Using Leftist Methods Against Them

David Codrea over at the War on Guns has hit on an capital idea! Codrea suggest we sue the government to force them to enjoin the amnesty of illegals until an environmental impact statement is completed. It is truly genius, since we would be using Leftists own methods against them. Go read it. Meanwhile, I want to look into it further.

Ferguson...

I've got a long "honey do" list today, getting ready for family and friends coming into town for the Thanksgiving weekend, but I thought I would highlight one little piece from Townhall.com entitled The Top Four Liberal Reactions to Ferguson Grand Jury by Michael Schaus. Of these four, which are all outrageous, the one by a writer named Harold Itzkowitz stands as the dumbest. Since I can't copy twitter posts, I will have to retype what was said. Itzkowitz wrote:

So, stealing Cigarillos and jaywalking brings the death penalty.

Schaus writes in response:

Well, no. Committing a strong-armed robbery is not, by itself, justification for a death penalty. But premature death is certainly a distinct possibility for anyone attempting to attack and disarm a police officer.

So, to answer your question: I guess it depends on how you react when a cop tries to talk to you about jaywalking. (Hint: Don’t reach for his gun.)

Just so. Michael Brown's death was a tragedy, but it was also all in Michael Brown's hands. By initiating aggression, he elicited an aggressive response which resulted in his own death. That his parents and the community can not work these simple things out goes to the moral decay that has taken place in America. In general, one can not know the intentions of another, but when someone grabs for your weapon during a struggle, its a safe bet they plan to use it against you.

Indeed, the story that is presented by the Left, and the actual facts as presented to the Grand Jury as they are reported so far, are so at odds, that it makes one wonder why the protestors did not choose a more sympathetic victim over whom to make their case.  If the claim is that white police officers go around shooting innocent black people for no reason, then why not choose a truly innocent guy as the victim?  Surely there must be one or two out there if the claims are correct.  But to have Feguson in flames today over Michael Brown, a man about whom people on the outside looking in can see made bad decisions which led to his own demise, raises the suspicion that what these people actually want is the right not to be held accountable for their illegal acts.  In essense, they want the right to act like barbarians without consequences.

Is that so?  And by what right do you make these claims?

Lois Lerner's Emails Found

You have probably read about or heard that Obama has signed an executive order changing the immigration law to allow 5 million illegals to remain in the United States, and grants an amnesty. In doing so, he his claiming the rights of a dictator, and emperor, a king, whatever word you want to use to describe him. He claims to be above the law, to actually make law. He even claims to be able to dictate to the Congress, since at one point he offered and excuse that Congress had failed to act as he thought they should. What arrogance! Of course the Constitutional remedy is to impeach him, but nobody will for fear of being called racists. You are also likely aware of Ferguson, Missouri, where apparently blacks are working very hard to start a race war. It is very distressing that people still buy into the race baiters bitter hatred, which is designed, of course, to enrich the race baiters and not to help those supposedly suffering. And no doubt you have heard that the reason Buffalo is sitting under 8 feet of snow is because of climate change, which used to be global warming, or global cooling, or...well, I can't keep the story straight. But its all stuff and nonsense in any case. Buffalo happens to be unfortunately located at a point where if the winds and temperatures are just right, they will get hugely magnified lake effect snowfalls. It has happened before, it will happen again.

 Less covered, but of interest to conservatives was the fact that Lois Lerner's emails have been uncovered. You can read about it in a blurb at American Thinker today by Thomas Lifson entitled Lois Lerner's Emails Turn Out Not to be Lost. Lifson writes:

Despite the sworn testimony of IRS commissioner John Koskinen that backup tapes are recycled after 6 months, backup tapes containing up to 30,000 emails from Lois Lerner’s “crashed” computer have been uncovered by the U.S. Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA)...

"The chickens" as Jeremiah Wright famously said, "are coming home to roost!" First Jonathan Grubber lets the cat out of the bag about Obama's lying to the American people repeatedly to get Obamacare passed, and now Lois Lerner's emails come to light.  I have a feeling that the wheels of the Obama cart will continue to fall off as time passes.  The question is, will anyone learn anything from this regrettable saga in American history, or will they merely think that it all would have worked if we had just gotten the right person...

A certain Rudyard Kipling poem keeps running across my mind.

Update:  Townhall.com also has the story here.

More Mass Noncompliance in Washington

In Washington state, where I-594 passed, gun owners plan a mass noncompliance protest at the State Capitol on December 13.  Bob Owens has the story over at Bearing Arms. Apparently 5,600 gun owners plan to meet in front of the capitol and exchange firearms with each other to show the utter stupidity of the law. All I can say is "God Speed" Mr. Seim.

