaceful, but I can't help but believe that they have worse planned. Looking at Gunwalker, it is also clear that this administration has no compunction about killing people for the cause. So keep a jaundiced eye on the protests that are no doubt coming your way soon.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
The Evil that Men Do
Fellow North Carolina blogger Randy Dye has more on the outrage perpetrated by Governor Bev Perdue this last week over at Randy's Right. In turn, Randy points to a Canada Free Press article entitled "Warning: The Threat of Suspended Elections is Real" in which the author makes the same point that I did, namely that Perdue put up a trial balloon for the Administration. Randy has a segment from the Rush Limbaugh show that claims that if the election were held today, Obama would lose in a landslide.
I had a brief time to talk to an elderly gentleman Friday, to see what he thought. He is a retired practicing attorney, so has some familiarity with the Constitution. His first thoughts were that it was impossible. But I pointed out that if you had an administration that did not care about the law, that might even be considered lawless, was it really inconceivable? He pondered that a while, then said that he didn't like that our politics had become so polarized that both sides see the other as evil. I asked if he believed Obama was a socialist? He agreed that Obama was a Marxist of some stripe, but said the theory behind socialism was not evil. I pointed out that in the twentieth century Marxists of various stripes had killed an estimated 100 million of their own people. Wasn't that evil? We both agreed that Socialist theory ignored human nature, and that was its fatal flaw. I pointed out that even if the theory is not in and of itself evil, that those who lust for power over all eventually rise to the top in these countries, and great evil is done in Socialism's name. We ended up agreeing that this will be the case until Christ comes again.
Judi McLeod, in her Canada Free Press article, makes a point that unless patriots act now to stop the administration by all legal means, the President will likely ensure his re-election by suspending elections. I had a post on 25 October 2008 in which I highlighted Laura Hollis' article in Townhall.com that outlined the very situation we are now facing. A catastrophe is conjured up, doesn't matter what as long as it can get the people panicked, and so for the good of the nation, the President is suspending elections. But what do we do to stop it? First of all, this is not the time to hand the administration a ready made emergency, although that is exactly what the Left is trying to accomplish with things like it's Days of Rage. But you can be prepared. Have your food and water stored. Have ammunition for defense of yourself and family, and your neighbors. If you can afford it, have some of your cash in the form of gold or silver in small enough denominations to be readily tradeable should our economy turn in that direction. Unplug as much as you can. If you have a law degree, consider joining with others to find a way to harass the administration in the courts. There may be other things we can do. But, as Mike Vanderboegh has said, "No Fort Sumter's."
May God bring us safely through the mess we have created.
I had a brief time to talk to an elderly gentleman Friday, to see what he thought. He is a retired practicing attorney, so has some familiarity with the Constitution. His first thoughts were that it was impossible. But I pointed out that if you had an administration that did not care about the law, that might even be considered lawless, was it really inconceivable? He pondered that a while, then said that he didn't like that our politics had become so polarized that both sides see the other as evil. I asked if he believed Obama was a socialist? He agreed that Obama was a Marxist of some stripe, but said the theory behind socialism was not evil. I pointed out that in the twentieth century Marxists of various stripes had killed an estimated 100 million of their own people. Wasn't that evil? We both agreed that Socialist theory ignored human nature, and that was its fatal flaw. I pointed out that even if the theory is not in and of itself evil, that those who lust for power over all eventually rise to the top in these countries, and great evil is done in Socialism's name. We ended up agreeing that this will be the case until Christ comes again.
Judi McLeod, in her Canada Free Press article, makes a point that unless patriots act now to stop the administration by all legal means, the President will likely ensure his re-election by suspending elections. I had a post on 25 October 2008 in which I highlighted Laura Hollis' article in Townhall.com that outlined the very situation we are now facing. A catastrophe is conjured up, doesn't matter what as long as it can get the people panicked, and so for the good of the nation, the President is suspending elections. But what do we do to stop it? First of all, this is not the time to hand the administration a ready made emergency, although that is exactly what the Left is trying to accomplish with things like it's Days of Rage. But you can be prepared. Have your food and water stored. Have ammunition for defense of yourself and family, and your neighbors. If you can afford it, have some of your cash in the form of gold or silver in small enough denominations to be readily tradeable should our economy turn in that direction. Unplug as much as you can. If you have a law degree, consider joining with others to find a way to harass the administration in the courts. There may be other things we can do. But, as Mike Vanderboegh has said, "No Fort Sumter's."
May God bring us safely through the mess we have created.
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