Looking at what the new Congress might do

I have been reading a number of excellent proposals for what the Republican Congressional agenda should be. I have even read a good piece at the American Thinker by Marguerite Creel that suggests a good plan for the North Carolina Republican agenda. Miss Creel suggests that a State like North Carolina should be bold in advancing a conservative agenda that is both fair and allows everyone to prosper (in the fullest sense of the word.) But with all that, Charles C. W. Cooke over at the National Review online offers up a couple of small fixes the Congress should make to gun laws at Two Gun Bills the New Republican Congress Should Consider.  The two gun bills are to fix the current Firearms Owners Protection Act (FOPA) to make clear that airports and airplanes are included in the "safe passage" provisions in the law, and to pass the national concealed carry bill.  Cooke:

Now that Republicans are in full control of Congress, there are a couple of firearms related bills that I would like to see debated. The first would fix the Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986 (FOPA), making it clear henceforth that the law’s “safe passage” provision applies to airports as well as to highways. Earlier in the year, I noted that the states of New York and New Jersey have managed to exempt themselves from FOPA’s remit, thereby preventing Americans who rely upon JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark airports from traveling with their guns...

Innocent people are caught all the time by New York and New Jersey when planes are delayed or diverted, and the passenger is forced to take possession of his baggage. Its a shake down racket, enabled by the Third District Federal Court. The fact that people are caught, not when arriving with a gun, but when leaving, points to the "gotcha" aspect of this bizarre interpretation of the law. An interesting, if frustrating, article on the subject can be found at Human Events here.  Or this article from the Blaze, which also highlights a post by a New York lawyer who deals with this on a routine basis.

The other bill that should be considered is one Cooke titles the Shaneen Allen bill. Ms. Allen, you will recall, was the nurse and single mom from Pennsylvania arrested in New Jersey when she told a law enforcement officer she had a concealed carry permit and was armed during a traffic stop. Unfortunately, New Jersey does not recognize a Pennsylvania concealed carry permit. The Shaneen Allen bill would force states that allow concealed carry to recognize another state's permit under the "full faith and credit" clause of the Constitution. Thus, concealed carry would be treated like driver's licenses, marriage licenses and so forth. Should Ms. Allen have known that New Jersey is rabidly anti-gun and would, if given the chance, do this? Well, sure. But the idea that "ignorance of the law is no excuse" has its limitations when one has to take care of two small children while working full time. I know such people, and they don't have time to keep up with the various, often crazy and irrational laws put up for the express purpose of making them stumble. The Shaneen Allen bill would, in the words of the NRA:

The Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2013 (H.R. 2959) has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressmen Richard Nugent (R-Fla.) and Jim Matheson (D-Utah). The bill would allow any person who is not prohibited from possessing or receiving a firearm under federal law and who has a valid, concealed firearm permit to carry a concealed handgun in any state that issues its own residents permits to carry concealed firearms. Persons carrying a handgun in another state pursuant to H.R. 2959 would be subject to the laws of that state with respect to where concealed firearms may be carried. Similar legislation to H.R. 2959 passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 2011 by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 272-154.

H.R. 2959 would not create a federal licensing system, nor authorize the federal government to interfere with the powers of the states to set standards for the issuance of carry permits, nor establish federal standards for carry permits, nor override state laws allowing for the carrying of firearms without a permit. Rather, it would simply require the states to recognize each others’ carry permits.

This would be an act of Congress that is fully within the scope of the Constitution, unlike much of what they do now. I would have no problem with a bill of this nature, so long as that is all the Congress intend to do.

Don't expect much from Republican Congress

We have been here before. In 1994 the House became Republican with a lot of people voting for the Contract with America. The people were fed up, and things were much better then than today. Result, the House claimed they needed a majority in the Senate too. So, ok, we gave them a majority Senate as well. Result? Not much. The stupid and cowardly party proved to be the stupid and cowardly party. Conservative Judicial nominees were routinely filibustered, but the controlling Republicans refused to trigger the "nuclear option," unlike Harry Reid, who had no problems doing so, confident that if Republicans got the Senate back, they would reinstate this rule for him to abuse. Time will tell, of course, but I predict he will have been right. Sadly, the Republicans don't trust the average citizen, indeed, I suspect they trust their Democrat colleagues more than they trust you. Judge Andrew Napolitano has a piece up today at Townhall.com where he notes that this election has not settled any of the really important cultural divides in More Culture Wars? Napolitano:

There are two great freedoms being assaulted under the radar that will soon come to the fore: the freedom to live and the freedom to speak. Both parties use abortion as a litmus test. You want the Democratic nomination for any federal or state office; you need to support a woman's right to abortion. You want the Republican nomination for any federal or state office; you better claim that you are pro-life.

I say "claim" because that's all Republicans need to do to satisfy each other. If Republicans truly were pro-life, they'd have passed a one-paragraph statute when they ran the Congress and George W. Bush was in the White House that legally defined a fetus in the womb as a natural person. Of course, morally and biologically, a fetus is a natural person. The fetus has human parents and possesses a fully actualizable human genome -- all the genetic materials needed to grow and flourish and possess self-directed humanity. But no such legislation ever came.

Actually, the House could have done something about this issue even without the blessing of the Senate or the President by passing a Sense of the House resolution. With a Republican Senate, they could pass a Sense of the Congress resolution. The court would of course have to at least take notice. Is it really too much to ask that Congress acknowledge facts?

Napolitano again:

After the right to life, the next great freedom under siege is the freedom of speech. Here, too, both parties in Congress have failed us. When Congress in 2001 enacted the Patriot Act, which permits federal agents to write their own search warrants in utter defiance and direct contradiction of the Fourth Amendment, which commands that only judges may do so, it also prohibited the recipients of agent-written search warrants from talking about them. At least a half-dozen federal judges have found this infringement of speech unconstitutional, yet federal agents who serve their own search warrants continue to threaten the recipients against talking to anyone about them. This, too, came about with the support of the leadership of both political parties in Congress.

Not content with commanding silence about search warrants, the Democrats in the Senate attempted to offer an amendment to the Constitution last summer, which, if ratified, would have weakened the First Amendment by permitting Congress and the states to punish the political speech of groups. Three years ago, the Supreme Court, in a case called Citizens United, held that free political speech is such a highly valued and constitutionally protected asset in American society that it may be enjoyed not only by individuals, but also by groups of two or more persons, such as labor unions, foundations, nonprofits, think tanks, partnerships and corporations.

Napolitano asks "...what will a Republican Congress do?  What is its track record?"  I don't know, but since this is in God's hands, I ask everyone to pray that the new Congress will do what is right.

The Choice Before Us

Fay Voshell has a thought provoking piece at the American Thinker today entitled The Choice Before Us. Go read it. Once we knew that charity towards the poor and down trodden was a necessary Christian duty, but that it could not be achieved by having the State steal from some to give to others. That would not be charity. Once we knew that homosexuality was wrong, but a Christian did not hate homosexuals, rather hated what they did. Once we understood that though there is only one word for 'love' in English, there are many kinds of love, and sometimes loving means being left alone. Once, we feared our Heavenly Father, not because he is not loving, merciful, comforting and kind, but because that which we do convicts us, and he might choose well choose to simply let us go our own way into hell.

Voshell is right, too many of us have become too materialistic.  Our churches have bowed their heads to the State, instead of standing up for  principle.  The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America now ordains homosexuals as pastors.  The Roman Pontiff seems to make the case for State redistribution of incomes in a false notion of charity.  Too many people seem to have faith in mere men, in Gaia, or, in themselves.  But God has already told us what comes of faith in men in 1 Samuel Chapter 8:

6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.”

10 Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your male and female servants and the best of your cattle[c] and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

Before we go to the polls, let us humbly pray that the act we perform that day will be in accordance with His will for us.  While it may seem futile, we know that if we do not vote, we have essentially voted for whatever someone else decides.  Let us act in His name for a better world.

At Townhall.com today, Kevin McCullough has another article on the topic of voting entitled The Proper Theology of Voting. McCullough writes:

When a person of faith rejects the civil opportunity, and the moral obligation of casting a vote, they always advance evil in the process.

Always!

As Christians, we must understand that we are to be IN this world, but not OF this world. Jesus said to render to Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God what is God's. We have a duty to both, but we must also realize that our duty to God must come above, and before everything else.

 PS: A note to those who do not believe, or are agnostic or are recovering Catholics, etc, etc, etc. The term "God" is a tile, not a name. The tetrogram, commonly written in English as YHWH, and thought by many to be the name of God is, in fact, a statement. At the burning bush, Moses asked for the name of the one speaking to him, and was given the statement "I am." It actually makes sense, since this "I am" is the one and only, and therefore needs no name. We have names because there are more than one of us. This "I am" created all that is out of nothing, a void. He created matter, energy, space and time, life, male and female and more. Because he created all these things, He must also be equally, She, It, vegetarian and carnivore. To create something, even in human terms, one must have an aspect of it in his character. Your understanding of the Creator is both as limited, and as good as is my own. I cannot comprehend the totality of what He is, but I don't really have to, and neither do you. I urge you too to pray to a Creator of your understanding, for faith, wisdom, understanding, and love. Jesus said to ask and you will receive, so ask. At the same time, also understand that Gaia is rock floating in space. It offers nothing whereas he wants every good thing for you.